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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Jack
+
+Author: Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [eBook #25302]
+[Most recently updated: March 16, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+ By Alphonse Daudet
+
+ Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+ From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.
+
+ Estes And Lauriat, 1877
+
+
+   CONTENTS
+
+   CHAPTER I. VAURIGARD.
+   CHAPTER II. THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.
+   CHAPTER III. MÂDOU.
+   CHAPTER IV. THE REUNION.
+   CHAPTER V. A DINNER WITH IDA.
+   CHAPTER VI. AMAURY D’ARGENTON.
+   CHAPTER VII. MÂDOU’S FLIGHT.
+   CHAPTER VIII. JACK’S DEPARTURE.
+   CHAPTER IX. PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+   CHAPTER X. THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.
+   CHAPTER XI. CÉCILE.
+   CHAPTER XII. LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.
+   CHAPTER XIII. INDRET.
+   CHAPTER XIV. A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.
+   CHAPTER XV. CHARLOTTE’S JOURNEY.
+   CHAPTER XVI. CLARISSE.
+   CHAPTER XVII. IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.
+   CHAPTER XVIII. D’ARGENTON’S MAGAZINE.
+   CHAPTER XIX. THE CONVALESCENT.
+   CHAPTER XX. THE WEDDING-PARTY.
+   CHAPTER XXI. EFFECTS OF POETRY.
+   CHAPTER XXII. CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
+   CHAPTER XXIII. A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.
+   CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+VAURIGARD.
+
+
+“With a _k_, sir; with a _k_. The name is written and pronounced as in
+English. The child’s godfather was English. A major-general in the
+Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
+and of the highest connections. But—you understand—M. l’Abbé! How
+deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some
+years since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of
+his friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
+country,—and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name? Wait
+a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah.”
+
+“Pardon me, madame,” interrupted the abbé, smiling, in spite of
+himself, at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas.
+“After Jack, what name?”
+
+With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest
+examined from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical
+shrewdness, the young woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing
+at her side.
+
+The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the
+hour. It was December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous
+folds of her black costume, and the discreet originality of her hat,
+all told the story of a woman who owns her carriage, and who steps from
+her carpets to her coupé without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her
+head was small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face
+had all the bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity
+was imparted by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be
+seen even when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance
+was extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to
+speak, or the narrow brow,—something there was, at all events, that
+indicated an absence of reflective powers, a lack of culture, and
+possibly explained the blanks in the conversation of this pretty woman;
+blanks that reminded one of those little Japanese baskets fitting one
+into another, the last of which is always empty.
+
+As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or
+eight, who had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as
+English boys are dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a _k_.
+His legs were bare, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume
+was in accordance with his years, but not with his long neck and slim
+figure.
+
+He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he would
+occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing
+expression, as if he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole
+Indian army.
+
+Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding,
+and with the transformation of a pretty woman’s face to that of an
+intelligent man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in
+meaning; the same brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were
+firmly closed.
+
+Over the woman’s face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
+furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to
+retain a certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the
+contrary, one felt that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air
+would have been almost painful, had it not been combined with a certain
+caressing indolence of attitude that indicated a petted child.
+
+Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened
+to her words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the
+priest and at all the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had
+promised not to cry, but a stifled sob shook him at times from head to
+foot. Then his mother looked at him, and seemed to say, “You know what
+you promised.” Then the child choked back his tears and sobs; but it
+was easy to see that he was a prey to that first agony of exile and
+abandonment which the first boarding-school inflicts on those children
+who have lived only in their homes.
+
+This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or
+three minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but Father
+O———, who had been the director for twenty-five years of the
+aristocratic institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the
+world, and knew too well the best Parisian society, all its shades of
+manner and dialect, not to understand that in the mother of his new
+pupil he beheld a representative of an especial class.
+
+The self-possession with which she entered his office,—self-possession
+too apparent not to be forced,—her way of seating herself, her uneasy
+laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which she
+sought to conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of
+the priest a vague distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so
+mixed, the community of pleasures and similarity of toilets have so
+narrowed the line of demarcation between fashionable women of good and
+bad society, that the most experienced may at times be deceived, and
+this is the reason that the priest regarded this woman with so much
+attention. The principal difficulty in arriving at a decision arose
+from the unconnected style of her conversation; but the embarrassed air
+of the mother when he asked for the other name of the child, settled
+the question in his mind.
+
+She colored, hesitated. “True,” she said; “excuse me; I have not yet
+presented myself. What could I have been thinking of?” and drawing a
+small, highly-perfumed case from her pocket, she took from it a card,
+on which, in long letters, was to be read the insignificant name—
+
+_Ida de Barancy_
+
+
+Over the face of the priest flashed a singular smile.
+
+“Is this the child’s name?” he asked.
+
+The question was almost an impertinence. The lady understood him, and
+concealed her embarrassment under an assumption of great dignity.
+
+“Certainly, sir, certainly.”
+
+“Ah!” said the priest, gravely.
+
+It was he now who found it difficult to express what he wished to say.
+He rolled the card between his fingers with a little movement of the
+lips natural to a man who measures the weight and effect of the words
+he is about to speak.
+
+Suddenly he arose from his chair, and approaching one of the large
+windows that looked on a garden planted with fine trees, and reddened
+by the wintry sun, tapped lightly on the glass. A black silhouette was
+drawn on the window, and a young priest appeared immediately within the
+room.
+
+“Duffieux,” said the Superior, “take this child out to walk with you.
+Show him our church and our hot-houses; he is tired of us, poor little
+man!”
+
+Jack supposed that he was sent out to walk so that he might be spared
+the pain of saying good-bye to his mother, and his terrified,
+despairing expression so touched the kind priest that he hastily
+added,—
+
+“Don’t be frightened, Jack. Your mother is not going away; you will
+find her here.”
+
+The child still hesitated.
+
+“Go, my dear,” said Madame de Barancy, with a queenly gesture.
+
+Then he went without another word, as if he were already conquered by
+life, and prepared for all its evils.
+
+When the door closed behind him, there was a moment of silence. The
+steps of the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel,
+and dying away, left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the
+chirps of the sparrows on the eaves, the distant pianos, and an
+indistinct murmur of voices—the hum of a great boarding-school.
+
+“This child seems to love you, madame,” said the Superior, touched by
+Jack’s submission.
+
+“Why should he not love me?” answered Madame de Barancy, somewhat
+melodramatically; “the poor dear has but his mother in the world.”
+
+“Ah! you are a widow?”
+
+“Alas! yes, sir. My husband died ten years ago, the very year of our
+marriage, and under the most painful circumstances. Ah! Monsieur
+l’Abbé, romance-writers, who are at a loss to invent adventures for
+their heroines, do not know that many an apparently quiet life contains
+enough for ten novels. My own story is the best proof of that. The
+Comte de Barancy belonged, as his name will tell you, to one of the
+oldest families in Touraine.”
+
+She made a fatal mistake here, for Father O——— was born at Amboise, and
+knew the nobility of the entire province. So he at once consigned the
+Comte de Barancy to the society of Major-General Pembroke and the Rajah
+of Singapore. He did not let this appear, however, and contented
+himself with replying gently to the _soi-disant_ comtesse,—
+
+“Do you not think with me, madame, that there would be some cruelty in
+sending away a child that seems so warmly attached to you? He is still
+very young; and do you think his physical health good enough to support
+the grief of such a separation?”
+
+“But you are mistaken, sir,” she answered, promptly. “Jack is a very
+robust child; he has never been ill. He is a little pale, perhaps, but
+that is owing to the air of Paris, to which he has never been
+accustomed.”
+
+Annoyed to find that she was not disposed to comprehend him, the priest
+continued,—
+
+“Besides, just now our dormitories are full; the scholastic year is
+very far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new
+pupils until the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then,
+madame; and even then—”
+
+She understood him at last.
+
+“So,” she said, turning pale, “you refuse to receive my son. Do you
+refuse also to tell me why?”
+
+“Madame,” answered the priest, “I would have given much if this
+explanation could have been avoided. But since you force it upon me, I
+must inform you that this institution, whose head I am, exacts from the
+families who confide their children to us the most unexceptionable
+conduct and the strictest morality. In Paris there are many laical
+institutions where your little Jack will receive every care, but with
+us it would be impossible. I beg of you,” he added, with a gesture of
+indignant protestation, “do not make me explain further. I have no
+right to question you, no right to reproach you. I regret the pain I am
+now giving, and believe me when I say that my words are as painful to
+myself as to you.”
+
+While the priest spoke, over the countenance of Madame de Barancy
+flitted shadows of anger, grief, and confusion. At first she tried to
+brave it out, throwing her head back disdainfully; but the kind words
+of the priest falling on her childish soul made her burst suddenly into
+a passion of sobs and tears.
+
+“She was so unhappy,” she cried, “no one could ever know all she had
+done for that child! Yes, the poor little fellow had no name, no
+father, but was that any reason why a crime should be made of his
+misfortune, and that he should be made responsible for the faults of
+his parents? Ah! M. l’Abbé, I beg of you—”
+
+As she spoke she took the priest’s hand. The good father sought to
+disengage it with some little embarrassment.
+
+“Be calm, dear madame,” he cried, terrified by these tears and
+outcries, for she wept, like the child that she was, with vehement
+sobs, and with the abandonment in fact of a somewhat coarse nature. The
+poor man thought, “What could I do with her if this lady should be
+taken ill?”
+
+But the words he used to calm her only excited her more.
+
+She wished to justify herself, to explain things, to narrate the story
+of her life, and, willing or not, the Superior found himself compelled
+to follow her through an obscure recital, whose connecting thread she
+broke at every step, without looking to see how she should ever get
+back again to the light.
+
+The name of Barancy was not hers, but if she should tell him her name,
+he would be astonished. The honor of one of the oldest families in
+France was concerned, and she would rather die than speak.
+
+The Superior hastened to assure her that he had no intention of
+questioning her, but she would not listen to him. She was started, and
+a wind-mill under full sail would have been more easily arrested than
+her torrent of words, of which probably not one was true, for she
+contradicted herself perpetually throughout her incoherent discourse,
+yet withal there was something sincere, something touching even in this
+love between mother and child. They had always been together. He had
+been taught at home by masters, and she wished now to separate from him
+only because of his intelligence and his eyes that saw things that were
+not intended for his vision.
+
+“The best thing to do, it seems to me,” said the priest, gravely,
+“would be to live such a life that you need fear neither the scrutiny
+of your child nor of any one else.”
+
+“That was my wish, sir,” she answered. “As Jack grew older, I wished to
+make his home all that which it ought to be. Besides, before long, my
+position will be assured. For some time I have been thinking of
+marrying, but to do this it was necessary to send my boy away for a
+time that he might obtain the education worthy of the name he ought to
+bear. I thought that nowhere could he do as well as here, but at one
+blow you repulse him and discourage his mother’s good resolutions.”
+
+Here the Superior arrested her with an exclamation of astonishment. He
+hesitated a moment; then looking her straight in her eyes, said,—
+
+“So be it, madame. I yield to your wishes. Little Jack pleases me very
+much; I consent to receive him among our pupils.”
+
+“My dear sir!”
+
+“But on two conditions.”
+
+“I am ready to accept all.”
+
+“The first is, that until the day that your position is assured, the
+child shall spend his vacations under this roof, and shall not return
+to yours.”
+
+“But he will die, my poor Jack, if he does not see his mother!”
+
+“Oh, you can come here whenever you please; only—and this is my second
+condition—you will not see him in the parlor, but always here in my
+private room, where I shall take care that you are not interfered with
+and that no one sees you.”
+
+She rose in indignation.
+
+The idea that she could never enter the parlor, or be present on the
+reception-days, when she could astonish the other guests with the
+beauty of her child, with the richness of her toilette, that she could
+never say to her friends, “I met at the school, yesterday, Madame de
+C———, or Madame de V———,” that she must meet Jack in secret, all this
+revolted her.
+
+The astute priest had struck well.
+
+“You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for
+which I have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as
+woman and mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my
+child think—”
+
+She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the
+child, with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a
+sign from his mother, he entered quickly.
+
+“Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!”
+
+She took his hand hastily.
+
+“You will go with me,” she answered; “we are not wanted here.”
+
+And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was
+stupefied by this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She
+hardly acknowledged the respectful salute of the good father, who had
+also risen hastily from his chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not
+too quick for Jack to hear a gentle voice murmur, “Poor child! poor
+child!” in a tone of compassion that went to his heart. He was
+pitied—and why? For a long time he pondered over this.
+
+The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was
+not a comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even
+Ida. Whence came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated
+existences have fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that
+one never knows the last shape they assume. One might liken them to
+those revolving lighthouses that have long intervals of shadow between
+their gleams of fire. Of one thing only was there any certainty: she
+was not a Parisian, but came from some provincial town whose accent she
+still retained. It was said that at the Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons
+merchants thought they recognized in her a certain Mélanie Favrot, who
+formerly kept an establishment of “gloves and perfumery;” but these
+merchants were mistaken.
+
+Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight
+years before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that
+resemblances are often impertinences.
+
+Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment
+of the fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve
+any facts from the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and
+her life. One day Ida was born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a
+charming créole, of her plantation and her negroes. Another time she
+had passed her childhood in a great chateau on the Loire. She seemed
+utterly indifferent as to the manner in which her hearers would piece
+together these dislocated bits of her existence.
+
+As may be imagined, in these fantastic recitals, vanity reigned
+triumphant, the vanity of a chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles
+and riches, were the texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was.
+She had a small hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and
+carriages, gorgeous furniture in most questionable taste, three or four
+servants, and led a most indolent existence, trifling away her life
+among women like herself, less confident in her bearing, perhaps, than
+they, from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain
+freshness, the result of a childhood passed in the open air, all kept
+her somewhat out of the current of Parisian life, where, too, being so
+newly arrived, she had not yet found her place.
+
+Once each week, a man of middle age, and of distinguished appearance,
+came to see her. In speaking of him, Ida always said “Monsieur” with an
+air of such respect that one would have supposed him to be at the court
+of France in the days when the brother of the king was so denominated.
+The child spoke of him simply as “our friend.” The servants announced
+him as “M. le Comte,” but among themselves they called him “the old
+gentleman.”
+
+The old gentleman was very rich, for madame spared nothing, and there
+was an enormous expenditure going on constantly in the house. This was
+managed by Mademoiselle Constant, Ida’s waiting-maid. It was this woman
+who gave her mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her
+inexperience through the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida’s pet dream
+and hope was to be taken for a woman of irreproachable character, and
+of the highest fashion.
+
+Thus it will be seen into what state of mind the reception of Father
+O——— had thrown her, and in what a rage she left his presence. An
+elegant coupé awaited her at the door of the Institution. She threw
+herself into it with her child, retaining only sufficient self-command
+to say “home,” in so loud a voice that she was heard by a group of
+priests who were talking together, and who quickly dispersed before
+this whirlwind of furs and curled hair. In fact, as soon as the
+carriage-door was closed, the unhappy woman sank into a corner, not in
+her usual coquettish position, but overwhelmed and in tears, stifling
+her sobs in the quilted cushions.
+
+What a blow! The priest had refused to take her child, and at the first
+glance had discovered the humiliating truth that she believed to have
+thoroughly disguised under the luxurious surroundings of a woman of the
+world and of an irreproachable mother.
+
+Her wounded pride recalled with renewed flushes of shame the keen eyes
+of the good father. She recalled all her falsehood, all her folly, and
+remembered his incredulous smile at almost her first words.
+
+Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack,
+looking sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He
+vaguely conceived himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and
+yet was secretly glad that he had not been left at the school.
+
+For a fortnight he had heard of it night and day; his mother had
+extorted a promise from him not to weep; his trunk was packed, and all
+was ready, and the child’s heart was full of trouble; and now at the
+last moment he was reprieved.
+
+If his mother had not been in so much trouble now, he would have
+thanked her; how happy would he have been curled up at her side, under
+her furs, in the little coupé in which they had had so many happy hours
+together—hours which were now to be repeated. And Jack thought of the
+afternoons in the Bois, of the long drives through the gay city of
+Paris—a city so new to both of them, and full of excitement and
+interest. A monument, perhaps, or even a mere street incident,
+delighted them.
+
+“Look, Jack—”
+
+“Look, mamma—”
+
+They were two children together, and together they peered from the
+window,—the child’s head with its golden curls close to the mother’s
+face tightly veiled in black lace.
+
+A despairing cry from Madame de Barancy aroused the boy from all these
+sweet recollections. “_Mon dieu!_” she cried, wringing her hands, “what
+have I done to be so wretched?”
+
+This exclamation naturally elicited no response, and little Jack, not
+knowing what to say, or how to console her, timidly caressed her hand,
+even at last kissing it with the fervor of a lover.
+
+She started and looked wildly at him.
+
+“Ah! cruel, cruel child, what harm you have done me in this world!”
+
+Jack turned pale. “I? What have I done?”
+
+He loved but one person on the face of the earth, his mother. He
+thought her absolutely perfect; and without knowing it, he had injured
+her in some mysterious way. The poor child was now overwhelmed with
+despair also, but remained utterly silent, as if the noisy
+demonstrations of his mother had shocked him, and made him ashamed of
+any manifestations on his own part. He was seized with a sort of
+nervous spasm. His mother took him in her arms. “No, no, dear child, I
+was only in jest; be sensible, dear. What! must I rock my long-legged
+boy as if he were a baby? No, little Jack, you never did me any harm.
+It is I who did wrong. Come, do not weep any more. See, I am not
+crying.”
+
+And the strange creature, forgetful of her recent grief, laughed gayly,
+that Jack too might laugh. It was one of the privileges of this
+inconsequent nature never to retain impressions for any length of time.
+Singularly enough, too, the tears she had just shed only seemed to add
+new freshness and brilliancy to her youthful beauty, as a sudden shower
+upon a dove’s plumage seems to bring out new lustre without penetrating
+below the surface.
+
+“Where are we now?” said she, suddenly dropping the window that was
+covered with mist. “At the Madeleine. How quickly we have come! We must
+stop somewhere; at the pastry-cook’s, I think. Dry your eyes, little
+one, we will buy some meringues.”
+
+They alighted at the fashionable confectioner’s, where there was a
+great crowd. Rich furs and rustling silks crushed each other; and
+women’s faces with veils half lifted were reflected in the surrounding
+mirrors which were set in gilt frames and cream-colored panels;
+glittering glass, and a variety of cakes and dainties delighted the
+spectators. Madame de Barancy and her child were much looked at. This
+charmed her, and this small success following upon the mortification of
+the previous hour, gave her an appetite. She called for a quantity of
+meringues and nougat, and finished by a glass of wine. Jack followed
+her example, but with more moderation, his great grief having filled
+his eyes with unshed tears and his heart with suppressed sighs.
+
+When they left the shop the weather was so fine, although cold, and the
+flower-market of the Madeleine so fragrant with the sweet perfume of
+violets, that Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on
+foot. Briskly, and yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated
+a woman accustomed to admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack
+by the hand. The fresh air, the gay streets and attractive shops, quite
+restored Ida’s good-humor. Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas I
+know not, she remembered a masqued ball to which she was going that
+night, preceded by a restaurant dinner.
+
+“Mercy! I had forgotten. Hurry! little Jack—quick!” She wanted flowers,
+a bouquet, a dozen forgotten trifles: and the child, whose life had
+always been made up of just such trifles, and who felt as much as his
+mother the subtile charm of these elegances, followed her in high glee,
+delighted by the idea of the fête that he was not to see. The toilette
+of his mother always interested him, and he fully appreciated the
+admiration her beauty excited as they went through the streets and into
+the various shops.
+
+“Exquisite! exquisite! Yes, you may send it to me—Boulevard Haussmann.”
+
+Madame de Barancy tossed down her card, and went out, talking gayly to
+Jack of the beauty of her purchases. Suddenly she assumed a graver air.
+“Remember, Jack, what I say. Do not tell our good friend that I went to
+this ball; it is a great secret, It is five o’clock. How Constant will
+scold!”
+
+She was not mistaken.
+
+Her maid, a tall, stout person of forty years, ugly and masculine,
+rushed toward Ida as she entered the house.
+
+“The costume is here. There is no sense in being so late. Madame will
+not be ready in season. No one could make her toilette in such a little
+while.”
+
+“Don’t scold, Constant. If you only knew what had happened. Look!” and
+she pointed to Jack.
+
+The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. “What! Master Jack back
+again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police
+will have to come and take you to school; your mother is too good.”
+
+“No, no, it was not he. The priest would not have him. Do you
+understand? They insulted me!” Whereupon she began to cry again, and to
+ask of heaven why she was so unhappy. What with the meringues and the
+nougat, the wine and the heat of the room, she soon felt very ill. She
+was carried to her bed; salts and ether were hastily sought.
+Mademoiselle Constant acquitted herself with the propriety of a woman
+who is no stranger to such scenes, went in and out of the room, opened
+and shut wardrobes, with a certain self-possession that seemed to say,
+“This will soon pass off.” But she did not perform her duties in
+silence.
+
+“What folly it was to take this child to the Fathers! As if it was a
+place for him in his position! It would not have been done certainly,
+had I been consulted. I would engage to find a place for this boy at
+very short notice.”
+
+Jack, terrified at seeing his mother so ill, had seated himself on the
+edge of the bed; where, looking at her anxiously, he in silence asked
+her pardon for the sorrow he had caused her.
+
+“There! get away, Master Jack. Your mother is all right. I must help
+her dress now.”
+
+“What! You do not mean, Constant, that I must go to this ball. I have
+no heart to amuse myself.”
+
+“Pshaw! I know you, madame. You have but five minutes. Just look at
+this pretty costume, these rose-colored stockings, and your little
+cap.”
+
+She shook out the skirts, displayed the trimming, and jingled the
+little bells which adorned it, and Ida ceased to resist.
+
+While his mother was dressing, Jack went into the boudoir, and remained
+alone in the dark. The little room, perfumed and coquettish, was, it is
+true, partially illuminated by the gas lamps on the boulevard. Sadly
+enough the child leaned against the windows and thought of the day that
+was just over. By degrees, without knowing how, he felt himself to be
+“the poor child” of whom the priest had spoken in such compassionate
+tones.
+
+It is so singular to hear one’s self pitied when one believes one’s
+self to be happy. There are sorrows, in fact, so well concealed, that
+those who have caused them, and even sometimes their victims, do not
+divine them.
+
+The door opened—his mother was ready.
+
+“Come in, Master Jack, and see if this is not lovely.”
+
+Ah! what a charming Folly! Silver and pink, lustrous satin and delicate
+lace. What a lovely rustling of spangles when she moved!
+
+The child looked on in admiration, while the mother, light and airy,
+waving her Momus staff, smiled at Jack, and smiled at herself in the
+Psyche, without at that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then
+Constant threw over her shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to
+the carriage, while Jack, leaning over the railing, watched from stair
+to stair, moving almost as if she were dancing the little pink slippers
+embroidered with silver, that bore his mother to balls where children
+could not go. As the last sound of the silver bells died away, he
+turned towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the first time by
+the solitude in which he ordinarily passed his evenings.
+
+When Madame de Barancy dined out, Master Jack was confided to the
+tender mercies of Constant. “She will dine with you,” said Ida.
+
+Two places were laid in the dining-room that seemed so huge on such
+days. But very often Constant, finding her dinner anything but
+cheerful, took the child and joined her companions below, where they
+feasted gayly. The table-cloth was soiled, and the conversation was not
+of the purest; and very often the conduct of the mistress of the house
+was commented upon, in words to be sure that were slightly veiled, so
+as not to frighten the child. This evening there was a grand discussion
+as to the refusal of the Fathers to receive the boy. The coachman
+declared that it was all for the best,—that the priests would have made
+of the child “a hypocrite and a Jesuit.”
+
+Constant protested against these words. She was not a professor of
+religion, she said, but she would not hear it spoken ill of. Then the
+discussion changed to the great disappointment of Jack, who listened
+with all his little ears, hoping to hear why this priest, who appeared
+so good, was not willing to receive him.
+
+But for the moment Jack was of little consequence; each was absorbed in
+narrating his or her religious convictions.
+
+The coachman, who had been drinking, said that his God was the sun; in
+fact, he, like the elephants, adored the sun! Suddenly some one asked
+how he knew that elephants adored the sun.
+
+“I saw it once in a photograph,” said he, sternly. Upon which
+Mademoiselle Constant vehemently accused him of impiety and atheism;
+while the cook, a stout Picardian with true peasant shrewdness, told
+them to be quiet.
+
+“Hush!” she said; “you should never quarrel over your religions.”
+
+And Jack—what was he doing all this time?
+
+At the end of the table, stupefied by the heat and the interminable
+discussions of these brutes, he slept, with his head on his arms, and
+his fair curls spread over his velvet sleeves. In his unrestful slumber
+he heard the hum of the servants’ voices, and at last he fancied that
+they were talking of him; but the voices seemed to reach from afar
+off—through a fog, as it were.
+
+“Who is he, then?” asked the cook.
+
+“I don’t know,” answered Constant; “but one thing is certain, he can’t
+remain here, and she wishes me to find a school for him.”
+
+Between a yawn and a hiccough, the coachman spoke,—
+
+“I know a capital school, and one that will, just answer your purpose.
+It is called the Moronval College—no, not college—but the Moronval
+Academy. But what of that? it is a college all the same. I put my child
+there once, when I was ordered off with the Egyptian army. The grocer
+gave me the prospectus, and I think I have it still.”
+
+He looked in his portfolio, and from among the tumbled and soiled
+papers he extracted one, dirtier even than the others.
+
+“Here it is!” he cried, with an air of triumph.
+
+He unfolded the prospectus and began to read, or rather to spell with
+difficulty:
+
+“Gymnase Moronval—in the—in the—”
+
+“Give it to me,” said Mademoiselle Constant; and taking it from him,
+she read it at one glance.
+
+“Moronval Academy—situated in the finest quarter of Paris—a family
+school—large garden—the number of pupils limited—course of
+instruction—particular attention paid to the correction of the accent
+of foreigners—”
+
+Mademoiselle Constant interrupted herself here to breathe, and to
+exclaim, “This seems all right enough!”
+
+“I think so,” said the cook.
+
+The reading of the prospectus was resumed, but Jack was soundly asleep,
+and heard no more.
+
+He was dreaming. Yes, while his future was thus under discussion around
+this kitchen-table, while his mother was dancing as Folly in her
+rose-colored skirts and silver bells, he was dreaming of the kind
+priest, and of the tender voice that had murmured—“Poor child!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.
+
+
+“23 Avenue Montaigne, in the best quarter of Paris,” said the
+prospectus. And no one can deny that the Avenue Montaigne is well
+situated in the Champs Elysées, but it has an incongruous unfinished
+aspect, as of a road merely sketched and not completed.
+
+By the side of the fine hotels with their plate-glass windows hung with
+silken draperies, stand the houses of workmen, whence issue the noise
+of hammers and grating of saws. One part of the Faubourg seems also to
+be relinquished to gardens after the style of Mabille.
+
+At the time of which I speak, and possibly now? from the avenue ran two
+or three narrow lanes whose sordid aspect offered a strange contrast to
+the superb buildings near them. One of these lanes opened at the number
+23, and announced on a gilded sign swinging in the passage, that the
+Moronval Academy was there situated. This sign, however, once passed,
+it seemed to you that you were taken back forty years, and to the other
+end of Paris. The black mud, the stream in the centre of the lane, the
+reverberations from the high walls, the drinking-shops built from old
+planks, all seemed to belong to the past. From every nook and cranny,
+from stairs and balconies, whence fluttered linen hung to dry, streamed
+forth a crowd of children escorted by an army of lean and hungry cats.
+It was amazing to see that so small a spot could accommodate such a
+number of persons. English grooms in shabby liveries, worn-out jockeys,
+and dilapidated body-servants, seemed there to congregate. To these
+must be added the horde of workpeople who returned at sunset; those who
+let chairs, or tiny carriages drawn by goats; dog-fanciers, beggars of
+all sorts, dwarfs from the hippodrome and their microscopic ponies.
+Picture all these to yourself, and you will have some idea of this
+singular spot—so near to the Champs Elysées that the tops of the green
+trees were to be seen, and the roar of carriages was but faintly
+subdued.
+
+It was in this place that the Moronval Academy was situated. Two or
+three times during the day a tall, thin mulatto made his appearance in
+the street. He wore on his head a broad-brimmed Quaker hat placed so
+far back that it resembled a halo; long hair swept over his shoulders,
+and he crossed the street with a timid, terrified air, followed by a
+troop of boys of every shade of complexion varying from a coffee tint
+to bright copper, and thence to profound black. These lads wore the
+coarse uniform of the school, and had an unfed and uncared-for aspect.
+
+The principal of the Moronval Academy himself took his pupils—his
+children of the sun, as he called them—out for their daily walks; and
+the comings and goings of this singular party gave the finishing touch
+of oddity to the appearance of the _Passage des Douze Maisons_.
+
+Most assuredly, had Madame de Barancy herself brought her child to the
+Academy, the sight of the place would have terrified her, and she would
+never have consented to leave her darling there. But her visit to the
+Jesuits had been so unfortunate, her reception so different from that
+which she had anticipated, that the poor creature, timid at heart and
+easily disconcerted, feared some new humiliation, and delegated to
+Madame Constant, her maid, the task of placing Jack at the school
+chosen for him by her servants.
+
+It was one cold, gray morning that Ida’s carriage drew up in front of
+the gilt sign of the Moronval Academy. The lane was deserted, but the
+walls and the signs all had a damp and greenish look, as if a recent
+inundation had there left its traces. Constant stepped forward bravely,
+leading the child by one hand, and carrying an umbrella in the other.
+At the twelfth house she halted. It was at the end of the lane just
+where it closes, save for a narrow passage into La Rue Marbouf, between
+two high walls on which grated the dry branches of old shrubbery and
+ancient trees. A certain cleanliness indicated the vicinity of the
+aristocratic institution; and the oyster-shells, old sardine-boxes, and
+empty bottles were carefully swept away from the green door, that was
+as solid and distrustful in aspect as if it led to a prison or a
+convent.
+
+The profound silence that reigned was suddenly broken by a vigorous
+assault of the bell by Madame Constant. Jack felt chilled to the heart
+by the sound of this bell, and the sparrows on the one tree in the
+garden fluttered away in sudden fright.
+
+No one opened the door, but a panel was pushed away, and behind the
+heavy grating appeared a black face, with protuberant lips and
+astonished eyes.
+
+“Is this the Moronval Academy?” said Madame de Barancy’s imposing maid.
+
+The woolly head now gave place to one of a different type,—a Tartar,
+possibly,—with eyes like slits, high cheekbones, and narrow, pointed
+head. Then a Creole, with a pale yellow skin, was also inspired by
+curiosity and peered out. But the door still remained closed, and
+Madame Constant was losing her temper, when a sharp voice cried from a
+distance,—
+
+“Well do you never mean to open that door, idiots?”
+
+Then they all began to whisper; keys were turned, bolts were pushed
+back, oaths were muttered, kicks were administered, and after many
+ineffectual struggles the door was finally opened; but Jack saw only
+the retreating forms of the schoolboys, who ran off in as much fright
+as did the sparrows just before.
+
+In the doorway stood a tall, colored man, whose large white cravat made
+his face look still more black. M. Moronval begged Madame Constant to
+walk in, offered her his arm, and conducted her through a garden, large
+enough, but dismal with the dried leaves and débris of winter storms.
+
+Several scattered buildings occupied the place of former flower-beds.
+The academy, it seemed, consisted of several old buildings altered by
+Moronval to suit his own needs.
+
+In one of the alleys they met a small negro with a broom and a pail. He
+respectfully stood aside as they passed, and when M. Moronval said, in
+a low voice, “A fire in the drawing-room,” the boy looked as much
+startled as if he had been told that the drawing-room itself was
+burning.
+
+The order was by no means an unnecessary one. Nothing could have been
+colder than this great room, whose waxed floor looked like a frozen,
+slippery lake. The furniture itself had the same polar aspect,
+enveloped in coverings not made for it. But Madame Constant cared
+little for the naked walls and the discomforts of the apartment; she
+was occupied with the impression she was making, and the part she was
+playing, that of a lady of importance. She was quite condescending, and
+felt sure that children must be well off in this place, the rooms were
+so spacious,—just as well, in fact, as if in the country.
+
+“Precisely,” said Moronval, hesitatingly.
+
+The black boy kindled the fire, and M. Moronval looked for a chair for
+his distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned,
+made her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long,
+pale face all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great
+erectness, as if reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps
+to disguise a trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind
+and womanly expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his
+long curls and his eyes.
+
+“Yes, his eyes are like his mother’s,” said Moronval, coolly, examining
+Madame Constant as he spoke.
+
+She made no attempt to disclaim the honor; but Jack cried out in
+indignation, “She is not my mamma! She is my nurse!”
+
+Upon which Madame Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more
+reserved. Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and
+concluded that a servant trusted to the extent of placing her master’s
+children at school, must be a person of some importance in the house.
+
+Madame Constant soon convinced him of the correctness of this
+conclusion. She spoke loudly and decidedly—stated that the choice of a
+school had been left entirely to her own discretion, and each time that
+she pronounced the name of her mistress, it was with a patronizing air
+that drove poor Jack to the verge of despair.
+
+The terms of the school were spoken of: three thousand francs per annum
+was named as the amount asked; and then Moronval launched forth on the
+superior advantages of his institution; it combined everything needed
+for the development of both soul and body. The pupils accompanied their
+masters to the theatre and into the world. Instead of making of the
+boys intrusted to his charge mere machines of Greek and Latin, he
+sought to develop in them every good quality, to prepare them for their
+duties in every position in life, and to surround them with those
+family influences of which they had too many of them been totally
+deprived. But their mental instruction was by no means neglected; quite
+the contrary. The most eminent men, savans and artists, did not shrink
+from the philanthropic duty of instructing the young in this remarkable
+institution, and were employed as professors of sciences, history,
+music, and literature. The French language was made a matter of
+especial importance, and the pronunciation was taught by a new and
+infallible method of which Madame Moronval was the author. Besides all
+this, every week there was a public lecture, to which friends and
+relatives of the pupils were invited, and where they could thoroughly
+convince themselves of the excellence of the system pursued at the
+Moronval Academy.
+
+This long tirade of the principal, who needed, possibly, more than any
+one else the advantages of lessons in pronunciation from his wife, was
+achieved more quickly for the reason that, in Creole fashion, he
+swallowed half his words, and left out many of his consonants.
+
+It mattered not, however, for Madame Constant was positively dazzled.
+
+The question of terms, of course, was nothing to her, she said; but it
+was necessary that the child should receive an aristocratic and
+finished education.
+
+“Unquestionably,” said Madame Moronval, growing still more erect.
+
+Here her husband added that he only received into his establishment
+strangers of great distinction, scions of great families, nobles,
+princes, and the like. At that very time he had under his roof a child
+of royal birth,—a son of the king of Dahomey. At this the enthusiasm of
+Madame Constant burst all boundaries.
+
+“A king’s son! You hear, Master Jack—you will be educated with the son
+of a king!”
+
+“Yes,” resumed the instructor, gravely; “I have been intrusted by his
+Dahomian Majesty with the education of his royal Highness, and I
+believe that I shall be able to make of him a most remarkable man.”
+
+What was the matter with the black boy, who was still at work at the
+fire, that he shook so convulsively, and made such a hideous noise with
+the shovel and tongs?
+
+M. Moronval continued. “I hope, and Madame Moronval hopes, that the
+young king, when on the throne of his ancestors, will remember the good
+advice and the noble examples afforded him by his teachers in Paris,
+the happy years spent with them, their indefatigable cares and
+assiduous efforts on his behalf.”
+
+Here Jack was surprised to see the black boy kneeling before the
+chimney, turn toward him, and shake his woolly head violently, while
+his mouth opened wide in silent but furious denial.
+
+Did he wish to say that his royal Highness would never remember the
+good lessons received at the academy, or did he mean that he would
+never forget them? But what could this poor black boy know about it?
+
+Madame Constant announced, in pompous terms, that she was willing to
+pay a quarter in advance. Moronval waved his hand condescendingly, as
+if to say, “There is no need of that.”
+
+But the old house told a far different tale,—the shabby furniture, the
+dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of
+Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little woman with the
+long chin.
+
+But that which proved the fact more than anything else was the
+eagerness with which the pair went to find in another room the superb
+register in which they inscribed the ages of the pupils, their names,
+and the date of their entrance into the academy.
+
+While these important facts were being written, the black boy remained
+crouched in front of the fire, which seemed quite useless while he
+absorbed all its heat. The chimney, which at first had refused to
+consume the least bit of wood, as stomachs after too long fasting
+reject food, had now revived, and a beautiful red flame was to be seen.
+The negro, with his head on his hands, his eyes fixed as in a trance,
+looked like a little black silhouette against a scarlet background. His
+mouth opened in intense delight, and his eyes were perfectly round. He
+seemed to be drinking in the heat and the light with the greatest
+avidity, while outside the snow had begun to fall silently and slowly.
+
+Jack was very sad, for he fancied that Moronval had a wicked look,
+notwithstanding his honeyed words. And, then, in this strange house the
+poor child felt himself utterly lost and desolate, discarded by his
+mother, and rendered still more miserable by the vague idea that these
+colored pupils, from every corner of the globe, had brought with them
+an atmosphere of unhappiness and of restlessness. He remembered, too,
+the Jesuits’ college, so fresh and sweet; the fine trees, the
+green-houses, the whole appearance of refinement, and the kind hand of
+the Superior laid for a moment upon his head.
+
+Ah! why had he not remained there? And as this occurred to him, he said
+to himself, that perhaps they would not have him here either. He looked
+toward the table. There by the big register the husband and wife were
+busy whispering with Madame Constant. They looked at him, and he caught
+a word now and then. The little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her
+say, as did the priest,—“Poor child!”
+
+She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him?
+Jack asked himself.
+
+This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little
+heart. He could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he
+attributed this disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume,
+his bare legs, or his long curls.
+
+But he thought of his mother’s despair. Should he meet with another
+refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the
+principal some notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep him.
+He was delighted, poor child, for he little knew that the great
+misfortune of his life was now inaugurated there in that room.
+
+At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below,
+singing the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not
+recovered from the shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat,
+close-cut hair, and heavy beard, burst into the room.
+
+“Hallo!” he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, “a fire in the
+parlor? What a luxury!” and he drew a long breath. In fact, the
+new-comer was in the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each
+sentence, a habit he had acquired in singing; and these breaths were
+almost like the roaring of a wild beast. Catching sight of the
+strangers and the pile of money, he stopped short with the words on his
+lips. Delight and surprise succeeded each other on his countenance,
+whose muscles seemed habituated to all facial contortions.
+
+Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. “M. Labassandre, of
+the Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music.” Labassandre
+bowed once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his
+self-possession, and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for
+all parties, administered a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at
+all astonished, but picked himself up and disappeared from the room.
+
+The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly—a
+mean face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and
+wearing an overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down
+the front too visible indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted
+man. This was Dr. Hirsch, Professor of Mathematics and of Natural
+Sciences. He exhaled a strong odor of alkalies, and, thanks to his
+chemical manipulations, his fingers were every color of the rainbow.
+The last comer was very different. Imagine a handsome man, dressed with
+the greatest care, scrupulously gloved and shod, his hair thrown back
+from a forehead already unnaturally high. He had a haughty, aggressive
+air; his heavy blonde moustache, much twisted at the ends, and a large,
+pale face, gave him the look of a sick soldier.
+
+Moronval presented him as “our great poet, Amaury d’Argenton, Professor
+of Literature.”
+
+He, too, looked as astonished, when he caught sight of the gold pieces,
+as did Dr. Hirsch and the singer Labassandre. His cold eyes had a gleam
+of light, but it disappeared as he glanced from the child to his nurse.
+
+Then he approached the other professors standing in front of the fire,
+and, saluting them, listened in silence. Madame Constant thought this
+Argenton looked proud; but upon Jack the man made a very strong
+impression, and the child shrank from him with terror and repugnance.
+
+Jack felt that all these men might make him wretched, but this one more
+than all others. Instinctively, on seeing him enter, the child felt him
+to be his future enemy, and that cold, hard glance meeting his own,
+froze him to the core of his heart. How many times, in days to come,
+was he to encounter those pale, blue eyes, with half-shut, heavy lids,
+whose glances were cold as steel! The eyes have been called the windows
+of the soul, but D’Argenton’s eyes were windows so closely barred and
+locked, that one had no reason to suppose that there was a soul behind
+them.
+
+The conversation finished between Moronval and Constant, the principal
+approached his new pupil, and giving him a little friendly tap on the
+cheek, he said, “Come, come, my young friend, you must look brighter
+than this.”
+
+And in fact, Jack, as the moment drew near that he must say farewell to
+his mother’s maid, felt his eyes swimming in tears. Not that he had any
+great affection for this woman, but she was a part of his home, she saw
+his mother daily, and the separation was final when she was gone.
+
+“Constant,” he whispered, catching her dress, “you will tell mamma to
+come and see me.”
+
+“Certainly. She will come, of course. But don’t cry.”
+
+The child was sorely tempted to burst into tears; but it seemed to him
+that all these strange eyes were fixed upon him, and that the Professor
+of Literature examined him with especial severity: and he controlled
+himself.
+
+The snow fell heavily. Moronval proposed to send for a carriage, but
+the maid said that Augustin and the coupé were waiting at the end of
+the lane.
+
+“A coupé!” said the principal to himself, in astonished admiration.
+
+“Speaking of Augustin,” said she: “he charged me with a commission.
+Have you a pupil named Said?”
+
+“To be sure—certainly—a delightful person,” said Moronval.
+
+“And a superb voice. You must hear him,” interrupted Labassandre,
+opening the door and calling Said in a voice of thunder.
+
+A frightful howl was heard in reply, followed by the appearance of the
+delightful person.
+
+An awkward schoolboy appeared, whose tunic, like all tunics, and,
+indeed, like all the clothing of boys of a certain age, was too short
+and too tight for him; drawn in, in the fashion of a caftan, it told
+the story at once of an Egyptian in European clothing. His features
+were regular and delicate enough, but the yellow skin was stretched so
+tightly over the bones and muscles that the eyes seemed to close of
+themselves whenever the mouth opened, and _vice versa_.
+
+This miserable young man, whose skin was so scanty, inspired you with a
+strong desire to relieve his sufferings by cutting a slit somewhere. He
+at once remembered Augustin, who had been his parents’ coachman, and
+who had given him all his cigar-stumps.
+
+“What shall I say to him from you?” asked Constant, in her most amiable
+tone.
+
+“Nothing,” answered Said, promptly.
+
+“And your parents, how are they? Have you had any news from them
+lately?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Have they returned to Egypt, as they thought of doing?”
+
+“Don’t know: they never write.”
+
+It was evident that this pupil of the Moronval Academy had not been
+educated in the art of conversation, and Jack listened with many
+misgivings.
+
+The indifferent fashion with which this youth spoke of his parents,
+added to what M. Moronval had previously said of the family influences
+of which most of his pupils had been deprived since infancy, impressed
+him unfavorably.
+
+It seemed to the child that he was to live among orphans or cast-off
+children, and would be himself as much cast off as if he had come from
+Timbuctoo or Otaheite.
+
+Again he caught the dress of his mother’s servant. “Tell her to come
+and see me,” he whispered; “O, tell her to come.”
+
+And when the door closed behind her, he understood that one chapter in
+his life was finished; that his existence as a spoiled child, as a
+petted baby, had vanished into the past, and those dear and happy days
+would never again return.
+
+While he stood silently weeping, with his face pressed against a window
+that led into the garden, a hand was extended over his shoulder
+containing something black.
+
+It was Said, who, as a consolation, offered him the stump of a cigar.
+
+“Take this: I have a trunk full,” said the interesting young man,
+shutting his eyes so as to be able to speak.
+
+Jack, smiling through his tears, made a sign that he did not dare to
+accept this singular gift; and Said, whose eloquence was very limited,
+stood silently planted by his side until M. Moronval returned.
+
+He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired
+with respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
+
+The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coupé was so well
+appointed, that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence
+of the equipage.
+
+“That is well,” he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. “Play together;
+but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall permit
+the boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil.”
+
+Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who
+questioned him without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit,
+and bare legs, he sat motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic
+gestipulations of these little boys of foreign birth, and among them
+all, looked much like an elegant little Parisian shut up in the great
+monkey cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from
+his silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be
+altogether amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the
+solemn little voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention,
+he hastened to the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically
+defending the money paid by Madame Constant against the demands of the
+professors, whose salaries were greatly in arrear.
+
+Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and littérateur, had been sent
+from Pointe-à-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe.
+At that time he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with
+considerable ability and cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted
+a dependent position which insured his expenses paid to Paris, that
+marvellous city, the heat of whose lurid flames extends so far over the
+world that it attracts even the moths from the colonies.
+
+On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few
+acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had
+obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into
+account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every
+effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time he spoke in
+public, the shouts of laughter that greeted him proved conclusively
+that he could never make a name, for himself in Paris as a public
+speaker. He then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to
+understand that it was far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-à-Petre
+than in Paris. Haughty and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes,
+he passed from journal to journal, without being retained for any
+length of time on the staff of any one. Then began those hard
+experiences of life which either crush a man to the earth or harden him
+to iron. He joined the army of the ten thousand men who live by their
+wits in Paris, who rise each morning dizzy with hunger and ambitious
+dreams, make their breakfast from off a penny-roll, black the seams of
+their coats with ink, whiten their shirt-collars with billiard-chalk,
+and warm themselves in the churches and libraries.
+
+He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,—to credit
+refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his garret at
+eleven o’clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to shoes
+in holes.
+
+He was one of those professors of—it matters not what, who write
+articles for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history of
+the Middle Ages in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume,
+compile catalogues, and copy plays for the theatres.
+
+He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for
+having struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.
+
+After three years of this miserable existence, when he had eaten an
+incalculable number of raw artichokes and radishes, when he had lost
+his illusions and ruined his stomach, chance sent him to give lessons
+in a young ladies’ school kept by three sisters. The two eldest were
+over forty; the third was thirty,—small, sentimental, and pretentious.
+She saw little prospect of marriage, when Moronval offered himself and
+was accepted.
+
+Once married, they lived some time in the house with the elder sisters;
+both made themselves useful in giving lessons. But Moronval had
+retained many of his bachelor habits, which were far from agreeable in
+that peaceful and well-ordered boarding-school. Besides, the Creole
+treated his pupils too much as he might have done his slaves at work on
+the sugar-cane plantation.
+
+The elder sisters, who adored Madame Moronval, were nevertheless
+obliged to separate from her, and paid her as an indemnification a
+satisfactory sum. What should be done with this money? Moronval wished
+to start a journal, or a review; but to make money was his first wish.
+Finally, a brilliant idea came to him one day.
+
+He knew that children were sent from all parts of the world to finish
+their education in Paris. They came from Persia, from Japan, Hindostan,
+and Guinea, confided to the care of ship-captains, or to merchants.
+Such people being generally well provided with money, and having but
+little experience in getting rid of it, Moronval decided that there was
+an easy mine to work. Besides, the wonderful system of Madame Moronval
+could be applied in perfection to the correction of foreign accents, to
+defective pronunciation. The Professor immediately caused
+advertisements to be inserted in the colonial journals, where were soon
+to be seen the most amazing advertisements in several languages.
+
+During the first year, the nephew of the Iman of Zanzibar, and two
+superb blacks from the coast of Guinea, appeared upon the scene. It was
+not until they arrived that Moronval bestirred himself to find a local
+habitation and a name. Finally, in order to combine economy with the
+exigencies of his new position, he hired the buildings we have just
+visited in this hideous _Passage des Douze Maisons_, and displayed in
+the avenue the gorgeous sign we have mentioned.
+
+The owner of the property induced Moronval to believe that certain
+improvements would soon be made, in fact, that an appropriation was
+ordered for a new boulevard on one side of the building. This
+conviction induced Moronval to forget all the inconveniences, the
+dampness of the dormitory, the cold of certain rooms, the heat of
+others. This was nothing: the appropriation bill was ready for the
+signature, and things would be all right soon.
+
+But Moronval was forced to endure that long period of waiting, only too
+well known to Parisians in the last twenty years; and this wore heavily
+upon him, costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the
+improvement or welfare of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had
+been hugely duped, and this discovery had the worst effect on the
+passionate, weak nature of the Creole. His discouragement degenerated
+into absolute incapacity and indolence. The pupils had no supervision
+whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that they used the least
+possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into
+class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered with by every
+caprice of the principal, who sent the pupils hither and thither on his
+personal service.
+
+And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,—a physician
+without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer without
+an engagement,—all of whom were in a state of constant indignation
+against the world which refused to recognize their rare merits.
+
+Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem
+to herd together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual
+complaints? Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other,
+they pretend to an admiring sympathy.
+
+Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers,
+the greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their
+pipes, the smoke from which soon became so thick that they could
+neither see nor hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with
+vehemence in a vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and
+literature were picked into fragments as precious stuffs might be under
+the application of violent acids.
+
+And the “children of the sun,” what became of them amid all this?
+Madame Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former
+home and school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had
+undertaken, but the kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great
+establishment absorbed a great part of her time.
+
+As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept
+in order, for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the
+chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in certain
+armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling
+compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of
+surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new
+quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to
+smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins
+for the negro blood in his own veins.
+
+His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon
+he began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time
+there remained but eight.
+
+“Number of pupils limited,” said the prospectus, and there was a
+certain amount of melancholy truth in the announcement. A dismal
+silence seemed to settle down on the great establishment, which was
+even threatened with a seizure of the furniture, when Jack appeared
+upon the scene. It of course was no very great sum, this quarter in
+advance, but Moronval understood certain prospective advantages, and
+even had a very clear perception of Ida’s true nature, having
+cross-examined Constant with very good results. This day, therefore,
+witnessed a certain armed neutrality between masters and pupils. A good
+dinner in honor of the new arrival was served, all the professors were
+present, and “the children of the sun” even had a drop of wine, which
+startling event had not happened to them for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+MÂDOU.
+
+
+If the Moronval Academy still exists, I desire to stigmatize it now and
+forever as the most unhealthy spot I ever knew. Its dampness makes it
+most objectionable for children.
+
+Imagine a long building all _rez-de-chaussée_, without windows, and
+lighted only from above. About the room hung an indescribable odor of
+collodion and ether, as if it had once been used by a photographer. The
+garden was shut in by high walls covered with ivy which dripped with
+moisture. The dormitory stood against a superb hotel; and on one side
+was a stable, always noisy with the oaths of grooms, the trampling of
+horses’ feet, and the rattling of pumps. From one end of the year to
+the other the place was always damp, the only difference being that,
+according to the different seasons of the year, the dampness was either
+very cold or very warm. In summer it was filled with moisture like a
+bathroom. In addition, a crowd of winged creatures, who lived among the
+old ivy on the walls, attracted by the brightness of the glass in the
+low roof, introduced themselves into the dormitory through the smallest
+crevice, and struck their wings against the glass, humming loudly, and
+finally falling on the beds in clouds.
+
+The winter’s humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the
+dormitory through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two
+hours of shivering the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they
+drew their knees up to their chins and kept the bedclothes well over
+their heads. The paternal eye of Moronval saw at once the propriety of
+utilizing this otherwise unemployed building.
+
+“This shall be the dormitory,” he said.
+
+“May it not be somewhat damp?” Madame Moronval ventured to ask.
+
+“What of that?” he answered, sternly.
+
+In reality there was but room for ten beds; but twenty were placed
+there, with a lavatory at the end, a wretched bit of carpet near the
+door, and all was in readiness.
+
+Why not? After all, a dormitory is only a place to sleep in, and
+children should be able to sleep anywhere, in spite of heat or cold, of
+bad air and of creeping things, in spite of the noise of pumps and of
+horses. They catch rheumatism, ophthalmia, and bronchitis, to be sure,
+but they sleep all the same the calm sweet sleep of children worn out
+by out-door exercise and play, and undisturbed by anxieties for the
+morrow. This is the popular belief in regard to children, but too many
+of us know that the truth is quite different. For example, the first
+night little Jack could not close his eyes. He had never slept in a
+strange house, and the change was great from his own little room at
+home, dimly lighted by a night-lamp, and littered with his favorite
+playthings, to the strange and comfortless place where he now found
+himself.
+
+As soon as the pupils were in bed, a black servant took away the light,
+and Jack remained wide awake.
+
+A pale moon, reflected from the snow that covered a portion of the
+skylight, filled the room with a bluish light. He looked at the beds,
+standing close together foot to foot the length of the room, most of
+them unoccupied, their coverings rolled up in a bundle at one end.
+Seven or eight were animated by an occasional snore, by a hollow cough,
+or a stifled exclamation.
+
+The new-comer had the best place, a little sheltered from the wind of
+the door. Nevertheless, he was far from warm, and the cold kept him
+from sleep as much as the novelty of his surroundings. He went over and
+over again in his memory every trifling detail of the day’s events. He
+saw Moronval’s bulky white cravat, the enormous spectacles of Dr.
+Hirsch—his soiled and spotted overcoat; but above all he recalled the
+cold and haughty eyes of “his enemy,” as he already in his innermost
+heart called D’Argenton.
+
+This thought struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he
+looked to his mother for protection and defence.
+
+Where was she at that moment? A dozen different clocks at that instant
+struck eleven. She was probably at some ball or theatre. She would soon
+come in, all wrapped in furs and laces. When she came, it mattered not
+how late, she always opened Jack’s door and bent over his bed to kiss
+him. Even in his sleep he was generally conscious of her presence, and
+smilingly opened his eyes to admire her toilette. And now he shuddered
+as he thought of the change; and yet it was not altogether painful, for
+the chevrons of his uniform delighted him, and he was happy in
+concealing his long legs in the skirt of his tunic. He had made two or
+three new acquaintances,—a thing very agreeable to most children; he
+had found his fellow-pupils odd enough, but their oddities interested
+him. They had snowballed each other in the garden, which, to a child
+who had been living in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very
+novel amusement.
+
+One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where
+was the little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so
+warmly? Was he in the Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk
+with him, and make him his friend. He repeated to himself the names of
+the “eight children of the sun,” but there was no prince among them.
+Then he thought he would ask the boy Said.
+
+“Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?” he asked.
+
+The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished
+silence. Jack’s question remained unanswered, and the child’s thoughts
+ran on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music
+that rang through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the
+perpetual sound of the pumps in the stable.
+
+Moronval’s guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and
+all was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the
+small black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
+
+He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept
+between the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his
+shoulders, and his teeth chattering.
+
+Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all
+the peculiarities of the black boy—the protruding mouth, the enormous
+ears, and retreating forehead.
+
+The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there
+warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though
+dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack’s heart warmed toward him.
+As he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. “Ah! the snow!
+the snow!” he murmured sadly.
+
+His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who
+looked at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and
+said, half to himself, “Ah! the new pupil! Why don’t you go to sleep,
+little boy?”
+
+“I cannot,” said Jack, sighing.
+
+“It is good to sigh if you are sorry,” said the negro, sententiously.
+“If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!”
+
+As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
+
+“Do you sleep there?” asked the child, astonished that a servant should
+occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. “But there are no sheets!”
+
+“Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black.” The negro laughed
+gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half
+clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an
+ivory smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
+
+“What a funny medal!” cried Jack.
+
+“It is not a medal,” answered the negro; “it is my _Gri-qri_.”
+
+But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that
+it was an amulet—something to bring him good luck. His Aunt Kérika had
+given it to him when he left his native land,—the aunt who had brought
+him up, and to whom he hoped to return at some future day.
+
+“As I shall to my mamma,” said little Barancy; and both children were
+silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
+
+Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. “And your country—is it a
+pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?”
+
+“Dahomey,” answered the negro.
+
+Jack started up in bed.
+
+“What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Why, his royal Highness,—you know him,—the little king of Dahomey.”
+
+“I am he,” said the negro, quietly.
+
+The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had
+seen at work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on
+the table, and rinsing glasses!
+
+The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face
+grew very sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the
+past, or toward some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king
+that led Jack to examine this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed,
+his white shirt open, while on his dark breast shone the ivory amulet,
+with new interest?
+
+“How did all this happen?” asked the child, timidly.
+
+The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. “M. Moronval
+not like it if Mâdou lets it burn.” Then he pulled his couch close to
+that of Jack.
+
+“You are not sleepy,” he said; “and I never wish to sleep if I can talk
+of Dahomey. Listen!”
+
+And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen,
+the little negro began his dismal tale.
+
+He was called Mâdou,—the name of his father, an illustrious warrior,
+one of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to
+whom France, Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father
+had cannon, and soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war,
+musicians and priests, four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred
+wives. His palace was immense, and ornamented by spears on which hung
+human heads after a battle or a sacrifice. Mâdou was born in this
+palace. His Aunt Kérika, general-in-chief of the Amazons, took him with
+her in all her expeditions. How beautiful she was, this Kérika! tall
+and large as a man,—in a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs loaded
+with bracelets and anklets; her bow slung over her shoulder, and the
+tail of a horse streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly
+locks, she wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if
+these black warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of
+Diana the white huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of
+hand! Why, she could cut off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow.
+But, however terrible Kérika might have been on the battlefield, to her
+nephew Mâdou she was always very gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all
+kinds: necklaces of coral and of amber, and all the shells he
+desired,—shells being the money in that part of the world. She even
+gave him a small but gorgeous musket, presented to herself by the Queen
+of England, and which Kérika found too light for her own use. Mâdou
+always carried it when he went to the forests to hunt with his aunt.
+
+There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that
+the sun never penetrated to these green temples. Then Mâdou described
+with enthusiasm the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds
+with wonderful plumage, and Jack listened in delight and astonishment.
+There were serpents, too, but they were harmless; and black monkeys
+leaped from tree to tree; and large mysterious lakes, that had never
+reflected the skies in their brown depths, lay here and there in the
+forests.
+
+At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, “O, how beautiful it must be!”
+
+“Yes, very beautiful,” said the black boy, who undoubtedly exaggerated
+a little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of absence, of
+childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern nature;
+but encouraged by his comrade’s sympathy, Mâdou continued his story.
+
+At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked in
+the jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were
+heard in the distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the
+bats, silent and black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered
+over and about it until daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic
+tree, motionless, and pressed against each other, looking like some
+singular leaves, dry and dead.
+
+In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,—could
+wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied
+to their mother’s apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir
+to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a
+negro prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must
+also learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his
+son, “White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man
+with.” Of course some European might have been found in Dahomey who
+could instruct the prince,—for French and English flags floated over
+the ships in the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his
+father to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world;
+and he wished his son to receive a similar education.
+
+How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kérika; he looked at his
+sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a
+clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold
+dust stolen from the poor negroes.
+
+Mâdou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to
+command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of
+corn and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with
+treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them,
+and be capable of defending them when necessary,—and Mâdou early
+learned that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures
+than the rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.
+
+His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to
+the fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were
+thrown open for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were
+offered there, and at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen
+prisoners of war were executed on the shore, and the executioner threw
+their heads into a great copper basin.
+
+“Good gracious!” gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
+
+It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the
+actors in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval
+Academy rather than in that terrible land of Dahomey.
+
+Mâdou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the
+ceremonies preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his
+arrival and life at Marseilles.
+
+He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the
+court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor,
+who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, “Not so much noise, if you
+please!” The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous
+scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all
+new and very trying to Mâdou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but
+the walls were so high, the court-yard so narrow, that he could never
+find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He was never
+allowed to go out as were the other pupils, and for a very good reason.
+At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where he
+often saw merchandise from his own country, and sometimes went into
+ecstasies at some well-known mark.
+
+The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their
+sails, all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
+
+Mâdou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,—one had brought
+him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed
+by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C’s, for his eyes
+saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The
+result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and
+hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time,
+but escaped again, and the second time was not discovered until the
+ship was in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons. Any other child would have
+been kept on board; but when Mâdou’s name was known, the captain took
+his royal Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a reward.
+
+After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a
+very close prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more;
+and this time, on being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so
+gently, and with such a sad smile, that no one had the heart to punish
+him. At last the principal of the institution declined the
+responsibility of so determined a pupil. Should he send the little
+prince back to Dahomey? M. Bonfils dared not permit this, fearing
+thereby to lose the good graces of the king. In the midst of these
+perplexities Moronvol’s advertisement appeared, and the prince was at
+once dispatched to 23 Avenue Montaigne,—“the most beautiful situation
+in Paris,”—where he was received, as you may well believe, with open
+arms. This heir of a far-off kingdom was a godsend to the academy. He
+was constantly on exhibition; M. Moronval showed him at theatres and
+concerts, and along the boulevards, reminding one of those
+perambulating advertisements that are to be seen in all large cities.
+
+He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval,
+who entered a room with all the gravity of Fénélon conducting the Duke
+of Burgundy. The two were announced as “His Royal Highness the Prince
+of Dahomey, and M. Moronval, his tutor.”
+
+For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of Mâdou; an attaché
+of a London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and
+serious talk as to the course the young prince should pursue when
+called to the throne of his ancestors. The English journal published an
+account of the curious dialogue, and the vague replies certainly left
+much to be desired.
+
+At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this
+solitary pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented to
+him without a word of dispute. Mâdou’s education, however, made but
+little progress. He still continued among the A B C’s, and Madame
+Moronval’s charming method made no impression upon him. His defective
+pronunciation was still retained, and his half-childish way of speaking
+was not changed. But he was gay and happy. All the other children were
+compelled to yield to him a certain deference. At first this was a
+difficult matter, as his intense blackness seemed to indicate to these
+other children of the sun that he was a slave.
+
+And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in
+spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their
+instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of
+what could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo
+king. It was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as Mâdou
+was crowned, they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to
+develop the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a
+conservatory, and at the head of the Royal Chapel.
+
+Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp
+black heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon
+the inmates of which he could experiment without fear of any
+interference from the police. The first few weeks, therefore, of his
+sojourn at Paris seemed to Mâdou very sweet. If only the sun would
+shine out brightly, if the fine rain would cease to fall, or the thick
+fog clear away; if, in short, the boy could once have been thoroughly
+warm, he would have been content; and if Kérika, with her gun and her
+bow, her arms covered with clanking bracelets, could occasionally have
+appeared in the _Passage des Douze Maison_, he would have been very
+happy.
+
+But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day,
+bringing most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken
+prisoner by the Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal
+troops and the regiment of Amazons had all been conquered and
+dispersed. Kérika alone was saved, and she dispatched M. Bonfils to
+Mâdou to tell him to remain in France, and to take good care of his
+Gri-gri, for it was written in the great book that if Mâdou did not
+lose that amulet, he would come into his kingdom. The poor little king
+was in great trouble. Moronval, who placed no faith in the _gri-gri_,
+presented his bill—and such a bill!—to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but
+informed the principal that in future, if he consented to keep Mâdou,
+he must not rely upon any present compensation, but upon the gratitude
+of the king as soon as the fortunes and chances of war should restore
+him to his throne. Would the principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once
+signifying his intentions? Moronval promptly and nobly said, “I will
+keep the child.” Observe that it was no longer “his Royal Highness.”
+And the boy at once became like all the other scholars, and was scolded
+and punished as they were,—more, in fact, for the professors were out
+of temper with him, feeling apparently, that they had been deluded by
+false pretences. The child could understand little of this, and tried
+in vain all the gentle ways that had seemed to win so much affection
+before. It was worse still the next quarter, when Moronval, receiving
+no money, realized that Mâdou was a burden to him. He dismissed the
+servant, and installed Mâdou in his place, not without a scene with the
+young prince. The first time a broom was placed in his hands and its
+use explained to him, Mâdou obstinately refused. But M. Moronval had an
+irresistible argument ready, and after a heavy caning the boy gave up.
+Besides, he preferred to sweep rather than to learn to read. The
+prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept with singular energy, and the
+salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously clean; but Moronval’s heart was
+not softened. In vain did the little fellow work; in vain did he seek
+to obtain a kindly word from his master; in vain did he hover about him
+with all the touching humility of a submissive hound: he rarely
+obtained any other recompense than a blow.
+
+The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain
+seemed to fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
+
+O Kérika! Aunt Kérika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come
+and see what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated,
+how scantily he is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is!
+He has but one suit now, and that a livery—a red coat and striped vest!
+Now, when he goes out with his master, he does not walk at his side—he
+follows him.
+
+Mâdou’s honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of
+Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this
+last descendant of the powerful _Tocodonon_, the founder of the
+Dahomian dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of
+a huge basket, half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for
+nothing warms him now, neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the
+shame of having become a servant; nor even his hatred of “the father
+with a stick,” as he called Moronval.
+
+And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Mâdou confided to
+Jack his projects of vengeance.
+
+“When Mâdou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the
+father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will
+cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big
+drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,—Boum!
+boum! boum!”
+
+Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro’s white eyes,
+and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the
+drum, and was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the
+sabres, and the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket
+over his head, and held his breath.
+
+Mâdou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he
+thought his solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath,
+Mâdou said gently, “Shall we talk some more, sir?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Jack; “only don’t let us say any more about that drum,
+nor the copper basin.” The negro laughed silently. “Very well, sir;
+Mâdou won’t talk—you must talk now. What is your name?”
+
+“Jack, with a _k_. Mamma thinks a great deal about that—”
+
+“Is your mamma very rich?”
+
+“Rich! I guess she is,” said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle
+Mâdou in his turn. “We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the
+boulevard, horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma
+comes here, how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look
+at her, she has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live
+at Tours; it was a pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we
+bought nice cakes, and where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The
+gentlemen were all good to me. I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,—not
+real papas, you know, because my own father died when I was a little
+fellow. When we first went to Paris I did not like it; I missed the
+trees and the country; but mamma petted me so much, and was so good to
+me, that I was soon happy again. I was dressed like the little English
+boys, and my hair was curled, and every day we went to the Bois. At
+last my mamma’s old friend said that I ought to learn something; so
+mamma took me to the Jesuit College—”
+
+Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive
+him, wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and
+innocence of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to
+his mother in this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this
+recital, on which he had so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the
+only serious trouble of his life. Why had they not been willing to
+receive him? why did his mother weep? and why did the Superior pity
+him?
+
+“Say, then, little master,” asked the negro suddenly, “what is a
+cocotte?”
+
+“A cocotte?” asked Jack in astonishment. “I don’t know. Is it a
+chicken?”
+
+“I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your
+mother was a cocotte.”
+
+“What an ideal. You misunderstood,” and at the thought of his mother
+being a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh;
+and Mâdou, without knowing why, followed his example.
+
+This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous
+conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided
+to each other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE REUNION.
+
+
+Children are like grown people,—the experiences of others are never of
+any use to them.
+
+Jack had been terrified by Mâdou’s story, but he thought of it only as
+a frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first
+months were so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he
+forgot that Mâdou for a time had been equally happy.
+
+At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared
+his dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit
+appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch,
+whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable
+condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by
+descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious
+diseases, and, in fact, kept his hearers _au courant_ with all the
+ailments of the day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of
+elephantiasis, or of the plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would
+nod his head with delight, and say, “It will be here before long—before
+long!”
+
+As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first,
+his near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of
+dropping into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops
+from a vial in his pocket. The contents of this vial were never the
+same, for the doctor made new scientific discoveries each week, but in
+general bicarbonate, alkalies, and arsenic (in infinitesimal doses
+fortunately) made the base of these medicaments. Jack submitted to
+these preventives, and did not venture to say that he thought they
+tasted very badly. Occasionally the other professors were invited, and
+everybody drank the health of the little De Barancy, every one was
+enthusiastic over his sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher,
+Labassandre, at the least joke made by the child, threw himself back in
+his chair with a loud laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped
+his eyes with a corner of his napkin.
+
+Even D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile crossed
+his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with
+haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he
+wish to understand, the signs made to him by Mâdou, as he waited upon
+the table, with a napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. Mâdou
+knew better than any one else the real value of these exaggerated
+praises and the vanity of human greatness.
+
+He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master’s wine,
+flavored by the powder from the doctor’s bottle; and the tunic, with
+its silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had
+been made for Mâdou? The story of the little negro should have been a
+warning to the small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the
+installation of both boys in the Moronval Academy had been precisely of
+the same character.
+
+The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into
+weeks. Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval,
+who snatched every opportunity of testing her method.
+
+As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new
+pupil. He had made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the
+Boulevard Hauss-mann, and had fully acquainted himself with the
+resources of the lady there. When, therefore, Madame de Barancy came to
+see Jack, which was very often, she met with a warm reception, and had
+an attentive audience for all the vain and foolish stories she saw fit
+to tell. At first Madame Moronval wished to preserve a certain
+dignified coolness toward such a person, but her husband soon changed
+that idea, and she saw herself obliged to lay aside her womanly
+scruples in favor of her interests.
+
+“Jack! Jack! here comes your mother,” some one would cry as the door
+opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of
+cakes and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for
+every one; they all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy
+ungloved her hand, the one on which were the most rings, and
+condescended to take a portion. The poor creature was so generous, and
+money slipped so easily through her fingers, that she generally brought
+with her cakes all sorts of presents, playthings, &c., which she
+distributed as the fancy struck her. It is easy to imagine the
+enthusiastic praises lavished upon this inconsiderate, reckless
+generosity. Moronval alone had a smile of pity and of envy at seeing
+money so wasted, which should have gone to the assistance of some
+brave, generous soul like himself, for example. This was his fixed
+idea. And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing his finger-nails, he had
+an absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes to ask a loan, and
+has his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval’s dream for some time
+had been to establish a Review consecrated to colonial interests, in
+this way hoping to satisfy his political aspirations by recalling
+himself regularly to his compatriots; and, finally, who knows he might
+be elected deputy. But, as a commencement, the journal seemed
+indispensable, and he had a vague notion that the mother of his new
+pupil might be induced to defray the expenses of this Review, but he
+did not wish to move too rapidly lest he should frighten the lady away;
+he intended to prepare the way gently. Unfortunately, Madame de
+Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of nature, was difficult to
+reach. She would continually change the conversation just at the
+important point, because she found it very uninteresting.
+
+“If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!” said Moronval to
+himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de
+Sévigné and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might
+as well have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was
+fluttering about his head.
+
+“I am not strong-minded nor literary,” said Ida, with a half yawn, one
+day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
+
+Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be
+dazzled, not led.
+
+One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful
+tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she
+added the _de_ as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,—
+
+“M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not.”
+
+“O, tell me, tell me!” said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish
+to oblige.
+
+The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the
+Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to act
+with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de
+Barancy to be present at one of their literary reunions on the
+following Saturday. Formerly these little fêtes took place every week,
+but since Mâdou’s fall they had been very infrequent. It was in vain
+that Moronval had extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in
+vain had he dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the
+window-sill, and served it again the following week, the expense still
+was too great. But now he determined to hazard another attempt in that
+direction. Madame de Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness.
+The idea of making her appearance in the salon as a married woman of
+position was very attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder
+conquered, on which she hoped to ascend from her irregular and
+unsatisfactory life.
+
+This was a most splendid fête at which she assisted. In the memory of
+all beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored
+lanterns hung on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was
+lighted, and at least thirty candles were burning in the salon, the
+floor of which Mâdou had so waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it
+was as brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed
+himself; and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of
+perplexity as to the part that the prince should take at the soirée.
+
+Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one
+day only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very
+tempting; but, then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests?
+Who could replace him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some
+one in Paris who might not be pleased with this system of education;
+and finally it was decided that the soirée must be deprived of the
+presence and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight o’clock, “the
+children of the sun” took their seats on the benches, and among them
+the blonde head of little De Barancy glittered like a star on the dark
+background.
+
+Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and
+literary world—the one at least which he frequented—and the
+representatives of art, literature, and architecture appeared in large
+delegations. They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from
+the depths of _Montparnasse_ on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and
+poor, unknown, but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the
+longing to be seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to
+themselves that they were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure
+air, this glimpse of the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of
+glory and success, they returned to their squalid apartments, having
+gained a little strength to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser
+than Leibnitz; there were painters longing for fame, but whose pictures
+looked as if an earthquake had shaken everything from its
+perpendicular; musicians—inventors of new instruments; savans in the
+style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains contained a little of everything, but
+where nothing could be found by reason of the disorder and the dust. It
+was sad to see them; and if their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive
+as their bushy heads, their offensive pride and pompous manners, had
+not given one an inclination to laugh, their half-starved air and the
+feverish glitter of eyes that had wept over so many lost illusions and
+disappointed hopes, would have awakened profound compassion in the
+hearts of lookers-on.
+
+Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a
+taskmistress and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other
+employment.. For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a
+sculptor was an agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a
+gas-office.
+
+Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives.
+These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave,
+worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of
+men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they
+smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there
+were the habitués of the house, the three professors; Labassandre in
+gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous
+inspirations; and D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, curled and
+pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of
+authority, geniality, and condescension.
+
+Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one,
+shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later
+and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the
+countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de
+Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, “We
+will wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!”
+
+The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small
+green table, on which stood a glass of _eau-sucré_ and a reading-lamp,
+was in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red
+and oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and Mâdotu, shivering in
+the wind from the door,—all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile, as
+she came not, D’Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his
+assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing
+in front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide
+forehead, the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called
+his poem.
+
+His friends were not sparing in their praises.
+
+“Magnificent!” said one. “Sublime!” exclaimed another; and the most
+amazing criticism came from yet another,—“Goethe with a heart?”
+
+Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to
+the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her
+heart was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his
+hat: now she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more
+his pale face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a love
+poem, and, believing in love as he did in God, he produced an
+extraordinary effect upon her.
+
+He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish
+sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such
+women.
+
+From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of
+her heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic
+signs to her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for
+Moronval, who bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that
+examined her from head to foot, as she stood before them in her black
+velvet dress and her little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses
+and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about her like a scarf.
+Years after she recalled the profound impression of that evening, and
+saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon, which
+seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The
+future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound
+her, crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but
+the recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be
+effaced.
+
+“You see, madame,” said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile,
+“that we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte Amaury
+d’Argenton was reciting his magnificent poem.”
+
+“Vicomte!” He was noble, then!
+
+She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
+
+“Continue, sir, I beg of you,” she said.
+
+But D’Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had
+injured the effect of his poem—destroyed its point; and such things are
+not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that
+he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more
+about her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had
+displeased him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all
+little Jack’s tender caresses and outspoken joy—all his delight at the
+admiration expressed for her, the attentions of everybody, the idea
+that she was queen of the fete—to efface the sorrow she felt, and which
+she showed by a silence of at least five minutes, which silence for a
+nature like hers was something as extraordinary as restful. The
+disturbance of her entrance being at last over, every one seated
+himself to await the next recitation.
+
+Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat
+majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on
+the arm of his mother’s chair, between her and M. Moronval, who
+smoothed the lad’s hair in the most paternal way.
+
+The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took
+dignified possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and
+proceeded to read an ethnographic composition of her husband’s on the
+Mongolian races. It was long and tedious—one of those lucubrations that
+are delivered before certain scientific societies, and succeed in
+lulling the members to sleep. Madame Moronval took this opportunity of
+demonstrating the peculiarities of her method, which had the merit—if
+merit it were—of holding the attention as in a vice, and the words and
+syllables seemed to reverberate through your own brain. To see Madame
+Moronval open her mouth to sound her o’s, to hear the r’s rattle in her
+throat, was more edifying than agreeable. The mouths of the eight
+children opposite mechanically followed each one of her gestures,
+producing a most extraordinary effect; one absolutely fascinating to
+Mademoiselle Constant.
+
+But the countess saw nothing of all this; she had eyes but for her poet
+leaning against the door of the drawing-room, with arms folded and eyes
+moodily cast down. In vain did Ida seek to attract his attention; he
+glanced occasionally about the salon, but her arm-chair might as well
+have been vacant; he did not appear to see her, and the poor woman was
+rendered so utterly miserable by this neglect and indifference, that
+she forgot to congratulate Moronval on the brilliant success of his
+essay, which concluded amid great applause and universal relief.
+
+Then followed another brief poem by Argenton, to which Ida listened
+breathlessly.
+
+“Ah, how beautiful!” she cried; “how beautiful!” and she turned to
+Moronval, who sat with a forced smile on his lips. “Present me to M.
+d’Argenton, if you please.”
+
+She spoke to the poet in a low voice and with great courtesy. He,
+however, bowed very coldly, apparently careless of her implied
+admiration.
+
+“How happy you are,” she said, “in the possession of such a talent!”
+
+Then she asked where she could obtain his poems.
+
+“They are not to be procured, madame,” answered D’Argenton, gravely.
+
+Without knowing it, she had again wounded his sensitive pride, and he
+turned away without vouchsafing another syllable.
+
+But Moronval profited by this opening. “Think of it!” he said; “think
+that such verses as those cannot find a publisher! That such genius as
+that is buried in obscurity! If we only could publish a magazine!”
+
+“And why can you not?” asked Ida, quickly.
+
+“Because we have not the funds.”
+
+“But they can easily be procured. Such talent should not be allowed to
+languish!”
+
+She spoke with great earnestness; and Moronval saw at once that he had
+played his cards well, and proceeded to take advantage of the lady’s
+weakness by talking to her of D’Argenton, whom he painted in glowing
+colors.
+
+He spoke of him as Lara, or Manifred, a proud and independent nature,
+one which could not be conquered by the hardships of his lot.
+
+Here Ida interrupted him to ask if the poet was not of noble birth.
+
+“Most assuredly, madame. He is a viscount, and descended from one of
+the noblest families in Auvergne. His father was ruined by the
+dishonesty of an agent.”
+
+This was his text, which he proceeded to enlarge upon, and illustrate
+by many romantic incidents. Ida drank in the whole story; and while
+these two were absorbed in earnest conversation, Jack grew jealous, and
+made various efforts to attract his mother’s attention. “Jack, do be
+quiet!” and “Jack, you are insufferable!” finally sent him off, with
+tearful eyes and swollen lips, to sulk in the corner of the salon.
+Meanwhile the literary entertainments of the evening went on, and
+finally Labassandre, after numerous entreaties, was induced to sing.
+His voice was so powerful, and so pervaded the house, that Mâdou, who
+was in the kitchen preparing tea, replied by a frightful war-cry. The
+poor fellow worshipped noise of all kinds and at all times.
+
+Moronval and the comtesse continued their conversation; and D’Argenton,
+who by this time understood that he was the subject, stood in front of
+them, apparently absorbed in conversation with one of the professors.
+He appeared to be out of temper—and with whom? With the whole world;
+for he was one of that very large class who are at war against society,
+and against the manners and customs of their day.
+
+At this very moment he was declaiming violently, “You have all the
+vices of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere
+name. Love is a farce. You have accomplished nothing intellectually.”
+
+“Pardon me, sir,” interrupted his hearer. But the other went on more
+vehemently and more aggressively. He wished, he said, that all France
+could hear what he thought. The nation was abased, crushed beyond all
+hope of recuperation. As for himself, he had determined to emigrate to
+America.
+
+All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that
+was bent upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that
+one has in the fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly
+rises behind you and compels you to turn toward its silent presence.
+The eyes of this woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she
+caught in regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A
+funereal gloom settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her
+as D’Argenton wound up with a vigorous tirade against French
+women,—their lightness and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles,
+and the venality of their love.
+
+The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the
+chimney, and careless who heard either his voice or his words.
+
+Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that
+he was indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to
+herself.
+
+“He knows who I am,” she said, and bowed her head in shame.
+
+Moronval said aloud, “What a genius!” and in a lower voice to himself,
+“What a boaster!” But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had
+Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities,
+been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this case
+of instantaneous combustion.
+
+An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two or
+three of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent
+wretchedness, stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns
+swung in the wind each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted,
+and not even a policeman enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the
+disputative little group that left the Moronval Academy cared little
+for the gloom, the cold, or the dampness.
+
+When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus
+had passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of
+life—in the same brave spirit.
+
+Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees,
+as well as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each
+borrow a little, and with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm
+serenity that may well be envied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+A DINNER WITH IDA.
+
+
+The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an
+invitation for the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a
+postscript, expressing the pleasure she should have in receiving also
+M. d’Argenton.
+
+“I shall not go,” said the poet, dryly, when Moronval handed him the
+coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw
+his plans frustrated. “Why would not D’Argenton accept the invitation?”
+
+“Because,” was the answer, “I never visit such women.”
+
+“You make a great mistake,” said Moronval; “Madame de Barancy is not
+the kind of person you imagine. Besides, to serve a friend, you should
+lay aside your scruples. You see that I need the countess, that she is
+disposed to look favorably on my Colonial Review, and you should do all
+that lies in your power to favor my views. Come, now, think better of
+it.”
+
+D’Argenton, after being properly entreated, finished by accepting the
+invitation.
+
+On the following Monday, therefore, Moronval and his wife left the
+academy under the supervision of Dr. Hirsch, and presented themselves
+in the Boulevard Haussmann, where the poet was to join them.
+
+Dinner was at seven; D’Argenton did not arrive until half an hour past
+the time. Ida was in a state of great anxiety. “Do you think he will
+come?” she asked; “perhaps he is ill. He looks very delicate.”
+
+At last he appeared with the air of a conquering hero, making some
+indifferent excuse for his lack of punctuality. His manner, however,
+was less disdainful than usual, for the hotel had impressed him. Its
+luxury, the flowers, and thick carpets; the little boudoir with its
+bouquets of white lilacs; the commonplace salon, like a dentist’s
+waiting-room, a blue ceiling and gilded mouldings, the ebony furniture,
+cushioned with gold color, and the balcony exposed to the dust of the
+boulevard,—all charmed the attaché of the Moronval Academy, and gave
+him a favorable impression of wealth and high life.
+
+The table equipage, the imposing effect produced by Augustin, in short,
+all the luxurious details of the house, appealed to his senses, and
+D’Argenton, without flattering the countess as openly as did Moronval;
+yet succeeded in doing so in a more subtile manner, by thawing under
+her influence to a very marked extent.
+
+He was an interminable talker, and submitted with a very bad grace to
+any interruption. He was arbitrary and egotistical, and rang the
+changes on the _I_ and the _my_ for a whole evening, without allowing
+any one else to speak.
+
+Unhappily, to be a good listener is a quality far above natures like
+that of the countess; and the dinner was characterized by some
+unfortunate incidents. D’Argenton was particularly fond of repeating
+the replies he had made to the various editors and theatrical managers
+who had declined his articles, and refused to print his prose or his
+verse. His mots on these occasions had been clever and caustic; but
+with Madame de Barancy he was never able to reach that point, preceded
+as it must necessarily be with lengthy explanations. At the critical
+moment Ida would invariably interrupt him,—always, to be sure, with
+some thought for his comfort.
+
+“A little more of this ice, M. d’Argenton, I beg of you.”
+
+“Not any, madame,” the poet would answer with a frown, and continue,
+“Then I said to him—”
+
+“I am afraid you do not like it,” urged the lady.
+
+“It is excellent, madame,—and I said these cruel words—”
+
+Another interruption from Ida; who, later, when she saw her poet in a
+fit of the sulks, wondered what she had done to displease him. Two or
+three times during dinner she was quite ready to weep, but did her best
+to hide her feelings by urging all the delicacies of her table upon M.
+and Madame Moronval. Dinner over, and the guests established in the
+well warmed and lighted salon, the principal fancied he saw his way
+clear, and said suddenly, in a half indifferent tone, to the countess,—
+
+“I have thought much of our little matter of business. It will cost
+less than I fancied.”
+
+“Indeed!” she answered absently,
+
+“If, madame, you would accord to me a few moments of your attention—”
+
+But madame was occupied in looking at her poet, who was walking up and
+down the salon silent and preoccupied.
+
+“Of what can he be thinking?” she said to herself.
+
+Of his digestion only, dear reader. Suffering somewhat from dyspepsia,
+and always anxious in regard to his health, he never failed, on leaving
+the table, to walk for half an hour, no matter where he might chance to
+be.
+
+Ida watched him silently. For the first time in her life she loved,
+really and passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat
+before. Foolish and ignorant, while at the same time credulous and
+romantic; very near that fatal age—thirty years—which is almost certain
+to create in woman a great transformation; she now, aided by the memory
+of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal who
+resembled D’Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in looking
+at him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that her
+passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any one.
+
+Moronval, who looked on, shrugged his shoulders, with a glance at his
+wife. “She is simply crazy,” he said to himself.
+
+She certainly was crazed in a degree; and, after dinner, she tormented
+herself to find some way of returning to the good graces of D’Argenton,
+and, as he approached her in his walk, she said,—
+
+“If M. d’Argenton wished to be very amiable, he would recite to us that
+beautiful poem which created such a sensation the other evening. I have
+thought of it all the week. There is one verse that haunts me,
+especially the final line:
+
+‘And I believe in love,
+As I believe in a good God above.’”
+
+
+“As I believe in God above,” said the poet, making as horrible a
+grimace as if his finger had been caught in a vice.
+
+The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply
+that she had again incurred the displeasure of D’Argenton. The fact is
+that he had begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own
+control, and which, in its unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the
+timid worship offered by the Japanese to their hideous idols.
+
+Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than
+nature had made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility that
+rendered her so charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D’Argenton
+relented, and suspended his hygienic exercise for a moment.
+
+“I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but
+what?”
+
+Here Moronval interposed. “Recite the ‘Credo,’ my dear fellow,” he
+said.
+
+“Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you.”
+
+The poem commenced gently enough with the words,—
+
+“Madame, your toilette is charming.”
+
+
+Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in
+these terrific words:
+
+“Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,
+Who drains from my heart its life-blood.”
+
+
+As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful
+recollections, D’Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another
+word the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague
+fears of the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her
+poet, so drained his heart that there was not a drop left for her.
+
+“You know, my dear fellow,” said Moronval, as they strolled through the
+empty boulevards, arm-in-arm, that night, little Madame Moronval
+pattering on in front of them,—“you know if I can succeed in the
+establishment of my Review, that I shall make you editor-in-chief!”
+
+Moronval threw the half of his cargo overboard in order to save his
+ship, for he saw that unless the poet was enlisted, the countess would
+take no interest in the scheme. D’Argenton made no reply, for he was
+absorbed in thoughts of Ida.
+
+No man can play the part of a lyric poet, a martyr to love, without
+being conscious of, and touched by, that silent adoration which appeals
+to his vanity, both as a man of letters and a man of the world. Since
+he had seen Ida in her luxurious home, about which there was the same
+suspicion of vulgarity that clung about herself, the rigidity of his
+principles had amazingly softened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+AMAURY D’ARGENTON.
+
+
+Amaury d’Argenton belonged to one of those ancient provincial families
+whose castles resembled great farms. Impoverished for the three last
+generations, they had finally sold their property, and come to Paris to
+seek their fortunes; with little change for the better, however; and
+for the last thirty years they had dropped the _De_, which Amaury
+ventured to resume on adopting his literary career. He meant to make it
+famous, and even was audacious enough to announce this intention aloud.
+
+The childhood of the poet had been one of gloom and privation;
+surrounded by anxieties and by tears, by sordid cares, and that
+constant lack of money which imbitters the lives of so many of us, he
+had never laughed nor played like other children. A scholarship that
+was obtained for him enabled him to complete his studies, and his only
+recreation was obtained through the kindness of an aunt who resided in
+the Marais, and who gave him gloves and other trifles, which the poet
+very early in life learned to regard as essentials.
+
+Such a childhood ripens early into bitter maturity. Infinite prosperity
+is needed to efface such early impressions, and we often see men who
+have attained to high honors, who are rich and powerful, and yet who
+have never conquered the timidity born of their early deprivations.
+D’Argenton’s bitterness was not without reason: at twenty-five he had
+succeeded in nothing; he had published a volume at his own expense, and
+had lived on bread and water in consequence for at least six months. He
+was industrious as well as ambitious; but something more than these
+qualities are essential to a poet, whose imagination and genius must be
+endowed with wings. These D’Argenton had not; he felt merely that vague
+uneasiness which indicates a missing limb, but that was all, and he
+lost both time and trouble in ineffectual efforts; his aunt aided him
+by a small allowance, but his life bore not the shadow of a resemblance
+to the picture drawn by Ida. In fact, D’Argenton had never been
+entangled in any serious love affair; his nature was cold and prudent,
+and yet he had been beloved by more than one woman. To D’Argenton,
+however, their society had always seemed a waste of time. Ida de
+Barancy was the first who had made upon him any real impression. Of
+this fact Ida had no idea, and whenever she met the poet on her very
+frequent visits to Jack, it was always with the same deprecating air
+and timid voice. The poet, while adopting an air of utter indifference,
+cultivated the affection and society of little Jack, whom he induced to
+talk freely of his mother.
+
+Jack being extremely flattered, gladly gave every information in his
+power, and talked freely of the kind friend who was so good to mamma.
+The mention of this person cost the poet a strange pang. “He is so
+kind,” babbled Jack, “he comes to see us every day; or, if he does not
+come, he sends us great baskets of fruit, and playthings for me.”
+
+“And is your mother very fond of him, too?” continued D’Argenton,
+without looking up from his writing.
+
+“Yes, indeed, sir,” answered the little fellow, innocently.
+
+But are we quite sure that he spoke so innocently. The minds of
+children are not always so transparent as we believe; and it is
+difficult to say when they understand matters that go on about them,
+and when they do not. That mysterious growth that is constantly going
+on within them, has unexpected seasons of bursting into flower, and
+they suddenly mass together the disconnected fragments of information
+they have acquired and intuitively attain the result.
+
+Had Jack, therefore, no perception of the hidden rage that filled the
+heart of his professor when he questioned him in regard to their kind
+friend? Jack did not like D’Argenton; in addition to his first dislike,
+he was now actuated by strong jealousy. His mother was too much
+occupied by this man. When he passed the day with her, she in her turn
+plied him with questions, and asked if his teacher never spoke to him
+of her.
+
+“Never,” said Jack, calmly. And yet that very day D’Argenton had
+desired him to present his compliments to the countess, with a copy of
+his poems; but Jack at first forgot the volume, and finally lost it, as
+much from cunning as from heedlessness.
+
+Thus, while these two dissimilar natures were attracted toward each
+other, the child stood between them suspicious and defiant, as if he
+already foresaw what the future would bring about.
+
+Every two weeks Jack dined with his mother, sometimes alone with her,
+sometimes with their friend. They went to the theatre in the evening,
+or to a concert, and Jack was sent back to school with his pockets full
+of dainties, in which the other children shared.
+
+One evening, as he entered his mother’s house, he saw the dining-table
+laid for three, and a gorgeous display of flowers and crystal. His
+mother met him, exquisitely dressed, wearing in her hair sprays of
+white lilacs, like those that filled the vases. The blazing fire alone
+lighted the salon, into which she gayly drew the boy, as she said,
+“Guess who is here!”
+
+“O, I know very well!” exclaimed Jack in delight; “it is our good
+friend.”
+
+But it was D’Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa, near
+the fire. The enemy was in Jack’s own seat, and the child was so
+overwhelmed by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained
+his tears. There was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all
+three. Just then the door was thrown open, and dinner announced by
+Augustin. The dinner was long and tedious to little Jack. Have you ever
+felt so entirely out of place that you would have gladly disappeared
+from off the face of the globe, painfully conscious, withal, that had
+you so vanished, no one would have missed you? When Jack spoke, no one
+listened; his questions were unheard and his wants unheeded. The
+conversation between his mother and D’Argenton was incomprehensible to
+him, although he saw that his mother blushed more than once, and
+hastily raised her glass to her lips as if to conceal her rising color.
+Where were those gay little dinners when Jack sat close at his mother’s
+side and reigned an absolute king at the table? This recollection came
+to the boy’s mind just as Madame de Barancy offered a superb pear to
+D’Argenton.
+
+“That came from our friend at Tours,” said Jack, maliciously.
+
+D’Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate
+with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her
+child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did not
+venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary
+continuation of the repast.
+
+Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone
+that indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of
+his early home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors
+where the wind raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles
+in the great city, the constant obstacles thrown in the way of the
+development of his genius, of his jealous rivals and literary enemies,
+and of the terrible epigrams which he had hurled upon them.
+
+“Then I uttered these stinging words.” This time she did not interrupt
+him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that
+when he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be
+heard in the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of
+the leaves of the album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over.
+Suddenly she rose with a start.
+
+“Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is
+quite time.”
+
+“O, mamma!” said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he
+generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his
+mother, nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene
+and laughing eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
+
+She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
+
+“Good night, my child!” said D’Argenton, and he drew the child toward
+him as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of repulsion,
+turned aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
+
+“I cannot! I cannot!” he murmured, throwing himself back in his
+arm-chair and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
+
+Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
+
+“Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant.” And while Madame de Barancy
+sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to
+his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor
+installed in his mother’s chimney-corner, said to himself, “He is very
+comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!”
+
+In D’Argenton’s exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there was
+certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very
+jealous of the child, who represented to him Ida’s past, not that the
+poet was profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary,
+loved himself in her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image
+which he saw reflected in her clear eyes. But D’Argenton would have
+preferred to be the first to disturb those depths.
+
+But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. “Why did I not
+know him earlier?” she said to herself over and over again.
+
+“She ought to understand by this time,” said D’Argenton, sulkily, “that
+I do not wish to see that boy.”
+
+But even for her poet’s sake Ida could not keep her child away from her
+entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon
+Jack from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the
+smallest of the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
+
+As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she
+lived, she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D’Argenton.
+
+“You will see,” she said, “how I can aid you. I can work, and, besides,
+I shall not be completely penniless.”
+
+But D’Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent
+enthusiasm and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
+
+“No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and then—”
+
+He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose
+heir he would unquestionably be. “The good old lady was very old,” he
+added. And the two, Ida and D’Argenton, made a great many plans for the
+days that were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far
+away from Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They
+would have a little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed
+this legend: _Parva domus, magna quies_. There he could work, write a
+book—a novel, and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in
+readiness, but that was all.
+
+Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps
+a member of the Academy—though, to be sure, that institution was
+mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
+
+“That is nothing!” said Ida; “you must be a member!” and she saw
+herself already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly
+dressed, as befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited,
+however, they regaled themselves on the pears sent by “the kind friend,
+who was certainly the best and least suspicious of men.”
+
+D’Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious;
+but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so
+many little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in
+tears.
+
+Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in
+their lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing
+estrangement between Moronval and his professor of literature. The
+principal, daily expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the
+Review, suspected D’Argenton of influencing her against the project,
+and this belief he ended by expressing to the poet.
+
+One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the
+windows with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky
+so blue, that he longed for liberty and out-door life.
+
+The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the
+garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible
+life.
+
+From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of
+singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days
+when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to
+drive away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the
+length of the nights and the smoke of the fires.
+
+While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother
+entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great
+care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not
+bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval’s permission first;
+but as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that
+permission was easily granted.
+
+“How jolly!” cried Jack; “how jolly!” and while his mother casually
+informed Moronval that M. d’Argenton had told her the evening previous
+that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy
+ran to change his dress. On his way he met Mâdou, who, sad and lonely,
+was busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out
+that the air was soft and the sunshine warm. On seeing him, Jack had a
+bright idea.
+
+“O, mamma, if we could take Mâdou!”
+
+This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were
+the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame
+Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy’s place.
+
+“Mâdou! Mâdou!” cried the child, rushing toward him. “Quick, dress
+yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to
+breakfast in the Bois!”
+
+There was a moment of confusion. Mâdou stood still in amazement, while
+Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this
+emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy,
+excited like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving
+him details in regard to the illness of D’Argenton’s aunt.
+
+At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the
+victoria, and Mâdou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly
+be regarded as a royal one, but Mâdou was satisfied. The drive itself
+was charming, the Avenue de l’Imperatrice was filled with people
+driving, riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene.
+Babies, in their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet
+solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully dressed, with their
+tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of
+delight, kissed his mother, and pulled Mâdou by the sleeve.
+
+“Are you happy, Mâdou?”
+
+“Yes, sir, very happy,” was the answer. They reached the Bois, in
+places quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the
+tops of the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it
+looked like smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been
+covered with snow half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful
+lilacs whose leaf-buds were only beginning to swell. The carriage drew
+up at the restaurant, and while the breakfast ordered by Madame de
+Barancy was in course of preparation, she and the children took a walk
+to the lake. At this early hour there were few of those superb
+equipages to be seen that appeared later in the day. The lake was
+lovely, with white swans dotting it here and there, and now and then a
+gentle ripple shook its surface, and miniature waves dashed against the
+fringe of old willows on one side.
+
+What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The
+children attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed
+incessantly from the beginning to the end of the repast.
+
+When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the
+_Jardin d’Acclimation_.
+
+“That is a splendid idea,” said Jack, “for Mâdou has never been there,
+and won’t he be amused!”
+
+They drove through _La Grande Allée_ in the almost deserted garden,
+which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the
+animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive
+eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought
+from the restaurant.
+
+Mâdou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify
+Jack, now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine
+the blue ticket over the little inclosures to recognize certain animals
+from his own land. With mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the
+kangaroos, and seemed to suffer in seeing them in the limited space
+which they covered in three leaps.
+
+He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were
+inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and
+cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary
+exotic; but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even
+a green leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and Mâdou thought of the
+Academy Moronval and of himself. The plumage of the birds was dull and
+torn; they told a tale of past battles, of dismal flutterings against
+the bars of their prison-house. Even the rose-colored flamingoes and
+the long-billed ibex, who seem associated with the Nile and the desert
+and the immovable sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly commonplace aspect
+among the white peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that paddled at
+ease in their miniature pond.
+
+By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly
+appeared at the end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle
+that Mâdou stood still in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two
+elephants, who were slowly approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and
+bearing on their broad backs a crowd of women with light umbrellas, of
+children with straw hats and colored ribbons. Following the elephant
+came a giraffe carrying his small and haughty head very high. This
+singular caravan wound through the circuitous road, with many nervous
+laughs and terrified cries.
+
+Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief
+upon the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their
+trunks either toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the
+spectators, shaking their long ears when gently touched by some child,
+or by the umbrella of some laughing girl on their backs.
+
+“What is the matter, Mâdou; you tremble. Are you ill?” asked Jack.
+Mâdou was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he
+too could mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic
+in expression. Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his
+mother, whom he considered too grave for this fête-day. He liked to
+walk close at her side, or linger behind her in the dust of her long
+silken skirts, which she disdained to lift. They seated themselves, and
+watched the little black boy climb on the back of the elephant. Once
+there, the child seemed in his native place. He was no longer an exile,
+nor the awkward schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated by his
+menial duties and by his master’s tyranny. He seemed imbued with new
+life, and his eyes sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little
+king! Two or three times he went around the garden. “Again! again!” he
+cried, and over the little bridge, between the inclosures of the
+kangaroos and other animals, he went to and fro, excited almost to
+madness by the heavy long strides of the elephant. Kérika, Dahomey,
+war-like scenes, and the hunt, all returned to his memory. He spoke to
+the elephant in his native tongue, and as he heard the sweet African
+voice, the huge creature shut his eyes with delight and trumpeted his
+pleasure. The zebras neighed, and the antelopes started in terror,
+while from the great cage of tropical birds, where the sun shone most
+fully, came warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant screams, and
+an enraged chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small scale, of a
+primeval forest in the tropics.
+
+But it was growing late. Mâdou must awaken from this beautiful dream.
+Besides, as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose
+keen and cold, as so often happens in the early spring. This wintry
+chill affected the spirits of the children, and they grew strangely
+quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She
+had something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty
+in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment.
+Then she took Jack’s hand in hers. “Listen, child, I have some bad news
+to tell you!”
+
+He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he
+turned his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low,
+quick voice,—
+
+“I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you
+behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I
+shall not be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes,
+very soon, I promise you.” And she threw out mysterious hints of a
+fortune to come, and money affairs, and other things that were not at
+all interesting to the child, who in reality paid little attention to
+her words, for he was weeping silently but chokingly. The gay streets
+seemed no longer the Paris of the morning, the sunshine was gone, the
+flowers on the corner-stands were faded, and all was very dreary, for
+he saw through eyes dim with tears, and the child was about to lose his
+mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MÂDOU’S FLIGHT.
+
+
+Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D’Argenton.
+
+The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed
+the position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation
+as Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added
+that Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite
+time, and that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval’s paternal
+care. In case of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be
+forwarded to the mother under cover to D’Argenton.
+
+“The paternal care of Moronval!” Had the poet laughed aloud as he
+penned these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child’s fate at
+the academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left
+Paris, and that nothing more was to be expected from her?
+
+The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage,
+which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado
+might have done in the tropics.
+
+The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless
+fellow, who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a
+woman of her years—for she was by no means in her earliest youth—should
+be so heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
+
+But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, “Wait a while,
+young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you.”
+
+But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished
+project, he was more indignant that D’Argenton and Ida should have made
+use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to
+the Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no
+nearer elucidation.
+
+Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that
+she had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to
+be given up, and the furniture sold.
+
+“Ah! sir,” said Constant, mournfully, “it was an unfortunate day for us
+when we set foot in your old barracks!”
+
+The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of the
+next quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding,
+therefore, that the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined
+to put an end to all the indulgences with which he had been treated.
+Poor Jack after this day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as
+the butt for all the teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him.
+There were constant allusions made to D’Argenton: he was selfish and
+vain, a man totally without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more
+than doubtful; the château in the mountains, of which he discoursed so
+fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the
+man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented him
+from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly
+laughed at each one of Moronval’s witticisms. The fact was, that Jack
+dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks
+invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full
+meaning, but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far
+from kindly. Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation
+by a friendly word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand.
+During his absence, she administered a reproof to her husband and his
+friends.
+
+“Pshaw!” said Labassandre, “he does not understand.” Perhaps he did not
+fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.
+
+He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not
+the same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when
+one of the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a
+rage. The boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the
+scene, and Jack for the first time was severely flogged.
+
+From that day the charm was broken, and Jack’s daily life did not
+greatly differ from that of Mâdou, who was at this time very unhappy.
+The pleasant weather, and the day at the _Jardin d’Aclimation_, had
+given him a terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took
+the form of a sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all
+this was changed, the boy’s eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about
+the house and the garden as if in a dream.
+
+One night the black boy was undressing, and Jack heard him singing to
+himself in a language that was strange.
+
+“What are you singing, Mâdou?”
+
+“I am not singing, sir; I’m talking negro talk!” and Mâdou confided to
+his friend his intention of running away from school. He had thought of
+it for some time, and was only waiting for pleasant weather; and now he
+meant to go to Dahomey, and find Kérika. If Jack would go with him,
+they would go to Marseilles on foot, and then go on board some vessel.
+Nothing could happen to them, for he had his amulet all safe. Jack made
+many objections. Dahomey had no charms for him. He thought of the
+copper basin, and the terrible heads, with an emotion of sick horror;
+and, besides, how could he go so far from his mother?
+
+“Good,” said Mâdou; “you can remain here, and I will go alone.”
+
+“And when?”
+
+“To-morrow,” answered the negro, resolutely closing his eyes as if he
+knew that he would need all the strength that sleep could give him.
+
+The next morning, when Jack passed through the large recitation-room,
+he saw Mâdou busily scrubbing the floor, and concluded that he had
+relinquished his project.
+
+The classes were busy for an hour or two, when Moronval appeared.
+“Where is Mâdou?” he asked abruptly. “He has gone to market,” answered
+madame. Jack, however, said to himself that Mâdou would not return.
+
+In a little while Moronval came back and asked the same question. His
+wife answered, uneasily, that she could not understand the boy’s
+prolonged absence.
+
+Dinner-time came, but no Mâdou, no vegetables, and no meat.
+
+“Something must have happened,” said Madame Moronval, more indulgent
+than her impatient husband, who paced up and down the corridor with his
+rod in his hand, while the hungry schoolboys were quite ready to devour
+each other. Finally, Madame Moronval sallied forth herself to buy some
+provisions; and on her return, burdened with packages, she was greeted
+by an enthusiastic shout from the children, who, when the fierceness of
+their hunger abated, ventured on surmises as to Mâdou’s whereabouts.
+Moronval shrewdly suspected the truth. “How much money did he have?” he
+asked.
+
+“Fifteen francs,” was his wife’s timid answer.
+
+“Fifteen francs! Then it is certain he has run away!”
+
+“But where has he gone?” asked the doctor; “he could hardly reach
+Dahomey with that amount.”
+
+Moronval scowled fiercely, and went to report to the police, for it was
+very essential to him that the child should be found, or, at all
+events, prevented from reaching Marseilles. Moronval was in wholesome
+fear of Monsieur Bonfils. “The world is so wicked, you know,” he said
+to his wife; “the boy might make some complaints which would injure the
+school.” Consequently, in making his report at the police office, he
+stated that Mâdou had carried away a large sum. “But,” he added,
+assuming an air of indifference, “the money part of the matter is of
+very little importance, compared to the dangers that the poor child
+runs—this dethroned king without country or people;” and Moronval
+dashed away a tear.
+
+“We will find him, my good sir,” said the official; “have no anxiety.”
+
+But Moronval was anxious, nevertheless, and so agitated, that, instead
+of awaiting quietly at home the result of the investigations, as he had
+been advised to do, he started out himself, with all the children to
+join in the search.
+
+They went to each one of the gates, interrogated the custom-house
+officers, and gave them a description of Mâdou. Then the party repaired
+to the police court, for Moronval had the singular idea that in this
+way his pupils might learn something of Parisian life. The children,
+fortunately, were too young to understand all they saw, but they
+carried away with them a most sinister impression. Jack especially, who
+was the most intelligent of the boys, returned to the academy with a
+heavy heart, shocked at the glimpse he had caught of this under-current
+of life. Over and over again he said to himself, “Where can Mâdou be?”
+
+Then the child consoled himself with the thought that the negro was far
+on the road to Marseilles; which road little Jack pictured to himself
+as running straight as an arrow, with the sea at its termination, and
+the vessel lying ready to sail. Only one thing disturbed him in regard
+to Mâdou’s journey: the weather, that had been so fine the day of his
+departure, had suddenly changed; and now the rain fell in
+torrents,—hail too, and even snow; and the wind blew around their frail
+dwelling, causing the poor little children of the sun to shiver in
+their sleep, and dream of a rocking ship and a heavy sea. Curled up
+under his blankets one night, listening to the howling of the fierce
+wind, Jack thought of his friend, imagined him half frozen lying under
+a tree, his thin clothing thoroughly wet. But the reality was worse
+than this.
+
+“He is found!” cried Moronval, rushing into the dining-room, one
+morning. “He is found; I have just been notified by the police. Give me
+my hat and my cane!”
+
+He was in a state of great excitement. As much from the desire to
+flatter the master, as from the love of noise that characterizes boys,
+the children hailed this news with a wild hurrah. Jack did not speak,
+but sighed as he said to himself, “Poor Mâdou!”
+
+Mâdou had been, in fact, at the station-house since the evening before.
+It was there, amid criminals of all grades, that the presumptive heir
+of the kingdom of Dahomey was found by his excellent tutor.
+
+“Ah, my unfortunate child! have I found you at last?”
+
+The worthy Moronval could say no more; and, on seeing him throw his
+long arms eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector
+of police could not help thinking: “At last I have seen one teacher who
+loves his pupils!” Mâdou, however, displayed the utmost indifference.
+His face was positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of
+apprehension was visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to see
+nothing; his face was pale—and the pallor of a negro is something
+appalling. He was covered with mud from head to foot, and looked like
+some amphibious animal who, after swimming in the water, had rolled in
+the mud on the shore. No hat, and no shoes. What had happened to him?
+He alone could have told you, and he would not speak. The policeman
+said, that, making his rounds the evening before, he had found the boy
+hidden in a lime-kiln, that he was half-starved, and stupefied by the
+excessive heat. Why had he lingered in Paris?
+
+This question Moronval did not ask; nor, indeed, did he speak one word
+to Mâdou during their long drive to the academy. The boy was so worn
+out and crushed that he sank into a corner, while Moronval glanced at
+him occasionally with an expression of rage that at any other time
+would have terrified him.
+
+Moronval’s glance was like a keen rapier, with a flash like lightning,
+crossing a poor little broken blade, shivered and rusty.
+
+When Jack saw the pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could
+hardly recognize the little king. Mâdou, as he passed, said good
+morning in so mournful a tone that Jack’s eyes filled with tears. The
+children saw nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went
+on in their usual routine, and at intervals the sound of a lash was
+heard, and heavy groans from Moronval’s private study. Madame Moronval
+turned pale, and the book she held trembled. Even when all was again
+silent, Jack fancied that he still heard the groans.
+
+At dinner the principal was radiant, though seemingly exhausted by
+fatigue. “The little wretch!” he said to Dr. Hirsch and his wife. “The
+little wretch! Just, see the state he has put me into!”
+
+That night Jack found the bed next to his occupied. Poor Mâdou had put
+his master into such a state that he himself had not been able to go to
+bed without assistance. Madame Moronval and Dr. Hirsch were there
+watching the lad, whose sleep was broken by those heavy sighs and sobs
+common to children after a day of painful excitement.
+
+“Then, Dr. Hirsch, you don’t think him ill?” asked Madame Moronval,
+anxiously.
+
+“Not in the least, madame; that race has a covering like a monitor!”
+
+When they were alone, Jack took Mâdou’s hand and found it as burning
+hot as a brick from the furnace. “Dear Mâdou,” he whispered. Mâdou half
+opened his eyes and looked at his friend with an expression of utter
+discouragement.
+
+“It’s all over with Mâdou,” he murmured; “Mâdou has lost his Gri-gri,
+and will never see Dahomey again.”
+
+This was the reason, then, that he had not left Paris. Two hours after
+he had run away from the academy, the fifteen francs of market-money
+and his medal had been stolen from him. Then, relinquishing all idea of
+Marseilles, of the ship and of the sea, knowing that without his
+Gri-gri Dahomey was unattainable, Mâdou had spent eight days and nights
+in the lowest depths of Paris, looking for his amulet. Fearing that
+Moronval would discover his whereabouts, he hid during the day and
+ventured into the streets only after nightfall. He slept by the side of
+piles of bricks and mortar, which partly protected him from the wind;
+or crawled into an open doorway, or under the arches of a bridge.
+
+Favored by his size and by his color, Mâdou glided about almost unseen;
+he had associated with criminals of all classes, and had escaped
+without contamination, for he thought only of finding his amulet. He
+had shared a crust of bread with assassins, and drank with robbers; but
+the little king escaped from these dangers as he had from others in
+Dahomey, where, when hunting with Kérika, he had been awakened by the
+trumpeting of elephants and the roaring of wild beasts, and saw, under
+some gigantic tree, the dim shadow of some strange animal passing
+between himself and the bivouac fires; or caught a glimpse of some
+great snake slowly winding through the underbrush. But the monsters to
+be found in Paris are more terrible even than those in the African
+forests; or they would have been, had he understood the dangers he
+incurred. But he could not find his Gri-gri. Mâdou could not talk much,
+his exhaustion was so great; and Jack fell asleep with his curiosity
+but partially satisfied.
+
+In the middle of the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from
+Mâdou, who was singing and talking in his own language with frightful
+volubility. Delirium had begun.
+
+In the morning, Dr. Hirsch announced that Mâdou was very ill. “A
+brain-fever!” he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
+
+This Dr. Hirsch was a terrible man. His head was stuffed full of all
+sorts of Utopian ideas, of impracticable theories, and notions
+absolutely without method. His studies had been too desultory to amount
+to anything. He had mastered a few Latin phrases, and covered his real
+ignorance by a smattering of the science of medicine as practised among
+the Indians and the Chinese. He even had a strong leaning toward the
+magic arts, and when a human life was intrusted to his care he took
+that opportunity to try some experiments. Madame Moronval was inclined
+to call in another physician, but the principal, less compassionate,
+and unwilling to incur the additional expense, determined to leave the
+case solely in the hands of Dr. Hirsch. Wishing to have no
+interference, this singular physician pretended that the disease was
+contagious, and ordered Mâdou’s bed to be placed at the end of the
+garden in an old hot-house. For a week he tried on his little victim
+every drug he had ever heard of, the child making no more resistance
+than a sick dog would have done. When the doctor, armed with his
+bottles and his powders, entered the hot-house, the “children of the
+sun,” to whose minds a physician was always more or less of a magician,
+gathered about the door and listened, saying to each other in awed
+tones, “What is he going to do now to Mâdou?” But the doctor locked the
+door, and peremptorily ordered the children from its vicinity, telling
+them that they would be ill too, that Mâdou’s illness was contagious;
+and this last idea added additional mystery to that corner of the
+garden.
+
+Jack, nevertheless, desired to see his friend so much that he alone of
+all the boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been
+too closely guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the
+doctor had gone in search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into
+the improvised infirmary.
+
+It was one of those half rustic buildings which are used as a shelter
+for rakes and hoes, or even to house some tender plants. Close by the
+side of Mâdou’s iron bed, in the corner, was a pile of earthen
+flowerpots; a broken trellis, some panes of glass, and a bundle of
+dried roots, completed the dismal picture; and in the chimney, as if
+for the protection of some fragile tropical plant, flickered a tiny
+fire.
+
+Mâdou was not asleep. His poor little thin face had still the same
+expression of absolute indifference. His black hands, tightly clenched,
+lay on the outside of the bedclothes. There was a look of a sick animal
+in his whole attitude, and in the manner in which he turned his face
+toward the wall, as if an invisible road was open to his eyes through
+the white stones, and every chink in the wall had become a brilliant
+outlook toward a country known to him alone.
+
+Jack whispered, “It is I, Mâdou,—little Jack.”
+
+The child looked at him vacantly; he no longer understood the French
+language. In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct
+had effaced all that art had inculcated, and Mâdou understood and spoke
+nothing save his savage dialect. At this moment, another of “the
+children of the sun,” Said, encouraged by Jack’s example, followed him
+into the sick-room, but, startled and disturbed by the strange scene,
+retreated to the doorway, and stood with affrighted eyes.
+
+Mâdou drew one long, shivering sigh.
+
+“He is going to sleep, I think,” whispered Said, shivering with terror;
+for, older than Jack, he intuitively felt the cold blast from the wings
+of Death, which already fanned the brow of the sick boy.
+
+“Let us go,” said Jack, pale and troubled; and they hastily ran down
+the garden-walk, leaving their comrade alone in the twilight. Night
+came on. In that silent room, which the children had left, the fire
+crackled cheerfully, burning brightly, and illuminating every corner as
+if in search of something that was hidden. The light flickered on the
+ceiling and was reflected on every small window-pane, glanced over the
+little bed, and brought out the color of Mâdou’s red sleeve, until
+tired apparently of its fruitless search, discouraged and exhausted,
+and convinced that its heat was useless, for no one was there to warm.
+The fire gave one last expiring flicker, and then, like the poor little
+half-frozen king, who had so loved it, sank into eternal rest.
+
+Poor Mâdou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for
+Moronval hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal
+prince or of a servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on
+the other, vanity and policy had a word to say. After much indecision,
+Moronval decided to strike a great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he
+had not profited much by the prince living, he might gain something
+from him dead. So a pompous funeral was arranged. All the daily papers
+published a biography of the little king of Dahomey. It was a short
+one, to be sure, but lengthened by a panegyric of the Moronval
+Institute, and of its principal. The discipline of the establishment
+was commended; its hygienic regulations, the peculiar skill of its
+medical adviser,—nothing had been forgotten, and the unanimity of the
+eulogiums was something quite touching.
+
+One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its
+innumerable occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one
+eye open to all that goes on,—Paris saw on its principal boulevards a
+singular procession. Four black boys walked by the side of a bier.
+Behind, a taller lad, a tone lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,—our
+friend Said,—carried on a velvet cushion an order or two, some royal
+insignia fantastic in character. Then came Moronval, with Jack and the
+other schoolboys. The professors followed with the habitués of the
+house, the literary men whom we met at the soiree. How shabby were
+these last! How many worn-out coats and worn-out hearts were there! How
+many disappointed hopes and unattainable ambitions! All these slowly
+marched on, embarrassed by the full light of day to which they were
+unaccustomed; and this melancholy escort precisely suited the little
+deposed king. Were not all of these persons pretendents, too, to some
+imaginary kingdom to which they would never succeed? Where but in Paris
+could such a funeral be seen? A king of Dahomey escorted to the grave
+by a procession of Bohemians!
+
+To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to
+fall, as if fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather,
+even to the very grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been
+lowered, Moronval pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it
+would not have warmed you, my poor Mâdou! Moronval spoke of the virtues
+and estimable qualities of the defunct, of the model sovereign he would
+one day have made had he lived. To those who had been familiar with
+that pitiful little face, who had seen the child abased by servitude,
+Moronval’s discourse was at once heart-breaking and absurd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+JACK’S DEPARTURE.
+
+
+The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The
+death of his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and
+the lonely deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew
+too that now he must bear alone all Moronval’s whims and caprices, for
+the other pupils all had some one who came occasionally to see them,
+and who would report any brutalities of which they were the victims.
+Jack’s mother never wrote to him nowadays, and no one at the Institute
+knew even where she was. Ah! had he but been able to ascertain, how
+quickly would the child have gone to her, and told her all his sorrows.
+Jack thought of all this as they returned from the cemetery.
+Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch were in front of him, talking to each other.
+
+“She is in Paris,” said Labassandre, “for I saw her yesterday.”
+
+Jack listened eagerly.
+
+“And was he with her?”
+
+She—he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet Jack
+knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet
+not have hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was
+meditating his escape.
+
+Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head
+of the procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with
+a rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little
+boys, whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked.
+They would increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop
+off again. Jack contrived to linger more and more among the last.
+
+“Come!” cried Moronval.
+
+“Come, come!” repeated Said.
+
+At the entrance of the Champs Elysées Saïd turned for the last time,
+gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the
+Egyptian’s arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!
+
+At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any
+look of haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he
+drew nearer the Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took
+possession of him, and his little feet, in spite of himself, went
+faster and faster. Would the house be closed? And if Labassandre were
+mistaken, and his mother not in Paris, what would become of him? The
+alternative of a return to the academy never occurred to him. Indeed,
+if he had thought of it, the remembrance of the heavy blows and
+heartfelt sobs that he had heard all one afternoon would have filled
+him with terror.
+
+“She is there,” cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all
+the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when
+his mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage
+should take her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the
+vestibule, he was struck by something extraordinary in its appearance.
+It was full of people all busily talking. Furniture was being carried
+away: sofas and chairs, covered for a boudoir in such faint and
+delicate hues that in the broad light of day they looked faded. A
+mirror, framed in silver, and ornamented with cupids, was leaning
+against one of the stone pillars; a jardinière without flowers, and
+curtains that had been taken down and thrown over a chair, were near
+by. Several women richly dressed were talking together of the merits of
+a crystal chandelier.
+
+Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could
+hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The
+visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard,
+felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady,
+without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord
+or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was
+she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in
+the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted
+them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that
+said,—
+
+“A child’s bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!”
+
+And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough
+men. He wished to exclaim,
+
+“The bed is mine—my very own—I will not have it touched;” but a certain
+feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room looking
+for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
+
+“What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?”
+
+It was Constant, his mother’s maid—Constant, in her Sunday dress,
+wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
+
+“Where is mamma?” asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so
+pitiful and troubled that the woman’s heart was touched.
+
+“Your mother is not here, my poor child,” she said.
+
+“But where is she? And what are all these people doing?”
+
+“They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen,
+Master Jack, we can talk better there.”
+
+There was quite a party in the kitchen,—the old cook, Augustin, and
+several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne
+around the same table where Jack’s future had been one evening decided.
+The child’s arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them
+all, for the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother.
+As he was afraid that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack
+took good care not to say that he had run away, and merely spoke of an
+imaginary permission he had received to enable him to visit his mother.
+
+“She is not here, Master Jack,” said Constant, “and I really do not
+know whether I ought—” Then, interrupting herself, Constant exclaimed,
+“O! it is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his mother!”
+
+Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.
+
+The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. “Is it far
+from here?” he asked.
+
+“Eight good leagues,” answered Augustin.
+
+But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated
+discussion as to the route to be taken to reach _Etiolles_. Jack
+listened eagerly, for he had already decided to attempt the journey
+alone and on foot.
+
+“Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a wood,”
+said Constant.
+
+Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This
+and the name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The
+distance did not frighten him. “I can walk all night,” he said to
+himself, “even if my legs are little.” Then he spoke aloud. “I must go
+now,” he said, “I must go back to school.” One question, however,
+burned on his lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this
+powerful barrier between his mother and himself? He dared not ask
+Constant, however. Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet
+felt very keenly that this was not the best side of his mother’s life,
+and he avoided all mention of it.
+
+The servants said “good-bye,” the coachman shook hands with him, and
+then the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He
+did not linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest
+for him, but hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey
+that would end by placing him with his mother.
+
+Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned as
+the first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find,
+although it was a good distance off, but the fear of being caught by
+Moronval spurred him on. An inquisitive look from a policeman startled
+him, a shadow on the wall, or a hurried step behind, made his heart
+beat, and over and above the noise and confusion of the streets he
+seemed to hear the cry of “Stop him! Stop him!” At last he climbed over
+the bank and began to run on the narrow path by the water’s edge. The
+day was coming to an end. The river was very high and yellow from
+recent rains, the water rolled heavily against the arches of the
+bridge, and the wind curled it in little waves, the tops of which were
+just touched by the level rays of the setting sun. Women passed him
+bearing baskets of wet linen, fishermen drew in their lines, and a
+whole river-side population, sailors and bargemen, with their rounded
+shoulders and woollen hoods, hurried past him. With these there was
+still another class, rough and ferocious of aspect, who were quite
+capable of pulling you out of the Seine for fifteen francs, and of
+throwing you in again for a hundred sous. Occasionally one of these men
+would turn to look at this slender schoolboy who seemed in such a
+hurry.
+
+The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place it
+was black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal.
+Farther on, similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor
+of fresh orchards was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a
+great harbor; steamboats were loading at the wharves; a few rods more,
+and a group of old trees bathed their distorted roots in a limpid
+stream, and one could easily fancy one’s self twenty leagues from
+Paris, and in an earlier century.
+
+But night was close at hand.
+
+The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted,
+and illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very
+darkest body of water.
+
+But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long
+wharf, covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had
+reached Bercy, but it was night, and he was filled with terror lest he
+should be stopped at the gate; but the little fugitive was hardly
+noticed. He passed the barrier without hindrance, and soon found
+himself in a long, narrow street, solitary and dimly lighted. While the
+child was in the life and motion of the city, he was terrified only by
+one thought, and that was that Moronval would find him. Now he was
+still afraid, but his fear was of another character—born of silence and
+solitude.
+
+Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The
+street was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly
+toiled on, these buildings became farther and farther apart, and
+considerably lower in height. Although barely eight o’clock, this road
+was almost deserted. Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the
+damp ground, while the dismal howling of a dog added to the
+cheerlessness of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step that he took
+led him further from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the
+last wineshop. A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to
+the child the limits of the inhabited world.
+
+After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go
+into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated
+at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking and
+talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had
+hideous faces—such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day
+they were looking for Mâdou. The woman, above all, was frightful.
+
+“What does he want?” said one of the men.
+
+The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of
+light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The
+darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until
+he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after
+field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the
+monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of
+reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith’s forge. The child
+stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of
+doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now
+suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what
+he had undertaken.
+
+Had he strength enough to reach his mother?
+
+He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of
+the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the
+spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was
+stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow
+against the white stones.
+
+Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step
+forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and
+to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the
+wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally
+repulsive.
+
+The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these
+frightful beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further
+progress. If he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt
+certain that he should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the
+child from this stupor. An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing
+a lantern, suddenly appeared.
+
+“Good evening, gentlemen,” said the child, gently, breathless with
+emotion.
+
+The soldier who carried the lantern raised it in the direction of the
+voice.
+
+“This is a bad hour to travel, my boy,” remarked the officer; “are you
+going far?”
+
+“O, no, sir; not very far,” answered Jack, who did not care to tell the
+truth.
+
+“Ah, well! we can go on together as far as Charenton.”
+
+What a delight it was to the child to walk for an hour at the side of
+these two honest soldiers, to regulate his steps by theirs, and to see
+the cheerful light from the lantern! From the soldier, too, he casually
+learned that he was on the right road.
+
+“Now we are at home,” said the officer, halting suddenly. “Good night.
+And take my advice, my lad, and don’t travel alone again at night—it is
+not safe.” And with these parting words, the men turned up a narrow
+lane, swinging the lantern, leaving Jack alone at the entrance of the
+principal street in Charenton. The child wandered on until he found
+himself on the quay; he crossed a bridge which seemed to him to be
+thrown over an abyss, so profound were the depths below. He lingered
+for a moment, but rough voices singing and laughing so startled him
+that he took to his heels and ran until he was out of breath, and was
+again in the open fields. He turned and looked back; the red light of
+the great city was still reflected on the horizon. Afar off he heard
+the grinding of wheels. “Good!” said the child; “something is coming.”
+But nothing appeared. And the invisible wagon, whose wheels moved
+apparently with difficulty, turned down some unseen lane.
+
+Jack toiled on slowly. Who was that man that stood waiting for him at
+the turning of the road? One man! Nay, there were two or three. But
+they were trees,—tall, slender poplars,—or a clump of elms—those lovely
+old elms which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was
+environed by the mysteries of nature,—nature in the springtime of the
+year, when one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and the
+earth crackle as the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint,
+vague noises bewildered little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme
+with which his mother formerly rocked him to sleep.
+
+It was pitiful to hear the child, alone in the darkness, encouraging
+himself by these reminiscences of his happy, petted infancy. Suddenly
+the little trembling voice stopped.
+
+Something was coming—something blacker than the darkness itself,
+sweeping down on the child as if to swallow him up. Cries were heard;
+human voices, and heavy blows. Then came a drove of enormous cattle,
+which pressed against little Jack on all sides; he feels the damp
+breath from their nostrils; their tails switch violently, and the heat
+of their bodies, and the odor of the stable, is almost stifling. Two
+boys and two dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs bark, and
+the uncouth peasants yell, until the noise is appalling.
+
+As they pass on, the child is absolutely stupefied by terror. These
+animals have gone, but will there not be others? It begins to rain, and
+Jack, in despair, fails on his knees, and wishes to die. The sound of a
+carriage, and the sight of two lamps like friendly eyes coming quickly
+toward him, revives him suddenly. He calls aloud.
+
+The carriage stops. A head, with a travelling cap drawn closely down
+over the ears, bends forward to ascertain the whereabouts of the shrill
+cry.
+
+“I am very tired,” pleaded Jack; “would you be so kind as to let me
+come into your carriage?”
+
+The man hesitated, but a woman’s voice came to the child’s assistance.
+“Ah, what a little fellow! Let him come in here.”
+
+“Where are you going?” asked the traveller.
+
+The child hesitated. Like all fugitives, he wished to hide his
+destination. “To Villeneuve St George,” he answered, nervously.
+
+“Come on, then,” said the man, with gruff kindness.
+
+The child was soon curled up under a comfortable travelling rug,
+between a stout lady and gentleman, who both examined him curiously by
+the light of the little lamp.
+
+Where was he going so late, and all alone, too? Jack would have liked
+to tell the truth, but he was in too great fear of being carried back
+to the Institute. Then he invented a story to suit the occasion. His
+mother was very ill in the country, where she was visiting. He had been
+told of this the night before, and he had at once started off on foot,
+because he had not patience to wait for the next day’s train.
+
+“I understand,” said the lady. And the gentleman looked as if he
+understood also, but made many wise observations as to the imprudence
+of running about the country alone, there were so many dangers. Then he
+was asked in what house in Villeneuve his mother’s friends resided.
+
+“At the end of the town,” answered Jack, promptly,—“the last house on
+the right.”
+
+It was lucky that his rising color was hidden by the darkness. His
+cross-examination, however, was by no means over. The husband and wife
+were great talkers, and, like all great talkers, extremely curious, and
+could not be content until they had learned the private affairs of all
+those persons with whom they came in contact. They kept a little store,
+and each Saturday went into the country to get rid of the dust of the
+week; but they were making money, and some day would live altogether at
+Soisy-sous-Etiolles.
+
+“Is that place far from Etiolles?” asked Jack, with a start.
+
+“O, no, close by,” answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut with
+his whip to his beast.
+
+What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have
+gone on in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary
+legs, and had a comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman’s shawl,
+who asked him, every little while, if he was warm enough.
+
+If he could but summon courage enough to say, “I have told you a
+falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;” but he was
+unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet,
+when they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could
+not restrain a sob.
+
+“Do not cry, my little friend,” said the kind woman; “your mother,
+perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her
+well.”
+
+At the last house the carriage stopped.
+
+“Yes, this is it,” said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind
+good-bye. “How lucky you are to have finished your journey,” said the
+woman; “we have four good leagues before us.”
+
+Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the
+garden-gate. “Good night,” said his new friends, “good night.”
+
+He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward
+the right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it
+with all his speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened by
+inadequate repose, refused all service. At the end of a few rods he
+could go no further, but sank on the roadside with a burst of
+passionate tears, while the hospitable proprietors of the carriage
+rolled comfortably on, without an idea of the despair they had left
+behind them.
+
+He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to
+think or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little
+boy sleeps quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and
+sees something monstrous—a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes
+that send forth a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving
+behind him a train like a comet’s tail. A grove of trees, quite
+unsuspected by Jack, suddenly flashed out clearly; each leaf could have
+been counted. Not until this apparition was far away, and nothing of it
+was visible save a small green light, did Jack know that it was the
+express train.
+
+What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill
+and stiff in every limb. He had dreamed of Mâdou,—dreamed that they lay
+side by side in the cemetery; he saw Mâdou’s face, and shivered at the
+thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from
+this idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened
+in the cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so
+unnaturally heavy, that he fancied Mâdou was at his side or behind him.
+
+The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two.
+Another village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy
+plods on, with swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop.
+Occasionally he meets a huge covered wagon, driver and horses sound
+asleep. He asks, in a timid, tired voice, “Is it far now to Etiolles?”
+No answer comes save a loud snore.
+
+Soon, however, another traveller joins the child—a traveller whose
+praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of
+the frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety
+of expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born
+day.
+
+Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the
+town where his mother was, the clouds divide—are torn apart suddenly,
+as it were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually
+broadens, with a waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light
+with a strength imparted by incipient delirium.
+
+Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting
+to welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and
+looked like a large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness.
+The road no longer dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth
+highway, without ditch or pavement, intended, it seemed, for the
+carriages of the wealthy. Superb residences, with grounds carefully
+kept, were on both sides of this road. Between the white houses and the
+vineyards were green lawns that led down to the river, whose surface
+reflected the tender blue and rosy tints of the sky above. O sun,
+hasten thy coming; warm and comfort the little child, who is so weary
+and so sad!
+
+“Am I far from Etiolles?” asked Jack of some laborers who were going to
+their work.
+
+“No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road
+straight on through the wood.”
+
+The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and
+the rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of
+wild roses was repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old
+oak-trees; the branches shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged
+creatures; and while the last of the shadows faded away, and the
+night-birds with silent, heavy flight hurried to their mysterious
+shelters, a lark suddenly rises from the field with its wings
+wide-spread, and flies higher and higher until it is lost in the sky
+above. The child no longer walks, he crawls; an old woman meets him,
+leading a goat; mechanically he asks if it is far to Etiolles.
+
+The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a
+little stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles
+over the pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he
+sees a steeple and a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will
+reach them. But he is dizzy and falls; through his half-shut eyes he
+sees close at hand a little house covered with vines and roses. Over
+the door, between the wavering shadows of a lilac-tree already in
+flower, he saw an inscription in gold letters:—
+
+PARVA  DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+
+How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the
+blinds are still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are
+awake, for he hears a woman’s voice singing,—singing, too, his own
+cradle-song, in a fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were
+thrown open, and a woman appeared in a white négligée, with her hair
+lightly twisted in a simple knot.
+
+“Mamma, mamma!” cried Jack, in a weak voice.
+
+The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor
+little worn and travel-stained lad.
+
+She screamed “Jack!” and in a moment more was beside him, warming him
+in her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out
+the anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+
+“No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go
+back to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I
+tell you that you shall never go there again, but shall always be with
+me. I will arrange a little room for you to-day, and you will see how
+nice it is to be in the country. We have cows and chickens, and that
+reminds me the poultry has not yet been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a
+while. I will wake you at dinner-time, but first drink this soup. It is
+good, is it not? And to think that while I was calmly sleeping, you
+were alone in the cold and dark night. I must go. My chickens are
+calling me;” and with a loving kiss Ida went off on tiptoe, happy and
+bright, browned somewhat by the sun, and dressed with rather a
+theatrical idea of the proprieties. Her country costume had a great
+deal of black velvet about it, and she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat,
+trimmed with poppies and wheat.
+
+Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by Mère
+Archambauld, his mother’s cook, had restored his strength to a very
+great degree, and he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm,
+satisfied eyes.
+
+There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large,
+furnished in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the
+least gilding. Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the
+pigeons on the roof, and his mother’s voice talking to her chickens,
+lulled him to repose.
+
+One thing troubled him: D’Argenton’s portrait hung at the foot of the
+bed, in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.
+
+The child said to himself, “Where is he? Why have I not seen him?”
+Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue him
+either with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his
+mother.
+
+She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and
+her dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high
+heels.
+
+Mère Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife of
+an employé in the government forests, who attended to the culinary
+department at Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack’s mother
+lived.
+
+“Heavens! how pretty your boy is!” said the old woman, delighted by
+Jack’s appearance.
+
+“Is he not, Mère Archambauld? What did I tell you?”
+
+“But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa.
+Good day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?”
+
+At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.
+
+“Ah, well! if you can’t sleep, let us go and look at the house,” said
+his mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She shook down her
+skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which was
+situated a stone’s throw from the village, and realized better than
+most poets’ dreams those of D’Argenton. The house had been originally a
+shooting-box belonging to a distant château. A new tower had been
+added, and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense
+respectability to the place. They visited the stable and the orchard,
+and finished their examination by a visit to the tower.
+
+A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a
+large, round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular
+divan covered with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious
+old oaken chests, a Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high
+carved chair of the time of Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous
+table covered with papers, composed the furniture of the apartment. A
+charming landscape was visible from the windows, a valley and a river,
+a fresh green wood, and some fair meadow-land.
+
+“It is here that HE works,” said his mother, in an awed tone.
+
+Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.
+
+In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at
+her son,—
+
+“At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I
+shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is
+very fond of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little
+severe sometimes. You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall
+be very unhappy.”
+
+As she spoke she looked at D’Argenton’s picture hung at the end of this
+room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact, a
+portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the
+entrance-hall, and it was a most significant fact that there was no
+other portrait than his in the whole house. “You promise me, Jack, that
+you will love him?”
+
+Jack answered with much effort, “I promise, dear mamma.”
+
+This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in
+that quaint old drawing-room. They heard Mère Archambauld rattling her
+dishes in the kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack
+sat and admired his mother. She thought him much grown and very large
+for his age, and they laughed and kissed each other every few minutes.
+In the evening they had some visitors. Père Archambauld came for his
+wife, as he always did, for they lived in the depths of the forest. He
+took a seat in the dining-room.
+
+“You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the
+health of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you
+sometimes into the forest?”
+
+And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of the
+poachers throughout the country, looked about the room with that
+restless glance acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and
+answered timidly,—
+
+“That I will, Madame d’Argenton.”
+
+This name of D’Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little
+friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or
+dignities of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother’s
+new title, and became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two
+dogs under the table. The old couple had just gone, when a carriage was
+heard at the door.
+
+“Is it you, doctor?” cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,
+
+“Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose
+arrival I have heard.”
+
+Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy
+locks. The doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling
+walk, the result of twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.
+
+“Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through
+my servant, that he and you might require my services.”
+
+What good people these all were, and how thankful little Jack felt that
+he had forever left that detestable school!
+
+When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother
+and child went tranquilly to their bedroom.
+
+There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D’Argenton a long letter, telling
+him of her son’s arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the
+little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her
+side. She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from
+her poet.
+
+Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness,
+and to the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less
+terrible than she had anticipated. In fact, D’Argenton concluded that
+it was well to be relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and
+while disapproving of the escapade, he thought it no great misfortune,
+as the Institution was rapidly running down. “Had he not left it?” As
+to the child’s fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a
+week later, they would consult together as to what plan to adopt.
+
+Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of
+utter happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs and
+the goat, the forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his
+mother for many minutes at a time. He followed her wherever she went,
+laughed when she laughed without asking why, and was altogether
+content.
+
+Another letter. “He will come to-morrow!”
+
+Although D’Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and
+wished to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused
+to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She
+gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each
+been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly
+mortifying.
+
+“You will remain at the end of the garden,” she said, “and do not come
+until I call you.”
+
+The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the
+grinding of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself
+behind the gooseberry bushes. He heard D’Argenton speak. His tone was
+harder, sterner than ever. He heard his mother’s sweet voice answer
+gently, “Yes, my dear—no, my dear.” Then a window in the tower opened.
+“Come, Jack, I want you, my child!”
+
+The boy’s heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D’Argenton was
+leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the
+dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to
+the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate
+to a certain extent. “Jack,” he said, in conclusion, “life is not a
+romance; you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your
+penitence; and if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we
+three may live together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a
+very busy man.—I am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every
+day to your education. If you will study faithfully, I can make of you,
+frivolous as you are by nature, a man like myself.”
+
+“You hear, Jack,” said his mother, alarmed at his silence, “and you
+understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you—”
+
+“Yes, mamma,” stammered Jack.
+
+“Wait, Charlotte,” interrupted D’Argenton; “he must decide for himself:
+I wish to force no one.”
+
+Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to
+find words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying
+nothing. Seeing the child’s embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him
+into the poet’s arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.
+
+“Ah, dear, how good you are!” murmured the poor woman, while the child,
+dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.
+
+In reality Jack’s installation in the house was a relief to the poet.
+He loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also
+because he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the
+name of Ida de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of
+her a complete slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and
+D’Argenton had grown tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at
+least, he would have some one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor,
+and to bully; and it was in this spirit that he undertook Jack’s
+education, for which he made all arrangements with that methodical
+solemnity characteristic of the man’s smallest actions.
+
+The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to the
+wall, and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a
+carefully prepared arrangement for the routine of the day.
+
+“_Rise at six_. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight,
+recitation; from eight to nine,” and so on.
+
+Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose
+shutters hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light
+to see with. Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but
+D’Argenton allowed no such laxity.
+
+D’Argenton’s method of education was too severe for Jack, who was,
+however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in
+his studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to
+whom he had a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by
+the new life he was leading.
+
+Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the
+country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and
+charmed by Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside
+all books until the child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day,
+when he sat in the tower opposite his teacher, he was seized with a
+strong desire to leap out of the window, and rush into the fresh woods
+after the birds that had just flown away, or in search of the squirrel
+of which he had caught a glimpse. What a penance it was to write his
+copy, while the wild roses beckoned him to come and pluck them!
+
+“This child is an idiot,” cried D’Argenton, when to all his questions
+Jack stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if
+he had that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily
+watching. At the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished
+the task, that it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of
+no use to the boy, who neither could nor would learn anything. In
+reality, he was by no means unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had
+established, and which pressed with severity on himself as well as on
+the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She
+preferred to think her boy incapable of study rather than endure the
+daily scenes, and the incessant lectures and tears of this educational
+experiment.
+
+Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as
+her intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future,
+however brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of
+present tranquillity.
+
+Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard:
+“Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight,” &c.
+The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that
+his presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself
+for the whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to
+children and loungers.
+
+He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the
+morning he started for Father Archambauld’s, just as the old man’s
+wife, before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers,
+served her husband’s breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light
+green paper that represented the same hunting-scene over and over
+again.
+
+When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started out
+on a long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants’
+nests, with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the
+trees; the haunts of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the
+young kids. The hawthorn’s white blossoms perfumed the air, and a
+variety of wild flowers enamelled the turf. The forester’s duty was to
+protect the birds and their young broods from all injury, and to
+destroy the moles and snakes. He received a certain sum for the heads
+or tails of these vermin, and every six months carried to Corbiel a bag
+of dry and dusty relics. He would have been better pleased could he
+have taken also the heads of the poachers, with whom he was in constant
+conflict. He had also a great deal of trouble with the peasants who
+injured his trees.
+
+A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a
+tree, the growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched
+them so carefully that he knew all their maladies. One species of fir
+was attacked by tiny worms, which come in some mysterious way by
+thousands. They select the strongest and handsomest specimens, and take
+possession of them. The trees have only their resinous sap as a weapon
+of defence. This sap they pour over their enemies, and over their eggs
+deposited in the crevices of the bark. Jack watched this unequal
+contest with the greatest interest, and saw the slow dropping of these
+odorous tears. Sometimes the fir-tree won the victory, but too often it
+perished and withered slowly, until at last the giant of the forest;
+whose lofty top had been the haunt of singing-birds, where bees had
+made their home, and which had sheltered a thousand different lives,
+stood white and ghastly as if struck by lightning.
+
+During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion
+talked very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable
+sounds about them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it
+touched. Among the pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the
+birches and aspens, it rattled the leaves like castanets; while from
+the borders of the ponds, which were numerous in this part of the
+forest, came gentle rustlings from the long, slender, silken-coated
+reeds. Jack learned to distinguish all these sounds and to love them.
+
+The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the
+peasants, who saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had
+sworn eternal hatred. Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats
+respectfully enough to Jack when they met him with Father Archambauld,
+but when he was alone, they shook their fists at him with horrible
+oaths.
+
+There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very
+dreams of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with
+her fagots on her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her
+tongue; and sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few
+steps. Poor little Jack often reached his mother’s side breathless and
+terrified, but, after all, this only added another interest to his
+life. Sometimes Jack found his mother in the kitchen talking in a low
+voice; no sound was to be heard in the house save the ticking of the
+great clock in the dining-room. “Hush, my dear,” said his mother; “He
+is up-stairs. He is at work!”
+
+Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With
+the awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he
+ought not to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.
+
+“Hush, dear,” exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother
+Archambauld, laying the table, moved on the points of her big
+feet—moved as lightly as possible, so as not to disturb “her master who
+was at work.”
+
+He was heard up-stairs—pushing back his chair, or moving his table. He
+had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the
+title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that
+formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,—leisure,
+sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and
+country air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn
+his chair, and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky
+and water. All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river,
+came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the
+cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
+
+“Now to work!” cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his
+pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a
+pavilion of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that
+beautiful country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour
+is attached by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To
+have around him every essential for poetry,—a charming woman named in
+memory of Goethe’s heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a
+small white goat to follow him from place to place, and an antique
+clock to mark the hours and to connect the prosaic Present with the
+romance of the Past! All these were very imposing, but the brain was as
+sterile as when D’Argenton had given lessons all day and retired to his
+garret at night, worn out in body and mind.
+
+When Charlotte’s step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression
+of profound absorption. “Come in,” he said, in reply to her knock,
+timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared
+to the elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her
+face seemed to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an opéra
+bouffe.
+
+“I have come to see my poet,” she said, as she came in. She had a way
+of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. “How are you
+getting on?” she continued. “Are you pleased?”
+
+“Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible
+profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!”
+
+“That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know—”
+
+“To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his
+_Faust?_ And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was
+not condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude—mental solitude, I mean.”
+
+The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened to
+similar complaints from D’Argenton, she had at last learned to
+understand the reproaches conveyed in his words.
+
+The poet’s tone signified, “It is not you who can fill the blank around
+me.” In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone
+with her.
+
+Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him
+in this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the luxury
+by which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to
+himself—transformed and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm
+in his eyes, and yet she was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to
+witness the air of business with which he opened each morning the three
+or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke the seals as if he
+expected to find in their columns something of absorbing personal
+interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a
+resume of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these
+journals without missing one word, and always found something to arouse
+his contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces
+were played; and what pieces they were! Their books were printed; and
+such books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he could write
+them down.
+
+“You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was
+produced; it was simply my _Pommes D’Atlante_.”
+
+“But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur Angier,”
+said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.
+
+During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D’Argenton lashed
+himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the
+heavy frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him
+very clearly that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.
+
+
+One afternoon, when D’Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack,
+who was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his
+usual excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.
+
+The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges;
+distant rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of
+expectation which often precedes a storm.
+
+Fatigued by the child’s restlessness, the forester’s wife looked out at
+the weather, and said to Jack,—
+
+“Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you
+to go and get me a little grass for my rabbits.”
+
+The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off
+to search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.
+
+The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in
+clouds, when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, “Hats! Hats to sell!
+Nice Panamas!”
+
+Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on
+his shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if
+he were footsore and weary.
+
+Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman must
+be? He knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can
+obtain the shelter of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a
+pedler, or any stranger, indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with
+distrustful eyes.
+
+“Hats! Hats to sell!” For whose ears did he intend this repetition of
+his monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was
+it for the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm,
+had taken shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of
+stones, while Jack, on the other side of the road, examined him with
+much curiosity. His face was forbidding to a certain extent, but
+expressed so much suffering in the heavy features, that Jack’s kind
+heart was filled with pity. At that moment a thunder-clap was heard;
+the man looked up at the skies anxiously, and then called to Jack to
+ask how far off the village was.
+
+“Half a mile exactly,” answered the child.
+
+“And the shower will be here in a few moments,” said the pedler,
+despairingly. “All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined.”
+
+The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a
+kind act.
+
+“You can come to our house,” he said, “and then your hats will not be
+injured.” The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for his
+merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible;
+the man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.
+
+“Are you in pain?” asked the child.
+
+“Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are
+so big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I
+should ever be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!”
+
+They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold
+of hats, and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the
+dining-room, saying, “You must have a glass of wine and a bit of
+bread.”
+
+Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big
+loaf and a pot of wine.
+
+“Now a slice of ham,” said Jack, in a tone of command.
+
+“But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham,” said the old
+woman, grumbling. In fact, D’Argenton was something of a glutton, and
+there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his
+especial enjoyment.
+
+“Never mind! bring it out!” said the child, delighted at playing the
+part of host.
+
+The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The pedler’s appetite was of the
+most formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple
+story. His name was Bélisaire, and he was the eldest of a large family,
+and spent the summer wandering from town to town.—A violent
+thunder-clap shook the house, the rain fell in torrents, and the noise
+was terrific. At that moment some one knocked. Jack turned pale. “They
+have come!” he said with a gasp.
+
+It was D’Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not
+to have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they
+had given up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the
+poet was in a fearful rage with himself and every one else. “A fire in
+the parlor,” he said, in a tone of command.
+
+But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D’Argenton
+perceived the formidable pile of hats.
+
+“What is that?” he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred
+feet under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The
+poet entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The
+child stammered a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.
+
+“Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it
+seems.”
+
+“O, Jack! Jack!” cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.
+
+“Do not scold him, madame,” stammered Bélisaire. “I only am in fault!”
+
+Here D’Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most
+imposing gesture. “Go at once,” he said, violently; “how dare you come
+into this house?”
+
+Bélisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of
+remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress at
+the tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little
+Jack—who sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the
+Panamas,—and hurried down the garden walk. No sooner had the man
+reached the highway, than his melancholy voice resumed the cry, “Hats!
+Hats to sell!”
+
+In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a
+fire, and Charlotte was shaking the poet’s coat, while he sulkily
+strode up and down the room.
+
+As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler’s
+knife had made sad havoc. D’Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham
+was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. “What! the
+ham, too!” he exclaimed.
+
+Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically
+repeat his words.
+
+“I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was
+too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much
+yet, he is so young.”
+
+Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only
+beg pardon in a troubled tone.
+
+“Pardon, indeed!” cried the poet, giving way, as it must be admitted he
+rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently, exclaimed,
+“What right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not yours. You
+know that nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the food
+you eat, you are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you?
+I know not even your name!” Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte
+stopped the torrent of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room,
+and listening with eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed
+up stairs, banging the door after him.
+
+Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her
+pretty hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done
+to merit such a hard fate.
+
+This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and,
+naturally, her question remained unanswered.
+
+To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D’Argenton
+was now taken with one of “his attacks,” a form of bilious fever.
+
+Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The
+sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly
+nature, made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How
+tenderly she protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the
+table under the white one to soften the noise of the plates and the
+silver. She piled the Henry II. chair with cushions, and had her rolls
+of hot flannels and her tisanes in readiness at all hours of the day
+and night.
+
+Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by
+a fretful exclamation from the poet. “Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk
+too much!”
+
+This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more.
+Charlotte met him in the hall. “Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is
+suffering,” she said, anxiously.
+
+“Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement.”
+
+In fact, D’Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid
+tones, soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a new
+face, which made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a few
+moments later beheld him launched on some dazzling episode of his
+Parisian life. The doctor saw no reason to doubt the truth of these
+narrations told in such measured and careful phrases, and was always
+pleased with the appearance of the family,—the intellectual husband,
+the pretty gay wife, and the amusing child; and no intuition gave him a
+hint, as might have been the case with a more delicate organization, of
+the peculiarity and bitterness of the ties which bound the household
+together.
+
+Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor’s horse
+was fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass
+carefully mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told
+of his wonderful adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears
+wide open.
+
+“Jack!” said D’Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the door.
+
+“Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am
+quite sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;” and
+the old man talked of his little Cécile, who was two years younger than
+Jack.
+
+“Bring her to see us, doctor,” said Charlotte; “the two children would
+be so happy together.”
+
+“Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She
+never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere
+since our great sorrow.”
+
+This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his
+daughter and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some
+mystery surrounded this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld,
+who knew everything, contented herself with saying, “Yes, poor things!
+they have had a great deal of trouble.”
+
+The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, “Keep him
+amused, madame; keep him amused!”
+
+How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little
+carriage; breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the
+forest; but he was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a
+tête-à-tête in the middle of the Seine was worse than one on shore; and
+the little boat soon lay moored at the landing, half full of water and
+dead leaves.
+
+Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an
+Italian terrace: but even this did not amuse him.
+
+One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of
+an AEolian harp. D’Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic
+scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack’s
+life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a
+soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child’s great
+relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the
+end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard.
+D’Argenton fiercely commanded that the instrument should be buried,
+which was done, and the earth heaped upon it as over some mad animal.
+All these various occupations failing to amuse her poet, Charlotte
+reluctantly decided to invite some of his old friends, but was repaid
+for her sacrifice by witnessing D’Argenton’s joy on being told that Dr.
+Hirsch and Labassandre were soon to visit them.
+
+When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of
+his old professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the
+sounds recalled the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped
+quietly into the garden, there to await the dinner-bell.
+
+“Come, gentlemen,” said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on the
+terrace,—her large white apron indicating that as a good housekeeper
+she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and
+take an active part.
+
+The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack
+as he took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large
+doors opened on the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.
+
+“You are a lucky fellow,” said Labassandre. “Tomorrow I shall be in
+that hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner.”
+
+“It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable dinner,”
+grumbled Dr. Hirsch.
+
+“Why not remain here for a time?” said D’Argenton, cordially. “There is
+a room for each of you; the cellar has some good wine in it—”
+
+“And we can make excursions,” interrupted Charlotte, gayly.
+
+“But what would become of my rehearsals?” said Labassandre.
+
+“But you, Dr. Hirsch,” continued Charlotte, “you are tied down to the
+opera-house!”
+
+“Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this
+season.”
+
+The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no
+one laughed.
+
+“Well, decide!” cried the poet, “In the first place, you would be doing
+me a favor, and could prescribe for me.”
+
+“To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution,
+while I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute
+and of Moronval, and never wish to see either more.” Thereupon the
+doctor launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported
+him. Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every
+one was giving him up; the affair of Mâdou had done him great injury;
+and finally Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack on his
+energetic departure.
+
+At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was
+overjoyed at finding so gay and talkative a circle. “You see, madame, I
+was right: our invalid only needed a little excitement.”
+
+“There I differ from you!” cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the
+battle from afar.
+
+Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. “Dr.
+Hirsch,” said D’Argenton, “allow me to present you to Dr. Rivals.” They
+bowed like two duellists on the field who salute each other before
+crossing their swords. The country physician concluded his new
+acquaintance to be some famous Parisian practitioner, full of
+eccentricities and hobbies. D’Argenton’s illness was the occasion of a
+long discussion between the physicians.
+
+It was droll to see the poet’s expression. He was inclined to take
+offence that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and
+again to be equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a
+hundred diseases, each one with a worse name than the others.
+
+Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.
+
+“But this is utter nonsense,” cried Rivals, who had listened
+impatiently; “there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if
+there were, our friend has no such symptoms.”
+
+This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They
+hurled at each other titles of books in every language, names of every
+drug known and unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable
+than terrific, and was very much like one from “Molière.” Jack and his
+mother escaped to the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his
+voice. The winged inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the
+peacocks in the neighboring château answered by those alarmed cries
+with which they greet the approach of a thunder-shower; the neighboring
+peasants started from their sleep, and old Mother Archambauld wondered
+what was going on in the little house, where the moon shone so whitely
+on the legend in gold characters over the door:
+
+PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+CÉCILE.
+
+
+“Where are you going so early?” asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw
+Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the
+stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of
+Lord Pembroke.
+
+“To church, my dear sir. Has not D’Argenton told you that I have an
+especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you
+not?”
+
+It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being
+asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats
+reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned
+with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a
+rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the
+picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives
+in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in
+the Te Deum of this official fête.
+
+Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one
+told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious
+festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse
+D’Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige
+of a married woman. This new rôle amused and interested her. She
+corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her
+rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.
+
+When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a
+halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother’s ear a
+question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him;
+Charlotte hesitated, for “she knew so few persons in the church. Then
+the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals’ grandchild—a little girl on the
+opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children
+walked slowly behind the majestic official, Cécile carrying a velvet
+bag much too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous
+wax candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers.
+They were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply
+dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and
+her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers
+mingled with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the
+church. Cécile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack
+was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which
+he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from
+its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his
+best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life for
+him would come from her?
+
+“They would make a pretty pair,” said an old woman, as the children
+passed her, and in a lower voice added, “Poor little soul, I hope she
+will be more fortunate than her mother!”
+
+Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the
+influence of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure
+was in store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached
+Madame D’Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to
+breakfast. Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the
+boy’s necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, “Be a good child!”
+
+From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old
+doctor’s, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his
+neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on
+a brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls
+were black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could
+see that some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but
+everything of that nature had been interrupted on the day of their
+great sorrow, and the old people had never had the heart to go on with
+their improvements since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say,
+with a discouraged air, “What is the use?” The garden was in a complete
+state of neglect. Grass grew over the walks, and weeds choked the
+fountain. The human beings in the house had much the same air. From
+Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her daughter’s death, still wore
+the deepest of black, down to little Cécile, whose childish face had a
+precocious expression of sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter
+of a century had shared the griefs and sorrows of the family,—all
+seemed to live in an atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept
+up a certain intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was
+ever cheerful.
+
+To Madame Rivals, Cécile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the
+child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the
+doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her
+mother’s place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would
+give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on
+meeting his wife’s sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
+
+Little Cécile’s life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the
+garden, or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to
+the apartment that had once been her mother’s, and which was full of
+the souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this
+room, but little Cécile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent.
+The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very
+bad for her; she needed the association of other children. “Let us ask
+little D’Argenton here,” said her grandfather: “the boy is charming!”
+
+“Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?”
+answered his wife. “Who knows them?”
+
+“Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he
+is an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The
+woman is not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will
+answer for their respectability.”
+
+Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
+husband’s insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
+
+Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original
+idea.
+
+“The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
+could possibly happen?”
+
+The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cécile became close
+companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw
+that he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and
+that he had no lesson-hours.
+
+“Do you not go to school, my dear?”
+
+“No, madame,” was the answer; and then quickly added,—for a child’s
+instinct is very delicate,—“Mamma teaches me.”
+
+“I cannot understand,” said Madame Rivals to her husband, “how they can
+let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till
+night.”
+
+“The child is not very clever,” answered the doctor, anxious to excuse
+his friends.
+
+“No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him.”
+
+Jack’s best friends were in the doctor’s house. Cécile adored him. They
+played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy
+if it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
+apothecary’s store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself.
+She had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable
+experience, and was often consulted in her husband’s absence. The
+children found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles,
+and pasting on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy’s awkwardness,
+while little Cécile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman
+grown.
+
+The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he
+went about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large,
+the children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably,
+and merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were
+warmly welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the
+children roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.
+
+Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is
+never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life.
+The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to
+pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the
+wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard
+day’s toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until
+dawn, while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for
+morning. Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have
+been very rich, had he not been so generous.
+
+His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for
+home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet
+occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees,
+with their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low
+white houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern
+scene. “It is like Nazareth,” said little Cécile; and the two children
+told each other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.
+
+Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
+intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to
+himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an
+hour’s instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of
+enjoying a siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by
+the old man, when I add that it was this precise time that he now
+freely gave to the little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied
+himself with his whole heart to his lessons. Cécile was almost always
+present, and was as pleased as Jack himself when her grandfather,
+examining the copy-book, said, “Well done!” To his mother, Jack said
+nothing of his labors; he determined to prove to her at some future day
+that the diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This concealment was
+rendered very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent
+to her child, and more completely absorbed in D’Argenton. The boy’s
+comings and goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was
+often vacant, but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the
+board, for D’Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means
+generous in his hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him,
+timidly, “I am out of money, my friend,” he would reply by a wry face
+and the word, “Already?” But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the
+pleasure of patronizing his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he
+had formerly lived, carried the day. They all knew that he had a
+pleasant home, that the air was good and the table better;
+consequently, one would say to another, “Who wants to go to Etiolles
+to-night?” They came in droves.
+
+Poor Charlotte was in despair. “Madame Archambauld, are there eggs?—is
+there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give them?”
+
+“Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved,” said
+the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
+her master’s friends.
+
+D’Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
+dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as
+happy and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh
+country, in the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed
+more rusty and more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy,
+and D’Argenton radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal “I
+think,” and “I know.” Was he not the master of the house, and had he
+not the key of the wine cellar?
+
+Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
+Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She was
+flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was
+pleased to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
+
+Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy
+mists of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the
+fierce winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and
+violets, gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing
+was changed there. D’Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms,
+dignified by Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as
+totally without salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as
+she had always been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having
+studied industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.
+
+“Send him to school now,” said Doctor Rivals to his mother, “and I
+answer for his making a figure.”
+
+“Ah, doctor, how good you are!” cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and
+feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
+stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
+
+D’Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that
+he had grave objections to a school, &c., and when alone with
+Charlotte, expressed his indignation at the doctor’s interference, but
+from that time took more interest in the movements of the boy.
+
+“Come here, sir,” said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed
+somewhat anxiously. “Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot
+of the garden?”
+
+“It was I, sir.”
+
+Cécile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had
+manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.
+
+“Did you make it yourself, without any aid?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered the child.
+
+“It is wonderful, very wonderful,” continued the singer, turning to the
+others. “The child has a positive genius for mechanics.”
+
+In the evening there was a grand discussion. “Yes, madame/,” said
+Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; “the man of the future, the coming
+man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs,
+and now it is the workman’s turn. You may to-day despise his horny
+hands, in twenty years he will lead the world.”
+
+“He is right,” interrupted D’Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded
+approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the
+conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion
+felt a keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
+
+Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village
+forge. “You know, my friends,” he said, “whether I have been
+successful. You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals.
+You may believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part
+with all sooner than with this;” and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve
+and displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two
+blacksmith’s hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an
+inscription was above these emblems in small letters: _Work and
+Liberty_. Labassandre proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the
+manager of the opera at Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let
+alone, he would by this time have been the proprietor of a large
+machine shop, with a provision laid up for his old age.
+
+“Yes,” said Charlotte, “but you were very strong, and I have heard you
+say that the life was a hard one.”
+
+“Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in
+question is sufficiently robust.”
+
+“I will answer for that,” said Dr. Hirsch.
+
+Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more
+refined than others—“that certain aristocratic instincts—”
+
+Here D’Argenton interrupted her in a rage. “What nonsense! My friends
+occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
+absurdities.”
+
+Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire
+to fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his
+pretty mother.
+
+Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in
+his mother’s manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him
+with that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom
+we are about to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D’Argenton
+say to Dr. Rivals, with a satirical smile, “We are all busy, sir, in
+your pupil’s interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will
+astonish you.”
+
+The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, “You see, my dear,
+that I did well to make them open their eyes.”
+
+“Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good
+to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with
+folded arms than trouble himself about you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.
+
+
+One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had
+brought Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the
+garden busy with his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice
+came from the window of the poet’s room. Something in its tone, or a
+certain instinct so marked in some persons, told the child that the
+crisis had come, and he tremblingly ascended the stairs. On the Henri
+Deux chair D’Argenton sat, throned as it were, while Labassandre and
+Dr. Hirsch stood on either side. Jack saw at once that there were the
+tribunal, the judge, and the witnesses, while his mother sat a little
+apart at an open window.
+
+“Come here!” said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
+dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair
+itself had spoken. “I have often told you that life is not a romance;
+you have seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your
+turn has now come to enter the arena. You are a man,”—the child was but
+twelve,—“you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For a
+year,—the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,—I have
+permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of
+observation, I have been able to decide on your path in life. I have
+watched the development of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and,
+with your mother’s consent, have taken a step of importance.” Jack was
+frightened, and turned to his mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat
+gazing from the window, shading her eyes from the sun. D’Argenton
+called on Labassandre to produce the letter he had received. The singer
+pulled out a large, ill-folded peasant’s letter, and read it aloud:—
+
+“FOUNDRY D’INDRET.
+    “My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to the
+    young man, your friend’s son, and he is willing, in spite of his
+    youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may live under our roof,
+    and in four years I promise you that he shall know his trade.
+    Everybody is well here. My wife and Zénaïde send messages.
+
+
+“Rondic.”
+
+
+“You hear, Jack,” interrupted D’Argenton; “in four years you will hold
+a position second to none in the world,—you will be a good workman.”
+
+The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen
+a noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o’clock in
+the _Passage des Douze Maisons_. The idea of wearing a blouse was the
+first that struck him. He remembered his mother’s tone of
+contempt,—“Those are workmen, those men in blouses!”—he remembered the
+care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed.
+But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest,
+the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from
+the window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much
+and had found again after so much difficulty.
+
+Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand
+dashed away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading
+away of all her dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?
+
+“Then must I go away?” asked the child, faintly.
+
+The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.
+
+“In a week we will go, my boy,” said Labassandre, cheeringly. But
+D’Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, “You can leave
+the room now, and be ready for your journey in a week.”
+
+Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did not
+stop to take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who
+listened to his story with indignation.
+
+“It is preposterous!” he cried. “The very idea of making a mechanic of
+you is absurd. I will see your father at once.”
+
+The persons who saw the two pass through the street—the doctor
+gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat—concluded that some one
+must be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr.
+Rivals heard loud talking and laughing as he entered the house, and
+Charlotte, as she descended the stairs, was singing a bar from the last
+opera.
+
+“I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir,” said Mr. Rivals.
+
+“We are among friends,” answered D’Argenton, “and have no secrets. You
+have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These gentlemen
+know all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar
+circumstances of the case.”
+
+“But, my friend “—Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the explanation that
+was forthcoming.
+
+“Go on, doctor,” interrupted the poet, sternly.
+
+“Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at
+Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part.”
+
+“Not in the least, sir.”
+
+“But you can have no conception of the child’s nature, nor of his
+constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are
+trifling. I assure you, madame,” he continued, turning toward
+Charlotte, “that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking
+now simply of his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally
+unfitted for it.”
+
+“You are mistaken, doctor,” interrupted D’Argenton; “I know the boy
+better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and now
+that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this
+way, of exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes
+complaints of me.”
+
+Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and
+continued,—
+
+“He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I
+told him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to
+reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way.”
+
+“I deny the degradation,” shouted Labassandre. “Manual labor does not
+degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter.”
+
+“That is true,” murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once floated a
+vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some
+feast-day.
+
+“Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear madame,” cried the doctor,
+exasperated out of all patience. “To make your boy a mechanic is to
+separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the
+world, and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is
+too late; the day will come that you will blush for him, when he will
+appear before you, not as the loving, tender son, but humble and
+servile, as holding a social position far inferior to your own.”
+
+Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of
+the future, started up from his seat in the corner.
+
+“I will not be a mechanic!” he said, in a firm voice.
+
+“O, Jack!” cried his mother, in consternation.
+
+But D’Argenton thundered out, “You will not be a mechanic, you say? But
+you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have
+had enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites.” Then,
+suddenly cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the
+boy to retire to his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry
+discussion going on below, but the words were not to be understood.
+Suddenly the hall-door opened, and Mr. Rivals was heard to say,—
+
+“May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!”
+
+At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the
+first time she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had
+laid aside her rôle of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had
+shed had been those that age a mother’s face, and leave ineffaceable
+marks upon it.
+
+“Listen to me, Jack,” she said, tenderly. “You have made me very
+unhappy. You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends.
+I know, my child, that you will be happy in your new life. I
+acknowledge that at first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard
+what they said, did you not? A mechanic is very different nowadays from
+what it was once. And, besides, at your age you should rely on the
+judgment of those older than yourself, who have only your interests at
+heart.”
+
+A sob from the child interrupted her.
+
+“Then you, too, send me away!”
+
+The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. “I
+send you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with me,
+you should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be
+reasonable, and think a little of the future, which is dreary enough
+for us.” And then Charlotte hesitatingly continued, “You know, dear,
+you are very young, and there are many things you cannot understand.
+Some day, when you are older, I will tell you the secret of your birth.
+It is an absolute romance: some day you shall learn your father’s name.
+But now all that is necessary for you to understand is, that we have
+not a penny in the world, and are absolutely dependent on—D’Argenton.”
+This name the poor woman uttered with shame and hesitation,
+accompanied, at the same time, with a touching look of appeal to her
+son. “I cannot,” she continued, “ask him to do anything more for us; he
+has already done so much. Besides, he is not rich. What am I to do
+between you both? Ah, if I could only go in your place to Indret and
+earn my bread! And yet you would refuse an opening that gives you a
+certainty of earning your livelihood, and of becoming your own master.”
+
+By the sparkle in her boy’s eyes the mother saw that these words had
+struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, “Do this for me,
+Jack; do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to
+look to you as my sole support.” Did she really believe her own words?
+Was it a presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that
+illuminate the future’s dark horizon? or had she simply talked for
+effect?
+
+At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this
+generous nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother
+some day would lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He
+looked her straight in the eyes. “Promise me that you will never be
+ashamed of me when my hands are black, and that you will always love
+me.”
+
+She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and
+remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey
+to remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized
+contraction of the heart.
+
+But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and
+possibly from shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.
+
+“Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the little fellow to D’Argenton, as he
+opened the door; “I was very wrong in refusing your kindness. I accept
+it with thanks.”
+
+“I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now
+express your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are
+indebted.”
+
+The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous
+paw of the artist.
+
+This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious than
+sad, and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little
+wrinkles on his childish brow. He was determined not to go away without
+seeing Cécile.
+
+“But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not be
+suitable,” remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack’s
+departure, D’Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans,
+consented that the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there
+in the evening. The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from
+the library—if library it could be called—a mere closet, crammed with
+books. The doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, “I was
+afraid they would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was
+partially my fault. I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me
+well. She has gone away, you know, with Cécile, to pass a month in the
+Pyrenees with my sister. The child was not well; I think I told her of
+your impending departure too abruptly. Ah, these children! we think
+they do not feel, but we are mistaken, and they feel quite as deeply as
+we ourselves.” He spoke to Jack as one man to another. In fact, every
+one treated him in the same way at present. And yet the little fellow
+now burst into a violent passion of tears at the thought of his little
+friend having gone away without his seeing her.
+
+“Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?” asked the old man. “Well, I
+am selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in this
+way every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I
+do not think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do
+so, I am sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,”—the old man
+kissed the boy twice,—“for Cécile and myself,” he said, kindly; and, as
+the door closed, the child heard him say, “Poor child, poor child!”
+
+The words were the same as at the Jesuits’ College; but by this time
+Jack had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started,
+Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for an
+expedition across the Pampas,—high gaiters, a green velvet vest, a
+knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and
+happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty;
+happy, because this departure filled him with joy.
+
+Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. “You will take good
+care of him, M. Labassandre?”
+
+“As of my best note, madame.”
+
+Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought
+of working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the
+end of the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in
+his memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who
+smiled through her tears.
+
+“Write often!” cried the mother.
+
+And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, “Remember, Jack, life is not
+a romance!”
+
+Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish egotist!
+He stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on
+Charlotte’s shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself
+in a pose pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having
+won the day, that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to
+the child he had driven from the shelter of his roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+INDRET.
+
+
+The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, “Is not the scene
+beautiful, Jack?”
+
+It was about four o’clock—a July evening; the waves glittered in the
+sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the
+golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they
+were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white
+salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the
+caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with
+grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream,
+arriving, perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years’ voyage,
+and bearing with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands.
+A fresh breeze came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue
+of the ocean.
+
+“And Indret—where is it?” asked Jack.
+
+“There, that island opposite.”
+
+Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly a
+row of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a
+thick black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on
+iron, and a continual whistling and puffing, as if the island itself
+had been an enormous steamer. As the boat slowly made her way to the
+wharf, the child saw long, low buildings on every side, and close at
+the river-side a row of enormous furnaces, which were filled from the
+water by coal barges.
+
+“There is Rondic!” cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous
+chest sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the
+clatter of machinery.
+
+The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled
+each other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His
+face was closely shaven, and he wore a sailor’s hat that shaded a true
+Breton peasant face tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as
+steel.
+
+“And how are you all?” asked Labassandre.
+
+“Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new
+apprentice?—he looks very small and not over-strong.”
+
+“Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in
+Paris!”
+
+“So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we
+must present ourselves to the Director at once.”
+
+They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue
+terminated in a village street, with white houses on both sides,
+inhabited by the master and head-workmen. At this hour all was silent;
+life and movement were concentrated at the factory; and, but for the
+linen drying in the yards, an occasional cry of an infant, and a pot of
+flowers at the window, one would have supposed the place uninhabited.
+
+“Ah, the flag is lowered!” said the singer, as they reached the door.
+“Once that terrified me!” and he explained to Jack that when the flag
+was dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the
+factory were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were
+marked as absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now
+admitted by the porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the
+large halls which were crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of
+copper were piled between old cannons brought there to be recast.
+Rondic pointed out all the different branches of the establishment; he
+could not make himself understood save by gestures, for the noise was
+deafening.
+
+Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors
+being set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of
+arms and blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow,
+and then with a red light playing over their polished surface.
+
+Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an
+impalpable black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled
+like diamonds,—all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic of
+the place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of an
+enormous beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some
+subterranean dungeon.
+
+They had now reached an old château of the time of the League.
+
+“Here we are,” said Rondic; and addressing his brother, “Will you go up
+with us?”
+
+“Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see ‘the
+monkey’ once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and
+something.”
+
+He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and
+knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.
+
+They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were
+small and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In
+the inner room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a
+high window.
+
+“Ah, it is you, Père Rondic!”
+
+“Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for—”
+
+“This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have
+an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very
+strong. Is he delicate?”
+
+“No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
+robust.”
+
+“Remarkably,” repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to
+the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left
+the manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.
+
+“Ah, yes, I remember,” answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at
+the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
+“Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of
+him. Under you he must turn out well.”
+
+The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away
+somewhat crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his
+master, and then the two men and the child descended the stairs
+together, each with a different impression. Jack thought of the words
+“he does not look very strong,” while Labassandre digested his own
+mortification as he best might. “Has anything gone wrong?” he suddenly
+asked his brother,—“the Director seems even more surly now than in my
+day.”
+
+“No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister’s son, who is giving us
+a great deal of trouble.”
+
+“In what way?” asked the artist.
+
+“Since his mother’s death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted
+debts. He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends
+them before he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he
+breaks his promises as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for
+him several times, but I can never do it again. I have my own family,
+you see, and Zénaïde is growing up, and she must be established. Poor
+girl! Women have more sense than we. I wanted her to marry her cousin,
+but she would not consent. Now we are trying to separate him from his
+bad acquaintances here, and the Director has found a situation at
+Nantes; but I dare say the obstinate fellow will object. You will
+reason with him to-night, can’t you? He will, perhaps, listen to you.”
+
+“I will see what I can do,” answered Labassandre, pompously.
+
+As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with
+all classes of people, some in mechanics’ blouses, others wearing
+coats. Jack was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this
+to one in Paris, composed of similar classes.
+
+Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that he
+received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His
+theatrical costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone
+first on one side and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to
+first one and then another of his old friends.
+
+At the door of Rondic’s house stood a young woman talking to a youth
+two or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man’s
+daughter, and then remembered that he had married a second time. She
+was tall and slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white
+throat, and a graceful head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by
+its rich weight of hair. Unlike the Breton peasants, she wore no cap;
+her light dress and black apron were totally unlike the costume of a
+working woman.
+
+“Is she not pretty?” asked Rondic of his brother. “She has been giving
+a lecture to her nephew.”
+
+Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. “I hope,”
+she said to the child, “that you will be happy with us.”
+
+They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table,
+Labassandre said with a theatrical start, “And where is Zénaïde?”
+
+“We will not wait for her,” answered Rondic; “she will be here
+presently. She is at work now at the château, for she has become a
+famous seamstress.”
+
+“Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under
+control, if she can work at the Director’s,” said Labassandre, “for he
+is such an arrogant, haughty person—”
+
+“You are very much mistaken,” interrupted Rondic; “he is, on the
+contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master has
+to manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a
+disciplinarian. Is not that so, Clarisse?” and the old man turned to
+his wife, who, seemingly occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to
+him. A certain preoccupation was very evident.
+
+At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking at
+the door, came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who
+replied coldly to his greeting; thinking, possibly, of the
+remonstrances he had promised to lavish upon him. Zénaïde quickly
+followed: a plump little girl, red and out of breath; not pretty, and
+square in face and figure, she looked like her father. She wore a white
+cap, and her short skirts, and small shawl pinned over her shoulders,
+increased her general clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square
+chin indicated an unusual amount of firmness and decision, offering the
+strongest possible contrast to the gentle, irresolute expression of her
+stepmother’s sweet face. Without a moment’s delay, not waiting to
+detach the enormous shears that hung at her side, or to disembarrass
+herself of the needles and pins which glittered on her breast like a
+cuirass, the girl slipped into a seat next to Jack. The presence of the
+strangers did not abash her in the least. Whatever she had to say she
+said, simply and decidedly; but when she spoke to her cousin Chariot,
+it was in a vexed tone.
+
+He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left
+more than one scar.
+
+“And I wished them to marry each other,” said Father Rondic, in a
+despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.
+
+“And I made no objection,” said the young man with a laugh, as he
+looked at his cousin.
+
+“But I did, then,” answered the girl abruptly, frowning and unabashed.
+“And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I should
+have drowned myself by this time!”
+
+These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the
+handsome cousin was silent and discomfited.
+
+Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid
+look of appeal.
+
+“Listen, Chariot,” said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation: “to
+prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid
+place at Guérigny for you. You will have a better salary there than
+here, and “—here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face of
+the youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to
+finish his phrase.
+
+“And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!” answered
+Chariot, roughly. “But I do not agree with you. If the Director does
+not want me, let him say so,—and I will then look out for myself!”
+
+“He is right!” cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the table.
+A hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.
+
+Zénaïde did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her
+stepmother, who was busy about the table.
+
+“And you, mamma,” said she at last, “is it not your opinion that
+Chariot should go to Guérigny?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” answered Madame Rondic, quickly, “I think he
+ought to accept the offer.”
+
+Chariot rose quickly from his chair.
+
+“Very well,” he said, moodily, “since every one wishes to get rid of me
+here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the
+meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it.”
+
+The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and
+to each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked
+their pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly.
+
+Jack listened to them sadly. “Must I become like these?” he said to
+himself, with a thrill of horror.
+
+During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the
+workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw
+his future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white
+hands. Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls
+were cut, to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the
+air of distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated
+D’Argenton, was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his
+former home. Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken.
+
+“O,” said Rondic, “it is only the fatigue of his journey and these
+clothes that give him that look;” and then turning to his wife, the
+good man said,
+
+“You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he
+is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o’clock!”
+
+The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two
+stories, the first floor divided into two rooms—one called the parlor,
+which had a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the
+chimney-piece.
+
+One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with
+damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zénaïde’s room the
+bed was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak
+filled one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over by
+rosaries of all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn,
+completed the simple arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen
+which concealed the ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice
+was to sleep.
+
+“This is my room,” said Zénaïde, “and you, my boy, will be up there
+just over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you
+please, I sleep too soundly to be disturbed.”
+
+A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his
+loft, which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow
+window in the roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had
+prepared Jack for strange sleeping-places; but there he had
+companionship in his miseries: here he had no Mâdou, here he had
+nobody. The child looked about him. On the bed lay his costume for the
+next day; the large pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse looked as
+if some person had thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.
+
+Jack said half aloud, “It is I lying there!” and while he stood, sadly
+enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at
+the same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Zénaïde
+and her stepmother.
+
+The young girl’s voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a man’s;
+Madame Rondic’s tones, on the contrary, were thin and flute-like, and
+seemed at times choked by tears.
+
+“And he is going!” she cried, with more passion than her ordinary
+appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.
+
+Then Zénaïde spoke—remonstrating, reasoning.
+
+Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these
+people, but the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her
+as he looked at the sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long,
+shivering sigh and a sob, and found that Madame Rondic was looking out
+into the night, and weeping like himself, at a window below.
+
+In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of
+wine and ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And
+there, could his foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she
+have taken her child from his laborious task, for which he was so
+totally unfitted by nature and education. The regulations for lack of
+punctuality were very strict. The first offence was a fine, and the
+third absolute dismissal. Jack was generally at the door before the
+first sound of the bell; but one day, two or three months after his
+arrival on the island, he was delayed by the ill-nature of others. His
+hat had been blown away by a sudden gust of wind just as he reached the
+forge. “Stop it!” cried the child, running after it. Just as he reached
+it, an apprentice coming up the street gave the hat a kick and sent it
+on; another did the same, and then another. This was very amusing to
+all save Jack, who, out of breath and angry, felt a strong desire to
+weep, for he knew that a positive hatred toward him was hidden under
+all this apparent jesting. In the meantime the bell was sounding its
+last strokes, and the child was compelled to relinquish the useless
+pursuit. He was utterly wretched, for it was no small expense to buy a
+new cap; he must write to his mother for money, and D’Argenton would
+read the letter. This was bad enough; but the consciousness that he was
+disliked among his fellow-workmen troubled him still more.
+
+Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack
+was one of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in
+his new abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard
+quick breathing behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+turning, he saw a smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended
+the missing cap.
+
+Where had he seen that face? “I have it!” he cried at last; but at that
+moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler, to
+whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely
+shelter on that showery summer’s day.
+
+The child’s spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands
+were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts
+of the past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother’s
+house; he heard the low rumbling of the doctor’s gig, and felt the
+fresh breeze from the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of
+the machine-shop.
+
+That evening he searched for Bélisaire, but in vain; again the next
+day, but could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face
+that had revived so many beautiful memories, in the child’s sick heart
+faded and died away, and he was again left alone.
+
+The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played
+practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and
+relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals’ books, Jack sought a quiet
+nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the
+rocks, where he sat quite concealed from view, his book open on his
+knee, the rush, the magic, and the extent of the water before him. The
+distant church-bells rang out praises to the Lord, and all was rest and
+peace. Occasionally a vessel drifted past, and from afar came the
+laughter of children at play.
+
+He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift
+his eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the
+water on the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his
+mother and his little friend.
+
+At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at
+the Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zénaïde in particular. The
+old man felt a certain contempt for Jack’s physical delicacy, and said
+the boy stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but “he was a good
+little fellow all the same!” In reality, old Rondic felt a great
+respect for Jack’s attainments, his own being of the most superficial
+description. He could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and
+since he had married the second Madame Rondic, he had become painfully
+conscious of his deficiencies. His wife was the daughter of a
+subordinate artillery officer, the belle and beauty of a small town.
+She was well brought up,—one of a numerous family, where each took her
+share of toil and economy. She accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the
+disparity of years and his lack of education, and entertained for her
+husband the greatest possible affection. He adored his wife, and would
+make any sacrifice for her happiness or her gratification. He thought
+her prettier than any of the wives of his friends,—who were all, in
+fact, stout Breton peasants, more occupied with their household cares
+than with anything else. Clarisse had a certain air about her, and
+dressed and arranged her hair in a way that offered the greatest
+contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of the country, who
+covered their hair with thick folds of linen, and concealed their
+figures with the clumsy fullness of their skirts.
+
+His house, too, was different from those about him. Behind the full
+white curtains stood a pot of flowers, sweet basil or gillyflowers, and
+the furniture was carefully waxed and polished; and Rondic was
+delighted, when he returned home at night, to find so carefully
+arranged a home, and a wife as neatly dressed as if it were Sunday. He
+never asked himself why Clarisse, after the house was in order for the
+day, took her seat at the window with folded hands, instead of
+occupying herself with needlework, like other women whose days were far
+too short for all their duties.
+
+He supposed, innocently enough, that his wife thought only of him while
+adorning herself; but the whole village of Indret could have told him
+that another occupied all her thoughts, and in this gossip the names of
+Madame Rondic and Chariot were never separated. They said that the two
+had known each other before Madame Rondic’s marriage, and that if the
+nephew had wished he could have married the lady, instead of his uncle.
+
+But the young fellow had no such desire. He merely thought that
+Clarisse was charmingly pretty, and that it would be very nice to have
+her for his aunt. But later, when they were thrown so much together,
+while Father Rondic slept in the arm-chair and Zénaïde sewed at the
+château, these two natures were irresistibly attracted toward each
+other. But no one had a right to make any invidious remark; they had,
+besides, always watching over them a pair of frightfully suspicious
+eyes, those of Zénaïde. She had a way of interrupting their interviews,
+of appearing suddenly, when least expected; and, however fatigued she
+might be by her day’s work, she took her seat in the chimney-corner
+with her knitting. Zénaïde, in fact, played the part of the jealous and
+suspicious husband. Picture to yourself, if you please, a husband with
+all the instincts and clearsightedness of a woman!
+
+The warfare between herself and Chariot was incessant, and the little
+outbursts served to conceal the real antipathy; but while Father Rondic
+smiled contentedly, Clarisse turned pale as if at distant thunder.
+
+Zénaïde had triumphed: she had so managed at the château that the
+Director had decided to send Chariot to Guérigny, to study a new model
+of a machine there. Months would be necessary for him to perfect his
+work. Clarisse understood very well that Zénaïde was at the bottom of
+this movement, but she was not altogether displeased at Chariot’s
+departure; she flung herself on Zénaïde’s stronger nature, and
+entreated her protection.
+
+Jack had understood for some time that between these two women there
+was a secret. He loved them both: Zénaïde won his respect and his
+admiration, while Madame Rondic, more elegant and more carefully
+dressed, seemed to be a remnant of the refinements of his former life.
+He fancied that she was like his mother; and yet Ida was lively, gay,
+and talkative, while Madame Rondic was always languid and silent. They
+had not a feature alike, nor was there any similarity in the color of
+their hair. Nevertheless, they did resemble each other, but it was a
+resemblance as vague and indefinite as would result from the same
+perfume among the clothing, or of something more subtile still, which
+only a skilful chemist of the human soul could have analyzed.
+
+Sometimes on Sunday, Jack read aloud to the two women and to Rondic.
+The parlor was the room in which they assembled on these occasions. The
+apartment was decorated with a highly colored view of Naples, some
+enormous shells, vitrified sponges, and all those foreign curiosities
+which their vicinity to the sea seemed naturally to bring to them.
+Handmade lace trimmed the curtains, and a sofa and an arm-chair of
+plush made up the furniture of the apartment. In the arm-chair Father
+Rondic took his seat to listen to the reading, while Clarisse sat in
+her usual place at the window, idly looking out. Zénaïde profited by
+her one day at home to mend the house-hold linen, disregarding the fact
+of the day being Sunday. Among the books given to Jack by Dr. Rivals
+was Dante’s _Inferno_. The book fascinated the child, for it described
+a spectacle that he had constantly before his eyes. Those half naked
+human forms, those flames, those deep ditches of molten metal, all
+seemed to him one of the circles of which the poet wrote.
+
+One Sunday he was reading to his usual audience from his favorite book;
+Father Rondic was asleep, according to his ordinary custom, but the two
+women listened with fixed attention. It was the episode of Francesca da
+Rimini. Clarisse bowed her head and shuddered. Zénaïde frowned until
+her heavy eyebrows met, and drove her needle through her work with mad
+zeal.
+
+Those grand sonorous lines filled the humble roof with music. Tears
+stood in the eyes of Clarisse as she listened. Without noticing them,
+Zenaïde spoke abruptly as the voice of the reader ceased.
+
+“What a wicked, impudent woman,” she cried, “not only to relate her
+crime, but to boast of it!”
+
+“It is true that she was guilty,” said Clarisse, “but she was also very
+unhappy.”
+
+“Unhappy! Don’t say that, mamma; one would think that you pitied this
+Francesca.”
+
+“And why should I not, my child? She loved him before her marriage, and
+she was driven to espouse a man whom she did not love.”
+
+“Love him or not makes but little difference. From the moment she
+married him she was bound to be faithful. The story says that he was
+old, and that seems to me an additional reason for respecting him more,
+and for preventing other people from laughing at him. The old man did
+right to kill them,—it was only what they deserved!”
+
+She spoke with great violence. Her affection as a daughter, her honor
+as a woman, influenced her words, and she judged and spoke with that
+cruel candor that belongs to youth, and which judges life from the
+ideal it has itself created, without comprehending in the least any of
+the terrible exigencies which may arise.
+
+Clarisse did not answer. She turned her face away, and was looking out
+of the window. Jack, with his eyes on his book, thought of what he had
+been reading. Here, amid these humble surroundings, this immortal
+legend of guilty love had echoed “through the corridors of time,” and
+after four hundred years had awakened a response. Suddenly through the
+open casement came a cry, “Hats! hats to sell!” Jack started to his
+feet and ran into the street; but quick as he was, Clarisse had
+preceded him, and as he went out, she came in, crushing a letter into
+her pocket.
+
+The pedler was far down the street.
+
+“Bélisaire!” shouted Jack.
+
+The man turned. “I was sure it was you,” continued Jack, breathlessly.
+“Do you come here often?”
+
+“Yes, very often;” and then Bélisaire added, after a moment, “How
+happens it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that pretty
+house?”
+
+The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,—
+
+“That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such
+a gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?”
+
+Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have
+lingered there at the corner of the street for an hour, but Bélisaire
+said he was in haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
+
+When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was
+very pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,—
+
+“What did you want of that man?”
+
+The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had
+been talking of his parents.
+
+She uttered a sigh of relief. But that whole evening she was even
+quieter than usual, and her head seemed bowed by more than the weight
+of her blonde braids.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.
+
+
+“Chateau des Aulnettes.
+
+
+“I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his
+brother a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you have
+been at Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you,
+nevertheless, but does not seem to think you adapted for your present
+life. We are all grieved to hear this, and feel that you are not doing
+all that you might do. M. Rondic also says that the air of the
+workshops is not good for you, that you are pale and thin, and that at
+the least exertion the perspiration rolls down your face. I cannot
+understand this, and fear that you are imprudent, that you go out in
+the evening uncovered, that you sleep with your windows open, and that
+you forget to tie your scarf around your throat. This must not be; your
+health is of the first importance.
+
+“I admit that your present occupation is not as pleasant as running
+wild in the forest would be, but remember what M. D’Argenton told you,
+that ‘life is not a romance.’ He knows this very well, poor
+man!—better, too, to-day, than ever before. You have no conception of
+the annoyances to which this great poet is exposed. The low
+conspiracies that have been formed against him are almost incredible.
+They are about to bring out a play at the Théâtre Français called ‘_La
+Fille de Faust_’ It is not D’Argenton’s play, because his is not
+written, but it is his idea, and his title! We do not know whom to
+suspect, for he is surrounded with faithful friends. Whoever the guilty
+party may be, our friend has been most painfully affected, and has been
+seriously ill. Dr. Hirsch fortunately was here, for Dr. Rivals still
+continues to sulk. That reminds me to tell you that we hear that you
+keep up your correspondence with the doctor, of which M. d’Argenton
+entirely disapproves. It is not wise, my child, to keep up any
+association with people above your station; it only leads to all sorts
+of chimerical aspirations. Your friendship for little Cécile M.
+d’Argenton regards also as a waste of time. You must, therefore,
+relinquish it, as we think that you would then enter with more interest
+into your present life. You will understand, my child, that I am now
+speaking entirely in your interest. You are now fifteen. You are safely
+launched in an enviable career. A future opens before you, and you can
+make of yourself just what you please.
+
+“Your loving mother,
+
+“Charlotte.”
+
+“P. S. Ten o’clock at night.
+
+“Dearest,—I am alone, and hasten to add a good night to my letter, to
+say on paper what I would say to you were you here with me now. Do not
+be discouraged. You know just what he is. _He_ is very determined, and
+has resolved that you shall be a machinist, and you must be. Is he
+right? I cannot say. I beg of you to be careful of your health; it must
+be damp where you are; and if you need anything, write to me under
+cover to the Archambaulds. Have you any more chocolate? For this, and
+for any other little things you want, I lay aside from my personal
+expenses a little money every month. So you see that you are teaching
+me economy. Remember that some day I may have only you to rely upon.
+
+“If you knew how sad I am sometimes in thinking of the future! Life is
+not very gay here, and I am not always happy. But then, as you know, my
+sad moments do not last long. I laugh and cry at the same time without
+knowing why. I have no reason to complain, either. He is nervous like
+all artists, but I comprehend the real generosity and nobility of his
+nature. Farewell! I finish my letter for Mère Archambauld to mail as
+she goes home. We shall not keep the good woman long. M. d’Argenton
+distrusts her. He thinks she is paid by his enemies to steal his ideas
+and titles for books and plays! Good night, my dearest.”
+
+Between the lines of this lengthy letter Jack saw two faces,—that of
+D’Argenton, dictatorial and stern,—and his mother’s, gentle and tender.
+How under subjection she was! How crushed was her expansive nature! A
+child’s imagination supplies his thoughts with illustrations. It seemed
+to Jack, as he read, that his Ida—she was always Ida to her boy—was
+shut up in a tower, making signals of distress to him.
+
+Yes, he would work hard, he would make money, and take his mother away
+from such tyranny; and as a first step he put away all his books.
+
+“You are right,” said old Rondic; “your books distract your attention.”
+
+In the workshop Jack heard constant allusions made to the Rondic
+household, and particularly to the relations existing between Clarisse
+and Chariot.
+
+Every one knew that the two met continually at a town half-way between
+Saint Nazarre and Indret. Here Clarisse went under pretence of
+purchasing provisions that could not be procured on the island. In the
+contemptuous glances of the men who met her, in their familiar nods,
+she read that her secret was known, and yet with blushes of shame
+dyeing the cheeks that all the fresh breezes from the Loire had no
+power to cool, she went on. Jack knew all this. No delicacy was
+observed in the discussion of such subjects before the child. Things
+were called by their right names, and they laughed as they talked. Jack
+did not laugh, however. He pitied the husband so deluded and deceived.
+He pitied also the woman whose weakness was shown in her very way of
+knotting her hair, in the way she sat, and whose pleading eyes always
+seemed to be asking pardon for some fault committed. He wanted to
+whisper to her, “Take care—you are watched.” But to Chariot he would
+have liked to say, “Go away, and let this woman alone!”
+
+He was also indignant in seeing his friend Bélisaire playing such a
+part in this mournful drama. The pedler carried all the letters that
+passed between the lovers. Many a time Jack had seen him drop one into
+Madame Rondic’s apron while she changed some money, and, disgusted with
+his old ally, the child no longer lingered to speak when they met in
+the street.
+
+Bélisaire had no idea of the reason of this coolness. He suspected it
+so little, that one day, when he could not find Clarisse, he went to
+the machine-shop, and with an air of great mystery gave the letter to
+the apprentice. “It is for madame; give it to her secretly!”
+
+Jack recognized the writing of Chariot. “No,” he said at once; “I will
+not touch this letter, and I think you would do better to sell your
+hats than to meddle with such matters.”
+
+Bélisaire looked at him with amazement.
+
+“You know very well,” said the boy, “what these letters are; and do you
+think that you are doing right to aid in deceiving that old man?”
+
+The pedler’s face turned scarlet.
+
+“I never deceived any one; if papers are given to me to carry, I carry
+them, that is all. Be sure of one thing, and that is, if I were the
+sort of person you call me, I should be much better off than I am
+today!”
+
+Jack tried to make him see the thing as he saw it, but evidently the
+man, however honest, was without any delicacy of perception. “And I,
+too,” thought Jack, suddenly, “am of the people now. What right have I
+to any such refinements?”
+
+That Father Rondic knew nothing of all that was going on, was not
+astonishing. But Zênaïde, where was she? Of what was she thinking?
+
+Zénaïde was on the spot,—more than usual, too, for she had not been at
+the château for a month. Her eyes were also widely open, and were more
+keen and vivacious than ever, for Zénaïde was about to be married to a
+handsome young soldier attached to the customhouse at Nantes, and the
+girl’s dowry was seven thousand francs. Père Rondic thought this too
+much, but the soldier was firm. The old man had made no provision for
+Clarisse. If he should die, what would become of her?
+
+But his wife said, “You are yet young—we will be economical. Let the
+soldier have Zénaïde and the seven thousand francs, for the girl loves
+him!”
+
+Zénaïde spent a great deal of time before her mirror. She did not
+deceive herself. “I am ugly, and M. Maugin will not marry me for my
+beauty, but let him marry me, and he shall love me later.”
+
+And the girl gave a little nod, for she knew the unselfish devotion of
+which she was capable, the tenderness and patience with which she would
+watch over her husband. But all these new interests had so absorbed her
+that Zénaïde had partially forgotten her suspicions; they returned to
+her at intervals, while she was sewing on her wedding-dress, but she
+did not notice her mother’s pallor nor uneasiness, nor did she feel the
+burning heat of those slender hands. She did not notice her long and
+frequent disappearances, and she heard nothing of what was rumored in
+the town. She saw and heard nothing but her own radiant happiness. The
+banns were published, the marriage-day fixed, and the little house was
+full of the joyous excitement that precedes a wedding. Zénaïde ran up
+and down stairs twenty times each day with the movements of a young
+hippopotamus. Her friends came and went, little gifts were pouring in,
+for the girl was a great favorite in spite of her occasional
+abruptness. Jack wished to make her a present; his mother had sent him
+a hundred francs.
+
+“This money is your own, my Jack,” Charlotte wrote. “Buy with it a gift
+for M’lle Rondic, and some clothes for yourself. I wish you to make a
+good appearance at the wedding, and I am afraid that your wardrobe is
+in a pitiable condition. Say nothing about it in your letters, nor of
+me to the Rondics. They would thank me, which would be an annoyance,
+and bring me a reproof besides.”
+
+For two days Jack carried this money with pride in his pocket. He would
+go to Nantes and buy a new suit. What a delight it would be! and how
+kind his mother was! One thing troubled him: What could he purchase for
+Zénaïde; he must first see what she had.
+
+So thinking one dark night, as he entered the house, he ran against
+some one who was coming down the steps.
+
+“Is that you, Bélisaire?”
+
+There was no reply, but as Jack pushed open the door, he saw that he
+was not mistaken, that Bélisaire had been there.
+
+Clarisse was in the corridor, shivering with the cold, and so absorbed
+by the letter she was reading in the gleam of light from the half open
+door of the parlor, that she did not even look up as Jack went in. The
+letter evidently contained some startling intelligence, and the boy
+suddenly remembered having that day heard that Chariot had lost a large
+sum of money in gambling with the crew of an English ship that had just
+arrived at Nantes from Calcutta.
+
+In the parlor Zénaïde and Maugin were alone.
+
+Père Rondic had gone to Chateaubriand and would not return until the
+next day, which did not prevent her future husband from dining with
+them. He sat in the large arm-chair, his feet comfortably extended.
+While Zénaïde, carefully dressed, and her hair arranged by her
+stepmother, laid the table, this calm and reasonable lover entertained
+her by an estimate of the prices of the various grains, indigos, and
+oils that entered the port of Nantes. And such a wonderful
+prestidigitateur is love that Zénaïde was moved to the depths of her
+soul by these details, and listened to them as to music.
+
+Jack’s entrance disturbed the lovers. “Ah, here is Jack! I had no idea
+it was so late!” cried the girl. “And mamma, where is she?”
+
+Clarisse came in, pale but calm.
+
+“Poor woman!” thought Jack, as he watched her trying to smile, to talk,
+and to eat, swallowing at intervals great draughts of water, as if to
+choke down some terrible emotion. Zénaïde was blind to all this. She
+had lost her own appetite, and watched her soldier’s plate, seeming
+delighted at the rapidity with which the delicate morsels disappeared.
+
+Maugin talked well, and ate and drank with marvellous appetite; he
+weighed his words as carefully as he did the square bits into which he
+cut his bread; he held his wine-glass to the light, testing and
+scrutinizing it each time he drank. A dinner, with him, was evidently a
+matter of importance as well as of time. This evening it seemed as if
+Clarisse could not endure it; she rose from the table, went to the
+window, listened to the rattling of the hail on the glass, and then
+turning round, said,—
+
+“What a night it is, M. Maugin! I wish you were safely at home.”
+
+“I don’t, then!” cried Zénaïde, so earnestly that they all laughed. But
+the remark made by Clarisse bore its fruit, and the soldier rose to go.
+But it took him some time to get off. There was his lantern to light,
+his gloves to button; and the girl took all these duties on herself. At
+last the soldier was in readiness; his hood was pulled over his eyes, a
+scarf wound about his throat, then Zénaïde said good night, and watched
+her Esquimau-looking lover somewhat anxiously down the street. What
+perils might he not have to run in that thick darkness!
+
+Her stepmother called her impatiently. The nervous excitement of
+Clarisse had momentarily increased. Jack had noticed this, and also
+that she looked constantly at the clock.
+
+“How cold it must be to-night on the Loire,” said Zénaïde.
+
+“Cold, indeed!” answered Clarisse, with a shiver.
+
+“Come,” she said, as the clock struck ten, “let us go to bed.”
+
+Then seeing that Jack was about to lock the outer door as usual, she
+stopped him, saying,—
+
+“I have done it myself. Let us go up stairs.”
+
+But Zénaïde had not finished talking of M. Maugin. “Do you like his
+moustache, Jack?” she asked.
+
+“Will you go to bed?” asked Madame Rondic, pretending to laugh, but
+trembling nervously.
+
+At last the three are on the narrow staircase.
+
+“Good night,” said Clarisse; “I am dying with sleep.”
+
+But her eyes were very bright. Jack put his foot on his ladder, but
+Zénaïde’s room was so crowded with her gifts and purchases, that it
+seemed to him a most auspicious occasion to pass them in review.
+Friends had had them under examination, and they were still displayed
+on the commode: some silver spoons, a prayer-book, gloves, and all
+about tumbled bits of paper and the colored ribbon that had fastened
+these gifts from the château; then came the more humble presents from
+the wives of the employés. Zénaïde showed them all with pride. The boy
+uttered exclamations of wonder. “But what shall I give her?” he said to
+himself over and over again.
+
+“And my trousseau, Jack, you have not seen it! Wait, and I will show it
+to you.”
+
+With a quaint old key she opened the carved wardrobe that had been in
+the family for a hundred years; the two doors swung open, a delicious
+violet perfume filled the room, and Jack could see and admire the piles
+of sheets spun by the first Madame Rondic, and the ruffled and fluted
+linen piled in snowy masses.
+
+In fact, Jack had never seen such a display. His mother’s wardrobe held
+laces and fine embroideries, not household articles. Then, lifting a
+heavy pile, she showed Jack a casket. “Guess what is in this,” Zénaïde
+said, with a laugh; “it contains my dowry, my dear little dowry, that
+in a fortnight will belong to M. Maugin. Ah, when I think of it, I
+could sing and dance with joy!”
+
+And the girl held out her skirts with each hand, and executed an
+elephantine gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand.
+Suddenly she stopped; some one had rapped on the wall.
+
+“Let the boy go to bed,” said her stepmother in an irritated tone; “you
+know he must be up early.”
+
+A little ashamed, the future Madame Maugin shut her wardrobe, and said
+good night to Jack, who ascended his ladder; and five minutes later the
+little house, wrapped in snow and rocked by the wind, slept like its
+neighbors in the silence of the night.
+
+There is no light in the parlor of the Rondic mansion save that which
+comes from the fitful gleam of the dying fire in the chimney. A woman
+sat there, and at her feet knelt a man in vehement supplication.
+
+“I entreat you,” he whispered, “if you love me—”
+
+If she loved him! Had she not at his command left the door open that he
+might enter? Had she not adorned herself in the dress and ornaments
+that he liked, to make herself beautiful in his eyes? What could it be
+that he was asking her now to grant to him? How was it that she,
+usually so weak, was now so strong in her denials? Let us listen for a
+moment.
+
+“No, no,” she answered, indignantly, “it is impossible.”
+
+“But I only ask it for two days, Clarisse. With these six thousand
+francs I will pay the five thousand I have lost, and with the other
+thousand I will conquer fortune.”
+
+She looked at him with an expression of absolute terror.
+
+“No, no,” she repeated, “it cannot be. You must find some other way.”
+
+“But there is none.”
+
+“Listen. I have a rich friend; I will write to her and ask her to lend
+me the money.”
+
+“But I must have it to-morrow.”
+
+“Well, then, find the Director; tell him the truth.”
+
+“And he will dismiss me instantly. No; my plan is much the best. In two
+days I will restore the money.”
+
+“You only say that.”
+
+“I swear it.” And, seeing that his words did not convince her, he
+added, “I had better have said nothing to you, but have gone at once to
+the wardrobe and taken what I needed.”
+
+But she answered, trembling, for she feared that he would yet do this,
+“Do you not know that Zénaïde counts her money every day? This very
+night she showed the casket to the apprentice.”
+
+Chariot started. “Is that so?” he asked.
+
+“Yes; the poor girl is very happy. It would kill her to lose it.
+Besides, the key is not in the wardrobe.”
+
+Suddenly perceiving that she was weakening her own position, she was
+silent. The young man was no longer the supplicating lover, he was the
+spoiled child of the house, imploring his aunt to save him from
+dishonor.
+
+Through her tears she mechanically repeated the words, “It is
+impossible.”
+
+Suddenly he rose to his feet.
+
+“You will not? Very good. Only one thing remains then. Farewell! I will
+not survive disgrace.”
+
+He expected a cry. No; she came toward him.
+
+“You wish to die! Ah, well, so do I! I have had enough of life, of
+shame, of falsehood, and of love—love that must be concealed with such
+care that I am never sure of finding it. I am ready.”
+
+He drew back. “What folly!” he said, sullenly. “This is too much,” he
+added, vehemently, after a moment’s silence, and hurried to the stairs.
+
+She followed him. “Where are you going?” she asked.
+
+“Leave me!” he said, roughly. She snatched his arm.
+
+“Take care!” she whispered with quivering lips. “If you take one more
+step in that direction, I will call for assistance!”
+
+“Call, then! Let the world know that your nephew is your lover, and
+your lover a thief.”
+
+He hissed these words, in her ear, for they both spoke very low,
+impressed, in spite of themselves, by the silence and repose of the
+house. By the red light of the dying fire he appeared to her suddenly
+in his true colors, just what he really was, unmasked by one of those
+violent emotions which show the inner workings of the soul.
+
+She saw him with his keen eyes reddened by constant examination of the
+cards; she thought of all she had sacrificed for this man; she
+remembered the care with which she had adorned herself for this
+interview. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by profound disgust for herself
+and for him, and sank, half-fainting, on the couch; and while the thief
+crept up the familiar staircase, she buried her face in the pillows to
+stifle her cries and sobs, and to prevent herself from seeing and
+hearing anything.
+
+The streets of Indret were as dark as at midnight, for it was not yet
+six o’clock. Here and there a light from a baker’s window or a
+wine-shop shone dimly through the thick fog. In one of these wineshops
+sat Chariot and Jack.
+
+“Another glass, my boy!”
+
+“No more, thank you. I fear it would make me very ill.”
+
+Chariot laughed. “And you a Parisian! Waiter, bring more wine!”
+
+The boy dared make no farther objection. The attentions of which he was
+the object flattered him immensely. That this man, who for eighteen
+months had never vouchsafed him any notice, should, meeting him by
+chance that morning in the streets, have invited him to the cabaret and
+treated him, was a matter of surprise and congratulation to himself. At
+first Jack was somewhat distrustful of such courtesy, for the other had
+such a singular way of repeating his question, “Is there nothing new at
+the Rondics? Really, nothing new?”
+
+“I wonder,” thought the apprentice, “if he wishes me to carry his
+letters, instead of Bélisaire!”
+
+But after a little while the boy became more at ease. Perhaps Chariot,
+he thought, may not be such a bad fellow. A good friend might induce
+him to relinquish play, and make him a better man.
+
+After Jack had taken his third glass of wine, he became very cordial,
+and offered to become this good friend. Chariot accepting the offer
+with enthusiasm, the boy thought himself justified in at once offering
+his advice.
+
+“Look here, M. Chariot, listen to me, and don’t play any more.”
+
+The blow struck home, for the young man’s lips trembled nervously, and
+he swallowed a glass of brandy at one gulp.
+
+At that moment the factory-bell sounded.
+
+“I must go,” cried Jack, starting to his feet. And, as his friend had
+paid for the first and second wine they had drank, he considered it
+essential that he should now pay in his turn; so he drew a louis from
+his pocket, and tossed it on the table.
+
+“Hallo! a yellow boy!” said the barkeeper, unaccustomed to seeing such
+in the possession of apprentices. Chariot started, but made no remark.
+
+“Had Jack been to the wardrobe also?” he said to himself. The boy was
+delighted at the sensation he had created. “And I have more of the same
+kind,” he added, tapping his pocket. And then he whispered in his
+companion’s ear, “It is for a present that I mean to buy Zénaïde.”
+
+Chariot said, mechanically, “Is it?” and turned away with a smile.
+
+The innkeeper fingered the gold piece with some uneasiness.
+
+“Hurry,” said Jack, “or I shall be late.”
+
+“I wish, my boy,” said Chariot, “that you could have remained with me
+until my boat left, which will not be for an hour.”
+
+And he gently drew the lad toward the Loire. It was easily done, for,
+coming out from the cabaret into the cold air, the wine the child had
+drank made him giddy. It seemed to him that his head weighed a thousand
+pounds. This did not last long, however. “Hark!” he said; “the bell has
+stopped, I think.” They turned back. Jack was terrified, for it was the
+first time that he had ever been late at the Works. But Chariot was in
+despair. “It is my fault,” he reiterated. He declared that he would see
+the Director and explain matters, and was altogether so utterly
+miserable, that Jack was obliged to console him by saying that it was
+of no great consequence, after all; that he could afford to be marked
+‘absent’ for once. “I will go with you to the boat.”
+
+The boy was so gratified by what he believed to be the good effect of
+his words on Chariot, that he enlarged on the noble nature of Père
+Rondic and of Clarisse.
+
+“O, had you seen her this morning, you would have pitied her. She was
+so pale that she looked as if she were dead.”
+
+Chariot started.
+
+“And she ate nothing. I am afraid she will be ill. And she never
+spoke.”
+
+“Poor woman!” said Chariot, with a sigh of relief which Jack took for
+one of sorrow.
+
+They reached the wharf. The boat was not there. A thick fog covered the
+river from one shore to the other.
+
+“Let us go in here,” said Chariot It was a little wooden shed, intended
+as a shelter for workmen while waiting in bad weather. Clarisse knew
+this shed very well, and the old woman who sold brandy and coffee in
+the corner had seen Madame Rondic many a time when she crossed the
+Loire.
+
+“Let us take a drop of brandy to keep out the cold,” said Chariot. At
+that moment a shrill whistle was heard; it was the boat for Saint
+Nazarre. “Good-bye, Jack, and a thousand thanks for your good advice!”
+
+“Don’t mention it,” said the lad, heartily; “but pray give up
+gambling.”
+
+“Of course I will,” answered the other, hurrying on board to hide his
+amusement. When Jack was again alone he felt no desire to return to the
+Works; he was in a state of unusual excitement. Even the heavy fog
+hanging over the Loire interested him. Suddenly he said to himself,
+“Why do I not go to Nantes and buy Zénaïde’s gift to-day?” A few
+moments saw him on the way; but as there was no train until noon, he
+must wait for some time, and was compelled to pass that time in a room
+where there were several of the old employés of the Works, who had been
+discharged for various misdemeanors. They received the lad civilly
+enough, and listened attentively when he took up some remark that was
+made, and uttered some platitudes, stolen from D’Argenton, on the
+rights of labor.
+
+“Listen!” they said to each other; “it is easy to see that the boy
+comes from Paris.”
+
+Jack, excited by this applause and sympathy, talked fast and freely.
+Suddenly the room swam around—all grew dark. A fresh breeze restored
+him to consciousness. He was seated on the bank of the river, and a
+sailor was bathing his forehead.
+
+“Are you better?” said the man.
+
+“Yes, much better,” answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
+
+“Then go on board.”
+
+“Go where?” said the apprentice, in amazement.
+
+“Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for
+provisions? And here comes the man with them.”
+
+Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any
+point; he embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left,
+with which he could buy some little souvenir for Zénaïde, so that his
+trip to Nantes would not be thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted with
+a poor enough appetite, and sat at the end of the boat, wrapped in
+thought. He dreamily recalled books that he had read—tales of strange
+adventures on the sea; but why did a certain old volume of Robinson
+Crusoe persistently come before him? He saw the rubbed and yellowed
+page, the vignette of Robinson in his hammock surrounded by drunken
+sailors, and above it the inscription, “And in a night of debauch I
+forgot all my good resolutions.”
+
+He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and by
+a pair of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was
+annoyed by this gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
+
+“Drink with me, captain!” he said.
+
+The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, “Let
+him alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled
+things for him; he thought you had more money than you ought to have!”
+
+Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his
+money was his own, that it had been given him by———. Here he stopped,
+remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention her name.
+“But,” he continued, “I can have more money when I wish it, and I am
+going to buy a wedding present for Zénaïde.”
+
+He talked on, but no one listened, for a grand dispute between the two
+men was well under way as to the place where they should land.
+
+At last they entered the harbor of Nantes. Old houses, with carved
+fronts and stone balconies, met his eyes, crowded as it were among the
+shipping at the wharves. Large vessels lay at anchor in the harbor,
+looking to the boy like captives who panted for liberty, sunshine, and
+space. Then he thought of Mâdou, of his flight and concealment among
+the cargo in the hold. But this thought was gone in a moment, and he
+found himself on shore between his two companions, whom he soon loses
+and finds again. They cross one bridge, and then another, and wander
+with neither end nor aim. They drink at intervals; night comes, and the
+boy accompanies the sailors to a low dance-house, still in the strange
+excitement in which he has been all day. Finally, he finds himself
+alone on a bench, in a public square, in a state of exhaustion that is
+far from sleep. The profound solitude terrifies him, when suddenly he
+hears the well-known cry,—
+
+“Hats! hats! Hats to sell!”
+
+“Bélisaire!” called the boy.
+
+It was Bélisaire. Jack made a futile effort at explanation. The man
+scolded the boy gently, lifted him up, and led him away.
+
+Where are they going? And who comes here? and what do they want of him?
+Rough men accost him; they shake him and put irons on his wrists, and
+he cannot resist, for he is still more than half asleep. He sleeps in
+the wagon into which he is thrust; in the boat, where he lies utterly
+inert; and how happy he is after being thus buffeted about to finally
+throw himself on a straw pallet, shut out from all further disturbance
+by huge locks and bolts.
+
+In the morning a frightful noise over his head awoke Jack suddenly. Ah,
+what a dismal awakening is that of drunkenness! The nervous trembling
+in every limb, the intense thirst and exhaustion, the shame and
+inexpressible anguish of the human being seeing himself reduced to the
+level of a beast, and so disgusted with his tarnished existence that he
+feels incapable of beginning life again.
+
+It was still too dark to distinguish objects, but he knew that he was
+not in his little attic. He caught a glimpse of the coming dawn in the
+white light from two high windows. Where was he? In the corner he began
+to see a confused mass of cords and pulleys. Suddenly he heard the same
+noise that had awakened him: it was a clock, and one that he well knew.
+He was at Indret, then, but where?
+
+Could it be that he was shut in the tower where refractory apprentices
+were occasionally put? And what had he done? He tried to recall the
+events of the day before, and, confused as his mind still was, he
+remembered enough to cover him with shame. He groaned heavily. The
+groan was answered by a sigh from the corner. He was not alone, then!
+
+“Who is there?” asked Jack, uneasily; “is it Bélisaire?” he added. But
+why should Bélisaire be there with him?
+
+“Yes, it is I,” answered the man, in a tone of desperation.
+
+“In the name of heaven tell me why we are shut up here like two
+criminals?”
+
+“What other people have been doing I can’t tell,” muttered the old man;
+“I only speak for myself, and I have done no harm to any one. My hats
+are ruined,—and I, too, for that matter!” continued Bélisaire,
+dolefully.
+
+“But what have I done?” asked Jack, for he could not imagine that among
+the many follies of which he had been guilty there was one more grave
+than another.
+
+“They say—But why do you make me tell you? You know well enough what
+they say.”
+
+“Indeed, I do not; pray, go on.”
+
+“Well, they say that you have stolen Zénaïde’s dowry.”
+
+The boy uttered an exclamation of horror. “But you do not believe this,
+Bélisaire?”
+
+The old man did not answer. Every one at Indret thought Jack guilty.
+Every circumstance was against the boy. On the first report of the
+robbery, Jack was looked for, but was not to be found. Chariot had very
+well managed matters. All along the road there were traces of the
+robbery in the gold pieces displayed so liberally. Only one thing
+disturbed the belief of the boy’s guilt in the minds of the villagers:
+what could he have done with the six thousand francs? Neither
+Bélisaire’s pocket nor his own displayed any indication that such a sum
+of money had been in their possession.
+
+Soon after daybreak the superintendent sent for the prisoners. They
+were covered with mud, and were unwashed and unshorn; yet Jack had a
+certain grace and refinement in spite of all this; but Bélisaire’s
+naturally ugly countenance was so distorted by grief and anxiety, that,
+as the two appeared, the spectators unanimously decided that this
+gentle-looking child was the mere instrument of the wretched being with
+whom he was unfortunately connected. As Jack looked about he saw
+several faces which seemed like those of some terrible nightmare, and
+his courage deserted him. He recognized the sailors, and the
+proprietors of several of the wineshops, with many others of those whom
+he had seen on that disastrous yesterday. The child begged for a
+private interview with the superintendent, and was admitted to the
+office, where he found Father Rondic, whom Jack went forward at once to
+greet with extended hand. The old man drew back sadly but resolutely.
+
+“Out of regard for your youth, Jack,” said the Director, “and from
+respect to your parents, and in consideration of your hitherto good
+behavior, I have begged that, instead of being carried to Nantes and
+placed in prison, you shall remain here. I now tell you that it is for
+you to decide what will be done. Tell me the truth. Tell Father Rondic
+and myself what you have done with the money, give him back what is
+left, and—no, do not interrupt me,” continued the Director, with a
+frown. “Return the money, and I will then send you to your parents.”
+
+Here Bélisaire attempted to speak. “Be quiet, fellow!” said the
+superintendent; “I cannot understand how you can have the audacity to
+speak. We believe you to be in reality the guilty party, and that this
+child has simply been your tool.”
+
+Jack wished to protest against this condemnation of his friend; but old
+Rondic gave him no time.
+
+“You are quite right, sir, it is bad company that has led the lad
+astray. Everybody loved him in my house; we had every confidence in him
+until he met this miserable wretch.”
+
+Bélisaire looked so heart-broken at this wholesale condemnation that
+Jack rushed boldly forward in his defence. “I assure you, sir, that I
+met Bélisaire late in the day.”
+
+“Do you mean,” said the superintendent, “that you committed this
+robbery all alone?”
+
+“I have done no wrong, sir.”
+
+“Take care, my lad—you are going down hill with rapidity. Your guilt is
+very evident, and it is useless to deny it. You were alone with the
+Rondic women in their house all night. Zénaïde showed you the casket,
+and even showed you where it was kept. In the night she heard some one
+moving in your attic; she spoke; naturally you made no reply. She knew
+that it must be you, for there was no one else in the house. Then you
+must remember that we know how much money you threw away yesterday.”
+
+Jack was about to say, “My mother sent it to me,” when he remembered
+that she had forbidden him to mention this. So he hesitatingly murmured
+that he had been saving his money for some time.
+
+“What nonsense!” cried the Director. “Do you think you can make us
+believe that with your small wages you could have laid aside the amount
+you squandered yesterday? Tell the truth, my lad, and repair the evil
+you have done as well as possible.”
+
+Then Father Rondic spoke. “Tell us, my boy, where this money is.
+Remember that it is Zénaïde’s dowry, that I have toiled day and night
+to lay it aside for her, feeling that with it I might make her happy.
+You did not think of all this, I am sure, and were led away by the
+temptation of the moment. But now that you have had time to reflect,
+you will tell us the truth. Remember, Jack, that I am old, that time
+may not be given me to replace this money. Ah, my good lad, speak!”
+
+The poor man’s lips trembled. It must have been a hardened criminal who
+could have resisted such a touching appeal. Bélisaire was so moved that
+he made a series of the most extraordinary gestures. “Give him the
+money, Jack, I beg of you!” he whispered.
+
+Alas! if the child had had the money, how gladly he would have placed
+it in the hands of old Rondic, but he could only say,—
+
+“I have stolen nothing—I swear I have not!”
+
+The superintendent rose from his chair impatiently. “We have had enough
+of this. Your heart must be of adamant to resist such an appeal as has
+been made to you. I shall send you up-stairs again, and give you until
+to-night to reflect. If you do not then make a full confession, I shall
+hand you over to the proper tribunal.”
+
+The boy was then left all the long day in solitude. He tried to sleep,
+but the knowledge that every one thought him guilty, that his own
+shameful conduct had given ample reason for such a judgment,
+overwhelmed him with sorrow. How could he prove his innocence? By
+showing his mother’s letter. But if D’Argenton should know of it? No,
+he could not sacrifice his mother! What, then, should he do? And the
+boy lay on the straw bed, turning over in his bewildered brain the
+difficulties of his position. Around him went on the business of life;
+he heard the workmen come and go. It was evening, and he would be sent
+to prison. Suddenly he heard the stairs creak under a heavy tread, then
+the turning of the key, and Zénaïde entered hastily.
+
+“Good heavens,” she cried, “how high up you are!”
+
+She said this with a careless air, but she had wept so much that her
+eyes were red and inflamed, her hair was roughened and carelessly put
+up. The poor girl smiled at Jack. “I am ugly, am I not? I have no
+figure nor complexion. I have a big nose and small eyes; but two days
+ago I had a handsome dowry, and I cared but little if some of the
+malicious young girls said, ‘It is only for your money that Maugin
+wishes to marry you,’ as if I did not know this! He wanted my money,
+but I loved him! And now, Jack, all is changed. To-night he will come
+and say farewell, and I shall not complain. Only, Jack, before he
+comes, I thought I would have a little talk with you.”
+
+Jack had hidden his face, and was crying. Zénaïde felt a ray of hope at
+this.
+
+“You will give me back my money, Jack, will you not?” she added
+entreatingly.
+
+“But I have not got it, I assure you.”
+
+“Do not say that. You are afraid of me, but I will not reproach you. If
+you have spent a little you are quite welcome, but tell me where the
+rest is!”
+
+“Listen to me, Zénaïde: this is horrible. Why should every one think me
+guilty?”
+
+She went on as if he had not spoken. “Do you understand that without
+this money I shall be miserable? In your mother’s name I entreat you
+here on my knees!”
+
+She threw herself on the floor by the side of the bed where the boy
+sat, and gave way to tears and sobs. Jack, who was as unhappy as she,
+tried to take her hand. Suddenly she started up. “You will be punished.
+No one will ever love you because your heart is bad!” and she left the
+room. She ran hastily down the stairs to the superintendent’s room,
+whom she found with her father. She could not speak, for her tears
+choked her.
+
+“Be comforted, my child!” said the Director. “Your father tells me that
+the mother of this boy is married to a very rich man. We will write to
+them. If they are good people, your dowry will be restored to you.”
+
+He wrote the following letter:—
+
+“Madame: Your son has stolen a sum of money from the honest and
+hard-working man with whom he lived. This sum represents the savings of
+years. I have not yet handed him over to the authorities, hoping that
+he might be induced to restore at least a portion of this money. But I
+am afraid that it has all been squandered among drunken companions. If
+that is the case, you should indemnify the Rondics for their loss. The
+amount is six thousand francs. I await your decision before taking any
+further steps.”
+
+And he signed his name.
+
+“Poor things—it is terrible news for them!” said Père Rondic, who amid
+his own sorrows could still think of those of others.
+
+Zénaïde looked up indignantly. “Why do you pity these people? If the
+boy has taken my money, let them replace it.”
+
+How pitiless is youth! The girl gave not one thought to the mother’s
+despair when she should hear of her son’s crime. Old Rondic, on the
+contrary, said to himself, “She will die of shame!”
+
+In due time this letter written by the superintendent reached its
+destination, as letters which contain bad news generally do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+CHARLOTTE’S JOURNEY.
+
+
+One gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines;
+the poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman
+reached Aulnettes.
+
+“Ah! a letter from Indret!” said D’Argenton, slowly opening his
+newspapers,—“and some verses by Hugo!”
+
+Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone
+that he does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else
+shall touch? Simply because Charlotte’s eyes had kindled at the sight
+of it, and because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment
+he had become a secondary object in the mother’s eyes.
+
+From the hour of Jack’s departure, his mother’s love for him had
+increased. She avoided speaking of him, however, lest she should
+irritate her poet. He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the
+child increased. And when the early letters of Rondic contained
+complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not
+enough. He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour
+had come. At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it,
+his eyes flamed with malicious joy. “Ah! I knew it!” he cried, and he
+handed the sheet to Charlotte.
+
+What a terrible blow for her! Wounded in her maternal pride before the
+poet, wounded, too, by his evident satisfaction, the poor woman was
+still more overwhelmed by the reproaches of her own conscience. “It is
+my own fault!” she said to herself, “why did I abandon him?”
+
+Now he must be saved, and at all hazards. But where should she find the
+money? She had nothing. The sale of her furniture had brought in some
+millions of francs, but they had been quickly spent. The trifles of
+jewelry she had would not bring half the necessary sum. She never
+thought of appealing to D’Argenton. First, he hated the boy; and next,
+he was very miserly. Besides, he was far from rich. They lived with
+great economy in the winter, the better to keep up their hospitality
+during the summer.
+
+“I have always felt,” said D’Argenton, after leaving her time to finish
+the letter, “that this boy was bad at heart!”
+
+She made no reply; indeed she hardly heard what he said. She was
+thinking that her child would go to prison if she could not obtain the
+money.
+
+He continued, “What a disgrace this is to me!” The mother was still
+saying to herself, “The money, where shall I get it?”
+
+He determined to prevent her asking him the question he saw on her
+lips.
+
+“We are not rich enough to do anything!”
+
+“Ah! if you could,” she murmured.
+
+He became very angry. “If I could!” he cried. “I expected that! You
+know better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It is
+enough that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for
+the thefts he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find
+them?”
+
+“I did not think of you,” she answered, slowly.
+
+“Of whom, then?” he questioned, sternly.
+
+With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered
+a name, expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.
+
+He was silent for a moment.
+
+“I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte,” he said,
+pompously.
+
+“Thanks! thanks! How good you are!” she cried.
+
+And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the
+stairs.
+
+It was a most singular conversation—syllabic and disjointed—he
+affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. “It was impossible to
+trust to a letter,” Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own
+audacity, she added, “Suppose I go to Tours myself.”
+
+With the utmost tranquillity he answered, “Very well, we will go.”
+
+“How good you are, dear!” she cried: “you will go with me there, and
+then to Indret with the money!” and the foolish creature kissed his
+hands with tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go to
+Tours without him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy.
+Suppose she should never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow, so
+inconsistent! The sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had
+relinquished—the influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside
+the heavy chains with which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by
+no means averse to this little journey, nor to playing his part in the
+drama at Indret.
+
+He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready to
+share her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced
+Charlotte that he loved her more than ever.
+
+At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, “We are obliged to go to Indret,
+the child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our
+absence.” They left by the night express and reached Tours early in the
+morning. The old friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty
+châteaux overlooking the Loire. He was a widower without children, an
+excellent man, and a man of the world. In spite of her infidelity, he
+had none but the kindest recollection of the light-hearted woman who
+for a time had brightened his solitude. He consequently replied to a
+little note sent by Charlotte that he was ready to receive her.
+
+D’Argenton and she took a carriage from the hotel, and as they
+approached the château, Charlotte began to grow uneasy. “It cannot be,”
+she said to herself, “that he intends to go in with me!” She sat in the
+corner of the carriage, looking out at the fields where she had so
+often wandered with the boy, who was now wearing a workman’s blouse.
+
+D’Argenton watched her from the corner of his eyes, gnawing his
+moustache with fury. She was very pretty that morning, a little pale
+from emotion and from a night of travel. D’Argenton was uneasy and
+restless; he began to regret having accompanied her, and felt
+embarrassed by the part he was playing.
+
+When he saw the château, with its grounds and fountains, its air of
+wealth, he reproached himself for his own imprudence. “She will never
+return to Aulnettes,” he thought. At the end of the avenue he stopped
+the carriage. “I will wait here,” he said, abruptly; and added, with a
+sad smile, “Do not be long.”
+
+Ten minutes later he saw Charlotte on the terrace with a tall and
+elegant-looking man. Then began for him a terrible anguish. What were
+they saying? Should he ever see her again? And it was that detestable
+boy that had given him all this disturbance. The poet sat on the fallen
+trunk of a tree, watching feverishly the distant door. Before him was
+outspread a charming landscape—wooded hills, sloping vineyards, and
+meadows overhung with willows; on one side a ruin of the time of Louis
+IX., and on the other, one of those châteaux common enough on the
+shores of the Loire. Just below him a sort of canal was in process of
+building. He watched the workmen in a mechanical sort of way; they were
+clothed in uniform, and seemed an organized body. He rose and sauntered
+toward them. The laborers were only children, and their reddened eyes
+and pale faces told the story of their confinement to the poorer
+quarters of the town.
+
+“Who are these children?” questioned the poet.
+
+“They belong to the penitentiary,” was the answer from the official who
+superintended them.
+
+D’Argenton asked question after question, saying that he was intimately
+connected with a family whose only son had just plunged them into deep
+affliction.
+
+“Send him to us,” was the curt reply, “as soon as he leaves the
+prison.”
+
+“But I doubt if he goes to prison,” said D’Argenton, with a shade of
+regret in his voice; “the parents have paid the amount.”
+
+“Well, then, we have another establishment—the _Maison Paternelle_. I
+have some of the circulars here in my pocket, and perhaps you would
+glance over them, sir.”
+
+D’Argenton took the papers and turned back toward the house. The
+carriage was coming down the avenue, and soon Charlotte, her color
+heightened and her eyes bright with hope for her child, appeared.
+
+“I have succeeded,” she cried, as the poet entered the carriage.
+
+“Ah!” he answered, dryly, relapsing into silence, turning over his
+circulars with an air of affected interest. Charlotte, too, was silent,
+supposing his pride wounded; and finally he was obliged to say, “You
+succeeded, then?”
+
+“Completely. It has always been his intention to give Jack, on his
+coming of age, a present of ten thousand francs. He has given it to me
+now. Six thousand will repay the money, and the other four thousand I
+am to employ as I think best for my child’s advantage.”
+
+“Employ it, then, in placing him in the _Maison Paternelle_, at
+Mertray, for two or three years. It is there only that one can learn to
+make an honest man from out of a thief.”
+
+She started, for the harsh word recalled her to reality. We know that
+in that poor little brain impressions are very transitory.
+
+“I am ready to do whatever you choose,” she said, “you have been so
+good and generous!”
+
+The poet was enchanted; he was still master, and he proceeded to read
+Charlotte a long lecture. Her maternal weakness was the cause of all
+that had happened. The master-hand of a man was absolutely essential.
+She did not answer, being occupied with joy at the thought of her child
+not being sent to prison.
+
+It was on Sunday morning that they reached Basse Indret. The poet went
+at once to the superintendent’s, while Charlotte remained alone at the
+inn, for hotel there was none at the village. The rain beating against
+the windows, and the loud talking in the house, gave her the first
+clear impression she had received of the exile to which she had
+condemned her boy. However guilty he might be, he was still her
+child—her Jack. She remembered him as a little fellow, bright,
+intelligent, and sensitive, and the idea that he would presently appear
+before her as a thief and in a workman’s blouse, seemed almost
+incredible. Ah! had she kept her child with her, or had she sent him
+with other boys of his age to school, he would have been kept from
+temptation. The old doctor was right, after all. And Jack had lived
+with these people for two years! All the prejudices of her superficial
+nature revolted against her surroundings. She was incapable of
+comprehending the grandeur of a task accomplished, of a life purchased
+by the fatigue of the body and the labor of the hands. To change the
+current of her thoughts, she took up the prospectus of which we have
+spoken—“_Maison Paternelle_.” The system adopted was absolute
+isolation. The mother’s heart swelled with anguish, and she closed the
+book and went to the window, where she stood with her eyes fixed on a
+small bit of the Loire that she saw at the foot of a street, where the
+water was as rough as the sea itself.
+
+D’Argenton, in the meantime, was accomplishing his mission. He would
+not have relinquished the duty for any amount of money. He was fond of
+attitudes and scenes. He prepared in advance the terms in which he
+should address the criminal.
+
+An old woman pointed out the house of the Rondics, but when he reached
+it he hesitated. Must he not have made a mistake? From the wide open
+windows came the sound of gay music, and heavy feet were heard keeping
+time to it. “No, this cannot be it,” said D’Argenton, who naturally
+expected to find a desolate house.
+
+“Come, Zénaïde, it is your turn,” called some one.
+
+“Zenaïde”—why, that was Rondic’s daughter! These people certainly did
+not take this affair much to heart. All at once a crowd of white-capped
+women passed the window, singing loudly.
+
+“Come, Brigadier! come, Jack!” said some one.
+
+Somewhat mystified, the poet pushed open the door, and amid the dust
+and crowd he saw Jack, radiant with happiness, dancing with a stout
+girl, who smiled with her whole heart at a good-looking fellow in
+uniform. In a corner sat a gray-haired man, much amused by all that was
+going on; with him was a tall, pale, young woman, who looked very sad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+CLARISSE.
+
+
+This was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack’s
+mother, the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic
+entered, pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness
+with which she was received, her conduct having for a long time
+habituated her to the silent contempt of all who respected themselves,
+she refused to sit down, and, standing erect, said slowly, attempting
+to conceal her emotion,—
+
+“I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is
+not he who has stolen my stepdaughter’s dowry.”
+
+The Director started from his chair. “But, ma-dame, every proof is
+against him.”
+
+“What proofs? The most important is that, my husband being away, Jack
+was alone with us in the house. It is just this proof that I have come
+to destroy, for there was another man there that night.”
+
+“What man? Chariot?”
+
+She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
+
+“Then he took the money?”
+
+There was a moment’s hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost
+inaudible reply was whispered, “No, it was not he who took it; I gave
+it to him!”
+
+“Unhappy woman!”
+
+“Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I
+bore for that time the sight of my husband’s despair and of Zénaïde’s
+tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned. Nothing
+came from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I
+heard nothing, I should denounce myself,—and here I am.”
+
+“But what am I to do?”
+
+“Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are.”
+
+“But your husband—it will kill him!”
+
+“And me, too,” she replied, with haughty bitterness. “To die is a very
+simple matter; to live is far more difficult.”
+
+She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.
+
+“If your death could repair your fault,” returned the Director,
+gravely; “if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could
+understand why you should wish to die. But—”
+
+“What shall be done, then,” she asked, plaintively; and all at once she
+became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination
+failed her.
+
+“First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some
+of it still.”
+
+Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler
+played. She knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her,
+to procure this money, and that he would play until he had lost his
+last sou.
+
+The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:
+
+“Go at once to Saint Nazarre,” said his chief; “say to Chariot that I
+require his presence here at once. You will wait for him.”
+
+“Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame Rondic’s; he
+cannot be far off.”
+
+“That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however,
+that Madame Rondic is here.”
+
+The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke.
+She stood leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the
+machinery, the wild whistling of the steam, made a fitting
+accompaniment to the tumult of her soul. The door opened.
+
+“You sent for me,” said Chariot, in a gay voice.
+
+The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief,
+told the story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost
+its color, and he looked like an animal driven into a corner.
+
+“Not a word,” said the Director; “we know all that you wish to say.
+This woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You
+promised to return her the money in two days. Where is it?”
+
+Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him;
+she had seen him too well that terrible night.
+
+“Where is the money?” repeated the superintendent.
+
+“Here—I have brought it.”
+
+What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not
+finding her at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.
+
+His chief took up the bills. “Is it all here?”
+
+“All but eight hundred francs,” the other answered, with some
+hesitation; “but I will return them.”
+
+“Now sit down and write at my dictation,” said the superintendent,
+sternly.
+
+Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death
+to her.
+
+“Write: ‘It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six thousand
+francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.’”
+
+Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that
+Clarisse would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.
+
+The superintendent continued: “‘I return the money; it burns me.
+Release the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle
+to forgive me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only
+when, through labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to
+shake an honest man’s hand.’ Now sign it.”
+
+Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily,
+“Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter,
+and address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested.”
+
+Chariot signed.
+
+“Now go,” resumed the superintendent, “to Guérigny, if you will, and
+try to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the
+neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once.”
+
+As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm
+was broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door
+closed tried to express her gratitude to the superintendent.
+
+“Do not thank me, madame,” he said; “it is for your husband’s sake that
+I have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most horrible torture
+that can overwhelm a man.”
+
+“It is in my husband’s name that I thank you. I am thinking of him, and
+of the sacrifice I must make for him.”
+
+“What sacrifice?”
+
+“That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary.”
+
+And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the
+superintendent feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately,
+“Keep up your courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves
+you.”
+
+And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered a
+placard to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy’s
+innocence. He was fêted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and
+that was news of Bélisaire.
+
+When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack
+was greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily
+with Zénaïde and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when
+D’Argenton appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that
+they explained the finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and
+that a second letter had been sent narrating all these facts; in vain
+did these good people treat Jack with familiar kindness: D’Argenton’s
+manner did not relax; he expressed in the choicest terms his regret
+that Jack had given so much trouble.
+
+“But it is I who owe him every apology,” cried the old man.
+
+D’Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty,
+and of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was
+confused, for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in
+which Zénaïde’s lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore
+listened with downcast eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer,
+who fairly talked Father Rondic to sleep.
+
+“You must be very thirsty after talking so long,” said Zénaïde,
+innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the
+cake looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet—who was, as we
+know, something of an epicure—made a breach in it quite as large as
+that in the ham made by Bélisaire at Aulnettes.
+
+Jack had discovered one thing only from all D’Argenton’s long words,—he
+had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him from
+disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great
+injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy,
+therefore, had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial
+reception of the Rondics, put the poet into the most amiable state of
+mind. You should have seen him with Jack as they trod the narrow
+streets of Indret!
+
+“Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?” said D’Argenton,
+unwilling to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character of hero
+and martyr; it was more than the selfish nature of the man could
+support. And yet, to deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing
+each other once more it was necessary to be provided with some reason;
+and this reason Jack himself soon furnished.
+
+The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability,
+acknowledged to M. d’Argenton that he did not like his present life;
+that he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from
+his mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better
+than manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy’s lips, when
+he saw a change in his hearer.
+
+“You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be
+very unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten
+apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century
+was no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;” and on this text he
+wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the
+side of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in
+the inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to
+bring her the little criminal,—the boy whom she had not seen for two
+years, and whom she dearly loved. But D’Argenton had determined to keep
+them apart. It was wisest—Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would be
+reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the
+sacrifice for her child’s interest.
+
+And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by
+the river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across
+its waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day
+afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.
+
+
+How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such
+swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zénaïde was married, and
+since Jack’s terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and
+loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since
+Zénaïde’s marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her
+accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never
+lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all alike
+monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former
+serenity.
+
+The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island,
+part of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled
+with fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some
+weeks in the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender
+and loving when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when
+the poet looked over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother
+was, that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals,
+who now came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at
+Aulnettes.
+
+Moronval, Mâdou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who
+thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could
+see little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and
+the dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered.
+
+Thus were Dr. Rivals’ words justified: “It is social distinctions that
+create final and absolute separations.”
+
+Jack thought often of the old doctor and of Cécile, and on the first of
+January each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had
+remained unanswered.
+
+One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need
+him, and he must work hard for her sake.
+
+Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not
+to the ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction
+of his career. He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he
+received but three francs per day. With these three francs he must pay
+for his room, his food, and his dress; that is, he must replace his
+coarse clothing as it was worn out; and what should he do if his mother
+were to write and say, “I am coming to live with you “?
+
+“Look here,” said Père Rondic, “your parents made a great mistake in
+not listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you like
+to make a voyage? The chief engineer of the ‘Cydnus’ wants an
+assistant. You can have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed.
+Shall I write and say you will like the situation?”
+
+The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that Mâdou’s wild tales
+had awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly
+pleased at the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just
+four years after his arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became
+more fresh as the little steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack
+had never seen the sea. The fresh salt breeze inspired him with
+restless longing. Saint Nazarre lay before him,—the harbor crowded with
+shipping. They landed at the dock, and there learned that the Cydnus,
+of the _Compagnie Transatlantique_, would sail at three o’clock that
+day, and was already lying outside,—this being, in fact, the only way
+to have the crew all on board at the moment of departure.
+
+Jack and his companion—for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him on
+board his ship—had no time to see anything of the town, which had all
+the vivacity of a market-day.
+
+The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with
+fowls which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty. Near
+their merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for
+purchasers. They were in no hurry, and made no appeal to the
+passers-by. In contrast to these, there was a number of small peddlers,
+selling pins, cravats, and portemonnaies, who were loudly crying their
+wares. Sailors were hurrying to and fro, and Rondic learned from one of
+them that the chief engineer of the Cydnus was in a very bad humor
+because he had not his full number of stokers on board.
+
+“We must hasten,” said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly
+threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic
+steamers lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large
+English ships just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all
+hard at work. They passed between these motionless masses, where the
+water was as dark as a canal running through the midst of a city under
+high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry
+little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed
+Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.
+
+His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures
+were eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
+
+“You have come, then, have you?” he shouted. “I was afraid you meant to
+leave me in the lurch.”
+
+“It was my fault,” said Rondic; “I wished to accompany the lad, and I
+could not get away yesterday.”
+
+“On board with you, quick!” returned the engineer; “he must get into
+his place at once.”
+
+They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who
+had never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size and
+the depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes
+accustomed to the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing.
+The heat was stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where
+the heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost
+insupportable. Great activity reigned in this room; a general
+examination was being made of the machinery, which glittered with
+cleanliness. Jack looked on curiously at the enormous structure,
+knowing that it would soon be his duty to watch it day and night.
+
+At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. “That is where the
+coal is kept,” said the engineer, carelessly; “and on the other side
+the stokers sleep.”
+
+Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the
+Rondics, were palaces in comparison.
+
+The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened by
+the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked,
+were stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
+
+“Here is your man,” said Blanchet to the head workman.
+
+“All right, sir,” said the other without turning round.
+
+“Farewell,” said Rondic. “Take care of yourself, my boy!” and he was
+gone.
+
+Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the
+furnace to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very
+hard work: the baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change
+from the pure air above to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely
+suffocating. On the third trip Jack felt his legs giving way under him.
+He found it impossible to even lift his basket, and sank into a corner
+half fainting. One of the stokers, seeing his condition, brought him a
+large flask of brandy.
+
+“Thank you; I never drink anything,” said Jack.
+
+The other laughed. “You will drink here,” he answered.
+
+“Never,” murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an effort
+of will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
+
+From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer
+ran to and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who
+came hurriedly on board. The passengers were representatives of all
+nations. Some were gay, and others were weeping, but in the faces of
+all was to be read an anxiety or a hope; for these displacements, these
+movings, are almost invariably the result of some great disturbance,
+and are, in general, the last quiver of the shock that throws you from
+one continent to the other.
+
+This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that
+strained at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty who
+had come, some of them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It
+animated the fishing-boats, whose sails were spread for a night of
+toil.
+
+Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the
+passengers,—those belonging to the cabins comfortably established,
+those of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they
+going? What wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality
+awaited them on their landing? One couple interested him especially: it
+was a mother and a child who recalled to him the memory of Ida and
+little Jack. The lady was young and in black, with a heavy wrap thrown
+about her, a Mexican sarape with wide stripes. She had a certain air of
+independence characteristic of the wives of military or naval officers,
+who, from the frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown on their
+own resources. The child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if
+he might have belonged to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they
+both turned aside, and the long silk skirts were lifted that they might
+not touch his blackened garments. It was an almost imperceptible
+movement, but Jack understood it. A rough oath and a slap on the
+shoulder interrupted his sad thoughts.
+
+“What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!” It was
+the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word,
+humiliated at the reproof.
+
+As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout
+the ship: she had started.
+
+“Stand there!” said the head stoker.
+
+Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty
+to fill it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not
+such an easy matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching of
+the vessel came near throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless
+toiled on courageously, but at the end of an hour he was blind and
+deaf, stifled by the blood that rushed to his head. He did as the
+others did, and ran to the outer air. Ah, how good it was! Almost
+immediately, however, an icy blast struck him between the shoulders.
+
+“Quick, give me the brandy!” he cried with a choked voice, to the man
+who had previously offered it to him.
+
+“Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before
+long.”
+
+He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he
+was so cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable
+warmth spread over his whole system, and then began a burning sensation
+in his stomach. To extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within,
+and fire without,—flame upon flame,—was this the way that he was to
+live in future?
+
+Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three
+years:—three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room
+down in the bowels of that big ship.
+
+He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian,
+French, and Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the
+climes they visited, the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had
+emptied his cinders, broken his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept
+the sleep of exhaustion and intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he
+lives. In the darkness of his life there was but one bright spot, his
+mother. She was like the Madonna in a chapel where all the lights are
+extinguished save the one that burns before her shrine. Now that he had
+become a man, much of the mystery of her life had become clear to him.
+His respect for Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and he loved her
+as we love those for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing
+moments he remembered the end for which he toiled, and a mechanical
+instinct made him carefully preserve almost every sou of his wages.
+
+Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother
+and son. Jack’s letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte
+were frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life,
+that he read them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a
+living tenderness.
+
+Letters from Etiolles told him of D’Argenton; later, some from Paris
+spoke of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the
+poet having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of
+friends. This would be a way of bringing his works prominently before
+the public, as well as to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a
+large package addressed to him. It was the first number of the
+magazine. The stoker mechanically turned its leaves, leaving on them
+the traces of his blackened fingers; and suddenly, as he saw the
+well-known names of D’Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the smooth
+pages, he was seized with wild rage and indignation, and he cried
+aloud, as he shook his fist impatiently in the air, “Wretches,
+wretches! what have you made of me?”
+
+This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and,
+strangely enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and
+better able to support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed
+hardly to recognize any difference between his days when the ship
+tossed and groaned, and his nights when he slept a drunken sleep,
+disturbed only by an occasional nightmare.
+
+Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams?
+That rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,—was all that a
+dream? His comrades called him, shook him. “Jack, Jack!” they cried; he
+staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under
+water, the compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against
+each other in the darkness. “What is it?” they cried.
+
+An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow
+ladder; at the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his
+hand.
+
+“The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your
+furnaces! Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are
+obeyed.” Each one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They
+charged the furnaces with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured
+out; while the water still ascending, in spite of the constant work at
+the pumps, was as cold as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces
+will not burn. The stokers are in water up to their shoulders before
+the voice of the chief engineer is heard: “Save yourselves, my men, if
+you can!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+D’ARGENTON’S MAGAZINE.
+
+
+In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging
+to the last century, D’Argenton had established himself as editor of
+the new magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor. Do
+not smile: this was really the case; his money had been used to
+establish it. Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so
+employing these funds, which she wished to preserve intact for the boy
+on his attaining his majority; but she yielded to the poet’s
+persuasions.
+
+“Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you know. Can there be a
+better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad,
+at least. Have I not placed my own funds in it?”
+
+Within six months D’Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and
+the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous.
+Besides the offices of the magazine, D’Argenton had hired in the same
+house a large apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the
+Seine, Nôtre Dame, numberless spires and domes, were all spread before
+his eyes. He saw the carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats
+glide through the arches. “Here I can live and breathe,” he said to
+himself. “It was impossible for me to accomplish anything in that dull
+little hole of Aulnettes! How could one work in such a lethargic
+atmosphere?”
+
+Charlotte was still young and gay; she managed the house and the
+kitchen, which was no small matter with the number of persons who daily
+assembled around her table. The poet, too, had recently acquired the
+habit of dictating instead of writing, and as Charlotte wrote a
+graceful English hand, he employed her as secretary. Every evening,
+when they were alone, he walked up and down the large room and dictated
+for an hour. In the silent old house, his solemn voice, and another
+sweeter and fresher, awakened singular echoes. “Our author is
+composing,” said the concierge with respect.
+
+Let us look in upon the D’Argenton ménage. We find them installed in a
+charming little room, filled with the aroma of green tea and of Havana
+cigars. Charlotte is preparing her writing-table, arranging her pens,
+and straightening the ream of thick paper. D’Argenton is in excellent
+vein; he is in the humor to dictate all night, and twists his
+moustache, where glitter many silvery hairs. He waits to be inspired.
+Charlotte, however, as is often the case in a household, is very
+differently disposed: a cloud is on her face, which is pale and
+anxious; but notwithstanding her evident fatigue, she dips her pen in
+the inkstand.
+
+“Let us see—we are at chapter first. Have you written that?”
+
+“Chapter first,” repeated Charlotte, in a low, sad voice.
+
+The poet looked at her with annoyance; then, with an evident
+determination not to question her, he continued,—
+
+“In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore—”
+
+He repeated these words several times, then turning to Charlotte, he
+said, “Have you written this?”
+
+She made an effort to repeat the words, but stopped, her voice
+strangled with sobs. In vain did she try to restrain herself, her tears
+flowed in torrents.
+
+“What on earth is the matter?” said D’Argenton. “Is it this news of the
+Cydnus? It is a mere flying report, I am sure, and I attach no
+importance to it. Dr. Hirsch was to call at the office of the Company
+to-day, and he will be here directly.”
+
+He spoke in a satirical tone, slightly disdainful, as the weak,
+children, fools, and invalids are often addressed. Was she not
+something of all these?
+
+“Where were we?” he continued, when she was calmer. “You have made me
+lose the thread. Read me all you have written.”
+
+Charlotte wiped her tears away.
+
+“In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore—”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“It is all,” she answered.
+
+The poet was very much surprised; it seemed to him that he had dictated
+much more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression
+bewildered him. All that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his
+brain, he fancied was already in form and on the page, and he was
+aghast at the disproportion between the dream and the reality. His
+delusion was like that of Don Quixote,—he believed himself in the
+Empyrean, and took the vapors from the kitchen for the breath of
+heaven, and, seated on his wooden horse, felt all the shock of an
+imaginary fall.. Had he been in such a state of mental exaltation
+merely to produce those two lines? Were these the only result of that
+frantic rubbing of his dishevelled hair, of that weary pacing to and
+fro?’
+
+He was furious, for he felt that he was ridiculous. “It is your fault,”
+he said to Charlotte. “How can a man work in the face of a crying
+woman? It is always the same thing—nothing is accomplished. Years pass
+away and the places are filled. Do you not know how small a thing
+disturbs literary composition? I ought to live in a tower a thousand
+feet above all the futilities of life, instead of being surrounded by
+caprices, disorder, and childishness.” As he speaks he strikes a
+furious blow upon the table, and poor Charlotte, with the tears pouring
+from her eyes, gathers up the pens and papers that have flown about the
+room in wild confusion.
+
+The arrival of Dr. Hirsch ends this deplorable scene, and after a while
+tranquillity is restored. The doctor is not alone; Labassandre comes
+with him, and both are grave and mysterious in their manner.
+
+Charlotte turns hastily. “What news, doctor?” she asks.
+
+“None, madame; no news whatever.”
+
+But Charlotte detected a covert glance at D’Argenton, and knew that the
+physician’s words were false.
+
+“And what do the officers of the Company say?” continued the mother,
+determined to learn the truth.
+
+Labassandre undertook to answer, and while he spoke, the doctor
+contrived to convey to D’Argenton that the Cydnus had gone to the
+bottom,—“a collision at sea—every soul was lost.”
+
+D’Argenton’s face never changed, and it would have been difficult to
+form any idea of his feelings.
+
+“I have been at work,” he said. “Excuse me, I need the fresh air.”
+
+“You are right,” said Charlotte; “go out for a walk;” and the poor
+woman, who usually detained her poet in the house lest the high-born
+ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain should entrap him, is this evening
+delighted to see him leave her, that she may weep in peace—that she may
+yield to all the wild terror and mournful presentiments that assail
+her. This is why even the presence of the servant annoys her, and she
+sends her to her attic.
+
+“Madame wishes to be alone! Is not madame afraid? The noise of the wind
+is very dismal on the balcony.”
+
+“No, I am not afraid; leave me.”
+
+At last she was alone. She could think at her ease, without the voice
+of her tyrant saying, “What are you thinking about?” Ever since she had
+read in the Journal the brief words, “There is no intelligence of the
+Cydnus,” the image of her child had pursued her. Her nights had been
+sleepless, and she listened to the wind with singular terror. It seemed
+to blow from all quarters, rattling the windows and wailing through the
+chimneys. But whether it whispered or shrieked, it spoke to her, and
+said what it always says to the mothers and wives of sailors, who turn
+pale as they listen. The wind comes from afar, but it comes quickly and
+has met with many adventures. With one gust it has torn away the sails
+of a vessel, set fire to a quiet home, and carried death and
+destruction on its wings. This it is that gives to its voice such
+melancholy intonations.
+
+This night it was dreary enough: it rattles the windows and whistles
+under the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this
+poor mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking of
+the clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same
+plaintive tone and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well
+what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on
+the broad ocean, without sails or rudder—of a maddened crowd on the
+deck, of cries and shrieks, curses and prayers. Her hallucination is so
+strong that she even hears from the ship a beseeching cry of “Mamma!”
+She starts to her feet; she hears it again. To escape it, she walks
+about the room, opens the door and looks down the corridor. She sees
+nothing, but she hears a sigh, and, raising her lamp higher, discovers
+a dark shadow crouched in the corner.
+
+“Who is that?” she cried, half in terror, half in hope.
+
+“It is I, dear mother!” said a weak voice.
+
+She ran toward him. It is her boy—a tall, rough sailor—rising as she
+approached him, with the aid of a pair of crutches. And this is what
+she has made of her child! Not a word, not an exclamation, not a
+caress. They look at each other, and tears fill the eyes of both.
+
+A certain fatality attaches itself to some people, which renders them
+and all that they do absolutely ridiculous. When D’Argenton returned
+that night, he came with the determination to disclose the fatal news
+to Charlotte, and to have the whole affair concluded. The manner in
+which he turned the key in the lock announced this solemn
+determination. But what was his surprise to find the parlor a blaze of
+light! Charlotte—and on the table by the fire the remains of a meal.
+She came to him in a terrible state of agitation.
+
+“Hush! Pray make no noise—he is here and asleep.”
+
+“Who is here?”
+
+“Jack, of course. He has been shipwrecked, and is severely injured. He
+has been saved as by a miracle. He has just come from Rio Janeiro,
+where he spent two months in a hospital.”
+
+D’Argenton forced a smile, which Charlotte endeavored to believe was
+one of satisfaction. It must be acknowledged that he behaved very well,
+and said at once that Jack must stay there until he was entirely
+recovered. In fact, he could do no less for the actual proprietor of
+his Review.
+
+The first excitement over, the ordinary life of the poet and Charlotte
+was resumed, changed only by the presence of the poor lame fellow,
+whose legs were badly burned by the explosion of a boiler, and had not
+yet healed. He was clothed in a jacket of blue cloth. His light
+moustache, the color of ripe wheat, was struggling into sight through
+the thick coating of tan that darkened his face; his eyes were red and
+inflamed, for the lashes had been burned off; and in a state of apathy
+painful to witness, the son of Ida de Barancy dragged himself from
+chair to chair, to the irritation of D’Argenton and to the great shame
+of his mother. When some stranger entered the house and cast an
+astonished glance at this figure, which offered so strange a contrast
+to the quiet, luxurious surroundings, she hastened to say, “It is my
+son, he has been very ill,” in the same way that the mothers of
+deformed children quickly mention the relationship, lest they should
+surprise a smile or a compassionate look. But if she was pained in
+seeing her darling in this state, and blushed at the vulgarity of his
+manners or his awkwardness at the table, she was still more mortified
+at the tone of contempt with which her husband’s friends spoke of her
+son.
+
+Jack saw little difference in the habitués of the house, save that they
+were older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they
+were the same. They had attained no higher social position, and were
+still without visible means of support.
+
+They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice
+each week they all dined at D’Argenton’s table. Moronval generally
+brought with him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince
+of an indefinite age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed
+very small and slender. With his little cane and hat, he looked like a
+figure of yellow clay fallen from an étagère upon the Parisian
+sidewalk. The other, with narrow slits of eyes and a black beard,
+recalled certain vague remembrances to Jack, who at last recognized his
+old friend Said who had offered him cigar ends on their first
+interview.
+
+The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished,
+but his parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the
+manners and customs of fashionable society. All these persons treated
+Jack with a certain air of condescension. He remained Master Jack to
+but one person—that was that most amiable of women, Madame Moronval,
+who wore the same silk dress that he had seen her in years before. He
+cared little whether he was called “Master Jack,” or “My boy,”—his two
+months in the hospital, his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the
+atmosphere of the engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion,
+had caused him such profound exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that
+he sat with his pipe between his teeth, silent and half asleep.
+
+“He is intoxicated,” said D’Argent on sometimes.
+
+This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the
+society of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent.
+Then he drew his chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than
+talk himself. Her voice made a delicious murmur in his ears like that
+of the first bees on a warm spring day.
+
+Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, “When I
+was a child I went on a long voyage—did I not?”
+
+She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life
+that he had asked a question in regard to his history.
+
+“Why do you wish to know?”
+
+“Because, three years ago, the first day that I was on board a steamer,
+I had a singular sensation. It seemed to me that I had seen it all
+before; the cabins, and the narrow ladders, impressed me as familiar;
+it seemed to me that I had once played on those very stairs.”
+
+She looked around to assure herself that they were entirely alone.
+
+“It was not a dream, Jack. You were three years old when we came from
+Algiers. Your father died suddenly, and we came back to Tours.”
+
+“What was my father’s name?”
+
+She hesitated, much agitated, for she was not prepared for this sudden
+curiosity; and yet she could not refuse to answer these questions.
+
+“He was called by one of the grandest names in France, my child—by a
+name that you and I would bear to-day if a sudden and terrible
+catastrophe had not prevented him from repairing his fault. Ah, we were
+very young when we met! I must tell you that at that time I had a
+perfect passion for the chase. I remember a little Arabian horse called
+Soliman—”
+
+She was gone, at full speed, mounted on this horse, and Jack made no
+effort to interrupt her—he knew that it was useless. But when she
+stopped to take breath, he profited by this brief halt to return to his
+fixed idea.
+
+“What was my father’s name?” he repeated.
+
+How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of
+whom they had been speaking. She answered quickly,—“He was called the
+Marquis de l’Epau.” Jack certainly had but little of his mother’s
+respect for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he
+received with the greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his
+illustrious descent. What mattered it to him that his father was a
+marquis, and bore a distinguished name? This did not prevent his son
+from earning his bread as a stoker on the Cydnus.
+
+“Look here, Charlotte,” said D’Argenton impatiently, one day,
+“something must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He
+cannot remain here forever without doing anything. He is quite well
+again; he eats like an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but
+Dr. Hirsch says that is nothing,—that he will always cough. He must
+decide on something. If the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too
+severe for him, let him try a railroad.”
+
+Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, “If you could see how he loses his
+breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still
+feel that he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the
+office work?”
+
+“I will speak to Moronval,” was the reply.
+
+The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the
+office except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack
+fulfilled these various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of
+Moronval with the same indifference that he opposed to D’Argenton’s
+cold contempt. Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it
+was small, to be sure, but he added to it by supplementary labors, for
+which he was paid certain sums on account. The subscription books lay
+open on the desk, expenses went on, but no receipts came in. In fact,
+there was but one subscriber, Charlotte’s friend at Tours, and but one
+proprietor, and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was at work in a corner.
+Neither Jack nor any one else realized this; but D’Argenton knew it and
+felt it hourly, and soon hated more strongly than ever the youth upon
+whose money he was living.
+
+At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the
+office.
+
+“But, my dear,” said Charlotte, “he does all he can!”
+
+“And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit
+nor how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and
+since this great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown
+ten years older, my love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he
+drinks.”
+
+Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but
+whose fault was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf?
+
+“I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change
+of air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing
+for him.”
+
+She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go
+the next day to install her son at Aulnettes.
+
+They arrived there on one of those soft autumnal mornings which have
+all the beauty of summer without its excessive heat. There was not a
+breath in the air; the birds sang loudly, the fallen leaves rustled
+gently, and a perfume of rich maturity of ripened grain and fruit
+filled the air. The paths through the woods were still green and fresh;
+Jack recognized them all, and, seeing them, regained a portion of his
+lost youth. Nature herself seemed to welcome him with open arms, and he
+was soothed and comforted. Charlotte left her son early the next
+morning, and the little house, with its windows thrown wide open to the
+soft air and sunlight, had a peaceful aspect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE CONVALESCENT.
+
+
+“And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
+belief that my Jack was a thief!”
+
+“But, Dr. Rivals—”
+
+“And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
+Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!”
+
+It was, on feet, at the forester’s cottage that Jack and his old friend
+had met.
+
+For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each
+day he had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons
+with whom he held any communication were the old forester and his wife,
+who had served Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched
+over his health, purchased his provisions, and often cooked his dinner
+over her own fire, while he sat and smoked at the door. These people
+never asked a question, but when they saw his thin figure and heard his
+constant cough, they shook their heads.
+
+The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing to
+both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor
+understood the truth, the awkwardness passed away.
+
+“And now,” said the old gentleman, gayly, “I hope we shall see you
+often. You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse,
+but you need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great
+care,—particularly in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you
+understand. Our house is changed, for my poor wife died four years
+ago,—died of absolute grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her
+place; she keeps my books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she
+will be to see you! Now when will you come?”
+
+Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,—
+
+“Cécile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling
+of restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog
+is not good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now
+in with you quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall.
+If you do not appear I shall come for you.”
+
+As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It
+seemed to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives
+with the doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room,
+while the poet was above in the tower.
+
+He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of
+dried grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very
+chilly. As of old, when he returned from his country excursions with
+the doctor, the remembrance of his kindness and affection rendered him
+impervious to the slights he received at home, so now did the prospect
+of seeing Cécile people his solitude with dear phantoms and happy
+visions, that remained with him even while he slept.
+
+The next day he knocked at the Rivals’ door.
+
+“The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office,” was the
+reply of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he
+had known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient
+to behold his former companion.
+
+“Come in, Jack,” said a sweet voice.
+
+Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming
+apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde
+hair, was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had
+not the little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet
+recollections of their common child-hood!
+
+“Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me,” she said.
+“I have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you,
+and often spoke of you.”
+
+He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as
+she stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her
+head slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
+
+Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cécile there
+was something indefinable—an aroma of some divine spring-time,
+something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte’s mannerisms and graces
+bore little resemblance.
+
+Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of
+his own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and
+the nails were broken and deformed,—irretrievably injured by contact
+with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even by
+putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of
+others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D’Argenton’s, that
+was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this
+physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all
+the disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies,
+the hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection,
+and it seemed to him that Cécile knew them, too. The slight cloud that
+hung on her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all
+told him that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to
+run away and shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it
+again.
+
+Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cécile, busy at her
+scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time
+to recover his equanimity.
+
+How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid
+and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with
+her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them
+gently for their mistakes.
+
+She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack’s,—the
+very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was
+little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor,
+burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Salé yet retained a
+little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been
+sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two
+or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked
+Cécile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times
+Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but
+he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cécile
+listened.
+
+The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack
+going out, recognized him.
+
+“What!” she exclaimed, “the little Aulnettes boy come to life again?
+Ah, Mademoiselle Cécile, your uncle won’t want you to marry him now, I
+fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the
+doctor desired;” and, chuckling, she left the room.
+
+Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so
+many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only
+one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was
+scarlet with annoyance.
+
+“Come, Catherine, bring the soup.” It was the doctor who spoke. “And
+you two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven
+years’ absence?”
+
+At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of
+his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands—what could he do
+with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The
+whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cécile saw his
+discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it,
+hardly glanced again in his direction.
+
+Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot
+water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her
+grandmother’s death had mixed the doctor’s grog. And the good man had
+not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a
+melancholy tone, “diminished daily the quantity of alcohol.”
+
+When she had served her grandfather, Cécile turned toward their guest.
+
+“Do you drink brandy?” she asked.
+
+“Does he drink brandy?” said the doctor, with a laugh, “and he in an
+engine-room for three years? Don’t you know—ignorant little puss that
+you are—that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board a
+vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
+draught. Make Jack’s strong, my dear.”
+
+She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
+
+“Will you have some?”
+
+“No, mademoiselle,” he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
+withdrew his glass,—for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
+one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and
+which are only understood by those whom they address.
+
+“Upon my word, a conversion!” said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
+converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in
+God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work
+in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had
+every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was
+talking to himself, and gesticulating wildly. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “M.
+d’Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with my
+equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them.” It was a very
+long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New thoughts
+and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was Cécile’s image. What a
+marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that had he
+been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to become
+his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road, he
+found himself face to face with Mother Salé, who was dragging a fagot
+of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his
+present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so
+terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the
+wood.
+
+That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
+Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
+doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
+autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the
+last years of his life.
+
+No, Cécile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
+secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life
+that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among
+very scrupulous people. He had never heard his father’s name mentioned,
+and therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the
+extent of his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of
+the senses he lacks.
+
+But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all
+others.
+
+He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told
+it; but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really
+a marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely
+to avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father
+were still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son?
+The poor fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman’s heart is
+more moved by compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the
+world.
+
+“I will write to my mother,” he thought. But the questions he wished to
+ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at
+once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the
+work of words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech.
+Unfortunately he had no money for his railroad fare. “Pshaw!” he said,
+“I can go on foot. I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it
+again.” And he did try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less
+long and less lonely than it did before, it was far more sad.
+
+Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
+Saint-George’s, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
+carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so
+terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth
+could suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more
+afraid of the Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.
+
+He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling;
+and pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the
+present time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening
+when his mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in
+glory, and chasing away the shades of night.
+
+Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses,
+Jack saw D’Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval,
+who was carrying a bundle of proofs.
+
+“Here is Jack!” said Moronval.
+
+The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with
+so much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet
+coat, much too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would
+have supposed that any tie could exist between them.
+
+Jack extended his hand to D’Argenton, who gave one finger in return,
+and asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
+
+“Rented?” said the other, not understanding.
+
+“To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
+occupied, and you were compelled to leave it.”
+
+“No,” said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; “no one has even called to look
+at the place.”
+
+“What are you here for?”
+
+“To see my mother.”
+
+“Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however,
+there are travelling expenses to be thought of.”
+
+“I came on foot,” said Jack, with simple dignity.
+
+“Indeed!” drawled D’Argenton, and then added, “I am glad to see that
+your legs are in better order than your arms.”
+
+And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
+
+A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by
+Jack, but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His
+pride was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes
+without seeing his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most
+seriously. He entered the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches
+were being brought in, for a great fête was in progress of arrangement,
+which was the reason that D’Argenton was so out of temper on seeing
+Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some of her
+preparations.
+
+“Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
+utterly,—that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going to
+Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments
+with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery.”
+
+They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were
+going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
+
+“I wish to speak seriously,” said Jack.
+
+“What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and
+to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations,
+it will be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary. I
+have arranged a veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not
+convenient?”
+
+She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
+with a sofa and jardinière, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
+pattering on the zinc roof.
+
+Jack said to himself, “I had better have written,” and did not know
+what to say first.
+
+“Well?” said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
+attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment,
+as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an étagère of trifles,
+for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little
+head that leaned toward him.
+
+“I should like—I should like to talk to you of my father,” he said,
+with some hesitation.
+
+On the end of her tongue she had the words, “What folly!” If she did
+not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
+amazement and fear, spoke for her.
+
+“It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as it
+is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you.
+Besides,” she added, solemnly, “I have always intended, when you were
+twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth.”
+
+It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that
+three months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he
+uttered no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an
+older narration. How well he knew her!
+
+“Is it true that my father was noble?” he asked, suddenly.
+
+“Indeed he was, my child.”
+
+“A marquis?”
+
+“No, only a baron.”
+
+“But I supposed—in fact, you told me—”
+
+“No, no—it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble.”
+
+“He was connected then with the Bulac family?”
+
+“Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch.”
+
+“And his name was—”
+
+“The Baron de Bulac—a lieutenant in the navy.”
+
+Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, “How long since he
+died?”
+
+“O, years and years!” said Charlotte, hurriedly.
+
+That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
+falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a
+L’Epau?
+
+“You are looking ill, child,” said Charlotte, interrupting herself in
+the midst of a long romance she was telling, “your hands are like ice.”
+
+“Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise,” answered Jack, with
+difficulty.
+
+“Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back
+before it is late.” She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around
+his throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that
+his silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a
+fête in which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her
+for the waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
+
+“You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of
+yourself.”
+
+He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother
+all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fête from
+which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life
+from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who
+could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a
+family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him
+from asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without
+realizing that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them,
+and that it was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his
+destiny that would impart the strength to cope with them.
+
+Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station,
+a spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere.
+It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
+overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the
+streets, going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign
+the one word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were
+the sole refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had
+settled down on his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal
+night, uttered an exclamation of despair.
+
+“They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?” and entering
+one of those miserable drinking-shops, Jack called for a double measure
+of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
+and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,—
+
+“Do you drink brandy, Jack?”
+
+No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
+shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the
+counter.
+
+How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks’ duration after this long
+walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals,
+who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health,
+is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack
+seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the
+doctor’s office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the
+sunny sky, the silent house, and the gentle footfall of Cécile.
+
+He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with
+watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple
+home. She sewed and kept her grandfather’s accounts.
+
+“I am sure,” she said, looking up from her book, “that the dear man
+forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?”
+
+“Mademoiselle!” he answered, with a start.
+
+He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all
+his eyes. If Cécile said, “My friend,” it seemed to Jack that no other
+person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or
+good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again.
+Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected
+ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was
+more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have
+been.
+
+O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a
+large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a
+village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was
+filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their
+flowering, and he drank it in with delight.
+
+In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in
+the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor
+of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
+
+With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old
+volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and
+which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all
+day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified
+many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living,
+it would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself,
+and then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.
+
+Meanwhile D’Argenton, informed of Jack’s removal to the Rivals, saw fit
+to take great offence. “It is not at all proper,” wrote Charlotte,
+“that you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give
+you the care you need? You place us in a false position.”
+
+This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:—“I
+sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the
+science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two
+days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of
+that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant
+disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us.”
+
+As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with
+much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart
+from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the
+least intimidated by her coldness, said at once, “I ought to tell you,
+madame, that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He
+has passed through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when
+constitutions can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the
+rough trials to which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him
+with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him away from the
+poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave
+him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than
+ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that
+impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to
+get rid of him forever.”
+
+“Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such
+an insult?” and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with
+a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her
+son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off
+some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He
+turned pale when he saw her.
+
+“You have come to take me away,” he exclaimed.
+
+“Not at all,” she answered, hastily. “The doctor wishes you to remain,
+and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
+tenderly?”
+
+For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his
+mother, and a departure from the roof under which he was would have
+certainly caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable;
+she looked tired and troubled.
+
+“We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
+reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese
+prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D’Argenton has
+translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese
+tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that
+literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent,
+and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is
+dead. Do you remember him?”
+
+At this moment Cécile came in and was received by Charlotte with the
+most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
+D’Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely,
+for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in
+Cécile’s pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless
+babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame
+D’Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long,
+and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her
+delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet’s
+frowning face.
+
+“Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your
+letter ‘_to be called for_,’ for M. D’Argenton is much vexed with you
+just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next
+letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my
+sentences sometimes; but don’t mind, dear, you will understand.”
+
+She acknowledged her slavery with naïveté, and Jack was consoled for
+the tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in
+excellent spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her,
+and her travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the
+burdens of life.
+
+Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the
+depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they
+expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and
+filling the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the
+love of these two young hearts. With Cécile, the divine flower had
+grown in a limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have
+discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but
+when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they straightened
+themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.
+
+“If you wish,” said M. Rivals, one evening, “we will go to-morrow to
+the vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go
+in that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner.”
+
+They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright
+morning at the end of October. A soft haze hung over the landscape,
+retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the
+bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of
+the summer’s brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of
+gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge
+trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young
+travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and
+holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the
+farmer’s daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which
+are very numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of
+ripening fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
+
+They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a
+crowd at work. Jack and Cécile each snatched a wicker basket and joined
+the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen
+between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and
+picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white
+foam, and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh
+breeze that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
+
+This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not
+leave Cécile’s side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a
+skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the
+grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the
+wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack
+raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same
+faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above
+her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and
+brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil, the
+gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had
+absolutely transformed M. Rivals’ quiet housekeeper. She became a child
+once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder,
+watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step
+which Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on
+their heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when
+these two young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at
+the entrance of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their
+feet.
+
+And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend
+softly on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift
+autumnal twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the
+simple homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cécile insisted
+on fastening around Jack’s throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth
+and softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was
+like a caress to the lover.
+
+He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that
+was all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived;
+they heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early
+autumnal evenings has a charm that both Cécile and Jack felt as they
+entered the large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper
+innumerable dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound
+indifference to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully
+appreciated them, so fully that his granddaughter quietly left her
+seat, ordered the carriage to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her
+cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her in readiness, rose without remonstrance,
+leaving on the table his half-filled glass.
+
+The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country
+roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants,
+groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from
+the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn,
+seemed to follow with a golden shower.
+
+“Are you cold, Jack?” said the doctor, suddenly.
+
+How could he be cold? The fringe of Cécile’s great shawl just touched
+him.
+
+Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew
+now that he loved Cécile, but he realized also that this love would be
+to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him,
+and although he had changed much since he had been so near her,
+although he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and
+appearance, he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had
+transformed him.
+
+The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was
+distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to
+grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in “the office.” What would she
+think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he
+must go.
+
+One morning he entered M. Rivals’ house to thank him for all his
+kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
+
+“You are right,” said the old man; “you are well now bodily and
+mentally, and you can soon find some employment.”
+
+There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular
+attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. “You have something to say
+to me,” said the doctor, abruptly.
+
+Jack colored and hesitated.
+
+“I thought,” continued the doctor, “that when a youth was in love with
+a girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper
+thing was to speak to him frankly.”
+
+Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
+
+“Why are you so troubled, my boy?” continued his old friend.
+
+“I did not dare to speak to you,” answered Jack; “I am poor and without
+any position.”
+
+“You can remedy all this.”
+
+“But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!”
+
+“Yes, I know—and so is she,” said the doctor, calmly. “Now listen to a
+long story.”
+
+They were in the doctor’s library. Through the open window they saw a
+superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless
+trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated,
+and its crosses upheaved.
+
+“You have never been there,” said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this
+melancholy spot. “Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which
+is the one word Madeleine.
+
+“There lies my daughter, Cécile’s mother. She wished to be placed apart
+from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put
+upon her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her
+father and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing
+to merit this exile after death, and if any should have been punished,
+it was I, an old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon
+us.
+
+“One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry
+on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Forêt de
+Sénart. A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man
+on the state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with
+light hair and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the
+cold glitter of ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of
+the balls, and, the operation over, thanked me in excellent French,
+though with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved without danger,
+I continued to attend him at the forester’s; I learned that he was a
+Russian of high rank,—‘the Comte Nadine,’ his companions called him.
+
+“Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
+constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was soon
+able to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took
+compassion on his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet
+home to my own house to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he
+spent the night with us. I must acknowledge to you that I adored the
+man. He had great stores of information, had been everywhere, and seen
+everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic recipes of his own
+land, to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine. We were
+positively enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face
+homeward on a rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find
+so congenial a person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the
+general enthusiasm, but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a
+certain distrust as a balance to my recklessness, I paid little
+attention. Meanwhile our invalid was quite well enough to return to
+Paris, but he did not go, and I did not ask either myself or him why he
+lingered.
+
+“One day my wife said, ‘M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to
+the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.’
+
+“‘What nonsense!’ I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count
+lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks,
+idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the room,
+I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her
+embroidery all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind
+as those which will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when
+Madeleine acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went
+to find the comte to force an explanation.
+
+“He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
+wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way
+by his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for
+himself, and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount
+that I could give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
+
+“A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the
+very moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of
+lordly decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly
+attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future
+son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I
+realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but
+my daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, ‘We must know
+more before we give up our daughter,’ I laughed at her, I was so
+certain that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Viéville, one
+of the huntsmen.
+
+“‘Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,’ he said; ‘he strikes me
+as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and
+that he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should
+wish to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the
+Russian embassy; they can tell you everything there.’
+
+“You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what
+I did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I
+have never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have
+never had any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half
+of what I have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of
+this additional information, I finished by lying, ‘Yes, yes, I went
+there; everything is satisfactory.’ Since then I remember the singular
+air of the comte each time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that
+time I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans that my children were
+making for their future happiness. They were to live with us three
+months in the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St.
+Petersburg, where Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor
+wife ended in sharing my joy and satisfaction.
+
+“The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count’s papers
+were long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last
+the papers came—a package of hieroglyphics impossible to
+decipher,—certificates of birth, baptism, &c. That which particularly
+amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law,
+Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
+
+“‘Have you really as many names as that?’ said my poor child, laughing;
+‘and I am only Madeleine Rivals.’
+
+“There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris
+with great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave the
+paternal authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at
+Etiolles, in the little church where to this very day are to be seen
+the records of an irreparable falsehood. How happy I was that morning
+as I entered the church with my daughter trembling on my arm, feeling
+that she owed all her happiness to me!
+
+“Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the
+bridal couple in a post-chaise—I can see them now as they drove away.
+
+“The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough.
+When we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our
+side was dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but
+the poor mother was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart
+was devoured by her regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their
+sorrows and their griefs come from within, and are interwoven with
+their daily lives and employments.
+
+“The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence,
+were radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the
+side of our own; we chose the furniture and the wall papers. ‘They are
+here—they are there,’ we said; and at last we expected the final
+letters we should receive before they returned.
+
+“One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped
+alone; when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my
+daughter appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had
+parted with a month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly
+dressed, and carried in her hand a little travelling-bag.
+
+“‘It is I,’ she whispered hoarsely; ‘I have come.’
+
+“‘Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?’
+
+“She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from
+head to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
+
+“‘Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your husband?’
+
+“‘I have none—I have never had one;’ and suddenly, without looking at
+me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible history.
+
+“He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew by
+the name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga,
+married at St. Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by
+himself. His resources he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills on
+the Russian bank. At Turin he had been arrested on an order of
+extradition. Think of my little girl alone in this foreign town,
+separated violently from her husband, learning abruptly that he was a
+forger and a bigamist,—for he made a full confession of his crimes. She
+had but one thought, that of seeking refuge with us. Her brain was so
+bewildered, that, as she told us afterwards, when she was asked where
+she was going, she simply answered ‘To mamma.’ She left Turin hastily,
+without her luggage, and at last she was safe with us, and weeping for
+the first time since the catastrophe.
+
+“I said, ‘Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!’ but
+my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she
+did not reproach me. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘from the beginning that there
+was some misfortune in this marriage.’ And, in fact, she had certain
+presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof.
+What is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and
+confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the
+neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known. ‘Your
+travellers have returned,’ they said. They asked few questions, for
+they readily saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was
+not with us, that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very
+soon I found myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to
+bear than anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a
+child would be born from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day
+after day, ornamenting the dainty garments, which are the joy and pride
+of mothers, with ribbons and lace; I fancied, however, that she looked
+at them with feelings of shame, for the least allusion to the man who
+had deceived her made her turn pale. But my wife, who saw things with
+clearer vision than my own, said, ‘You are mistaken: she loves him
+still.’
+
+“Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love
+was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon
+after Cécile’s birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all
+its folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written
+before their marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once
+pronouncing the name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
+
+“You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
+drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the
+crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance
+as it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am
+reminded of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at
+work in the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had
+not had little Cécile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her
+life from that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and
+self-reproach.
+
+“But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in
+ignorance of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of
+difficulty; it is true that we were relieved of her father, who died a
+few months after his condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew
+the whole story; and we wished to preserve Cécile from all the gossip
+she would hear if she associated with other children. You saw how
+solitary her life was. Thanks to this precaution, she to-day knows
+nothing of the tempest that surrounded her birth; for not one of the
+kind people about us would utter one word which would give her reason
+to suspect that there was any mystery. My wife, however, was always in
+dread of some childish questions from Cécile. But I had other fears:
+who could be certain that the child of my child did not inherit from
+her father some of his vices? I acknowledge to you, Jack, that for
+years I dreaded seeing her father’s characteristics in Cécile; I
+dreaded the discovery of deceit and falsehood; but what joy it has been
+to me to find that the child is the perfected image of her mother! She
+has the same tender and half-sad smile, the same candid eyes, and lips
+that can say No.
+
+“Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn
+the truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
+
+“‘She must never love any one,’ said her grandmother.
+
+“If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
+protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her
+own. Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we
+knew no one. It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our
+minds that your mother came to this place. She was supposed to be the
+wife of D’Argenton, but the forester’s wife told me the real
+circumstances. I said to myself instantly, ‘This boy ought to be
+Cécile’s husband;’ and from that time I attended to your education.
+
+“I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to me
+and ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so
+indignant when D’Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself,
+however, Jack may emerge from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if
+he works with his head as well as his hands, he may still be worthy of
+the wife I wish to give him. The letters that we received from you were
+all that they should be, and I ventured to indulge the hope I have
+named. Suddenly came the intelligence of the robbery. Ah, my friend,
+how terrified I was! how I bemoaned the weakness of your mother, and
+the tyranny of the monster who had driven you to evil courses! I
+respected, nevertheless, the tender affection that existed toward you
+in the heart of my little girl, I had not the courage to undeceive her.
+We talked of you constantly until the day when I told her that I had
+seen you at the forester’s. If you could have seen the light in her
+eyes, and how busy she was all day! a sign with her always of some
+excitement, as if her heart beating too quickly needed something,
+either a pen or a needle, to regulate its movements.
+
+“Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I
+am satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study
+medicine and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you
+here, but I concluded that it would take four years to complete your
+studies, and that your residence with us for that length of time would
+not be advisable. In Paris you can study in the evening, and work all
+day, and come to us on Sundays. I will examine your week’s work and
+advise you, and Cécile will encourage you. Velpeau and others have done
+this, and you can do the same. Will you try? Cécile is the reward.”
+
+Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of
+the old man. But perhaps Cécile’s affection was only that of a sister:
+and four years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
+
+“Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions,” said M. Rivals, gayly;
+“but I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. Cécile is up-stairs;
+go and speak to her.”
+
+That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a
+trip-hammer, and a voice choked with emotion. Cécile was writing in the
+office.
+
+“Cécile,” he said, as he entered the room, “I am going away.” She rose
+from her seat, very pale. “I am going to work,” he continued. “Your
+grandfather has given me permission to tell you that I love you, and
+that I hope to win you as my wife.”
+
+He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than Cécile would have
+failed to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this
+room, lighted by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl
+stood listening to this declaration of love as to an echo of her own
+thoughts. She was perfectly unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile
+on her lips, and her eyes full of tears. She understood perfectly that
+their life would be no holiday, that they would be racked by
+separations and long years of waiting.
+
+“Jack,” she said, after he had explained all his plans, “I will wait
+for you, not only four years, but forever.”
+
+Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
+Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not too
+far removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and
+courage, impatient to begin his double work as mechanic and student.
+The crowd pushed against him, and he did not feel them; nor was he
+conscious of the cold of this December night; nor did he hear the young
+apprentice girls, as they passed him, say to each other, “What a
+handsome man!” The great Faubourg was alive and seemed to encourage him
+with its gayety.
+
+“What a pleasure it is to live!” said Jack; “and how hard I mean to
+work!” Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled with
+fur hats and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker’s
+stall. Jack looked in and saw Bélisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner
+and better clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once;
+but Bélisaire was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of
+shoes that the cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were
+not for himself, but for a tiny child of four or five years of age,
+pale and thin, with a head much too large for his body. Bélisaire was
+talking to the child.
+
+“And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
+feet warm.”
+
+Jack’s appearance did not seem to surprise him.
+
+“Where did you come from?” he asked, as calmly as if he had seen him
+the night before.
+
+“How are you, Bélisaire? Is this your child?”
+
+“O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber,” said the pedler, with a sigh; and
+when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted,
+Bélisaire drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out
+some silver pieces that he placed in the cobbler’s hand with that air
+of importance assumed by working people when they pay away money.
+
+“Where are you going, comrade?” said the pedler to Jack, as they stood
+on the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you
+take this side, I shall go the other.
+
+Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, “I
+hardly know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck’s, and I
+want to find a room not too far away.”
+
+“At Eyssendeck’s?” said the pedler. “It is not easy to get in there;
+one must bring the best of recommendations.”
+
+The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. Bélisaire believed him
+guilty of the robbery,—so true it is that accusations, however
+unfounded and however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes.
+When Bélisaire saw the letters of the superintendent at Indret, and
+heard the whole story, his whole face lighted up with his old smile.
+“Listen, Jack, it is too late to seek a lodging to-night; come with me,
+for I have a room where you can sleep tonight, and perhaps can suggest
+something that will suit you. But we will talk about that as we sup.
+Come now.”
+
+Behold the three—Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber’s little one, whose
+new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously—were soon hurrying along
+the streets. Bélisaire informed Jack that his sister was now a widow,
+and that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in the full
+tide of his history, he stopped to shout his old cry of “Hats! hats!
+Hats to sell!” But before he reached his home, he was obliged to lift
+into his arms Madame Weber’s little boy, who had begun to weep
+despairingly.
+
+“Poor little fellow!” said Bélisaire, “he is not in the habit of
+walking. He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out
+with me sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His
+mother is away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working
+woman, and has to leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we
+are!”
+
+They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like
+narrow slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which
+serve as ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their
+boxes. At this hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in
+at the doors, which stood wide open.
+
+“Good evening,” said the pedler.
+
+“Good evening,” said the friendly voices from within.
+
+In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light—a woman and
+children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the
+corner.
+
+The pedler’s room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud
+of it. “I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must
+wait until I have taken this child to its mother.” He looked under the
+door of a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it, went
+directly to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the
+evening meal. He lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high
+chair at the table, gave it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and
+then said, “Come away quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute,
+and I wish to hear what she will say when she sees the child’s new
+shoes.” He smiled as he opened his room—a long attic divided in two. A
+pile of hats told his business, and the bare walls his poverty.
+
+Bélisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of
+a fine salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two
+plates, bread and wine, and placed them on a little table. “Now,” he
+said, with an air of triumph, “all is ready, though it is not much like
+that famous ham you gave me in the country.” The potato salad was
+excellent, however, and Jack did justice to it. Bélisaire was delighted
+with the appetite of his guest, and did his duty as host with great
+delight, rising every two or three minutes to see if the water was
+boiling for the coffee.
+
+“You have a taste for housekeeping, Bélisaire,” said Jack, “and have
+things nicely arranged.”
+
+“Not yet,” answered the pedler; “I need very many articles,—in fact,
+these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are waiting.”
+
+“Waiting for what?” asked Jack.
+
+“Until we can be married!” answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to
+Jack’s gay laugh. “Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her
+soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
+could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him,
+do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any
+more than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough
+for three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly
+and sober, and won’t make too much trouble in the house.”
+
+“How should I do, Bélisaire?”
+
+“Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour,
+but did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for
+you.”
+
+“No, Bélisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very
+economical, for I, too, am thinking of marrying.”
+
+“Really! But in that case we can’t make our arrangements.”
+
+Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four
+years later.
+
+“Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
+Hark! I hear Madame Weber.”
+
+A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began a
+melancholy wail. “I am coming,” cried the woman from the end of the
+corridor, to console the little one.
+
+“Listen,” said Bélisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed by
+a laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her
+arm, entered Bélisaire’s room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of
+about thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one’s feet,
+but there was a tear in her eye as she said, “You are the person who
+has done this.”
+
+“Now,” said Bélisaire, with simplicity, “how could she guess so well?”
+
+Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack
+was presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that
+she received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the
+aspirant for this distinction, and learned that the two men had known
+each other for ten years, and that she had before her the hero of the
+story of the ham that she had heard so many times, her face lost its
+expression of distrust, and she held out her hand to Jack.
+
+“This time Bélisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
+comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very
+innocent, because he is so good.”
+
+Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until
+the marriage he should share Bélisaire’s room and buy himself a bed;
+they would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every
+Saturday. After the marriage, they would establish themselves more
+commodiously, and nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment
+recalled to him Indret on a smaller scale. Owing to lack of space,
+there were in the same room three rows, one above the other, of
+machines. Jack was on the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of
+the place ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he
+beheld a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous
+beat of machinery.
+
+The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less
+ventilation; but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life
+supported him through all the trials of the day. His companions saw
+intuitively that he lived apart from them, indifferent to their petty
+quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither their pleasures nor their
+hatreds. He never listened to their sullen complaints, nor the muttered
+thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a Ghetto in this
+magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic theories, the
+natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering so
+near the wealthier classes.
+
+I am not disposed to assert that Jack’s companions liked him
+especially, but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen,
+they looked upon him much as a Prince Rodolphe,—for they had all read
+“The Mysteries of Paris,”—and admired his tall, slender figure and his
+careful dress. But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he
+passed their corner of the establishment with scarcely a glance. This
+corner was never without its excitement and drama, for most of the
+workwomen had a lover among the men, and this led to all sorts of
+jealousies and scenes.
+
+Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to
+reach his lodgings, to throw aside his workman’s blouse, and to bury
+himself in his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he had
+used at school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was
+astonished to find with what facility he regained all that he thought
+he had forever lost. Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected
+difficulty, and it was touching to see the young man, whose hands were
+distorted and clumsy from handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside
+his pen in despair. At his side Bélisaire sat sewing the straw of his
+summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of a savage
+assistant at a magician’s incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned,
+grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
+passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
+pedler’s big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student’s pen
+scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up
+and thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere;
+and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of
+other lamps, and other shadows courageously prolonging their labors
+into the middle of the night.
+
+After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
+brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It
+had been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to
+the poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he
+wrote, thought, “How happy they are.” His own happiness came on
+Sundays. Never did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as
+did Jack on those days, for he was determined that nothing about him
+should remind Cécile of his daily toil; well might he have been taken
+for Prince Rodolphe had he been seen as he started off.
+
+Delicious day! without hours or minutes—a day of uninterrupted
+felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in
+the salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and Cécile and the doctor
+made him feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined, M.
+Rivals examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and
+explained all that had puzzled the youth.
+
+Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they often
+passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
+experiments. So black was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that
+one would have fancied that the man was burning all the drugs in the
+world. “Don’t you smell the poison?” said M. Rivals, indignantly. But
+the young people passed the house in silence; they instinctively felt
+that there were no kindly sentiments within those walls toward them,
+and, in fact, feared that the fanatic Dr. Hirsch was sent there as a
+spy. But what had they to fear, after all? Was not all intercourse
+between D’Argenton and Charlotte’s son forever ended? For three months
+they had not met. Since Jack had been engaged to Cécile, and understood
+the dignity and purity of love, he had hated D’Argenton, making him
+responsible for the fault of his weak mother, whose chains were riveted
+more closely by the violence and tyranny under which a nobler nature
+would have revolted. Charlotte, who feared scenes and explanations, had
+relinquished all hope of reconciliation between these two men. She
+never mentioned her son to D’Argenton, and saw him only in secret.
+
+She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled,
+and Jack’s fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman
+elegant in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of
+gossip in regard to the mysterious visitor, which finally reached
+Jack’s ears, who begged his mother not to expose herself to such
+remarks. They then saw each other in the gardens, or in some of the
+churches; for, like many other women of similar characteristics, she
+had become _dévote_ as she grew old, as much from an overflow of idle
+sentimentality as from a passion for honors and ceremonies. In these
+rare and brief interviews Charlotte talked all the time, as was her
+habit, but with a worn, sad air. She said, however, that she was happy
+and at peace, and that she had every confidence in M. d’Argenton’s
+brilliant future. But one day, as mother and son were leaving the
+church-door, she said to him, with some embarrassment, “Jack, can you
+let me have a little money for a few days? I have made some mistake in
+my accounts, and have not money enough to carry me to the end of the
+month, and I dare not ask D’Argenton for a penny.”
+
+He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the
+whole amount in his mother’s hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw
+what the obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a
+look of despair on the face that was generally so smiling and fresh.
+Intense compassion filled his heart. “You are unhappy,” he said; “come
+to me, I shall-be so glad to have you.”
+
+She started. “No, it is impossible,” she said, in a low voice; “he has
+so many trials just now;” and she hurried away as if to escape some
+temptation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE WEDDING-PARTY.
+
+
+It was a summer morning. The pedler and his comrade were up before
+daybreak. One was sweeping and dusting, with as little noise as
+possible, careful not to disturb his companion, who was established at
+the open window. The sky was the cloudless one of June, pale blue with
+a faint tinge of rose still lingering in the east, that could be seen
+between the chimneys. In front of Jack was a zinc roof, which, when the
+sun was in mid-heaven, became a terrible mirror. At this moment it
+reflected faintly the tints of the sky, so that the tall chimneys
+looked like the masts of a vessel floating on a glittering sea. Below
+was heard the noise from the poultry owned by the various inhabitants
+of the Faubourg. Suddenly a cry was heard: “Madame Jacob! Madame
+Mathieu! Here is your bread.”
+
+It was four o’clock. The labors of the day had begun. The woman whose
+daily business it was to supply that quarter with bread from the
+baker’s had begun her rounds. Her basket was filled with loaves of all
+sizes, sweet-smelling and warm. She carries them all through the
+corridors, placing them at the corners of the various doors; her shrill
+voice aroused the sleepers; doors opened and shut; childish voices
+uttered cries of joy, and little bare feet pattered to meet the good
+woman, and returned hugging a loaf as big as themselves, with that
+peculiar gesture that you see in the poor people who come out of the
+bake-shops, and which shows the thoughtful observer what that
+hard-earned bread signifies to them.
+
+All the world is now astir; windows are thrown open, even those where
+the lamps have burned the greater part of the night. At one sits a
+sad-faced woman, at a sewing-machine, aided by a little girl, who hands
+her the several pieces of her work. At another a young girl, with hair
+already neatly braided, is carefully cutting a slice of bread for her
+slender breakfast, watching that no crumb shall fall on the floor she
+swept at daybreak. Further on is a window shaded by a large red curtain
+to keep off the reflection from the zinc roof. All these rooms open on
+the other side into a dark and ugly house of enormous size. But the
+student heeds nothing but his work. One sound only depresses him at
+times, and that is the voice of an old woman, who says every morning,
+before the noises of the street have begun, “How happy people ought to
+be who can go to the country on a day like this!” To whom does the poor
+woman utter these words, day after day? To the whole world, to herself,
+or only to the canary, whose cage, covered with fresh leaves, she hangs
+on the shutters? Perhaps she is talking to her flowers. Jack never
+knew, but he is much of her opinion, and would gladly echo her words;
+for his first waking thoughts turn toward a tranquil village street,
+toward a little green door, Jack has just reached this point in his
+reverie when a rustle of silk is heard, and the handle of his door
+rattles.
+
+“Turn to the right,” said Bélisaire, who was making the coffee.
+
+The handle is still aimlessly rattled. Bélisaire, with the coffee-pot
+in his hand, impatiently throws it open, and Charlotte rushes in.
+Bélisaire, stupefied at this inundation of flounces, feathers, and
+laces, bows again and again, while Jack’s mother, who does not
+recognize him, excuses herself, and retreats toward the door.
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said; “I made a mistake.”
+
+At the sound of her voice Jack rises from his chair in astonishment
+
+“Mother!” he cried.
+
+She ran to him and took refuge in his arms.
+
+“Save me, my child, save me! That man, for whom I have sacrificed
+everything,—my life and that of my child,—has beaten me cruelly. This
+morning, when he came in after two days’ absence, I ventured to make
+some observation; I thought I had a right to speak. He flew into a
+frightful passion, and—”
+
+The end of her sentence was lost in a torrent of tears and in
+convulsive sobs. Bélisaire had retired at her first words, and
+discreetly closed the door after him. Jack looks at his mother, full of
+terror and pity. How pale and how changed she is! In the clear light of
+the young day the marks of time are clearly visible on her face, and
+the gray hairs, that she has not taken the trouble to conceal, shine
+like silver on her blue-veined temples. Without any attempt at
+controlling her emotion, she speaks without restraint, pouring forth
+all her wrongs.
+
+“How I have suffered, Jack! He passes his life now at the cafés and in
+dissipation. Did you know that, when he went to Indret with that money,
+I was there in the village, and crazy to see you? He reproaches me with
+the bread you ate under his roof, and yet—yes, I will tell you what I
+never meant you to know—I had ten thousand francs of yours that were
+given to me for you exclusively. Well, D’Argenton put them into his
+Review; I know that he meant to pay you large interest, but the ten
+thousand francs have been swallowed up with all the others, and when I
+asked him if he did not intend to account to you for them, do you know
+what he did? He drew up a long bill of all that he has paid for you.
+Your board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen thousand francs. But he
+does not ask you to pay the difference; is not that very generous?” and
+Charlotte laughed sarcastically. “I tell you I have borne everything,”
+she continued,—“the rages he has fallen into on your account, and the
+mean way in which he has talked with his friends of the affair at
+Indret; as if your innocence had never been fully established!
+
+“And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his
+time with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,—for those women
+are all crazy about him,—and then to receive my reproaches with such
+disdain, and finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too
+much. I dressed, and put on my hat, and then I went to him. I said,
+‘Look at me, M. d’Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that
+you will see me; I am going to my child.’ And then I came away.”
+
+Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and
+paler, and so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he
+could not look at her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently,
+and with much sweetness, but also with much solemnity, he said,—
+
+“I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
+lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take
+care! I shall never allow you to leave me.”
+
+“Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together—we two. You know I
+told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
+now.”
+
+Under her son’s caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
+occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.
+
+“You see,” she said, “how happy we may be. I owe you much care and
+tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare and
+small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself.”
+
+This brief summary of the apartment regarded by Bélisaire as so
+magnificent, disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no
+time now for discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave,
+and he must decide at once on something definite. He must consult
+Bélisaire, whom he heard patiently pacing the corridor, and who would
+have waited until nightfall without once knocking to see if the
+interview was over.
+
+“Bélisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we manage?”
+
+Bélisaire started as he thought, “And now the marriage must be
+postponed, for Jack will not be one of our little ménage!”
+
+But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest
+some plan that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It
+was decided finally that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his
+mother and find for himself a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock
+of hats and his furniture with Madame Weber.
+
+Jack presented his friend to Bélisaire, who remembered very well the
+fair lady at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the
+service of Ida de Barancy; for “Charlotte” was no more heard of. A bed
+must be purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took
+from the drawer where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces
+which he gave his mother.
+
+“You know,” he said, “that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good
+Madame Weber will attend to the dinners.”
+
+“Not at all; Bélisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do
+everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have
+ready for you when you come back to-night.”
+
+She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready
+to begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced
+her with his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of
+mind. With what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate
+career and hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some
+time, and marred his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation
+would D’Argenton compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now
+all was changed. Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would
+become worthy of her whom she would some day call “my daughter.”
+
+It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished the
+distance between Cécile and himself, and he smiled to himself as he
+thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was
+seized by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what
+promptitude Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared
+lest she had felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken.
+But on the staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the
+house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on
+the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with
+Bélisaire’s goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and
+dainty dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There
+were flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white
+cloth, on which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida,
+in an embroidered skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top
+of her puffs, hardly looked like herself.
+
+“Well!” she said, running to meet him; “and what do you think of it!”
+
+“It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!”
+
+“Yes; Bélisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them
+to dine with us.”
+
+“But what will you do for dishes?”
+
+“You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side
+have lent me some. They are very obliging also.”
+
+Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant,
+opened his eyes wide.
+
+“But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell
+them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however,
+that I had to take a carriage to return.”
+
+This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save
+fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be
+found.
+
+The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from
+the _Palais Royale_. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that
+something was wrong.
+
+“Have I spent too much?” she asked.
+
+“No, I think not,—for one occasion,” he answered, with same hesitation.
+
+“But I have not been extravagant. Look here,” she said, and she showed
+him a long green book; “in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show
+my entries to you after dinner.”
+
+Bélisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was
+truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida
+received them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon
+entirely at their ease.
+
+Bélisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage
+must be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his “comrade.” Ah, one
+may well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by
+children, which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same
+time feels all the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the
+light, while his companion descended toward the implacable reality. To
+begin with, the person called Bélisaire—who should in reality have been
+named Resignation, Devotion, or Patience—was now obliged to relinquish
+his pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor;
+not for worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.
+
+Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to
+see him bring out a pile of books.
+
+“What are you going to do?” she asked.
+
+“I am going to study.” And he then told her of the double life he led;
+of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until
+then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform
+D’Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way
+his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to
+him alone, he could speak to her of Cécile and of his supreme joy. Jack
+talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did
+not understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had
+not the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to
+him with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at
+the _Gymnase_, when the _Ingenue_ in a white dress, with rose-colored
+ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She
+was pleased with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two or
+three times, “How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and
+Virginia!”
+
+Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the
+echoes of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed,
+heard none of the commonplace comments of his mother.
+
+Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Bélisaire
+came to meet him with a radiant face. “We are to be married at once!
+Madame Weber has found a ‘comrade.’”
+
+Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend’s
+disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did
+not last; for, on seeing “the comrade,” he received a most unpleasant
+impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression
+of his face was far from agreeable.
+
+The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is
+generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the
+church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So
+they generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.
+
+Bélisaire’s wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really
+one of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way
+to the municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing,
+Madame Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue
+of that bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors; a
+many-hued shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap,
+ornamented with ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant
+face. She walked by the side of Bélisaire’s father, a little dried-up
+old man, with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough
+that his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back
+with considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat disturbed
+the dignity of the wedding procession.
+
+Bélisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as
+hooked as her father’s. Bélisaire himself looked almost handsome; he
+led by one hand Madame Weber’s little child. Then came a crowd of
+relatives and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being
+unwilling to do more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence.
+This repast was to take place at Vincennes.
+
+When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room
+engaged by Bélisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look at
+the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of
+merrymakers. They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man’s-buff
+and innumerable other games; under the trees a girl was mending the
+flounces of a bride’s dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy
+those girls let them drag over the lawn, imagining themselves for that
+one occasion women of fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the
+people seek in their hours of amusement: a pretence of riches, a
+momentary semblance of the envied and happy of this earth.
+
+Bélisaire’s party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy
+the announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in
+one of those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and
+whose size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each end
+of the table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a
+centrepiece of pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which
+had officiated at many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months.
+They took their seats in solemn silence, though Madame de Barancy had
+not yet arrived.
+
+The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who
+disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar
+per head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect,
+and envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant
+entertainment. The waiters were, however, filled with profound
+contempt, which they expressed by winks at each other, invisible
+however to the guests.
+
+Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him
+with holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife’s chair, watched
+him so disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from
+the _carte_,—on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens, and
+beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and
+battles—Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. Bélisaire, like the others, was
+stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with the
+question, “Bisque, or Purée de Crécy?” Or two bottles: “Xeres, or
+Pacaset, sir?”
+
+They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games
+where you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the
+answer was of little consequence since both plates contained the same
+tasteless mixture. There was so much ceremony that the dinner
+threatened to be very dull, and interminable as well, from the
+indecision of the guests as to the dishes they should accept. It was
+Madame Weber’s clear head and decided hand that cut this Gordian knot.
+She turned to her child. “Eat everything,” she said, “it costs us
+enough.”
+
+These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after
+a little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open,
+and Ida de Barancy entered, smiling and charming.
+
+“A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept.”
+
+She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity
+nowadays of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary
+effect. The way in which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her
+gloves in a wineglass, the manner in which she signed to one of the
+waiters to bring her the carte, overwhelmed the assembly with
+admiration. It was delightful to see her order about those imposing
+waiters. One of them she had recognized, the one who terrified
+Bélisaire so much. “You are here then, now!” she said carelessly; and
+shook her bracelets, and kissed her hand to her son, asked for a
+footstool, some ice, and eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew the resources of
+the establishment.
+
+“But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!” she cried suddenly. She
+rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. “I ask
+permission to change places with Madame Bélisaire; I am quite sure that
+her husband will not complain.”
+
+This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber
+uttered a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her
+chair, and all this noise and confusion soon changed the previous
+stiffness and restraint into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round
+and round the table executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons
+from one duck so adroitly carved and served that each one had as much
+as he wanted. And the peas fell like hail on the plates; and the
+beans—prepared at one end of the table with salt, pepper, and butter;
+and such butter!—were mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he
+stirred the fell combination.
+
+At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person
+there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne
+signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They
+talked about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at
+dessert, a waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he
+proceeded to open. Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a
+sensation and assuming an attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears,
+but the cork came out like any other cork; the waiter, holding the
+bottle high, went around the table very quickly. The bottle was
+inexhaustible; each person had some froth and a few drops at the bottom
+of the glass, which he drank with respect, and even believed that there
+was still more in the bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word
+champagne had produced its effect, and there is so much French gayety
+in the least particle of its froth that an astonishing animation at
+once pervaded the assembly. A dance was proposed; but music costs so
+much!
+
+“Ah! if we only had a piano,” said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the
+same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
+Bélisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a
+village musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his
+mother at first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that
+ensued, but Ida finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her
+silk skirts and the jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the
+younger women with admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore
+on, the little Weber was asleep wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the
+corner. Jack had made many signs to Ida, who pretended not to
+understand, carried away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about
+her. Jack was like an old father who is anxious to take his daughter
+home from a ball.
+
+“It is late,” he said.
+
+“Wait, dear,” was her answer. At length, however, he seized her cloak,
+and wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that
+hour, and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which
+they hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot
+through the Bois de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious
+after the heat of the restaurant; the child slept sweetly on
+Bélisaire’s shoulder, and did not even awake when he was placed in his
+bed. Madame Bélisaire threw aside her wedding-dress, assumed a plainer
+one, and at once entered on the duties of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+EFFECTS OF POETRY.
+
+
+The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great
+pleasure and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he
+knew her, nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared Cécile’s calm
+judgment and intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes
+are in the young. The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The
+emphatic tone in which Ida addressed Cécile as “my daughter” was all
+well enough, but when under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de
+Barancy dropped her serious air and began some of her extravagant
+stories, Jack felt all his apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors
+on the _qui vive_. Some one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in
+the Pyrenees.
+
+“Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!” she sighed. “Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and
+all that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my
+family, the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at
+Biarritz in a most amusing way!”
+
+Cécile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,—
+
+“Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma!
+I was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who
+insisted on my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very
+angry, and opened the window, took me just at the waist, and held me
+above the water in the lightning and rain.”
+
+Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to
+life again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain
+life and animation.
+
+The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his
+lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cécile to go down
+into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched
+them from the window; Cécile’s slender figure and quiet movements were
+those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but
+loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl.
+For the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only
+breathed freely again when they were all together walking in the woods.
+But on this day his mother’s presence disturbed the harmony. She had no
+comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous.
+But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for _les
+convenances_. She recalled the young people, bade them “not to wander
+away so far, but to keep in sight,” and then she looked at the doctor
+in a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on
+the old doctor’s nerves; but the forest was so lovely, Cécile so
+affectionate, and the few words they exchanged were so mingled with the
+sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the
+poor boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a
+sensation, so they stopped at the forester’s. Mère Archambauld was
+delighted to see her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked
+not a question in regard to D’Argenton, her keen personal sense telling
+her that she had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a
+long time so intimately connected with their life at Aulnettes, was too
+much for Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by
+Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if
+in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through
+the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
+
+The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the
+blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to
+the tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she
+broke a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall,
+and inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms.
+
+“What is it, dear mother?” said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.
+
+“Ah!” she said, with rapidly falling tears, “you know I have so much
+buried here!”
+
+Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin
+inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but
+for that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did Cécile, who had been
+told that Madame D’Argenton was separated from her husband, try with
+minor cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did
+Jack seek to interest her in all his projects for the future.
+
+“You see, my child,” she said, on her way home, “that it is not best
+for me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound
+is too recent.”
+
+Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the
+humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved
+him.
+
+For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished
+what to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk,
+and the quiet talk with Cécile, that he might return to Paris in time
+to dine with his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from
+the tranquillity of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the
+Faubourg. The sidewalks were covered by little tables, where families
+sat drinking their coffee, and crowds were standing, with their noses
+in the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon that had just been
+released from its moorings.
+
+In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the
+courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with
+his neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher
+than they could obtain in their confined quarters within.
+
+Sometimes, in Jack’s absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to a
+little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Lévèque. The shop was
+filled with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and
+illustrated papers, which she let for a sou a day.
+
+Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making
+a certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
+
+It seems that Madame Lévèque had known better days, and that under the
+first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. “I am the
+godchild of the Duc de Dantzic,” she said to Ida, with emphasis. She
+was one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in
+the secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop,
+her gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered
+with stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had
+seen but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in
+which she pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of
+epaulettes and gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the
+ladies of the court! One especial tale Madame Lévèque was never tired
+of telling: it was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of
+the famous ball given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her
+subsequent years had been lighted by those flames, and by that light
+she saw a procession of gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low
+dresses, with heads dressed _à la Titus or à la Grecque_, and the
+emperor, in his green coat and white trousers, carrying in his arms
+across the garden the fainting Madame de Schwartzenberg.
+
+Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this
+half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark shop,
+with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their
+tongues, a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some
+woman, impatient for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come
+in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the
+two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and,
+if she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.
+
+Occasionally Madame Lévèque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida
+had no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a
+pile of books taken at hazard from Madame Lévèque’s shelves. These
+books were soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread
+upon them, showing that they had been read while eating. She sat
+reading by the window,—reading until her head swam. She read to escape
+thinking. Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil
+that she saw going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her
+son, exciting her to more strenuous exertions.
+
+The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other
+with her sing-song repetition of the words, “How happy people ought to
+be who can go to the country in such weather!” exasperated her almost
+beyond endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air,
+made all these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same
+way that the repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the
+twitter of the sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits.
+She thought of her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay
+parties in the country, and above all of the more recent years at
+Etiolles. She thought of D’Argenton reciting one of his poems on the
+porch in the moonlight. Where was he? What was he doing? Three months
+had passed since she left him, and he had not written one word. Then
+the book fell from her hands, and she sat buried in thought until the
+arrival of her son, whom she endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he
+read the whole story in the disorder of the room and in the careless
+toilet. Nothing was in readiness for dinner.
+
+“I have done nothing,” she said, sadly. “The weather is so warm, and I
+am discouraged.”
+
+“Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some
+little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day,” he continued, with
+a tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out
+from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too
+coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as
+modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her
+no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her
+costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,—in the length of her
+skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the
+trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet
+or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
+conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been
+so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
+disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
+with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
+perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his
+mother’s ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
+
+She had certain phrases caught from D’Argenton, a peremptory tone in
+discussion, a didactic “I think so; I believe; I know.” She generally
+began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
+signified, “I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you.” Thanks
+to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
+husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an
+occasional look of D’Argenton on his mother’s face. On her lips was
+often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of
+his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D’Argenton. Never
+had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the
+pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.
+
+After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
+was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the
+old heights of Montfauçon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and
+pine groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was
+something artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its
+resemblance to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of
+the alleys, admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name
+on the ruined wall, with the scores of others that were already there.
+When they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit
+of the hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them.
+Paris, softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The
+heights around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle,
+connected by Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other,
+with Montfauçon; nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the
+people. In the winding alleys and under the groups of trees young
+people were singing and dancing, while on the hillside, sitting amid
+the yellowed grass, and on the dried red earth, families were gathered
+together like flocks of sheep.
+
+Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude
+said, “How inexpressibly tiresome it is!” Jack felt helpless before
+this persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance
+of some one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their
+society his mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what
+he wanted. It was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in
+appearance, leading two little children, over whom he was bending with
+that wonderful patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.
+
+“I certainly know that man,” said Jack to his mother; “it is—it must be
+M. Rondic.”
+
+Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder that
+his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a
+miniature of Zénaïde, while the boy looked like Maugin.
+
+The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile
+was sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth
+dared not ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Zénaïde bore
+down upon them like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited
+skirt and ruffled cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked
+larger than ever. She had the arm of her husband, who was now attached
+to one of the custom-houses, and who was in uniform. Zénaïde adored M.
+Maugin and was absurdly proud of him, while he looked very happy in
+being so worshipped.
+
+Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they
+divided into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaïde, “What has
+happened? Is it possible that Madame Clarisse—”
+
+“Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally.”
+
+Then she added, “We say ‘accidentally’ on father’s account; but you,
+who knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that
+she perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah,
+what wicked men there are in this world!”
+
+Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his
+companion.
+
+“Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock,” resumed
+Zénaïde; “but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his
+position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together
+in the Rue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won’t you,
+Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse
+him. Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking
+at us, and thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that.”
+
+Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
+approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D’Argenton,
+as indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes,
+which, had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken
+long. They separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long
+afterward, called upon them with his mother.
+
+He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know
+so well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big
+wardrobe as an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and
+presented a perfect picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris.
+But he soon saw that his mother was bored by Zénaïde, who was too
+energetic and positive to suit her, and that there, as everywhere else,
+she was haunted by the same melancholy and the same disgust which she
+expressed in the brief phrase, “It smells of the work-shop.”
+
+The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed
+impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the
+window, she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each
+breath of wind brought it to her. The people she saw—even her own Jack,
+when he returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil—exhaled the
+same baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself—the odor of
+toil—and filled her with immense sadness.
+
+One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary
+excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. “D’Argenton
+has written to me!” she cried, as he entered the room; “yes, my dear,
+he has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not
+vouchsafe a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to
+Paris, and that, if I need him, he is at my disposal.”
+
+“You do not need him, I think,” said Jack, quietly, though he was in
+reality as much moved as his mother herself.
+
+“Of course I do not,” she answered, hurriedly.
+
+“And what shall you say?”
+
+“Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not yet
+know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just
+finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am
+curious to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all
+in order. He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well,
+as he has been for two months at—what is the name of the place?” and
+she calmly drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had
+destroyed. “Ah, yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been.
+What nonsense! Those mineral springs have always been bad for him.”
+
+Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening
+she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation of
+her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself.
+Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.
+
+“You are full of courage, my boy,” she said, kissing him.
+
+He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother’s
+mind. “It is not I whom she kisses,” he said, shrewdly; and his
+suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the
+past had taken possession of the poor woman’s mind. She never ceased
+humming the words of a little song of D’Argenton’s, which the poet was
+in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and
+over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack’s mind
+only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he
+would have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he
+loved her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect
+herself. He therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first
+warning of coming danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous
+foreboding of a man who was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of
+saying good-bye to him when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her
+smile of greeting on his return. He could not watch her himself, nor
+could he confide to any other person the distrust with which she
+inspired him. He knew how often a woman surrounds the man whom she
+deceives in an atmosphere of tender attentions,—the manifestations of
+hidden remorse. Once, on his way home, he thought he saw Hirsch and
+Labassandre turning a distant corner.
+
+“Has any one been here?” he said to the concierge; and by the way he
+was answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him.
+The Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so
+completely absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in.
+He would not have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not
+Ida made an attempt to conceal the book.
+
+“You startled me,” she said, half pouting.
+
+“What are you reading?” he asked.
+
+“Nothing,—some nonsense. And how are our friends?” But as she spoke, a
+blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin. It
+was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at
+once prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze,
+she rose from her chair. “You wish to know what I am reading! Look,
+then.” He saw once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read
+for the first time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was
+thinner and smaller. Jack would not have opened it if the following
+title on the outer page had not met his eyes:—
+
+THE   PARTING.
+
+A  POEM.
+
+By the Vicomte Amacry d’Abgenton.
+
+
+And commenced thus:—
+
+“TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.
+“What! with out one word of farewell,
+Without a turn of the head...”
+
+
+Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the
+name of Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine
+with a shrug of the shoulders. “And he dared to send you this?”
+
+“Yes; two or three days ago.”
+
+Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After
+a while she stooped, carelessly.
+
+“You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply
+absurd.”
+
+“But I do not think them so.”
+
+“He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
+human heart.”
+
+“Be more just, Jack,”—her voice trembled,—“heaven knows that I know M.
+D’Argenton better than any one, his faults and the defects of his
+nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as
+to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
+peculiarity of M. D’Argenton’s genius is the sympathetic quality of his
+verses. Musset had its irksome degree; and I think that the beginning
+of this poem, ‘The Parting,’ is very touching: the young woman who goes
+away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of
+farewell.”
+
+Jack could not restrain himself. “But the woman is yourself,” he cried,
+“and you know under what circumstances you left.”
+
+She answered, coldly,—
+
+“Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
+D’Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
+able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the
+poets of France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt
+to-day, will yet be proud of having known him and of having sat at his
+table!” And as she finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack
+took his seat at his desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt
+that “the enemy,” as in his childish days he had called the vicomte,
+was gradually making his approaches. In fact Amaury d’Argenton was as
+unhappy apart from Charlotte as she was herself. Victim and
+executioner, indispensable to each other, he felt profoundly the
+emptiness of divided lives. From the first hour of their separation the
+poet had adopted a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken heart. He
+was seen in the restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of
+flatterers who talked of her; he wished to have every one know his
+misery and its details; he wished to have people think that he was
+drowning his sorrows in dissipation. When he said, “Waiter! bring me
+some pure absinthe,” it was that some one at the next table might
+whisper, “He is killing himself by inches—all for a woman!”
+
+D’Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
+constitution. His “attacks” were more frequent, and Charlotte’s absence
+was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured
+his perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes.
+He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another,
+sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
+environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
+contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would
+burn, and currents of air whistled under all the doors; and in the
+depths of his selfish nature D’Argenton sincerely regretted his
+companion, and became seriously unhappy. Then he decided to take a
+journey, but that did him no good, to judge from the melancholy tone of
+his letters to his friends.
+
+One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy
+away from him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, “Write a
+poem about it,” and D’Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of
+being calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and
+the separation became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review
+appeared, Hirsch and Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to
+the Rue des Panoyeaux.
+
+This done, D’Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand _coup_.
+He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself at
+Charlotte’s door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away. D’Argenton
+was very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of the
+greatest mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart,
+and that that heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved
+him, but he saw a certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed
+at the corner as for an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying
+his hatred of Jack. He pictured to himself the disappointment of the
+youth on his return to find that the bird had flown. He meant to appear
+suddenly before Charlotte, to throw himself at her feet, and, giving
+her no time to think, to carry her away with him at once. She must be
+very much changed since he last saw her if she could resist him. He
+entered her room without knocking, saying in a low voice, “It is I.”
+
+There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on
+account of the occurrence of his mother’s birthday, had a holiday, and
+was at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove.
+The two men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not
+the advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could
+he treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking fellow, in whose
+intelligent face appeared, as if still more to exasperate the lover,
+something of his mother’s beauty.
+
+“Why do you come here?” asked Jack.
+
+The other stammered and colored. “I was told that your mother was
+here.”
+
+“So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her.”
+
+This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D’Argenton by
+the shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
+difficulty preserved his footing.
+
+“Jack,” he said, endeavoring to be dignified,—“there has been a
+misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a man,
+all this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child.”
+
+Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Of what use are these theatricals between
+us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!”
+
+“And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?”
+
+“Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
+hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
+bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what
+are you? Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you
+without anger, it has never been without a blush of shame.”
+
+“It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been
+entirely false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance.”
+
+But Jack cut short this discourse.
+
+“You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a
+very serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say
+that every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one
+of them in useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your
+slave. All that I suffered in this time my pride will never let you
+know. My mother now belongs to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you
+want of her? Her hair is gray, and your treatment of her has made great
+wrinkles on her forehead. She is no longer a pretty woman, but she is
+my mother!”
+
+They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that
+narrow, squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so
+humiliating.
+
+“You strangely mistake the sense of my words,” said the poet, deadly
+pale. “I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come, as an
+old friend, to see if I can serve you in any way.”
+
+“We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we
+require.”
+
+“You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always.”
+
+“That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
+forced to endure, has now become odious to me.”
+
+The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his
+looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not add
+one word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was
+strangely out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned
+to his room: on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes
+swollen with tears and sleep.
+
+“I was there,” she said in a low voice; “I heard everything, even that
+I was old and had wrinkles.”
+
+He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her
+eyes.
+
+“He is not far away. Shall I call him?”
+
+She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one
+of those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly
+unworthy, exclaimed, “You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only
+your mother!”
+
+Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M.
+Rivals:—
+
+“My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened
+in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the
+blow. Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more
+dignified to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro
+lad who said, ‘If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!’ I
+never fully understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I
+do not write you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait
+until Sunday because I could not speak before Cécile. I told you of the
+explanation that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my
+mother was so very sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had
+gone through, that I resolved to change our residence. I understood
+that a battle was being fought, and that, if I wished her to be
+victorious, if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ
+all means and devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted
+something gayer and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas
+three rooms newly papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All
+the money I had saved—pardon me these details—I devoted to this
+purpose. Bélisaire aided me in moving, while Zénaïde was in the same
+street, and I counted on her in many ways. All these arrangements were
+made secretly, and I hoped a great surprise and pleasure was in store
+for my mother. The place was as quiet as a village street, the trees
+were well grown and green, and I fancied that she would, when
+established there, have less to regret in the country-life she had so
+much enjoyed.
+
+“Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell
+her that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take
+her to our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all
+the windows, and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made
+a little fire, for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the
+room. In the midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It
+was like an electric spark. ‘She will not come.’ In vain did I call
+myself an idiot, in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her
+footstool. I knew that she would never come. More than once in my life
+I have had these intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before
+striking her heaviest blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a
+warning.
+
+“She did not come, but Bélisaire brought a note from her. It was very
+brief, merely stating that M. D’Argenton was very ill, and that she
+regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well
+she would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself
+ill, too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the
+wretch! How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You
+remember those ‘attacks’ he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon
+disappeared after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has.
+But my mother was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be
+deceived. But to return to my story. Behold me alone in this little
+home, amid all the wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I
+could not remain there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to
+me as sad as a funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and
+the roses wither and fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle
+rustle. I took the rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with
+something of the same superstition with which one preserves for a long
+time the cage from which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother
+returns we will go there together. But if she does not I shall never
+inhabit the place. I have now told you all, but do not let Cécile see
+this letter. Ah, my friend, will she too desert me? The treachery of
+those we love is terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking; I have her
+word and her promise, and Cécile always tells the truth.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
+
+
+For a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the
+morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he
+heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When
+he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see
+the windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of
+which, with the key, he had sent to her: “The house is ready. Come when
+you will.” Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
+
+Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
+grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
+Cécile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use,
+and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
+resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one’s best defence
+against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
+without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her
+indecision had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all
+ready to go out, with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide
+to remain at home. Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and
+regained his lost time. Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once
+more in love, and wiser. The doctor was delighted with the progress of
+his pupil; before a year was over, he said, if he went on in this way,
+he could take his degree.
+
+These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
+Bélisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
+happiness. Madame Bélisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
+and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased
+at Jack’s progress with his books, he was discontented with the state
+of his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and
+his hands hot.
+
+“I do not like this,” said the good man; “you work too hard; you must
+stop; you have plenty of time: Cécile does not mean to run away.”
+
+Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel that
+she must take his mother’s place as well as her own; and it was
+precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions
+each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the
+Fakirs of India—urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain
+becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic,
+and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his
+writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being—a
+strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all
+his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great
+physical exhaustion.
+
+His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
+disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
+not received a painful shock. A telegram arrived:
+
+“Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
+    Rivals.”
+
+
+Jack received that despatch just as Madame Bélisaire had ironed his
+fine linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the
+brevity of the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his
+friend’s well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a
+letter from Cécile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing
+came, and for a week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth
+was: neither Cécile nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals
+wished for time to prepare the youth for an unexpected blow—for a
+decision of Cécile’s so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter
+would be induced to reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the
+house, he had found Cécile in a state of singular agitation; her lips
+were pale but firmly closed. He tried to make her smile at the
+dinner-table, but in vain; and suddenly, in reply to some remark of his
+in regard to Jack’s coming, she said, “I do not wish him to come.”
+
+He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a firm
+voice she repeated, “I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever
+again.”
+
+“What is the matter, my child?”
+
+“Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack.”
+
+“You frighten me, Cécile! Tell me what you mean.”
+
+“I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
+mistaken.”
+
+“Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
+misunderstanding.”
+
+“No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister’s
+friendship, nothing more. I cannot be his wife.”
+
+The doctor was startled. “Cécile,” he said, gravely, “do you love any
+other person?”
+
+She colored. “No; but I do not wish to marry;” and to all that M.
+Rivals said she would make no other reply.
+
+He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little
+world. “Remember,” he said, “that to Jack this will be a frightful
+blow; his whole future will be sacrificed.”
+
+Cécile’s pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her
+hand.
+
+“My child,” he said, “think well before you decide a question of such
+importance.”
+
+“No,” she answered; “the sooner he knows my decision the better for us
+both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer we
+delay the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows
+the truth; I am incapable of such treachery.”
+
+“Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal,” said the doctor, in a
+rage. “Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!”
+
+She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped
+short.
+
+“No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
+yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and
+shall always be one until the bitter end.”
+
+Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen
+letters, destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that
+Cécile would have come to her senses before the week was over.
+
+The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, “He will
+come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?”
+
+“Irrevocable,” she said, slowly.
+
+Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant
+said, “My master is waiting for you in the garden.”
+
+Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor’s face increased his
+fears, for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human
+suffering, was as troubled as Jack.
+
+“Cécile is here—is she not?” were the youth’s first words.
+
+“No, my friend, I left her—at—where we have been, you know; and she
+will remain some time.”
+
+“Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again?
+Is that it?”
+
+The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should
+fall. They were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright
+November morning; hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over
+the distant hills and reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage,
+and their first whisper of love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his
+shoulder. “Jack,” he whispered, “do not be unhappy. She is very young
+and will perhaps change her mind. It is a mere caprice.”
+
+“No, doctor, Cécile never has caprices. That would be horrible—to drive
+a knife into a man’s heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
+reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew
+that her love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also
+perish. If she has done this, then it is because she knew well that it
+was her duty so to do. I ought to have expected it; I should have known
+that so great a happiness could not be for me.”
+
+He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. “Forgive me, my
+brave boy; I hoped to make you both happy.”
+
+“Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
+year,” he continued, “I began the only happy season of my life. I was
+born on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to
+you and to Cécile;” and the youth hurried away.
+
+“But you will breakfast with me,” said the doctor.
+
+“No; I should be too sad a guest.”
+
+He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once
+looking back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the
+curtain of a window in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as
+his own. The girl extended her slender arms, and tears rained down her
+cheeks. The following days were sad enough. The little house that had
+for months been bright and gay, resumed its ancient mournful aspect.
+The doctor, much troubled, noticed that his granddaughter spent much of
+her time in her mother’s former room. Where Madeleine had formerly
+wept, her child now shed in turn her tears. “Would she die as did her
+mother?”
+
+The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why
+was she so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old
+man was sure that there was some mystery, something that he ought to
+know; but at the least question, Cécile ran away as if in fear.
+
+One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband
+of old Salé, who had met with an accident. These people lived near
+Aulnettes, in a miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the corner
+lay the sick man. When Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly
+suffocated by the odor of burning herbs.
+
+“What have you been doing here, Mother Salé?” he said. The old woman
+hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time,
+however. “So Hirsch is here again, is he?” he continued. “Open the
+doors and windows, you will be suffocated.”
+
+While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. “Tell
+him, wife, tell him,” he muttered.
+
+The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: “Tell him, I
+say, tell him.”
+
+The doctor looked at Mother Salé, who turned a deep scarlet. “I am sure
+I am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good
+young lady,” she muttered.
+
+“What young lady? Of whom do you speak?” asked the doctor, turning
+hastily around.
+
+“Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
+francs to tell Mamselle Cécile the story of her father and mother.”
+
+M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
+
+“And you dared to do that?” he cried, in a furious rage.
+
+“It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for
+the twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it
+until he told me, so that I could repeat it.”
+
+“The wretch! But who could have told him?”
+
+A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the
+long night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste
+to Etiolles and went directly in search of Cécile. Her room was empty,
+and the bed had not been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to the
+office, still he found no one. But the door of Madeleine’s old room
+stood open, and there among the relics of the dear dead, prostrate on
+the _Prie-Dieu_, was Cécile asleep, in an attitude that told of a night
+of prayer and tears. She opened her eyes as her grandfather touched
+her.
+
+“And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains
+to hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little
+darling, the sad tale we concealed.”
+
+She hid her face on his shoulder. “I am so ashamed,” she whispered.
+
+“And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me why?”
+
+“Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother’s dishonor, and my
+conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was
+but one thing to do, and I did it.”
+
+“But you love him?”
+
+“With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
+marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to
+such a sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father—who has
+no name, or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger.”
+
+“But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
+with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if
+you had had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to
+us all.”
+
+“And he was willing to marry me!”
+
+“Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
+father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference
+between you is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner.”
+
+Then the doctor, who had told Jack Cécile’s history, now related to her
+the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile
+from his mother’s arms—of all that he had endured. “I understand it all
+now,” he cried; “it is she who has told Hirsch of your mother’s
+marriage.”
+
+While the doctor was talking, Cécile was overwhelmed with despair to
+think that she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless
+sorrow. “O, how he has suffered!” she sobbed. “Have you heard anything
+from him?”
+
+“No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to know,”
+answered her grandfather, with a smile.
+
+“But he may not wish to come.”
+
+“Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
+him home with us.”
+
+An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their way
+to Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He
+looked at the little door. “This is the place,” he said, and he rang.
+The servant opened the door, but seeing before her one of those
+dangerous pedlers that wander through the country, she attempted to
+close it again.
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“The gentleman of the house.”
+
+“He is not at home.”
+
+“And the young lady?”
+
+“She is not at home, either.”
+
+“When will they be back?”
+
+“I have no idea!” And she closed the door.
+
+“Good heavens!” said Bélisaire, in a choked voice; “and must he be
+permitted to die without any help?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.
+
+
+That evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of
+the Review; a fête had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte’s return,
+at which it was proposed that D’Argenton should read his new poem.
+
+But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence
+of a person who was then present? And how could he describe the
+sufferings of a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be
+at the summit of bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object?
+Never had the apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were
+there in profusion. The toilet of Charlotte was in exquisite taste,
+white with clusters of violets, and all the surroundings breathed an
+atmosphere of riches. Yet nothing could have been more deceptive. The
+Review was in a dying condition; the numbers appearing at longer
+intervals, and growing small by degrees and beautifully less.
+D’Argenton had swallowed up in it the half of his fortune, and now
+wished to sell it. It was this unfortunate situation, added to an
+attack skilfully managed, that had induced the foolish Charlotte to
+return to him. He had only to assume before her the air of a great man
+crushed by unmerited misfortune, for her to reply that she would serve
+him always.
+
+D’Argenton was foolish and conceited, but he understood the nature of
+this woman in a most wonderful degree. She thought him handsomer and
+more fascinating than he was twelve years before, when she saw him for
+the first time, under the chandeliers of the Moronval salon. Many of
+the same persons were there also: Labassandre in bottle-green velvet,
+with the high boots of Faust; and Dr. Hirsch with his coat-sleeves
+spotted by various chemicals; and Moronval in a black coat very white
+in the seams, and a white cravat very black in the folds; several
+“children of the sun,”—the everlasting Japanese prince, and the
+Egyptian from the banks of the Nile. What a strange set of people they
+were! They might have been a band of pilgrims on the march toward some
+unknown Mecca, whose golden lamps retreat before them. During the
+twelve years that we have known them, many have fallen from the ranks,
+but others have risen to take their places; nothing discourages them,
+neither cold nor heat, nor even hunger. They hurry on, but they never
+arrive. Among them D’Argenton, better clothed and better fed, resembled
+a rich Hadji with his harem, his pipes, and his riches; on this evening
+he was especially radiant, for he had triumphed.
+
+During the reading of the poem Charlotte sat in an attitude of feigned
+indifference, blushing occasionally at veiled allusions to herself.
+Near her was Madame Moronval, who, small as she was, seemed quite tall
+because of the extraordinary height of her forehead and the length of
+her chin. The poem went on and on, the fire crackled on the hearth, and
+the wind rattled against the glass doors of the balcony, as it did on a
+certain night of which Charlotte apparently had but little remembrance.
+Suddenly, during a most pathetic passage, the door opened suddenly; the
+servant appeared, and with a terrified air summoned her mistress.
+
+“Madame, madame!” she cried.
+
+Charlotte went to her. “What is it?” she asked.
+
+“A man insists on seeing you. I told him that it was impossible; but he
+said he would wait for you, and he seated himself on the stairs.”
+
+“I will see him,” said Charlotte, much moved; for she guessed at the
+purport of the message.
+
+But D’Argenton objected, and turning toward Labassandre, he said, “Will
+you have the goodness to see who this intruder is?” and the poet turned
+back to the table to resume his reading. But the door opened again wide
+enough to admit the head and arm of Labassandre, who beckoned
+earnestly.
+
+“What is it?” said D’Argenton, impatiently, when he reached the
+ante-room.
+
+“Jack is very ill,” said the tenor.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” answered the poet.
+
+“This man swears that it is so.”
+
+D’Argenton looked at the man, whose face was not absolutely unknown to
+him.
+
+“Did you come from the gentleman,—that is to say, did he send you?”
+
+“No; he is too sick to send any one. It is three weeks since he has
+been in his bed, and very, very ill.”
+
+“What is his disease?”
+
+“Something on the lungs, and the doctors say that he cannot live; so I
+thought I had better come and tell his mother.”
+
+“What is your name?”
+
+“Bélisaire, sir; but the lady knows me.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said the poet, “you will say to the one who sent
+you, that the game is a good one, though rather old, and he had better
+try something else.”
+
+“Sir?” said the pedler, interrogatively, for he did not comprehend
+these sarcastic words.
+
+But D’Argenton had left the room, and Bélisaire stood in silent
+amazement, having caught a glimpse of the lighted salon and its crowd
+of people.
+
+“It is nothing, only a mistake,” said the poet on his entrance; and
+while he majestically resumed his reading, the pedler hurried home
+through the dark streets, through the sharp hail and fierce wind, eager
+to reach Jack, who lay in a high fever, on the narrow iron bed in the
+attic-room.
+
+He had been taken ill on his return from Etiolles; he lay there, almost
+without speaking, a victim to fever and a severe cold, so serious, that
+the physicians warned his friends that they had everything to fear.
+Bélisaire wished to summon M. Rivals, but to this Jack refused to
+consent. This was the only energy he had shown since his illness, and
+the only time he had spoken voluntarily, save when he told his friend
+to take his watch, and a ring he owned, and sell them.
+
+All Jack’s savings had been absorbed in furnishing the rooms at
+Charonne, and the Bélisaire household was equally impoverished through
+their recent marriage. But it mattered very little; the pedler and his
+wife were capable of every sacrifice for their friend; they carried to
+the Mont de Piété the greater part of their furniture, piece by
+piece—for medicines were so dear. They were advised to send Jack to the
+hospital. “He would be better off; and, besides, he would then cost you
+nothing,” was the argument employed. The good people were now at the
+end of their resources, and decided to inform Charlotte of her son’s
+danger.
+
+“Bring her back with you,” said Madame Bélisaire to her husband. “To
+see his mother would be such a comfort to the lad. He never speaks of
+her because he is so proud.”
+
+But Bélisaire did not bring her. He returned in a very unhappy frame of
+mind, from the reception he had received. His wife, with her child
+asleep on her lap, talked in a low voice to a neighbor, in front of a
+poor little fire—such a one as is called a widow’s fire by the people.
+The two women listened to Jack’s painful breathing, and to the horrible
+cough that choked him. One would never have recognized this
+unfurnished, dismal room as the bright attic where cheerful voices had
+resounded such a short time before. There was no sign of books or
+studies. A pot of tisane was simmering on the hearth, filling the air
+with that peculiar odor which tells of a sickroom. Bélisaire came in.
+
+“Alone?” said his wife.
+
+He told in a low voice that he had not been permitted to see Jack’s
+mother.
+
+“But had you no blood in your veins? You should have entered by force
+and called aloud, ‘Madame, your son is dying!’ Ah, my poor Bélisaire,
+you will never be anything but a weak chicken!”
+
+“But, had I undertaken such a thing, I should simply have been
+arrested,” said the poor man, in a distressed tone.
+
+“But what are we going to do?” resumed Madame Bélisaire. “This poor boy
+must have better care than we can give him.”
+
+A neighbor spoke. “He must go to the hospital, as the physician said.”
+
+“Hush, hush! not so loud!” said Bélisaire, pointing to the bed; “I’m
+afraid he heard you.”
+
+“What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be
+better for you in every respect.”
+
+“But he is my friend,” answered Bélisaire, proudly; and in his tone was
+so much honest devotion that his wife’s eyes filled with tears.
+
+The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their
+departure, the room looked less cold and less bare.
+
+Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept
+little, and lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open.
+If that blank surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very
+old woman, could have spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful
+eyes but one expression could have been seen, that of utter and
+overwhelming despair. He never complained, however; he even tried, at
+times, to smile at his stout nurse, when she brought him his tisanes.
+The long and solitary days passed away in this inaction and
+helplessness. Why was he not strong in health and body like the people
+about him, and yet for whom did he wish to labor? His mother had left
+him, Cécile had deserted him. The faces of these two women haunted him
+day and night. When Charlotte’s gay and indifferent smile faded away,
+the delicate features of Cécile appeared before him, veiled in the
+mystery of her strange refusal; and the youth lay there incapable of a
+word or a gesture, while his pulses beat with accelerated force, and
+his hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
+
+The day after this conversation at Jack’s bedside, Madame Bélisaire was
+much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt,
+sitting in front of the fire. “Why are you out of your bed?” she asked
+with severity.
+
+“I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to
+stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will.”
+
+“But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are.”
+
+“Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm.”
+
+It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to
+Madame Bélisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of
+farewell at the humble home which had been illuminated by so many fair
+dreams and hopes. How long the walk was! They stopped occasionally, but
+dared not linger long, for the air was sharp. Under the lowering
+December skies the sick youth looked worse even than when he lay in his
+bed. His hair was wet with perspiration, the hurrying crowds made him
+dizzy and faint. Paris is like a huge battlefield where mere existence
+demands a struggle; and Jack seemed like a wounded soldier borne from
+the field by a comrade.
+
+It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was,
+however, they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An
+enormous stove made the air of the room almost intolerable, with its
+smell of hot iron. When Jack entered, assisted by Bélisaire/all eyes
+were turned upon him. They were awaiting the arrival of the physician,
+who would give, or refuse, a card of admittance. Each one was
+describing his symptoms to some indifferent hearer, and endeavoring to
+show that he was more ill than any one else. Jack listened to these
+dismal conversations, seated between a stout man who coughed violently,
+and a slender young girl whose thin shawl was so tightly drawn over her
+head that only her wild and affrighted eyes were to be seen. Then the
+door opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it was the physician. A
+profound silence followed all along the benches. The doctor warmed his
+hands at the stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance about the room.
+Then he began his rounds, followed by a boy carrying the cards of
+admission to the different hospitals. What joy for the poor wretches
+when they were pronounced sick enough to receive a ticket. What
+disappointment, what entreaties from those who were told that they must
+struggle on yet a little longer! The examination was brief, and if it
+seemed somewhat brutal at times, it must be remembered that the number
+of applicants was very large, and that the poor creatures loved to
+linger over the recital of their woes.
+
+Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. “And what is
+the matter with you, sir?” he asked.
+
+“My chest burns like fire,” was the answer.
+
+“Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink
+too much brandy?”
+
+“Never, sir,” answered the patient indignantly.
+
+“Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?”
+
+“I drink what I want of that, of course.”
+
+“Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends.”
+
+“On pay-days I do, certainly.”
+
+“That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue.”
+
+When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his
+age and how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty,
+and while he spoke, Bélisaire stood behind him with a face full of
+anxiety.
+
+“Stand up, my man,” and the doctor applied his ear to the damp clothing
+of the invalid. “Did you walk here?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state in
+which you are; but you must not try it again;” and he handed him a
+ticket and passed on to continue his inspection.
+
+Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives in
+the streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than the
+sight of one of those litters, sheltered from the sun’s rays by a
+striped cover, and borne by two men, one behind and the other in
+front,—the form of a human being vaguely defined under the linen
+sheets? Women cross themselves when these litters pass them, as they do
+when a crow flies over their heads.
+
+Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the
+sick man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which
+the poor are subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the
+familiar tread of his faithful Bélisaire, who occasionally took his
+hand to prove to him that he was not completely deserted.
+
+The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered.
+It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden,
+on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove,
+were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or
+six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to
+inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if
+frightened.
+
+The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin,
+decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of
+the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which
+seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:
+
+“Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no
+bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are
+waiting, we will put him on a couch.”
+
+This couch was placed close to the bed “that would soon be empty,” from
+whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a
+thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which
+they were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack
+was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Bélisaire’s “_au
+revoir_” nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a
+whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue.
+Suddenly a woman’s voice, calm and clear, said, “Let us pray.”
+
+He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain
+did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The
+concluding sentence reached him, however.
+
+“Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and
+travellers, the sick and the dying.”
+
+Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of
+prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over
+endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway,
+like that of Etiolles; Cécile and his mother were before him refusing
+to wait until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by
+a row of enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy
+haste, and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke.
+Jack determined to pass between them; he is seized by their iron arms,
+torn and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through
+and took refuge in the Foret de Sénart, amid the freshness of which
+Jack became once more a child and was on his way to the forester’s; but
+there at the cross-road stood mother Salé; he turned to run, and ran
+for miles, with the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and
+nearer, he felt her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last,
+and with all her weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start;
+he recognized the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs
+and coughs. He dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight
+across his body, something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in
+terror. The nurses ran, and lifted something, placed it in the next
+bed, and drew the curtains round it closely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
+
+
+“Come, wake up! Visitors are here.”
+
+Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the
+curtains of the next bed,—they hung in such straight and motionless
+folds to the very ground.
+
+“Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in
+the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were
+terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you.
+But you are very weak.”
+
+The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat
+and a white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the
+sick man’s pulse and asks him some questions.
+
+“What is your trade?”
+
+“A machinist.”
+
+“Do you drink?”
+
+“Not now; I did at one time.”
+
+Then a long silence.
+
+“What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?”
+
+Jack saw in the physician’s face the same sympathetic interest that he
+had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and
+the doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They
+were at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with
+some curiosity to the words “inspiration,” “expiration,” “phthisis,”
+&c., and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical
+case,—so critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good
+sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were
+in Paris, and if he could send to them.
+
+His family! Who were they? A man and a woman who were already there at
+the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no
+other friends than these, no other relatives.
+
+“And how are we to-day?” said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept his
+tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine
+oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in
+silence.
+
+Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he
+thinking?
+
+“Jack,” said the good woman, suddenly, “I am going to find your
+mother;” and she smiled encouragingly.
+
+Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he
+forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
+
+But Bélisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in
+utter contempt “the fine lady,” as she calls Jack’s mother, that she
+detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and
+perhaps—who knows but the police may be called in?
+
+“No,” she said, “that is all nonsense;” but finally yielded to the
+persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
+
+“I will bring her this time, never fear!” he said, with an air of
+confidence.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of
+the staircase.
+
+“To M. D’Argenton’s.”
+
+“Are you the man who was here last night?”
+
+“Precisely,” answered Bélisaire, innocently.
+
+“Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to
+the country, and will not return for some time.”
+
+In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In
+vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady’s son was very
+ill—dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and
+would not permit Bélisaire to go one step further.
+
+The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea
+struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had
+taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the
+fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he
+had often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he
+could only be induced to come to Jack’s bedside, so that the poor boy
+could have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he
+started for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!
+
+During all this time, his wife sat at their friend’s side, and knew not
+what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation
+into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his
+mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that
+always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the
+doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother.
+The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the
+patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging
+them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were
+dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges
+filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted
+by the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother
+had not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
+
+With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the
+slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach
+itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them
+into the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling
+of Ida de Barancy.
+
+The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in
+displeased surprise at their father’s emaciation and at his nightcap,
+and uttered exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully
+dressed altar. But Jack’s mother did not appear. Madame Bélisaire knows
+not what to say. She has hinted that M. D’Argenton may be ill, or that
+his mother is driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored
+handkerchief on her knees and pares an orange.
+
+“She will not come!” said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that
+little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care.
+But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its
+accents. “She will not come!” he repeated; and the poor boy closed his
+eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of Cécile. The sister heard his
+sighs, and said to Madame Bélisaire, whose large face was shining with
+tears,—
+
+“What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more.”
+
+“It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled
+that she does not come.”
+
+“But she must be sent for.”
+
+“My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won’t come to a
+hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts.”
+
+Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
+
+“Don’t cry, dear,” said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her
+little child; “I am going for your mother.”
+
+Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still
+continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, “She will not come!
+she will not come!”
+
+The sister tried to soothe him. “Calm yourself, my child.”
+
+Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. “I tell you she will not come.
+You do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my
+miserable life has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the
+gashes she has cut in it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to him
+on wings, and would never again leave him; and I am dying, and she
+refuses to come to me. What a cruel mother! it is she who has killed
+me, and she does not wish to see me die!”
+
+Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow,
+and the sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter’s
+day ended in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
+
+Charlotte and D’Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just
+returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in
+velvet and furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of
+spirits. Remember that she had just shown herself in public with her
+poet, and had shown herself, too, to be as pretty as she was ten years
+before. The complexion was heightened by the sharp wintry air, and the
+soft wraps in which she was enveloped added to her beauty as does the
+satin and quilted lining of a casket enhance the brilliancy of the gems
+within. Â woman of the people stood on the sidewalk, and rushed forward
+on seeing her.
+
+“Madame, madame! come at once!”
+
+“Madame Bélisaire!” cried Charlotte, turning pale.
+
+“Your child is very ill; he asks for you!”
+
+“But this is a persecution,” said D’Argenton. “Let us pass. If the
+gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician.”
+
+“He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the hospital.”
+
+“At the hospital!”
+
+“Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you
+wish to see him you must hurry.”
+
+“Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap
+laid ready for you;” and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
+
+“Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can
+have a heart like this!”
+
+Charlotte turned toward her. “Show me where he is,” she said; and the
+two women hurried through the streets, leaving D’Argenton in a state of
+rage, convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
+
+Just as Madame Bélisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in,—a
+young girl and an old man.
+
+A divine face bent over Jack. “It is I, my love, it is Cécile.”
+
+It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by
+reason of her tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was
+the slender one that had already brought the youth such happiness, and
+yet did its part in bringing him where we now see him; for fate is
+often cruel enough to strike you through your dearest and best. The
+sick youth opens his weary eyes to see that he is not dreaming. Cécile
+is really there; she implores his pardon, and explains why she gave him
+such pain. Ah, if she had but known that their destinies were so
+similar!
+
+As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness
+and anger of the past weeks.
+
+“Then you love me?” he whispered.
+
+“Yes, Jack; I have always loved you.”
+
+Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this
+word love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird
+had taken refuge there.
+
+“How good you are to come, Cécile! Now I shall not utter another
+murmur. I am ready to die, with you at my side.”
+
+“Die! Who is talking of dying?” said the old doctor in his heartiest
+voice. “Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look
+like the same person you were when we came.”
+
+This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed
+Cécile’s hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of
+tenderness.
+
+“All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have
+been friend and sister, wife and mother.”
+
+But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color to
+frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly
+visible. Cécile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full
+of shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more
+sombre, more mysterious than Night.
+
+Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: “I hear her,” he whispered; “she is
+coming!”
+
+But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the
+corridors, the steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and
+the distant noises in the street. He listened a moment, said a few
+unintelligible words, then his head fell back and his eyes closed. But
+he was right. Two women were running up the stairs. They had been
+allowed to enter, though the hour for the admittance of visitors had
+long since passed. But it was one of those occasions where rules may be
+broken and set aside.
+
+When they arrived at the outer door, Charlotte stopped. “I cannot go
+on,” she said, “I am frightened.”
+
+“Come on,” the other answered, roughly; “you must. Ah, to such women as
+you, God should never give children!”
+
+And she pushed Charlotte toward the staircase. The large room, the
+shaded lamps, the kneeling forms, the mother saw at one glance; and
+farther on, at the end of the apartment, were two men bending over a
+bed, and Cécile Rivals, pale as death, supporting a head on her breast.
+
+“Jack, my child!”
+
+M. Rivals turned. “Hush,” he said, sternly.
+
+Then came a sigh—a long, shivering sigh.
+
+Charlotte crept nearer, with failing limbs and sinking heart. It was
+Jack indeed, with arms stiffly falling at his side, and eyes fixed on
+vacancy.
+
+The doctor bent over him. “Jack, my friend; it is your mother, she is
+here!”
+
+And she, unhappy woman, stretched out her arms toward him. “Jack, it is
+I! I am here!”
+
+Not a movement.
+
+The mother cried in a tone of horror, “Dead?”
+
+“No,” said old Rivals; “no,—_Delivered_.”
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Jack</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Alphonse Daudet</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 2, 2008 [eBook #25302]<br />
+[Most recently updated: March 16, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***</div>
+
+<h1>JACK</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break"> By Alphonse Daudet</h2>
+
+<h3> Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood </h3>
+
+<h4> From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition. </h4>
+
+<h5> Estes And Lauriat, 1877 </h5>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I. VAURIGARD.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II. THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III. MÂDOU.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV. THE REUNION.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V. A DINNER WITH IDA.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI. AMAURY D&rsquo;ARGENTON.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII. MÂDOU&rsquo;S FLIGHT.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII. JACK&rsquo;S DEPARTURE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX. PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X. THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI. CÉCILE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII. LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER XIII. INDRET.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER XIV. A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER XV. CHARLOTTE&rsquo;S JOURNEY.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER XVI. CLARISSE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER XVII. IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER XVIII. D&rsquo;ARGENTON&rsquo;S MAGAZINE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER XIX. THE CONVALESCENT.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER XX. THE WEDDING-PARTY.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER XXI. EFFECTS OF POETRY.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER XXII. CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER XXIII. A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.</a>
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>JACK</h2>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"></a>
+CHAPTER I.<br />
+VAURIGARD.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With a <i>k</i>, sir; with a <i>k</i>. The name is written and
+pronounced as in English. The child&rsquo;s godfather was English. A
+major-general in the Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man
+of distinction and of the highest connections. But&mdash;you
+understand&mdash;M. l&rsquo;Abbé! How deliciously he danced! He died a
+frightful death at Singapore some years since, in a tiger-chase organized in
+his honor by a rajah, one of his friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute
+monarchs in their own country,&mdash;and one especially is very celebrated.
+What is his name? Wait a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon me, madame,&rdquo; interrupted the abbé, smiling, in spite of
+himself, at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas.
+&ldquo;After Jack, what name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest examined
+from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical shrewdness, the young
+woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing at her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the hour. It was
+December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous folds of her black
+costume, and the discreet originality of her hat, all told the story of a woman
+who owns her carriage, and who steps from her carpets to her coupé without the
+vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was small, which always lends height to
+a woman. Her pretty face had all the bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay,
+additional vivacity was imparted by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth,
+which were to be seen even when her face was in repose. The mobility of her
+countenance was extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about
+to speak, or the narrow brow,&mdash;something there was, at all events, that
+indicated an absence of reflective powers, a lack of culture, and possibly
+explained the blanks in the conversation of this pretty woman; blanks that
+reminded one of those little Japanese baskets fitting one into another, the
+last of which is always empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or eight, who
+had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as English boys are
+dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a <i>k</i>. His legs were bare,
+and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume was in accordance with his
+years, but not with his long neck and slim figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he would
+occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing expression, as if
+he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole Indian army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding, and with
+the transformation of a pretty woman&rsquo;s face to that of an intelligent
+man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in meaning; the same
+brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were firmly closed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the woman&rsquo;s face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
+furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to retain a
+certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the contrary, one felt
+that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air would have been almost
+painful, had it not been combined with a certain caressing indolence of
+attitude that indicated a petted child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened to her
+words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the priest and at all
+the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had promised not to cry, but a
+stifled sob shook him at times from head to foot. Then his mother looked at
+him, and seemed to say, &ldquo;You know what you promised.&rdquo; Then the
+child choked back his tears and sobs; but it was easy to see that he was a prey
+to that first agony of exile and abandonment which the first boarding-school
+inflicts on those children who have lived only in their homes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or three
+minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but Father
+O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, who had been the director for twenty-five years of the
+aristocratic institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the world,
+and knew too well the best Parisian society, all its shades of manner and
+dialect, not to understand that in the mother of his new pupil he beheld a
+representative of an especial class.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The self-possession with which she entered his office,&mdash;self-possession
+too apparent not to be forced,&mdash;her way of seating herself, her uneasy
+laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which she sought to
+conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of the priest a vague
+distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so mixed, the community of
+pleasures and similarity of toilets have so narrowed the line of demarcation
+between fashionable women of good and bad society, that the most experienced
+may at times be deceived, and this is the reason that the priest regarded this
+woman with so much attention. The principal difficulty in arriving at a
+decision arose from the unconnected style of her conversation; but the
+embarrassed air of the mother when he asked for the other name of the child,
+settled the question in his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She colored, hesitated. &ldquo;True,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;excuse me; I have
+not yet presented myself. What could I have been thinking of?&rdquo; and
+drawing a small, highly-perfumed case from her pocket, she took from it a card,
+on which, in long letters, was to be read the insignificant name&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Ida de Barancy</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the face of the priest flashed a singular smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this the child&rsquo;s name?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The question was almost an impertinence. The lady understood him, and concealed
+her embarrassment under an assumption of great dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, sir, certainly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the priest, gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was he now who found it difficult to express what he wished to say. He
+rolled the card between his fingers with a little movement of the lips natural
+to a man who measures the weight and effect of the words he is about to speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he arose from his chair, and approaching one of the large windows that
+looked on a garden planted with fine trees, and reddened by the wintry sun,
+tapped lightly on the glass. A black silhouette was drawn on the window, and a
+young priest appeared immediately within the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Duffieux,&rdquo; said the Superior, &ldquo;take this child out to walk
+with you. Show him our church and our hot-houses; he is tired of us, poor
+little man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack supposed that he was sent out to walk so that he might be spared the pain
+of saying good-bye to his mother, and his terrified, despairing expression so
+touched the kind priest that he hastily added,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be frightened, Jack. Your mother is not going away; you will
+find her here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child still hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go, my dear,&rdquo; said Madame de Barancy, with a queenly gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he went without another word, as if he were already conquered by life, and
+prepared for all its evils.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the door closed behind him, there was a moment of silence. The steps of
+the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel, and dying away,
+left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the chirps of the sparrows on the
+eaves, the distant pianos, and an indistinct murmur of voices&mdash;the hum of
+a great boarding-school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This child seems to love you, madame,&rdquo; said the Superior, touched
+by Jack&rsquo;s submission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why should he not love me?&rdquo; answered Madame de Barancy, somewhat
+melodramatically; &ldquo;the poor dear has but his mother in the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! you are a widow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alas! yes, sir. My husband died ten years ago, the very year of our
+marriage, and under the most painful circumstances. Ah! Monsieur l&rsquo;Abbé,
+romance-writers, who are at a loss to invent adventures for their heroines, do
+not know that many an apparently quiet life contains enough for ten novels. My
+own story is the best proof of that. The Comte de Barancy belonged, as his name
+will tell you, to one of the oldest families in Touraine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made a fatal mistake here, for Father O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; was born at
+Amboise, and knew the nobility of the entire province. So he at once consigned
+the Comte de Barancy to the society of Major-General Pembroke and the Rajah of
+Singapore. He did not let this appear, however, and contented himself with
+replying gently to the <i>soi-disant</i> comtesse,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you not think with me, madame, that there would be some cruelty in
+sending away a child that seems so warmly attached to you? He is still very
+young; and do you think his physical health good enough to support the grief of
+such a separation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you are mistaken, sir,&rdquo; she answered, promptly. &ldquo;Jack is
+a very robust child; he has never been ill. He is a little pale, perhaps, but
+that is owing to the air of Paris, to which he has never been
+accustomed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Annoyed to find that she was not disposed to comprehend him, the priest
+continued,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides, just now our dormitories are full; the scholastic year is very
+far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new pupils until
+the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then, madame; and even
+then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She understood him at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So,&rdquo; she said, turning pale, &ldquo;you refuse to receive my son.
+Do you refuse also to tell me why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; answered the priest, &ldquo;I would have given much if
+this explanation could have been avoided. But since you force it upon me, I
+must inform you that this institution, whose head I am, exacts from the
+families who confide their children to us the most unexceptionable conduct and
+the strictest morality. In Paris there are many laical institutions where your
+little Jack will receive every care, but with us it would be impossible. I beg
+of you,&rdquo; he added, with a gesture of indignant protestation, &ldquo;do
+not make me explain further. I have no right to question you, no right to
+reproach you. I regret the pain I am now giving, and believe me when I say that
+my words are as painful to myself as to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the priest spoke, over the countenance of Madame de Barancy flitted
+shadows of anger, grief, and confusion. At first she tried to brave it out,
+throwing her head back disdainfully; but the kind words of the priest falling
+on her childish soul made her burst suddenly into a passion of sobs and tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was so unhappy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;no one could ever know all
+she had done for that child! Yes, the poor little fellow had no name, no
+father, but was that any reason why a crime should be made of his misfortune,
+and that he should be made responsible for the faults of his parents? Ah! M.
+l&rsquo;Abbé, I beg of you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she spoke she took the priest&rsquo;s hand. The good father sought to
+disengage it with some little embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be calm, dear madame,&rdquo; he cried, terrified by these tears and
+outcries, for she wept, like the child that she was, with vehement sobs, and
+with the abandonment in fact of a somewhat coarse nature. The poor man thought,
+&ldquo;What could I do with her if this lady should be taken ill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the words he used to calm her only excited her more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wished to justify herself, to explain things, to narrate the story of her
+life, and, willing or not, the Superior found himself compelled to follow her
+through an obscure recital, whose connecting thread she broke at every step,
+without looking to see how she should ever get back again to the light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The name of Barancy was not hers, but if she should tell him her name, he would
+be astonished. The honor of one of the oldest families in France was concerned,
+and she would rather die than speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Superior hastened to assure her that he had no intention of questioning
+her, but she would not listen to him. She was started, and a wind-mill under
+full sail would have been more easily arrested than her torrent of words, of
+which probably not one was true, for she contradicted herself perpetually
+throughout her incoherent discourse, yet withal there was something sincere,
+something touching even in this love between mother and child. They had always
+been together. He had been taught at home by masters, and she wished now to
+separate from him only because of his intelligence and his eyes that saw things
+that were not intended for his vision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best thing to do, it seems to me,&rdquo; said the priest, gravely,
+&ldquo;would be to live such a life that you need fear neither the scrutiny of
+your child nor of any one else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was my wish, sir,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;As Jack grew older, I
+wished to make his home all that which it ought to be. Besides, before long, my
+position will be assured. For some time I have been thinking of marrying, but
+to do this it was necessary to send my boy away for a time that he might obtain
+the education worthy of the name he ought to bear. I thought that nowhere could
+he do as well as here, but at one blow you repulse him and discourage his
+mother&rsquo;s good resolutions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the Superior arrested her with an exclamation of astonishment. He
+hesitated a moment; then looking her straight in her eyes, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So be it, madame. I yield to your wishes. Little Jack pleases me very
+much; I consent to receive him among our pupils.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But on two conditions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am ready to accept all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first is, that until the day that your position is assured, the
+child shall spend his vacations under this roof, and shall not return to
+yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he will die, my poor Jack, if he does not see his mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you can come here whenever you please; only&mdash;and this is my
+second condition&mdash;you will not see him in the parlor, but always here in
+my private room, where I shall take care that you are not interfered with and
+that no one sees you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose in indignation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea that she could never enter the parlor, or be present on the
+reception-days, when she could astonish the other guests with the beauty of her
+child, with the richness of her toilette, that she could never say to her
+friends, &ldquo;I met at the school, yesterday, Madame de
+C&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, or Madame de V&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,&rdquo; that she
+must meet Jack in secret, all this revolted her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The astute priest had struck well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for which
+I have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as woman and
+mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my child
+think&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the child,
+with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a sign from his
+mother, he entered quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took his hand hastily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will go with me,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;we are not wanted
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was stupefied by
+this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She hardly acknowledged
+the respectful salute of the good father, who had also risen hastily from his
+chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not too quick for Jack to hear a gentle
+voice murmur, &ldquo;Poor child! poor child!&rdquo; in a tone of compassion
+that went to his heart. He was pitied&mdash;and why? For a long time he
+pondered over this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was not a
+comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even Ida. Whence
+came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated existences have
+fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that one never knows the
+last shape they assume. One might liken them to those revolving lighthouses
+that have long intervals of shadow between their gleams of fire. Of one thing
+only was there any certainty: she was not a Parisian, but came from some
+provincial town whose accent she still retained. It was said that at the
+Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons merchants thought they recognized in her a
+certain Mélanie Favrot, who formerly kept an establishment of &ldquo;gloves and
+perfumery;&rdquo; but these merchants were mistaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight years
+before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that resemblances are
+often impertinences.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment of the
+fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve any facts from
+the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and her life. One day Ida was
+born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a charming créole, of her plantation
+and her negroes. Another time she had passed her childhood in a great chateau
+on the Loire. She seemed utterly indifferent as to the manner in which her
+hearers would piece together these dislocated bits of her existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As may be imagined, in these fantastic recitals, vanity reigned triumphant, the
+vanity of a chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles and riches, were the
+texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was. She had a small hotel on the
+Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and carriages, gorgeous furniture in most
+questionable taste, three or four servants, and led a most indolent existence,
+trifling away her life among women like herself, less confident in her bearing,
+perhaps, than they, from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain
+freshness, the result of a childhood passed in the open air, all kept her
+somewhat out of the current of Parisian life, where, too, being so newly
+arrived, she had not yet found her place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once each week, a man of middle age, and of distinguished appearance, came to
+see her. In speaking of him, Ida always said &ldquo;Monsieur&rdquo; with an air
+of such respect that one would have supposed him to be at the court of France
+in the days when the brother of the king was so denominated. The child spoke of
+him simply as &ldquo;our friend.&rdquo; The servants announced him as &ldquo;M.
+le Comte,&rdquo; but among themselves they called him &ldquo;the old
+gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman was very rich, for madame spared nothing, and there was an
+enormous expenditure going on constantly in the house. This was managed by
+Mademoiselle Constant, Ida&rsquo;s waiting-maid. It was this woman who gave her
+mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her inexperience through
+the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida&rsquo;s pet dream and hope was to be taken
+for a woman of irreproachable character, and of the highest fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it will be seen into what state of mind the reception of Father
+O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; had thrown her, and in what a rage she left his
+presence. An elegant coupé awaited her at the door of the Institution. She
+threw herself into it with her child, retaining only sufficient self-command to
+say &ldquo;home,&rdquo; in so loud a voice that she was heard by a group of
+priests who were talking together, and who quickly dispersed before this
+whirlwind of furs and curled hair. In fact, as soon as the carriage-door was
+closed, the unhappy woman sank into a corner, not in her usual coquettish
+position, but overwhelmed and in tears, stifling her sobs in the quilted
+cushions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a blow! The priest had refused to take her child, and at the first glance
+had discovered the humiliating truth that she believed to have thoroughly
+disguised under the luxurious surroundings of a woman of the world and of an
+irreproachable mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her wounded pride recalled with renewed flushes of shame the keen eyes of the
+good father. She recalled all her falsehood, all her folly, and remembered his
+incredulous smile at almost her first words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack, looking
+sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He vaguely conceived
+himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and yet was secretly glad that
+he had not been left at the school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a fortnight he had heard of it night and day; his mother had extorted a
+promise from him not to weep; his trunk was packed, and all was ready, and the
+child&rsquo;s heart was full of trouble; and now at the last moment he was
+reprieved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If his mother had not been in so much trouble now, he would have thanked her;
+how happy would he have been curled up at her side, under her furs, in the
+little coupé in which they had had so many happy hours together&mdash;hours
+which were now to be repeated. And Jack thought of the afternoons in the Bois,
+of the long drives through the gay city of Paris&mdash;a city so new to both of
+them, and full of excitement and interest. A monument, perhaps, or even a mere
+street incident, delighted them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look, Jack&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look, mamma&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were two children together, and together they peered from the
+window,&mdash;the child&rsquo;s head with its golden curls close to the
+mother&rsquo;s face tightly veiled in black lace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A despairing cry from Madame de Barancy aroused the boy from all these sweet
+recollections. &ldquo;<i>Mon dieu!</i>&rdquo; she cried, wringing her hands,
+&ldquo;what have I done to be so wretched?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This exclamation naturally elicited no response, and little Jack, not knowing
+what to say, or how to console her, timidly caressed her hand, even at last
+kissing it with the fervor of a lover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started and looked wildly at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! cruel, cruel child, what harm you have done me in this world!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack turned pale. &ldquo;I? What have I done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He loved but one person on the face of the earth, his mother. He thought her
+absolutely perfect; and without knowing it, he had injured her in some
+mysterious way. The poor child was now overwhelmed with despair also, but
+remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his mother had
+shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on his own part. He was
+seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother took him in her arms.
+&ldquo;No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be sensible, dear. What! must I
+rock my long-legged boy as if he were a baby? No, little Jack, you never did me
+any harm. It is I who did wrong. Come, do not weep any more. See, I am not
+crying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the strange creature, forgetful of her recent grief, laughed gayly, that
+Jack too might laugh. It was one of the privileges of this inconsequent nature
+never to retain impressions for any length of time. Singularly enough, too, the
+tears she had just shed only seemed to add new freshness and brilliancy to her
+youthful beauty, as a sudden shower upon a dove&rsquo;s plumage seems to bring
+out new lustre without penetrating below the surface.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are we now?&rdquo; said she, suddenly dropping the window that was
+covered with mist. &ldquo;At the Madeleine. How quickly we have come! We must
+stop somewhere; at the pastry-cook&rsquo;s, I think. Dry your eyes, little one,
+we will buy some meringues.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They alighted at the fashionable confectioner&rsquo;s, where there was a great
+crowd. Rich furs and rustling silks crushed each other; and women&rsquo;s faces
+with veils half lifted were reflected in the surrounding mirrors which were set
+in gilt frames and cream-colored panels; glittering glass, and a variety of
+cakes and dainties delighted the spectators. Madame de Barancy and her child
+were much looked at. This charmed her, and this small success following upon
+the mortification of the previous hour, gave her an appetite. She called for a
+quantity of meringues and nougat, and finished by a glass of wine. Jack
+followed her example, but with more moderation, his great grief having filled
+his eyes with unshed tears and his heart with suppressed sighs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they left the shop the weather was so fine, although cold, and the
+flower-market of the Madeleine so fragrant with the sweet perfume of violets,
+that Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on foot. Briskly, and
+yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated a woman accustomed to
+admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack by the hand. The fresh air,
+the gay streets and attractive shops, quite restored Ida&rsquo;s good-humor.
+Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas I know not, she remembered a masqued
+ball to which she was going that night, preceded by a restaurant dinner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mercy! I had forgotten. Hurry! little Jack&mdash;quick!&rdquo; She
+wanted flowers, a bouquet, a dozen forgotten trifles: and the child, whose life
+had always been made up of just such trifles, and who felt as much as his
+mother the subtile charm of these elegances, followed her in high glee,
+delighted by the idea of the fête that he was not to see. The toilette of his
+mother always interested him, and he fully appreciated the admiration her
+beauty excited as they went through the streets and into the various shops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exquisite! exquisite! Yes, you may send it to me&mdash;Boulevard
+Haussmann.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame de Barancy tossed down her card, and went out, talking gayly to Jack of
+the beauty of her purchases. Suddenly she assumed a graver air.
+&ldquo;Remember, Jack, what I say. Do not tell our good friend that I went to
+this ball; it is a great secret, It is five o&rsquo;clock. How Constant will
+scold!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was not mistaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her maid, a tall, stout person of forty years, ugly and masculine, rushed
+toward Ida as she entered the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The costume is here. There is no sense in being so late. Madame will not
+be ready in season. No one could make her toilette in such a little
+while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t scold, Constant. If you only knew what had happened.
+Look!&rdquo; and she pointed to Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. &ldquo;What! Master Jack back
+again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police will have
+to come and take you to school; your mother is too good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, it was not he. The priest would not have him. Do you understand?
+They insulted me!&rdquo; Whereupon she began to cry again, and to ask of heaven
+why she was so unhappy. What with the meringues and the nougat, the wine and
+the heat of the room, she soon felt very ill. She was carried to her bed; salts
+and ether were hastily sought. Mademoiselle Constant acquitted herself with the
+propriety of a woman who is no stranger to such scenes, went in and out of the
+room, opened and shut wardrobes, with a certain self-possession that seemed to
+say, &ldquo;This will soon pass off.&rdquo; But she did not perform her duties
+in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What folly it was to take this child to the Fathers! As if it was a
+place for him in his position! It would not have been done certainly, had I
+been consulted. I would engage to find a place for this boy at very short
+notice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, terrified at seeing his mother so ill, had seated himself on the edge of
+the bed; where, looking at her anxiously, he in silence asked her pardon for
+the sorrow he had caused her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There! get away, Master Jack. Your mother is all right. I must help her
+dress now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! You do not mean, Constant, that I must go to this ball. I have no
+heart to amuse myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pshaw! I know you, madame. You have but five minutes. Just look at this
+pretty costume, these rose-colored stockings, and your little cap.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook out the skirts, displayed the trimming, and jingled the little bells
+which adorned it, and Ida ceased to resist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While his mother was dressing, Jack went into the boudoir, and remained alone
+in the dark. The little room, perfumed and coquettish, was, it is true,
+partially illuminated by the gas lamps on the boulevard. Sadly enough the child
+leaned against the windows and thought of the day that was just over. By
+degrees, without knowing how, he felt himself to be &ldquo;the poor
+child&rdquo; of whom the priest had spoken in such compassionate tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is so singular to hear one&rsquo;s self pitied when one believes one&rsquo;s
+self to be happy. There are sorrows, in fact, so well concealed, that those who
+have caused them, and even sometimes their victims, do not divine them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened&mdash;his mother was ready.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, Master Jack, and see if this is not lovely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! what a charming Folly! Silver and pink, lustrous satin and delicate lace.
+What a lovely rustling of spangles when she moved!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child looked on in admiration, while the mother, light and airy, waving her
+Momus staff, smiled at Jack, and smiled at herself in the Psyche, without at
+that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then Constant threw over her
+shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to the carriage, while Jack,
+leaning over the railing, watched from stair to stair, moving almost as if she
+were dancing the little pink slippers embroidered with silver, that bore his
+mother to balls where children could not go. As the last sound of the silver
+bells died away, he turned towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the
+first time by the solitude in which he ordinarily passed his evenings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Madame de Barancy dined out, Master Jack was confided to the tender
+mercies of Constant. &ldquo;She will dine with you,&rdquo; said Ida.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two places were laid in the dining-room that seemed so huge on such days. But
+very often Constant, finding her dinner anything but cheerful, took the child
+and joined her companions below, where they feasted gayly. The table-cloth was
+soiled, and the conversation was not of the purest; and very often the conduct
+of the mistress of the house was commented upon, in words to be sure that were
+slightly veiled, so as not to frighten the child. This evening there was a
+grand discussion as to the refusal of the Fathers to receive the boy. The
+coachman declared that it was all for the best,&mdash;that the priests would
+have made of the child &ldquo;a hypocrite and a Jesuit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constant protested against these words. She was not a professor of religion,
+she said, but she would not hear it spoken ill of. Then the discussion changed
+to the great disappointment of Jack, who listened with all his little ears,
+hoping to hear why this priest, who appeared so good, was not willing to
+receive him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But for the moment Jack was of little consequence; each was absorbed in
+narrating his or her religious convictions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coachman, who had been drinking, said that his God was the sun; in fact,
+he, like the elephants, adored the sun! Suddenly some one asked how he knew
+that elephants adored the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw it once in a photograph,&rdquo; said he, sternly. Upon which
+Mademoiselle Constant vehemently accused him of impiety and atheism; while the
+cook, a stout Picardian with true peasant shrewdness, told them to be quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;you should never quarrel over your
+religions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Jack&mdash;what was he doing all this time?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the table, stupefied by the heat and the interminable discussions
+of these brutes, he slept, with his head on his arms, and his fair curls spread
+over his velvet sleeves. In his unrestful slumber he heard the hum of the
+servants&rsquo; voices, and at last he fancied that they were talking of him;
+but the voices seemed to reach from afar off&mdash;through a fog, as it were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is he, then?&rdquo; asked the cook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; answered Constant; &ldquo;but one thing is
+certain, he can&rsquo;t remain here, and she wishes me to find a school for
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between a yawn and a hiccough, the coachman spoke,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know a capital school, and one that will, just answer your purpose. It
+is called the Moronval College&mdash;no, not college&mdash;but the Moronval
+Academy. But what of that? it is a college all the same. I put my child there
+once, when I was ordered off with the Egyptian army. The grocer gave me the
+prospectus, and I think I have it still.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked in his portfolio, and from among the tumbled and soiled papers he
+extracted one, dirtier even than the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here it is!&rdquo; he cried, with an air of triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He unfolded the prospectus and began to read, or rather to spell with
+difficulty:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gymnase Moronval&mdash;in the&mdash;in the&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said Mademoiselle Constant; and taking it from
+him, she read it at one glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moronval Academy&mdash;situated in the finest quarter of Paris&mdash;a
+family school&mdash;large garden&mdash;the number of pupils
+limited&mdash;course of instruction&mdash;particular attention paid to the
+correction of the accent of foreigners&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mademoiselle Constant interrupted herself here to breathe, and to exclaim,
+&ldquo;This seems all right enough!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; said the cook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reading of the prospectus was resumed, but Jack was soundly asleep, and
+heard no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was dreaming. Yes, while his future was thus under discussion around this
+kitchen-table, while his mother was dancing as Folly in her rose-colored skirts
+and silver bells, he was dreaming of the kind priest, and of the tender voice
+that had murmured&mdash;&ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></a>
+CHAPTER II.<br />
+THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;23 Avenue Montaigne, in the best quarter of Paris,&rdquo; said the
+prospectus. And no one can deny that the Avenue Montaigne is well situated in
+the Champs Elysées, but it has an incongruous unfinished aspect, as of a road
+merely sketched and not completed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the side of the fine hotels with their plate-glass windows hung with silken
+draperies, stand the houses of workmen, whence issue the noise of hammers and
+grating of saws. One part of the Faubourg seems also to be relinquished to
+gardens after the style of Mabille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the time of which I speak, and possibly now? from the avenue ran two or
+three narrow lanes whose sordid aspect offered a strange contrast to the superb
+buildings near them. One of these lanes opened at the number 23, and announced
+on a gilded sign swinging in the passage, that the Moronval Academy was there
+situated. This sign, however, once passed, it seemed to you that you were taken
+back forty years, and to the other end of Paris. The black mud, the stream in
+the centre of the lane, the reverberations from the high walls, the
+drinking-shops built from old planks, all seemed to belong to the past. From
+every nook and cranny, from stairs and balconies, whence fluttered linen hung
+to dry, streamed forth a crowd of children escorted by an army of lean and
+hungry cats. It was amazing to see that so small a spot could accommodate such
+a number of persons. English grooms in shabby liveries, worn-out jockeys, and
+dilapidated body-servants, seemed there to congregate. To these must be added
+the horde of workpeople who returned at sunset; those who let chairs, or tiny
+carriages drawn by goats; dog-fanciers, beggars of all sorts, dwarfs from the
+hippodrome and their microscopic ponies. Picture all these to yourself, and you
+will have some idea of this singular spot&mdash;so near to the Champs Elysées
+that the tops of the green trees were to be seen, and the roar of carriages was
+but faintly subdued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in this place that the Moronval Academy was situated. Two or three times
+during the day a tall, thin mulatto made his appearance in the street. He wore
+on his head a broad-brimmed Quaker hat placed so far back that it resembled a
+halo; long hair swept over his shoulders, and he crossed the street with a
+timid, terrified air, followed by a troop of boys of every shade of complexion
+varying from a coffee tint to bright copper, and thence to profound black.
+These lads wore the coarse uniform of the school, and had an unfed and
+uncared-for aspect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The principal of the Moronval Academy himself took his pupils&mdash;his
+children of the sun, as he called them&mdash;out for their daily walks; and the
+comings and goings of this singular party gave the finishing touch of oddity to
+the appearance of the <i>Passage des Douze Maisons</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most assuredly, had Madame de Barancy herself brought her child to the Academy,
+the sight of the place would have terrified her, and she would never have
+consented to leave her darling there. But her visit to the Jesuits had been so
+unfortunate, her reception so different from that which she had anticipated,
+that the poor creature, timid at heart and easily disconcerted, feared some new
+humiliation, and delegated to Madame Constant, her maid, the task of placing
+Jack at the school chosen for him by her servants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was one cold, gray morning that Ida&rsquo;s carriage drew up in front of the
+gilt sign of the Moronval Academy. The lane was deserted, but the walls and the
+signs all had a damp and greenish look, as if a recent inundation had there
+left its traces. Constant stepped forward bravely, leading the child by one
+hand, and carrying an umbrella in the other. At the twelfth house she halted.
+It was at the end of the lane just where it closes, save for a narrow passage
+into La Rue Marbouf, between two high walls on which grated the dry branches of
+old shrubbery and ancient trees. A certain cleanliness indicated the vicinity
+of the aristocratic institution; and the oyster-shells, old sardine-boxes, and
+empty bottles were carefully swept away from the green door, that was as solid
+and distrustful in aspect as if it led to a prison or a convent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The profound silence that reigned was suddenly broken by a vigorous assault of
+the bell by Madame Constant. Jack felt chilled to the heart by the sound of
+this bell, and the sparrows on the one tree in the garden fluttered away in
+sudden fright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one opened the door, but a panel was pushed away, and behind the heavy
+grating appeared a black face, with protuberant lips and astonished eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this the Moronval Academy?&rdquo; said Madame de Barancy&rsquo;s
+imposing maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woolly head now gave place to one of a different type,&mdash;a Tartar,
+possibly,&mdash;with eyes like slits, high cheekbones, and narrow, pointed
+head. Then a Creole, with a pale yellow skin, was also inspired by curiosity
+and peered out. But the door still remained closed, and Madame Constant was
+losing her temper, when a sharp voice cried from a distance,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well do you never mean to open that door, idiots?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they all began to whisper; keys were turned, bolts were pushed back, oaths
+were muttered, kicks were administered, and after many ineffectual struggles
+the door was finally opened; but Jack saw only the retreating forms of the
+schoolboys, who ran off in as much fright as did the sparrows just before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the doorway stood a tall, colored man, whose large white cravat made his
+face look still more black. M. Moronval begged Madame Constant to walk in,
+offered her his arm, and conducted her through a garden, large enough, but
+dismal with the dried leaves and débris of winter storms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several scattered buildings occupied the place of former flower-beds. The
+academy, it seemed, consisted of several old buildings altered by Moronval to
+suit his own needs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one of the alleys they met a small negro with a broom and a pail. He
+respectfully stood aside as they passed, and when M. Moronval said, in a low
+voice, &ldquo;A fire in the drawing-room,&rdquo; the boy looked as much
+startled as if he had been told that the drawing-room itself was burning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The order was by no means an unnecessary one. Nothing could have been colder
+than this great room, whose waxed floor looked like a frozen, slippery lake.
+The furniture itself had the same polar aspect, enveloped in coverings not made
+for it. But Madame Constant cared little for the naked walls and the
+discomforts of the apartment; she was occupied with the impression she was
+making, and the part she was playing, that of a lady of importance. She was
+quite condescending, and felt sure that children must be well off in this
+place, the rooms were so spacious,&mdash;just as well, in fact, as if in the
+country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely,&rdquo; said Moronval, hesitatingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The black boy kindled the fire, and M. Moronval looked for a chair for his
+distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned, made her
+appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long, pale face all
+forehead and chin. She carried herself with great erectness, as if reluctant to
+lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to disguise a trifling deformity of the
+shoulders; but she had a kind and womanly expression, and drawing the child
+towards her, admired his long curls and his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, his eyes are like his mother&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said Moronval, coolly,
+examining Madame Constant as he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no attempt to disclaim the honor; but Jack cried out in indignation,
+&ldquo;She is not my mamma! She is my nurse!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon which Madame Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more reserved.
+Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and concluded that a
+servant trusted to the extent of placing her master&rsquo;s children at school,
+must be a person of some importance in the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Constant soon convinced him of the correctness of this conclusion. She
+spoke loudly and decidedly&mdash;stated that the choice of a school had been
+left entirely to her own discretion, and each time that she pronounced the name
+of her mistress, it was with a patronizing air that drove poor Jack to the
+verge of despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The terms of the school were spoken of: three thousand francs per annum was
+named as the amount asked; and then Moronval launched forth on the superior
+advantages of his institution; it combined everything needed for the
+development of both soul and body. The pupils accompanied their masters to the
+theatre and into the world. Instead of making of the boys intrusted to his
+charge mere machines of Greek and Latin, he sought to develop in them every
+good quality, to prepare them for their duties in every position in life, and
+to surround them with those family influences of which they had too many of
+them been totally deprived. But their mental instruction was by no means
+neglected; quite the contrary. The most eminent men, savans and artists, did
+not shrink from the philanthropic duty of instructing the young in this
+remarkable institution, and were employed as professors of sciences, history,
+music, and literature. The French language was made a matter of especial
+importance, and the pronunciation was taught by a new and infallible method of
+which Madame Moronval was the author. Besides all this, every week there was a
+public lecture, to which friends and relatives of the pupils were invited, and
+where they could thoroughly convince themselves of the excellence of the system
+pursued at the Moronval Academy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This long tirade of the principal, who needed, possibly, more than any one else
+the advantages of lessons in pronunciation from his wife, was achieved more
+quickly for the reason that, in Creole fashion, he swallowed half his words,
+and left out many of his consonants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It mattered not, however, for Madame Constant was positively dazzled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The question of terms, of course, was nothing to her, she said; but it was
+necessary that the child should receive an aristocratic and finished education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unquestionably,&rdquo; said Madame Moronval, growing still more erect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here her husband added that he only received into his establishment strangers
+of great distinction, scions of great families, nobles, princes, and the like.
+At that very time he had under his roof a child of royal birth,&mdash;a son of
+the king of Dahomey. At this the enthusiasm of Madame Constant burst all
+boundaries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A king&rsquo;s son! You hear, Master Jack&mdash;you will be educated
+with the son of a king!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; resumed the instructor, gravely; &ldquo;I have been
+intrusted by his Dahomian Majesty with the education of his royal Highness, and
+I believe that I shall be able to make of him a most remarkable man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was the matter with the black boy, who was still at work at the fire, that
+he shook so convulsively, and made such a hideous noise with the shovel and
+tongs?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Moronval continued. &ldquo;I hope, and Madame Moronval hopes, that the young
+king, when on the throne of his ancestors, will remember the good advice and
+the noble examples afforded him by his teachers in Paris, the happy years spent
+with them, their indefatigable cares and assiduous efforts on his
+behalf.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Jack was surprised to see the black boy kneeling before the chimney, turn
+toward him, and shake his woolly head violently, while his mouth opened wide in
+silent but furious denial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did he wish to say that his royal Highness would never remember the good
+lessons received at the academy, or did he mean that he would never forget
+them? But what could this poor black boy know about it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Constant announced, in pompous terms, that she was willing to pay a
+quarter in advance. Moronval waved his hand condescendingly, as if to say,
+&ldquo;There is no need of that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the old house told a far different tale,&mdash;the shabby furniture, the
+dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of Moronval
+himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little woman with the long chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that which proved the fact more than anything else was the eagerness with
+which the pair went to find in another room the superb register in which they
+inscribed the ages of the pupils, their names, and the date of their entrance
+into the academy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While these important facts were being written, the black boy remained crouched
+in front of the fire, which seemed quite useless while he absorbed all its
+heat. The chimney, which at first had refused to consume the least bit of wood,
+as stomachs after too long fasting reject food, had now revived, and a
+beautiful red flame was to be seen. The negro, with his head on his hands, his
+eyes fixed as in a trance, looked like a little black silhouette against a
+scarlet background. His mouth opened in intense delight, and his eyes were
+perfectly round. He seemed to be drinking in the heat and the light with the
+greatest avidity, while outside the snow had begun to fall silently and slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was very sad, for he fancied that Moronval had a wicked look,
+notwithstanding his honeyed words. And, then, in this strange house the poor
+child felt himself utterly lost and desolate, discarded by his mother, and
+rendered still more miserable by the vague idea that these colored pupils, from
+every corner of the globe, had brought with them an atmosphere of unhappiness
+and of restlessness. He remembered, too, the Jesuits&rsquo; college, so fresh
+and sweet; the fine trees, the green-houses, the whole appearance of
+refinement, and the kind hand of the Superior laid for a moment upon his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! why had he not remained there? And as this occurred to him, he said to
+himself, that perhaps they would not have him here either. He looked toward the
+table. There by the big register the husband and wife were busy whispering with
+Madame Constant. They looked at him, and he caught a word now and then. The
+little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her say, as did the
+priest,&mdash;&ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him? Jack
+asked himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little heart. He
+could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he attributed this
+disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume, his bare legs, or his
+long curls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he thought of his mother&rsquo;s despair. Should he meet with another
+refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the principal some
+notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep him. He was delighted, poor
+child, for he little knew that the great misfortune of his life was now
+inaugurated there in that room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below, singing
+the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not recovered from the
+shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat, close-cut hair, and heavy
+beard, burst into the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo!&rdquo; he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, &ldquo;a fire
+in the parlor? What a luxury!&rdquo; and he drew a long breath. In fact, the
+new-comer was in the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each sentence,
+a habit he had acquired in singing; and these breaths were almost like the
+roaring of a wild beast. Catching sight of the strangers and the pile of money,
+he stopped short with the words on his lips. Delight and surprise succeeded
+each other on his countenance, whose muscles seemed habituated to all facial
+contortions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. &ldquo;M. Labassandre, of the
+Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music.&rdquo; Labassandre bowed
+once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his self-possession,
+and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for all parties, administered
+a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at all astonished, but picked himself
+up and disappeared from the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly&mdash;a mean
+face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and wearing an
+overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down the front too visible
+indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted man. This was Dr. Hirsch,
+Professor of Mathematics and of Natural Sciences. He exhaled a strong odor of
+alkalies, and, thanks to his chemical manipulations, his fingers were every
+color of the rainbow. The last comer was very different. Imagine a handsome
+man, dressed with the greatest care, scrupulously gloved and shod, his hair
+thrown back from a forehead already unnaturally high. He had a haughty,
+aggressive air; his heavy blonde moustache, much twisted at the ends, and a
+large, pale face, gave him the look of a sick soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval presented him as &ldquo;our great poet, Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton,
+Professor of Literature.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He, too, looked as astonished, when he caught sight of the gold pieces, as did
+Dr. Hirsch and the singer Labassandre. His cold eyes had a gleam of light, but
+it disappeared as he glanced from the child to his nurse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he approached the other professors standing in front of the fire, and,
+saluting them, listened in silence. Madame Constant thought this Argenton
+looked proud; but upon Jack the man made a very strong impression, and the
+child shrank from him with terror and repugnance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack felt that all these men might make him wretched, but this one more than
+all others. Instinctively, on seeing him enter, the child felt him to be his
+future enemy, and that cold, hard glance meeting his own, froze him to the core
+of his heart. How many times, in days to come, was he to encounter those pale,
+blue eyes, with half-shut, heavy lids, whose glances were cold as steel! The
+eyes have been called the windows of the soul, but D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s
+eyes were windows so closely barred and locked, that one had no reason to
+suppose that there was a soul behind them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conversation finished between Moronval and Constant, the principal
+approached his new pupil, and giving him a little friendly tap on the cheek, he
+said, &ldquo;Come, come, my young friend, you must look brighter than
+this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in fact, Jack, as the moment drew near that he must say farewell to his
+mother&rsquo;s maid, felt his eyes swimming in tears. Not that he had any great
+affection for this woman, but she was a part of his home, she saw his mother
+daily, and the separation was final when she was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Constant,&rdquo; he whispered, catching her dress, &ldquo;you will tell
+mamma to come and see me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly. She will come, of course. But don&rsquo;t cry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child was sorely tempted to burst into tears; but it seemed to him that all
+these strange eyes were fixed upon him, and that the Professor of Literature
+examined him with especial severity: and he controlled himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The snow fell heavily. Moronval proposed to send for a carriage, but the maid
+said that Augustin and the coupé were waiting at the end of the lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A coupé!&rdquo; said the principal to himself, in astonished admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speaking of Augustin,&rdquo; said she: &ldquo;he charged me with a
+commission. Have you a pupil named Said?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure&mdash;certainly&mdash;a delightful person,&rdquo; said
+Moronval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a superb voice. You must hear him,&rdquo; interrupted Labassandre,
+opening the door and calling Said in a voice of thunder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A frightful howl was heard in reply, followed by the appearance of the
+delightful person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An awkward schoolboy appeared, whose tunic, like all tunics, and, indeed, like
+all the clothing of boys of a certain age, was too short and too tight for him;
+drawn in, in the fashion of a caftan, it told the story at once of an Egyptian
+in European clothing. His features were regular and delicate enough, but the
+yellow skin was stretched so tightly over the bones and muscles that the eyes
+seemed to close of themselves whenever the mouth opened, and <i>vice versa</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This miserable young man, whose skin was so scanty, inspired you with a strong
+desire to relieve his sufferings by cutting a slit somewhere. He at once
+remembered Augustin, who had been his parents&rsquo; coachman, and who had
+given him all his cigar-stumps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I say to him from you?&rdquo; asked Constant, in her most
+amiable tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; answered Said, promptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your parents, how are they? Have you had any news from them
+lately?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have they returned to Egypt, as they thought of doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know: they never write.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evident that this pupil of the Moronval Academy had not been educated in
+the art of conversation, and Jack listened with many misgivings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The indifferent fashion with which this youth spoke of his parents, added to
+what M. Moronval had previously said of the family influences of which most of
+his pupils had been deprived since infancy, impressed him unfavorably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to the child that he was to live among orphans or cast-off children,
+and would be himself as much cast off as if he had come from Timbuctoo or
+Otaheite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again he caught the dress of his mother&rsquo;s servant. &ldquo;Tell her to
+come and see me,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;O, tell her to come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when the door closed behind her, he understood that one chapter in his life
+was finished; that his existence as a spoiled child, as a petted baby, had
+vanished into the past, and those dear and happy days would never again return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he stood silently weeping, with his face pressed against a window that
+led into the garden, a hand was extended over his shoulder containing something
+black.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Said, who, as a consolation, offered him the stump of a cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take this: I have a trunk full,&rdquo; said the interesting young man,
+shutting his eyes so as to be able to speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, smiling through his tears, made a sign that he did not dare to accept
+this singular gift; and Said, whose eloquence was very limited, stood silently
+planted by his side until M. Moronval returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired with
+respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coupé was so well appointed,
+that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence of the equipage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is well,&rdquo; he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. &ldquo;Play
+together; but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall
+permit the boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who questioned him
+without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit, and bare legs, he sat
+motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic gestipulations of these little
+boys of foreign birth, and among them all, looked much like an elegant little
+Parisian shut up in the great monkey cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from his silent
+hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be altogether amiable. He
+heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the solemn little voice of madame.
+Easily divining the bone of contention, he hastened to the assistance of his
+wife, whom he found heroically defending the money paid by Madame Constant
+against the demands of the professors, whose salaries were greatly in arrear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and littérateur, had been sent from
+Pointe-à-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe. At that time
+he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with considerable ability and
+cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted a dependent position which
+insured his expenses paid to Paris, that marvellous city, the heat of whose
+lurid flames extends so far over the world that it attracts even the moths from
+the colonies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few acquaintances,
+and attempted a political career, in which path he had obtained a certain
+success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into account his horrible colonial
+accent, of which, notwithstanding every effort, he was never able to rid
+himself. The first time he spoke in public, the shouts of laughter that greeted
+him proved conclusively that he could never make a name, for himself in Paris
+as a public speaker. He then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to
+understand that it was far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-à-Petre than in
+Paris. Haughty and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes, he passed from
+journal to journal, without being retained for any length of time on the staff
+of any one. Then began those hard experiences of life which either crush a man
+to the earth or harden him to iron. He joined the army of the ten thousand men
+who live by their wits in Paris, who rise each morning dizzy with hunger and
+ambitious dreams, make their breakfast from off a penny-roll, black the seams
+of their coats with ink, whiten their shirt-collars with billiard-chalk, and
+warm themselves in the churches and libraries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,&mdash;to credit
+refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his garret at eleven
+o&rsquo;clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to shoes in holes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was one of those professors of&mdash;it matters not what, who write articles
+for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history of the Middle Ages
+in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume, compile catalogues, and copy
+plays for the theatres.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for having
+struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After three years of this miserable existence, when he had eaten an
+incalculable number of raw artichokes and radishes, when he had lost his
+illusions and ruined his stomach, chance sent him to give lessons in a young
+ladies&rsquo; school kept by three sisters. The two eldest were over forty; the
+third was thirty,&mdash;small, sentimental, and pretentious. She saw little
+prospect of marriage, when Moronval offered himself and was accepted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once married, they lived some time in the house with the elder sisters; both
+made themselves useful in giving lessons. But Moronval had retained many of his
+bachelor habits, which were far from agreeable in that peaceful and
+well-ordered boarding-school. Besides, the Creole treated his pupils too much
+as he might have done his slaves at work on the sugar-cane plantation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elder sisters, who adored Madame Moronval, were nevertheless obliged to
+separate from her, and paid her as an indemnification a satisfactory sum. What
+should be done with this money? Moronval wished to start a journal, or a
+review; but to make money was his first wish. Finally, a brilliant idea came to
+him one day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew that children were sent from all parts of the world to finish their
+education in Paris. They came from Persia, from Japan, Hindostan, and Guinea,
+confided to the care of ship-captains, or to merchants. Such people being
+generally well provided with money, and having but little experience in getting
+rid of it, Moronval decided that there was an easy mine to work. Besides, the
+wonderful system of Madame Moronval could be applied in perfection to the
+correction of foreign accents, to defective pronunciation. The Professor
+immediately caused advertisements to be inserted in the colonial journals,
+where were soon to be seen the most amazing advertisements in several
+languages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the first year, the nephew of the Iman of Zanzibar, and two superb
+blacks from the coast of Guinea, appeared upon the scene. It was not until they
+arrived that Moronval bestirred himself to find a local habitation and a name.
+Finally, in order to combine economy with the exigencies of his new position,
+he hired the buildings we have just visited in this hideous <i>Passage des
+Douze Maisons</i>, and displayed in the avenue the gorgeous sign we have
+mentioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The owner of the property induced Moronval to believe that certain improvements
+would soon be made, in fact, that an appropriation was ordered for a new
+boulevard on one side of the building. This conviction induced Moronval to
+forget all the inconveniences, the dampness of the dormitory, the cold of
+certain rooms, the heat of others. This was nothing: the appropriation bill was
+ready for the signature, and things would be all right soon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Moronval was forced to endure that long period of waiting, only too well
+known to Parisians in the last twenty years; and this wore heavily upon him,
+costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the improvement or welfare
+of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had been hugely duped, and this
+discovery had the worst effect on the passionate, weak nature of the Creole.
+His discouragement degenerated into absolute incapacity and indolence. The
+pupils had no supervision whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that
+they used the least possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was
+cut up into class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered with by every
+caprice of the principal, who sent the pupils hither and thither on his
+personal service.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,&mdash;a physician
+without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer without an
+engagement,&mdash;all of whom were in a state of constant indignation against
+the world which refused to recognize their rare merits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem to herd
+together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual complaints?
+Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other, they pretend to an
+admiring sympathy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers, the
+greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their pipes, the
+smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither see nor hear.
+They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence in a vocabulary of
+their own, where art, science, and literature were picked into fragments as
+precious stuffs might be under the application of violent acids.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the &ldquo;children of the sun,&rdquo; what became of them amid all this?
+Madame Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former home and
+school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had undertaken, but the
+kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great establishment absorbed a great
+part of her time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept in order,
+for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the chevrons reaching
+to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in certain armies of South America,
+all were sergeants. It was a trifling compensation for the miseries of exile
+and for the harsh treatment of surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the
+first days of each new quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then
+been known to smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black
+skins for the negro blood in his own veins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon he
+began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time there
+remained but eight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Number of pupils limited,&rdquo; said the prospectus, and there was a
+certain amount of melancholy truth in the announcement. A dismal silence seemed
+to settle down on the great establishment, which was even threatened with a
+seizure of the furniture, when Jack appeared upon the scene. It of course was
+no very great sum, this quarter in advance, but Moronval understood certain
+prospective advantages, and even had a very clear perception of Ida&rsquo;s
+true nature, having cross-examined Constant with very good results. This day,
+therefore, witnessed a certain armed neutrality between masters and pupils. A
+good dinner in honor of the new arrival was served, all the professors were
+present, and &ldquo;the children of the sun&rdquo; even had a drop of wine,
+which startling event had not happened to them for a long time.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"></a>
+CHAPTER III.<br />
+MÂDOU.</h2>
+
+<p>
+If the Moronval Academy still exists, I desire to stigmatize it now and forever
+as the most unhealthy spot I ever knew. Its dampness makes it most
+objectionable for children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imagine a long building all <i>rez-de-chaussée</i>, without windows, and
+lighted only from above. About the room hung an indescribable odor of collodion
+and ether, as if it had once been used by a photographer. The garden was shut
+in by high walls covered with ivy which dripped with moisture. The dormitory
+stood against a superb hotel; and on one side was a stable, always noisy with
+the oaths of grooms, the trampling of horses&rsquo; feet, and the rattling of
+pumps. From one end of the year to the other the place was always damp, the
+only difference being that, according to the different seasons of the year, the
+dampness was either very cold or very warm. In summer it was filled with
+moisture like a bathroom. In addition, a crowd of winged creatures, who lived
+among the old ivy on the walls, attracted by the brightness of the glass in the
+low roof, introduced themselves into the dormitory through the smallest
+crevice, and struck their wings against the glass, humming loudly, and finally
+falling on the beds in clouds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The winter&rsquo;s humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the dormitory
+through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two hours of shivering
+the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they drew their knees up to their
+chins and kept the bedclothes well over their heads. The paternal eye of
+Moronval saw at once the propriety of utilizing this otherwise unemployed
+building.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This shall be the dormitory,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May it not be somewhat damp?&rdquo; Madame Moronval ventured to ask.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What of that?&rdquo; he answered, sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In reality there was but room for ten beds; but twenty were placed there, with
+a lavatory at the end, a wretched bit of carpet near the door, and all was in
+readiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why not? After all, a dormitory is only a place to sleep in, and children
+should be able to sleep anywhere, in spite of heat or cold, of bad air and of
+creeping things, in spite of the noise of pumps and of horses. They catch
+rheumatism, ophthalmia, and bronchitis, to be sure, but they sleep all the same
+the calm sweet sleep of children worn out by out-door exercise and play, and
+undisturbed by anxieties for the morrow. This is the popular belief in regard
+to children, but too many of us know that the truth is quite different. For
+example, the first night little Jack could not close his eyes. He had never
+slept in a strange house, and the change was great from his own little room at
+home, dimly lighted by a night-lamp, and littered with his favorite playthings,
+to the strange and comfortless place where he now found himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as the pupils were in bed, a black servant took away the light, and
+Jack remained wide awake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pale moon, reflected from the snow that covered a portion of the skylight,
+filled the room with a bluish light. He looked at the beds, standing close
+together foot to foot the length of the room, most of them unoccupied, their
+coverings rolled up in a bundle at one end. Seven or eight were animated by an
+occasional snore, by a hollow cough, or a stifled exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new-comer had the best place, a little sheltered from the wind of the door.
+Nevertheless, he was far from warm, and the cold kept him from sleep as much as
+the novelty of his surroundings. He went over and over again in his memory
+every trifling detail of the day&rsquo;s events. He saw Moronval&rsquo;s bulky
+white cravat, the enormous spectacles of Dr. Hirsch&mdash;his soiled and
+spotted overcoat; but above all he recalled the cold and haughty eyes of
+&ldquo;his enemy,&rdquo; as he already in his innermost heart called
+D&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This thought struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he looked to his
+mother for protection and defence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where was she at that moment? A dozen different clocks at that instant struck
+eleven. She was probably at some ball or theatre. She would soon come in, all
+wrapped in furs and laces. When she came, it mattered not how late, she always
+opened Jack&rsquo;s door and bent over his bed to kiss him. Even in his sleep
+he was generally conscious of her presence, and smilingly opened his eyes to
+admire her toilette. And now he shuddered as he thought of the change; and yet
+it was not altogether painful, for the chevrons of his uniform delighted him,
+and he was happy in concealing his long legs in the skirt of his tunic. He had
+made two or three new acquaintances,&mdash;a thing very agreeable to most
+children; he had found his fellow-pupils odd enough, but their oddities
+interested him. They had snowballed each other in the garden, which, to a child
+who had been living in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very novel
+amusement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where was the
+little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so warmly? Was he in the
+Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk with him, and make him his
+friend. He repeated to himself the names of the &ldquo;eight children of the
+sun,&rdquo; but there was no prince among them. Then he thought he would ask
+the boy Said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished silence.
+Jack&rsquo;s question remained unanswered, and the child&rsquo;s thoughts ran
+on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music that rang
+through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the perpetual sound of
+the pumps in the stable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval&rsquo;s guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and all
+was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the small black
+servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept between the
+two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his shoulders, and his teeth
+chattering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all the
+peculiarities of the black boy&mdash;the protruding mouth, the enormous ears,
+and retreating forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there warming
+his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though dirty, was so
+honest and kindly, that Jack&rsquo;s heart warmed toward him. As he stood there
+the negro looked out into the garden. &ldquo;Ah! the snow! the snow!&rdquo; he
+murmured sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who looked at
+the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and said, half to
+himself, &ldquo;Ah! the new pupil! Why don&rsquo;t you go to sleep, little
+boy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; said Jack, sighing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is good to sigh if you are sorry,&rdquo; said the negro,
+sententiously. &ldquo;If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would
+stifle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you sleep there?&rdquo; asked the child, astonished that a servant
+should occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. &ldquo;But there are no
+sheets!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black.&rdquo; The negro
+laughed gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half
+clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an ivory
+smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a funny medal!&rdquo; cried Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not a medal,&rdquo; answered the negro; &ldquo;it is my
+<i>Gri-qri</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that it was an
+amulet&mdash;something to bring him good luck. His Aunt Kérika had given it to
+him when he left his native land,&mdash;the aunt who had brought him up, and to
+whom he hoped to return at some future day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I shall to my mamma,&rdquo; said little Barancy; and both children
+were silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. &ldquo;And your country&mdash;is
+it a pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dahomey,&rdquo; answered the negro.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack started up in bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, his royal Highness,&mdash;you know him,&mdash;the little king of
+Dahomey.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am he,&rdquo; said the negro, quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had seen at
+work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on the table, and
+rinsing glasses!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face grew very
+sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the past, or toward
+some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king that led Jack to examine
+this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed, his white shirt open, while on
+his dark breast shone the ivory amulet, with new interest?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did all this happen?&rdquo; asked the child, timidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. &ldquo;M. Moronval not
+like it if Mâdou lets it burn.&rdquo; Then he pulled his couch close to that of
+Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are not sleepy,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I never wish to sleep if
+I can talk of Dahomey. Listen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen, the
+little negro began his dismal tale.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+He was called Mâdou,&mdash;the name of his father, an illustrious warrior, one
+of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to whom France,
+Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father had cannon, and
+soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war, musicians and priests,
+four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred wives. His palace was immense, and
+ornamented by spears on which hung human heads after a battle or a sacrifice.
+Mâdou was born in this palace. His Aunt Kérika, general-in-chief of the
+Amazons, took him with her in all her expeditions. How beautiful she was, this
+Kérika! tall and large as a man,&mdash;in a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs
+loaded with bracelets and anklets; her bow slung over her shoulder, and the
+tail of a horse streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly locks,
+she wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black
+warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of Diana the white
+huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could cut
+off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible Kérika
+might have been on the battlefield, to her nephew Mâdou she was always very
+gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of coral and of amber,
+and all the shells he desired,&mdash;shells being the money in that part of the
+world. She even gave him a small but gorgeous musket, presented to herself by
+the Queen of England, and which Kérika found too light for her own use. Mâdou
+always carried it when he went to the forests to hunt with his aunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that the sun
+never penetrated to these green temples. Then Mâdou described with enthusiasm
+the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds with wonderful plumage,
+and Jack listened in delight and astonishment. There were serpents, too, but
+they were harmless; and black monkeys leaped from tree to tree; and large
+mysterious lakes, that had never reflected the skies in their brown depths, lay
+here and there in the forests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, &ldquo;O, how beautiful it must
+be!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, very beautiful,&rdquo; said the black boy, who undoubtedly
+exaggerated a little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of
+absence, of childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern
+nature; but encouraged by his comrade&rsquo;s sympathy, Mâdou continued his
+story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked in the
+jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were heard in the
+distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the bats, silent and
+black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered over and about it until
+daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic tree, motionless, and pressed
+against each other, looking like some singular leaves, dry and dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,&mdash;could
+wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied to their
+mother&rsquo;s apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir to his
+throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a negro prince,
+to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must also learn to read
+books and writing, for, said the wise king to his son, &ldquo;White man always
+has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with.&rdquo; Of course some European
+might have been found in Dahomey who could instruct the prince,&mdash;for
+French and English flags floated over the ships in the harbors. But the king
+had himself been sent by his father to a town called Marseilles, very far at
+the end of the world; and he wished his son to receive a similar education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kérika; he looked at his sabre,
+hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a clerk in a
+mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold dust stolen from
+the poor negroes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to command
+the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of corn and wheat,
+and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with treasures of gold and
+ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them, and be capable of defending
+them when necessary,&mdash;and Mâdou early learned that it is hard to be a
+king; for when one has more pleasures than the rest of the world, one has also
+greater responsibilities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to the
+fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown open for
+these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered there, and at the
+last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners of war were executed on
+the shore, and the executioner threw their heads into a great copper basin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the actors in
+them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval Academy rather than in
+that terrible land of Dahomey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the ceremonies
+preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his arrival and life at
+Marseilles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the
+court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor, who
+sternly said, if a whisper was heard, &ldquo;Not so much noise, if you
+please!&rdquo; The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous scratching
+of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all new and very trying
+to Mâdou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but the walls were so high, the
+court-yard so narrow, that he could never find enough to bask in. Nothing
+amused or interested him. He was never allowed to go out as were the other
+pupils, and for a very good reason. At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take
+him to the wharves, where he often saw merchandise from his own country, and
+sometimes went into ecstasies at some well-known mark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their sails, all
+spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,&mdash;one had brought
+him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed by this
+fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C&rsquo;s, for his eyes saw nothing
+save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The result of this was,
+that one fine day he escaped from the college and hid himself on one of the
+vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time, but escaped again, and the second
+time was not discovered until the ship was in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons.
+Any other child would have been kept on board; but when Mâdou&rsquo;s name was
+known, the captain took his royal Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a
+reward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a very close
+prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more; and this time, on
+being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so gently, and with such a sad
+smile, that no one had the heart to punish him. At last the principal of the
+institution declined the responsibility of so determined a pupil. Should he
+send the little prince back to Dahomey? M. Bonfils dared not permit this,
+fearing thereby to lose the good graces of the king. In the midst of these
+perplexities Moronvol&rsquo;s advertisement appeared, and the prince was at
+once dispatched to 23 Avenue Montaigne,&mdash;&ldquo;the most beautiful
+situation in Paris,&rdquo;&mdash;where he was received, as you may well
+believe, with open arms. This heir of a far-off kingdom was a godsend to the
+academy. He was constantly on exhibition; M. Moronval showed him at theatres
+and concerts, and along the boulevards, reminding one of those perambulating
+advertisements that are to be seen in all large cities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval, who
+entered a room with all the gravity of Fénélon conducting the Duke of Burgundy.
+The two were announced as &ldquo;His Royal Highness the Prince of Dahomey, and
+M. Moronval, his tutor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of Mâdou; an attaché of a
+London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and serious talk as
+to the course the young prince should pursue when called to the throne of his
+ancestors. The English journal published an account of the curious dialogue,
+and the vague replies certainly left much to be desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this solitary
+pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented to him without a
+word of dispute. Mâdou&rsquo;s education, however, made but little progress. He
+still continued among the A B C&rsquo;s, and Madame Moronval&rsquo;s charming
+method made no impression upon him. His defective pronunciation was still
+retained, and his half-childish way of speaking was not changed. But he was gay
+and happy. All the other children were compelled to yield to him a certain
+deference. At first this was a difficult matter, as his intense blackness
+seemed to indicate to these other children of the sun that he was a slave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in spite of
+his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their instructions!
+Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what could be done in the
+future under the patronage of this embryo king. It was the refrain of all their
+conversations. As soon as Mâdou was crowned, they would all go to Dahomey.
+Labassandre intended to develop the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself
+the director of a conservatory, and at the head of the Royal Chapel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp black
+heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon the inmates of
+which he could experiment without fear of any interference from the police. The
+first few weeks, therefore, of his sojourn at Paris seemed to Mâdou very sweet.
+If only the sun would shine out brightly, if the fine rain would cease to fall,
+or the thick fog clear away; if, in short, the boy could once have been
+thoroughly warm, he would have been content; and if Kérika, with her gun and
+her bow, her arms covered with clanking bracelets, could occasionally have
+appeared in the <i>Passage des Douze Maison</i>, he would have been very happy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day, bringing
+most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken prisoner by the
+Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal troops and the regiment
+of Amazons had all been conquered and dispersed. Kérika alone was saved, and
+she dispatched M. Bonfils to Mâdou to tell him to remain in France, and to take
+good care of his Gri-gri, for it was written in the great book that if Mâdou
+did not lose that amulet, he would come into his kingdom. The poor little king
+was in great trouble. Moronval, who placed no faith in the <i>gri-gri</i>,
+presented his bill&mdash;and such a bill!&mdash;to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but
+informed the principal that in future, if he consented to keep Mâdou, he must
+not rely upon any present compensation, but upon the gratitude of the king as
+soon as the fortunes and chances of war should restore him to his throne. Would
+the principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once signifying his intentions? Moronval
+promptly and nobly said, &ldquo;I will keep the child.&rdquo; Observe that it
+was no longer &ldquo;his Royal Highness.&rdquo; And the boy at once became like
+all the other scholars, and was scolded and punished as they were,&mdash;more,
+in fact, for the professors were out of temper with him, feeling apparently,
+that they had been deluded by false pretences. The child could understand
+little of this, and tried in vain all the gentle ways that had seemed to win so
+much affection before. It was worse still the next quarter, when Moronval,
+receiving no money, realized that Mâdou was a burden to him. He dismissed the
+servant, and installed Mâdou in his place, not without a scene with the young
+prince. The first time a broom was placed in his hands and its use explained to
+him, Mâdou obstinately refused. But M. Moronval had an irresistible argument
+ready, and after a heavy caning the boy gave up. Besides, he preferred to sweep
+rather than to learn to read. The prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept with
+singular energy, and the salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously clean; but
+Moronval&rsquo;s heart was not softened. In vain did the little fellow work; in
+vain did he seek to obtain a kindly word from his master; in vain did he hover
+about him with all the touching humility of a submissive hound: he rarely
+obtained any other recompense than a blow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain seemed to
+fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+O Kérika! Aunt Kérika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come and see
+what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated, how scantily he
+is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is! He has but one suit
+now, and that a livery&mdash;a red coat and striped vest! Now, when he goes out
+with his master, he does not walk at his side&mdash;he follows him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou&rsquo;s honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of
+Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this last
+descendant of the powerful <i>Tocodonon</i>, the founder of the Dahomian
+dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of a huge basket,
+half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for nothing warms him now,
+neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the shame of having become a servant;
+nor even his hatred of &ldquo;the father with a stick,&rdquo; as he called
+Moronval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Mâdou confided to Jack his
+projects of vengeance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When Mâdou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the
+father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will cut off
+his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big drum with his
+skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,&mdash;Boum! boum!
+boum!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro&rsquo;s white eyes,
+and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the drum, and
+was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the sabres, and the
+heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket over his head, and held
+his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he thought his
+solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath, Mâdou said gently,
+&ldquo;Shall we talk some more, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Jack; &ldquo;only don&rsquo;t let us say any more
+about that drum, nor the copper basin.&rdquo; The negro laughed silently.
+&ldquo;Very well, sir; Mâdou won&rsquo;t talk&mdash;you must talk now. What is
+your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack, with a <i>k</i>. Mamma thinks a great deal about
+that&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is your mamma very rich?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rich! I guess she is,&rdquo; said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle
+Mâdou in his turn. &ldquo;We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the
+boulevard, horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma comes
+here, how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look at her, she
+has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live at Tours; it was a
+pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we bought nice cakes, and
+where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The gentlemen were all good to me.
+I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,&mdash;not real papas, you know, because my
+own father died when I was a little fellow. When we first went to Paris I did
+not like it; I missed the trees and the country; but mamma petted me so much,
+and was so good to me, that I was soon happy again. I was dressed like the
+little English boys, and my hair was curled, and every day we went to the Bois.
+At last my mamma&rsquo;s old friend said that I ought to learn something; so
+mamma took me to the Jesuit College&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive him,
+wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and innocence of
+his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to his mother in this
+avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital, on which he had so
+heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only serious trouble of his life.
+Why had they not been willing to receive him? why did his mother weep? and why
+did the Superior pity him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, then, little master,&rdquo; asked the negro suddenly, &ldquo;what
+is a cocotte?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A cocotte?&rdquo; asked Jack in astonishment. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.
+Is it a chicken?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your mother
+was a cocotte.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What an ideal. You misunderstood,&rdquo; and at the thought of his
+mother being a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh;
+and Mâdou, without knowing why, followed his example.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous
+conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided to each
+other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></a>
+CHAPTER IV.<br />
+THE REUNION.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Children are like grown people,&mdash;the experiences of others are never of
+any use to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had been terrified by Mâdou&rsquo;s story, but he thought of it only as a
+frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first months were
+so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he forgot that Mâdou for a
+time had been equally happy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared his
+dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit appeared,
+rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch, whose finances, to
+judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable condition. He enlivened
+the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by descriptions of surgical
+operations, by accounts of infectious diseases, and, in fact, kept his hearers
+<i>au courant</i> with all the ailments of the day; and, if he heard of a case
+of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of the plague, in any quarter of the globe, he
+would nod his head with delight, and say, &ldquo;It will be here before
+long&mdash;before long!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first, his
+near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of dropping
+into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops from a vial in his
+pocket. The contents of this vial were never the same, for the doctor made new
+scientific discoveries each week, but in general bicarbonate, alkalies, and
+arsenic (in infinitesimal doses fortunately) made the base of these
+medicaments. Jack submitted to these preventives, and did not venture to say
+that he thought they tasted very badly. Occasionally the other professors were
+invited, and everybody drank the health of the little De Barancy, every one was
+enthusiastic over his sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher,
+Labassandre, at the least joke made by the child, threw himself back in his
+chair with a loud laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes
+with a corner of his napkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even D&rsquo;Argenton, the handsome D&rsquo;Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile
+crossed his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with
+haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he wish to
+understand, the signs made to him by Mâdou, as he waited upon the table, with a
+napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. Mâdou knew better than any one
+else the real value of these exaggerated praises and the vanity of human
+greatness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master&rsquo;s wine,
+flavored by the powder from the doctor&rsquo;s bottle; and the tunic, with its
+silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had been made
+for Mâdou? The story of the little negro should have been a warning to the
+small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the installation of both boys in
+the Moronval Academy had been precisely of the same character.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into weeks.
+Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval, who snatched
+every opportunity of testing her method.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new pupil. He had
+made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the Boulevard Hauss-mann, and
+had fully acquainted himself with the resources of the lady there. When,
+therefore, Madame de Barancy came to see Jack, which was very often, she met
+with a warm reception, and had an attentive audience for all the vain and
+foolish stories she saw fit to tell. At first Madame Moronval wished to
+preserve a certain dignified coolness toward such a person, but her husband
+soon changed that idea, and she saw herself obliged to lay aside her womanly
+scruples in favor of her interests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack! Jack! here comes your mother,&rdquo; some one would cry as the
+door opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of cakes
+and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for every one; they
+all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy ungloved her hand, the one on
+which were the most rings, and condescended to take a portion. The poor
+creature was so generous, and money slipped so easily through her fingers, that
+she generally brought with her cakes all sorts of presents, playthings,
+&amp;c., which she distributed as the fancy struck her. It is easy to imagine
+the enthusiastic praises lavished upon this inconsiderate, reckless generosity.
+Moronval alone had a smile of pity and of envy at seeing money so wasted, which
+should have gone to the assistance of some brave, generous soul like himself,
+for example. This was his fixed idea. And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing
+his finger-nails, he had an absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes to
+ask a loan, and has his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval&rsquo;s dream
+for some time had been to establish a Review consecrated to colonial interests,
+in this way hoping to satisfy his political aspirations by recalling himself
+regularly to his compatriots; and, finally, who knows he might be elected
+deputy. But, as a commencement, the journal seemed indispensable, and he had a
+vague notion that the mother of his new pupil might be induced to defray the
+expenses of this Review, but he did not wish to move too rapidly lest he should
+frighten the lady away; he intended to prepare the way gently. Unfortunately,
+Madame de Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of nature, was difficult
+to reach. She would continually change the conversation just at the important
+point, because she found it very uninteresting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!&rdquo; said Moronval
+to himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de Sévigné
+and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might as well have
+attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was fluttering about his
+head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not strong-minded nor literary,&rdquo; said Ida, with a half yawn,
+one day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be dazzled, not
+led.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful tales
+of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she added the
+<i>de</i> as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, tell me, tell me!&rdquo; said the silly little woman, with a sincere
+wish to oblige.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the Review,
+but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to act with great
+prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de Barancy to be present
+at one of their literary reunions on the following Saturday. Formerly these
+little fêtes took place every week, but since Mâdou&rsquo;s fall they had been
+very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval had extinguished a candle with
+every guest that left, in vain had he dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in
+the sun on the window-sill, and served it again the following week, the expense
+still was too great. But now he determined to hazard another attempt in that
+direction. Madame de Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea
+of making her appearance in the salon as a married woman of position was very
+attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on which she
+hoped to ascend from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a most splendid fête at which she assisted. In the memory of all
+beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored lanterns hung on
+the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted, and at least thirty
+candles were burning in the salon, the floor of which Mâdou had so waxed and
+rubbed for the occasion that it was as brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The
+negro boy had surpassed himself; and here let me say that Moronval was in a
+great state of perplexity as to the part that the prince should take at the
+soirée.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one day only
+to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting; but, then, who
+would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could replace him? No one of
+the other scholars, for each had some one in Paris who might not be pleased
+with this system of education; and finally it was decided that the soirée must
+be deprived of the presence and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight
+o&rsquo;clock, &ldquo;the children of the sun&rdquo; took their seats on the
+benches, and among them the blonde head of little De Barancy glittered like a
+star on the dark background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary
+world&mdash;the one at least which he frequented&mdash;and the representatives
+of art, literature, and architecture appeared in large delegations. They
+arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the depths of
+<i>Montparnasse</i> on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and poor, unknown,
+but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the longing to be seen, to
+sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves that they were still alive.
+Then, after this breath of pure air, this glimpse of the heavens above,
+comforted by a semblance of glory and success, they returned to their squalid
+apartments, having gained a little strength to vegetate. There were
+philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there were painters longing for fame, but
+whose pictures looked as if an earthquake had shaken everything from its
+perpendicular; musicians&mdash;inventors of new instruments; savans in the
+style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains contained a little of everything, but where
+nothing could be found by reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to
+see them; and if their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy
+heads, their offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an
+inclination to laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes
+that had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have
+awakened profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a taskmistress and
+too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment.. For example, a lyric
+poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an agent for a wine merchant,
+and a violinist was in a gas-office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives. These
+couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave, worn faces the
+stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of men of genius. Proud of
+being allowed to accompany their husbands, they smiled upon them with an air of
+gratified maternal vanity. Then there were the habitués of the house, the three
+professors; Labassandre in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by
+tremendous inspirations; and D&rsquo;Argenton, the handsome D&rsquo;Argenton,
+curled and pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of
+authority, geniality, and condescension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one, shaking hands
+with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later and the countess did
+not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the countess under that roof. Every
+one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de Moronval went from group to group,
+saying, with an amiable air, &ldquo;We will wait a few moments, the countess
+has not yet arrived!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small green
+table, on which stood a glass of <i>eau-sucré</i> and a reading-lamp, was in
+readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red and oppressed
+by all the worry of the evening; and Mâdotu, shivering in the wind from the
+door,&mdash;all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile, as she came not,
+D&rsquo;Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his assistants knew, for
+they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in front of the chimney, with
+his hair thrown back from his wide forehead, the poet declaimed, in a coarse,
+vulgar voice, what he called his poem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His friends were not sparing in their praises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Magnificent!&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;Sublime!&rdquo; exclaimed another;
+and the most amazing criticism came from yet another,&mdash;&ldquo;Goethe with
+a heart?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to the
+ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart was gone.
+She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat: now she beheld him
+in the mellow light which softened still more his pale face, wearing a
+dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a love poem, and, believing in love as
+he did in God, he produced an extraordinary effect upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish
+sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of her
+heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic signs to her
+as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for Moronval, who bowed to
+the ground; nor for the curious glances that examined her from head to foot, as
+she stood before them in her black velvet dress and her little white opera hat,
+trimmed with black roses and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about
+her like a scarf. Years after she recalled the profound impression of that
+evening, and saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon,
+which seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The
+future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound her,
+crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but the
+recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be effaced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, madame,&rdquo; said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile,
+&ldquo;that we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte Amaury
+d&rsquo;Argenton was reciting his magnificent poem.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vicomte!&rdquo; He was noble, then!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Continue, sir, I beg of you,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But D&rsquo;Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had
+injured the effect of his poem&mdash;destroyed its point; and such things are
+not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that he had
+finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more about her. The
+poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had displeased him, and the
+very thought was unendurable. It needed all little Jack&rsquo;s tender caresses
+and outspoken joy&mdash;all his delight at the admiration expressed for her,
+the attentions of everybody, the idea that she was queen of the fete&mdash;to
+efface the sorrow she felt, and which she showed by a silence of at least five
+minutes, which silence for a nature like hers was something as extraordinary as
+restful. The disturbance of her entrance being at last over, every one seated
+himself to await the next recitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat
+majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on the arm
+of his mother&rsquo;s chair, between her and M. Moronval, who smoothed the
+lad&rsquo;s hair in the most paternal way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took dignified
+possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and proceeded to read an
+ethnographic composition of her husband&rsquo;s on the Mongolian races. It was
+long and tedious&mdash;one of those lucubrations that are delivered before
+certain scientific societies, and succeed in lulling the members to sleep.
+Madame Moronval took this opportunity of demonstrating the peculiarities of her
+method, which had the merit&mdash;if merit it were&mdash;of holding the
+attention as in a vice, and the words and syllables seemed to reverberate
+through your own brain. To see Madame Moronval open her mouth to sound her
+o&rsquo;s, to hear the r&rsquo;s rattle in her throat, was more edifying than
+agreeable. The mouths of the eight children opposite mechanically followed each
+one of her gestures, producing a most extraordinary effect; one absolutely
+fascinating to Mademoiselle Constant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the countess saw nothing of all this; she had eyes but for her poet leaning
+against the door of the drawing-room, with arms folded and eyes moodily cast
+down. In vain did Ida seek to attract his attention; he glanced occasionally
+about the salon, but her arm-chair might as well have been vacant; he did not
+appear to see her, and the poor woman was rendered so utterly miserable by this
+neglect and indifference, that she forgot to congratulate Moronval on the
+brilliant success of his essay, which concluded amid great applause and
+universal relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed another brief poem by Argenton, to which Ida listened
+breathlessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, how beautiful!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;how beautiful!&rdquo; and
+she turned to Moronval, who sat with a forced smile on his lips. &ldquo;Present
+me to M. d&rsquo;Argenton, if you please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke to the poet in a low voice and with great courtesy. He, however,
+bowed very coldly, apparently careless of her implied admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How happy you are,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;in the possession of such a
+talent!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she asked where she could obtain his poems.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are not to be procured, madame,&rdquo; answered D&rsquo;Argenton,
+gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without knowing it, she had again wounded his sensitive pride, and he turned
+away without vouchsafing another syllable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Moronval profited by this opening. &ldquo;Think of it!&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;think that such verses as those cannot find a publisher! That such
+genius as that is buried in obscurity! If we only could publish a
+magazine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why can you not?&rdquo; asked Ida, quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because we have not the funds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they can easily be procured. Such talent should not be allowed to
+languish!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke with great earnestness; and Moronval saw at once that he had played
+his cards well, and proceeded to take advantage of the lady&rsquo;s weakness by
+talking to her of D&rsquo;Argenton, whom he painted in glowing colors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke of him as Lara, or Manifred, a proud and independent nature, one which
+could not be conquered by the hardships of his lot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Ida interrupted him to ask if the poet was not of noble birth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Most assuredly, madame. He is a viscount, and descended from one of the
+noblest families in Auvergne. His father was ruined by the dishonesty of an
+agent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was his text, which he proceeded to enlarge upon, and illustrate by many
+romantic incidents. Ida drank in the whole story; and while these two were
+absorbed in earnest conversation, Jack grew jealous, and made various efforts
+to attract his mother&rsquo;s attention. &ldquo;Jack, do be quiet!&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Jack, you are insufferable!&rdquo; finally sent him off, with tearful
+eyes and swollen lips, to sulk in the corner of the salon. Meanwhile the
+literary entertainments of the evening went on, and finally Labassandre, after
+numerous entreaties, was induced to sing. His voice was so powerful, and so
+pervaded the house, that Mâdou, who was in the kitchen preparing tea, replied
+by a frightful war-cry. The poor fellow worshipped noise of all kinds and at
+all times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval and the comtesse continued their conversation; and D&rsquo;Argenton,
+who by this time understood that he was the subject, stood in front of them,
+apparently absorbed in conversation with one of the professors. He appeared to
+be out of temper&mdash;and with whom? With the whole world; for he was one of
+that very large class who are at war against society, and against the manners
+and customs of their day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this very moment he was declaiming violently, &ldquo;You have all the vices
+of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere name. Love is a
+farce. You have accomplished nothing intellectually.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon me, sir,&rdquo; interrupted his hearer. But the other went on
+more vehemently and more aggressively. He wished, he said, that all France
+could hear what he thought. The nation was abased, crushed beyond all hope of
+recuperation. As for himself, he had determined to emigrate to America.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that was bent
+upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that one has in the
+fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly rises behind you and
+compels you to turn toward its silent presence. The eyes of this woman
+magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in regard to leaving
+France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom settled over the room.
+Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D&rsquo;Argenton wound up with a vigorous
+tirade against French women,&mdash;their lightness and coquetry, the
+insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of their love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the chimney, and
+careless who heard either his voice or his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that he was
+indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He knows who I am,&rdquo; she said, and bowed her head in shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval said aloud, &ldquo;What a genius!&rdquo; and in a lower voice to
+himself, &ldquo;What a boaster!&rdquo; But Ida needed nothing more; her heart
+was gone. Had Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological
+singularities, been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this
+case of instantaneous combustion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two or three
+of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent wretchedness,
+stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns swung in the wind
+each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted, and not even a policeman
+enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the disputative little group that left the
+Moronval Academy cared little for the gloom, the cold, or the dampness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus had
+passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of life&mdash;in
+the same brave spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees, as well
+as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each borrow a little, and
+with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm serenity that may well be envied.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"></a>
+CHAPTER V.<br />
+A DINNER WITH IDA.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an invitation for
+the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a postscript, expressing
+the pleasure she should have in receiving also M. d&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; said the poet, dryly, when Moronval handed him
+the coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw his
+plans frustrated. &ldquo;Why would not D&rsquo;Argenton accept the
+invitation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;I never visit such women.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You make a great mistake,&rdquo; said Moronval; &ldquo;Madame de Barancy
+is not the kind of person you imagine. Besides, to serve a friend, you should
+lay aside your scruples. You see that I need the countess, that she is disposed
+to look favorably on my Colonial Review, and you should do all that lies in
+your power to favor my views. Come, now, think better of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton, after being properly entreated, finished by accepting the
+invitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the following Monday, therefore, Moronval and his wife left the academy
+under the supervision of Dr. Hirsch, and presented themselves in the Boulevard
+Haussmann, where the poet was to join them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dinner was at seven; D&rsquo;Argenton did not arrive until half an hour past
+the time. Ida was in a state of great anxiety. &ldquo;Do you think he will
+come?&rdquo; she asked; &ldquo;perhaps he is ill. He looks very
+delicate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last he appeared with the air of a conquering hero, making some indifferent
+excuse for his lack of punctuality. His manner, however, was less disdainful
+than usual, for the hotel had impressed him. Its luxury, the flowers, and thick
+carpets; the little boudoir with its bouquets of white lilacs; the commonplace
+salon, like a dentist&rsquo;s waiting-room, a blue ceiling and gilded
+mouldings, the ebony furniture, cushioned with gold color, and the balcony
+exposed to the dust of the boulevard,&mdash;all charmed the attaché of the
+Moronval Academy, and gave him a favorable impression of wealth and high life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The table equipage, the imposing effect produced by Augustin, in short, all the
+luxurious details of the house, appealed to his senses, and D&rsquo;Argenton,
+without flattering the countess as openly as did Moronval; yet succeeded in
+doing so in a more subtile manner, by thawing under her influence to a very
+marked extent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was an interminable talker, and submitted with a very bad grace to any
+interruption. He was arbitrary and egotistical, and rang the changes on the
+<i>I</i> and the <i>my</i> for a whole evening, without allowing any one else
+to speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unhappily, to be a good listener is a quality far above natures like that of
+the countess; and the dinner was characterized by some unfortunate incidents.
+D&rsquo;Argenton was particularly fond of repeating the replies he had made to
+the various editors and theatrical managers who had declined his articles, and
+refused to print his prose or his verse. His mots on these occasions had been
+clever and caustic; but with Madame de Barancy he was never able to reach that
+point, preceded as it must necessarily be with lengthy explanations. At the
+critical moment Ida would invariably interrupt him,&mdash;always, to be sure,
+with some thought for his comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little more of this ice, M. d&rsquo;Argenton, I beg of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not any, madame,&rdquo; the poet would answer with a frown, and
+continue, &ldquo;Then I said to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid you do not like it,&rdquo; urged the lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is excellent, madame,&mdash;and I said these cruel
+words&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another interruption from Ida; who, later, when she saw her poet in a fit of
+the sulks, wondered what she had done to displease him. Two or three times
+during dinner she was quite ready to weep, but did her best to hide her
+feelings by urging all the delicacies of her table upon M. and Madame Moronval.
+Dinner over, and the guests established in the well warmed and lighted salon,
+the principal fancied he saw his way clear, and said suddenly, in a half
+indifferent tone, to the countess,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have thought much of our little matter of business. It will cost less
+than I fancied.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she answered absently,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If, madame, you would accord to me a few moments of your
+attention&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But madame was occupied in looking at her poet, who was walking up and down the
+salon silent and preoccupied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of what can he be thinking?&rdquo; she said to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of his digestion only, dear reader. Suffering somewhat from dyspepsia, and
+always anxious in regard to his health, he never failed, on leaving the table,
+to walk for half an hour, no matter where he might chance to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida watched him silently. For the first time in her life she loved, really and
+passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat before. Foolish and
+ignorant, while at the same time credulous and romantic; very near that fatal
+age&mdash;thirty years&mdash;which is almost certain to create in woman a great
+transformation; she now, aided by the memory of every romance she had ever
+read, created for herself an ideal who resembled D&rsquo;Argenton. The
+expression of her face so changed in looking at him, her laughing eyes assumed
+so tender an expression, that her passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any
+one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval, who looked on, shrugged his shoulders, with a glance at his wife.
+&ldquo;She is simply crazy,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She certainly was crazed in a degree; and, after dinner, she tormented herself
+to find some way of returning to the good graces of D&rsquo;Argenton, and, as
+he approached her in his walk, she said,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If M. d&rsquo;Argenton wished to be very amiable, he would recite to us
+that beautiful poem which created such a sensation the other evening. I have
+thought of it all the week. There is one verse that haunts me, especially the
+final line:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&lsquo;And I believe in love,<br />
+As I believe in a good God above.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I believe in God above,&rdquo; said the poet, making as horrible a
+grimace as if his finger had been caught in a vice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply that she
+had again incurred the displeasure of D&rsquo;Argenton. The fact is that he had
+begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own control, and which, in its
+unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the timid worship offered by the Japanese
+to their hideous idols.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than nature had
+made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility that rendered her so
+charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D&rsquo;Argenton relented, and suspended
+his hygienic exercise for a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but
+what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Moronval interposed. &ldquo;Recite the &lsquo;Credo,&rsquo; my dear
+fellow,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poem commenced gently enough with the words,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Madame, your toilette is charming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in these
+terrific words:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,<br />
+Who drains from my heart its life-blood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful
+recollections, D&rsquo;Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another
+word the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague fears of
+the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her poet, so drained
+his heart that there was not a drop left for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said Moronval, as they strolled through
+the empty boulevards, arm-in-arm, that night, little Madame Moronval pattering
+on in front of them,&mdash;&ldquo;you know if I can succeed in the
+establishment of my Review, that I shall make you editor-in-chief!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval threw the half of his cargo overboard in order to save his ship, for
+he saw that unless the poet was enlisted, the countess would take no interest
+in the scheme. D&rsquo;Argenton made no reply, for he was absorbed in thoughts
+of Ida.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No man can play the part of a lyric poet, a martyr to love, without being
+conscious of, and touched by, that silent adoration which appeals to his
+vanity, both as a man of letters and a man of the world. Since he had seen Ida
+in her luxurious home, about which there was the same suspicion of vulgarity
+that clung about herself, the rigidity of his principles had amazingly
+softened.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"></a>
+CHAPTER VI.<br />
+AMAURY D&rsquo;ARGENTON.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton belonged to one of those ancient provincial families
+whose castles resembled great farms. Impoverished for the three last
+generations, they had finally sold their property, and come to Paris to seek
+their fortunes; with little change for the better, however; and for the last
+thirty years they had dropped the <i>De</i>, which Amaury ventured to resume on
+adopting his literary career. He meant to make it famous, and even was
+audacious enough to announce this intention aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The childhood of the poet had been one of gloom and privation; surrounded by
+anxieties and by tears, by sordid cares, and that constant lack of money which
+imbitters the lives of so many of us, he had never laughed nor played like
+other children. A scholarship that was obtained for him enabled him to complete
+his studies, and his only recreation was obtained through the kindness of an
+aunt who resided in the Marais, and who gave him gloves and other trifles,
+which the poet very early in life learned to regard as essentials.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a childhood ripens early into bitter maturity. Infinite prosperity is
+needed to efface such early impressions, and we often see men who have attained
+to high honors, who are rich and powerful, and yet who have never conquered the
+timidity born of their early deprivations. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s bitterness
+was not without reason: at twenty-five he had succeeded in nothing; he had
+published a volume at his own expense, and had lived on bread and water in
+consequence for at least six months. He was industrious as well as ambitious;
+but something more than these qualities are essential to a poet, whose
+imagination and genius must be endowed with wings. These D&rsquo;Argenton had
+not; he felt merely that vague uneasiness which indicates a missing limb, but
+that was all, and he lost both time and trouble in ineffectual efforts; his
+aunt aided him by a small allowance, but his life bore not the shadow of a
+resemblance to the picture drawn by Ida. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton had never
+been entangled in any serious love affair; his nature was cold and prudent, and
+yet he had been beloved by more than one woman. To D&rsquo;Argenton, however,
+their society had always seemed a waste of time. Ida de Barancy was the first
+who had made upon him any real impression. Of this fact Ida had no idea, and
+whenever she met the poet on her very frequent visits to Jack, it was always
+with the same deprecating air and timid voice. The poet, while adopting an air
+of utter indifference, cultivated the affection and society of little Jack,
+whom he induced to talk freely of his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack being extremely flattered, gladly gave every information in his power, and
+talked freely of the kind friend who was so good to mamma. The mention of this
+person cost the poet a strange pang. &ldquo;He is so kind,&rdquo; babbled Jack,
+&ldquo;he comes to see us every day; or, if he does not come, he sends us great
+baskets of fruit, and playthings for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is your mother very fond of him, too?&rdquo; continued
+D&rsquo;Argenton, without looking up from his writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, indeed, sir,&rdquo; answered the little fellow, innocently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But are we quite sure that he spoke so innocently. The minds of children are
+not always so transparent as we believe; and it is difficult to say when they
+understand matters that go on about them, and when they do not. That mysterious
+growth that is constantly going on within them, has unexpected seasons of
+bursting into flower, and they suddenly mass together the disconnected
+fragments of information they have acquired and intuitively attain the result.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had Jack, therefore, no perception of the hidden rage that filled the heart of
+his professor when he questioned him in regard to their kind friend? Jack did
+not like D&rsquo;Argenton; in addition to his first dislike, he was now
+actuated by strong jealousy. His mother was too much occupied by this man. When
+he passed the day with her, she in her turn plied him with questions, and asked
+if his teacher never spoke to him of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said Jack, calmly. And yet that very day D&rsquo;Argenton
+had desired him to present his compliments to the countess, with a copy of his
+poems; but Jack at first forgot the volume, and finally lost it, as much from
+cunning as from heedlessness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, while these two dissimilar natures were attracted toward each other, the
+child stood between them suspicious and defiant, as if he already foresaw what
+the future would bring about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every two weeks Jack dined with his mother, sometimes alone with her, sometimes
+with their friend. They went to the theatre in the evening, or to a concert,
+and Jack was sent back to school with his pockets full of dainties, in which
+the other children shared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening, as he entered his mother&rsquo;s house, he saw the dining-table
+laid for three, and a gorgeous display of flowers and crystal. His mother met
+him, exquisitely dressed, wearing in her hair sprays of white lilacs, like
+those that filled the vases. The blazing fire alone lighted the salon, into
+which she gayly drew the boy, as she said, &ldquo;Guess who is here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, I know very well!&rdquo; exclaimed Jack in delight; &ldquo;it is our
+good friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was D&rsquo;Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa, near
+the fire. The enemy was in Jack&rsquo;s own seat, and the child was so
+overwhelmed by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained his tears.
+There was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all three. Just then the
+door was thrown open, and dinner announced by Augustin. The dinner was long and
+tedious to little Jack. Have you ever felt so entirely out of place that you
+would have gladly disappeared from off the face of the globe, painfully
+conscious, withal, that had you so vanished, no one would have missed you? When
+Jack spoke, no one listened; his questions were unheard and his wants unheeded.
+The conversation between his mother and D&rsquo;Argenton was incomprehensible
+to him, although he saw that his mother blushed more than once, and hastily
+raised her glass to her lips as if to conceal her rising color. Where were
+those gay little dinners when Jack sat close at his mother&rsquo;s side and
+reigned an absolute king at the table? This recollection came to the
+boy&rsquo;s mind just as Madame de Barancy offered a superb pear to
+D&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That came from our friend at Tours,&rdquo; said Jack, maliciously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate
+with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her child!
+She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did not venture to speak
+again, and the evening to him was but a dreary continuation of the repast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone that
+indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of his early
+home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors where the wind
+raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles in the great city, the
+constant obstacles thrown in the way of the development of his genius, of his
+jealous rivals and literary enemies, and of the terrible epigrams which he had
+hurled upon them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I uttered these stinging words.&rdquo; This time she did not
+interrupt him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that
+when he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be heard in
+the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of the leaves of the
+album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over. Suddenly she rose with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is
+quite time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, mamma!&rdquo; said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he
+generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his mother,
+nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene and laughing
+eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night, my child!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, and he drew the
+child toward him as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of
+repulsion, turned aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot! I cannot!&rdquo; he murmured, throwing himself back in his
+arm-chair and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant.&rdquo; And while Madame de
+Barancy sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to
+his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor installed
+in his mother&rsquo;s chimney-corner, said to himself, &ldquo;He is very
+comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there
+was certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very jealous
+of the child, who represented to him Ida&rsquo;s past, not that the poet was
+profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary, loved himself in
+her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image which he saw reflected in
+her clear eyes. But D&rsquo;Argenton would have preferred to be the first to
+disturb those depths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. &ldquo;Why did I not
+know him earlier?&rdquo; she said to herself over and over again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She ought to understand by this time,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton,
+sulkily, &ldquo;that I do not wish to see that boy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But even for her poet&rsquo;s sake Ida could not keep her child away from her
+entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon Jack
+from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the smallest of
+the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she lived,
+she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how I can aid you. I can work,
+and, besides, I shall not be completely penniless.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But D&rsquo;Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent enthusiasm
+and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and
+then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose heir he
+would unquestionably be. &ldquo;The good old lady was very old,&rdquo; he
+added. And the two, Ida and D&rsquo;Argenton, made a great many plans for the
+days that were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far away
+from Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They would have a
+little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed this legend:
+<i>Parva domus, magna quies</i>. There he could work, write a book&mdash;a
+novel, and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in readiness, but
+that was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps a member
+of the Academy&mdash;though, to be sure, that institution was mildewed,
+moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is nothing!&rdquo; said Ida; &ldquo;you must be a member!&rdquo;
+and she saw herself already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and
+quietly dressed, as befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited,
+however, they regaled themselves on the pears sent by &ldquo;the kind friend,
+who was certainly the best and least suspicious of men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious;
+but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many little
+cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their lives
+than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement between
+Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily expecting a
+decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected D&rsquo;Argenton of
+influencing her against the project, and this belief he ended by expressing to
+the poet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the windows with
+longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so blue, that he
+longed for liberty and out-door life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the garden
+were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of
+singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days when
+every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to drive away all
+wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length of the nights and the
+smoke of the fires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother entered in
+great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great care. She came for
+him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not bring him back until
+night. He must ask Moronval&rsquo;s permission first; but as Ida brought the
+quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission was easily granted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How jolly!&rdquo; cried Jack; &ldquo;how jolly!&rdquo; and while his
+mother casually informed Moronval that M. d&rsquo;Argenton had told her the
+evening previous that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying,
+the boy ran to change his dress. On his way he met Mâdou, who, sad and lonely,
+was busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that the
+air was soft and the sunshine warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, mamma, if we could take Mâdou!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were the
+duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame Moronval
+agreed for that day to assume the black boy&rsquo;s place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mâdou! Mâdou!&rdquo; cried the child, rushing toward him. &ldquo;Quick,
+dress yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to breakfast
+in the Bois!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a moment of confusion. Mâdou stood still in amazement, while Madame
+Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this emergency.
+Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited like a canary by
+the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details in regard to the
+illness of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s aunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the victoria,
+and Mâdou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly be regarded as a
+royal one, but Mâdou was satisfied. The drive itself was charming, the Avenue
+de l&rsquo;Imperatrice was filled with people driving, riding, and walking.
+Children of all ages enlivened the scene. Babies, in their long white skirts,
+gazing about with the sweet solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully
+dressed, with their tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an
+ecstasy of delight, kissed his mother, and pulled Mâdou by the sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you happy, Mâdou?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, very happy,&rdquo; was the answer. They reached the Bois, in
+places quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of
+the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked like
+smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with snow half the
+winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose leaf-buds were only
+beginning to swell. The carriage drew up at the restaurant, and while the
+breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in course of preparation, she and
+the children took a walk to the lake. At this early hour there were few of
+those superb equipages to be seen that appeared later in the day. The lake was
+lovely, with white swans dotting it here and there, and now and then a gentle
+ripple shook its surface, and miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old
+willows on one side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The children
+attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed incessantly from the
+beginning to the end of the repast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the <i>Jardin
+d&rsquo;Acclimation</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a splendid idea,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;for Mâdou has never
+been there, and won&rsquo;t he be amused!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They drove through <i>La Grande Allée</i> in the almost deserted garden, which
+to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the animals, who,
+as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive eyes, or smelled with
+pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought from the restaurant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify Jack, now
+became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the blue ticket over
+the little inclosures to recognize certain animals from his own land. With
+mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the kangaroos, and seemed to suffer in
+seeing them in the limited space which they covered in three leaps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were inclosed.
+The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and cassowaries looked
+mournful enough in the shade of their solitary exotic; but the parrots and
+smaller birds in a long cage, without even a green leaf or twig, were
+absolutely pitiful, and Mâdou thought of the Academy Moronval and of himself.
+The plumage of the birds was dull and torn; they told a tale of past battles,
+of dismal flutterings against the bars of their prison-house. Even the
+rose-colored flamingoes and the long-billed ibex, who seem associated with the
+Nile and the desert and the immovable sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly
+commonplace aspect among the white peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that
+paddled at ease in their miniature pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly appeared at the
+end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle that Mâdou stood still
+in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two elephants, who were slowly
+approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and bearing on their broad backs a
+crowd of women with light umbrellas, of children with straw hats and colored
+ribbons. Following the elephant came a giraffe carrying his small and haughty
+head very high. This singular caravan wound through the circuitous road, with
+many nervous laughs and terrified cries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief upon
+the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their trunks either
+toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the spectators, shaking their
+long ears when gently touched by some child, or by the umbrella of some
+laughing girl on their backs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the matter, Mâdou; you tremble. Are you ill?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+Mâdou was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he too could
+mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic in expression.
+Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his mother, whom he considered
+too grave for this fête-day. He liked to walk close at her side, or linger
+behind her in the dust of her long silken skirts, which she disdained to lift.
+They seated themselves, and watched the little black boy climb on the back of
+the elephant. Once there, the child seemed in his native place. He was no
+longer an exile, nor the awkward schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated
+by his menial duties and by his master&rsquo;s tyranny. He seemed imbued with
+new life, and his eyes sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little
+king! Two or three times he went around the garden. &ldquo;Again! again!&rdquo;
+he cried, and over the little bridge, between the inclosures of the kangaroos
+and other animals, he went to and fro, excited almost to madness by the heavy
+long strides of the elephant. Kérika, Dahomey, war-like scenes, and the hunt,
+all returned to his memory. He spoke to the elephant in his native tongue, and
+as he heard the sweet African voice, the huge creature shut his eyes with
+delight and trumpeted his pleasure. The zebras neighed, and the antelopes
+started in terror, while from the great cage of tropical birds, where the sun
+shone most fully, came warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant screams,
+and an enraged chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small scale, of a
+primeval forest in the tropics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was growing late. Mâdou must awaken from this beautiful dream. Besides,
+as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose keen and cold, as
+so often happens in the early spring. This wintry chill affected the spirits of
+the children, and they grew strangely quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a
+wonder was also very silent. She had something she wished to say, and she
+probably found some difficulty in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid
+until the last moment. Then she took Jack&rsquo;s hand in hers. &ldquo;Listen,
+child, I have some bad news to tell you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he turned
+his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low, quick
+voice,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you
+behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I shall not
+be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes, very soon, I promise
+you.&rdquo; And she threw out mysterious hints of a fortune to come, and money
+affairs, and other things that were not at all interesting to the child, who in
+reality paid little attention to her words, for he was weeping silently but
+chokingly. The gay streets seemed no longer the Paris of the morning, the
+sunshine was gone, the flowers on the corner-stands were faded, and all was
+very dreary, for he saw through eyes dim with tears, and the child was about to
+lose his mother.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"></a>
+CHAPTER VII.<br />
+MÂDOU&rsquo;S FLIGHT.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed the
+position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation as Professor
+of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added that Madame de Barancy
+was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite time, and that she confided her
+little Jack to M. Moronval&rsquo;s paternal care. In case of illness or
+accident to the child, a letter could be forwarded to the mother under cover to
+D&rsquo;Argenton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The paternal care of Moronval!&rdquo; Had the poet laughed aloud as he
+penned these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child&rsquo;s fate at
+the academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left Paris, and
+that nothing more was to be expected from her?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage, which
+rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado might have done
+in the tropics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow, who
+had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of her
+years&mdash;for she was by no means in her earliest youth&mdash;should be so
+heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, &ldquo;Wait a while,
+young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished project, he
+was more indignant that D&rsquo;Argenton and Ida should have made use of him
+and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to the Boulevard
+Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no nearer elucidation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that she had
+broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to be given up, and
+the furniture sold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! sir,&rdquo; said Constant, mournfully, &ldquo;it was an unfortunate
+day for us when we set foot in your old barracks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of the next
+quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding, therefore, that the
+child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined to put an end to all the
+indulgences with which he had been treated. Poor Jack after this day sat at the
+table no longer as an equal, but as the butt for all the teachers. No more
+dainties, no more wine for him. There were constant allusions made to
+D&rsquo;Argenton: he was selfish and vain, a man totally without genius; as to
+his noble birth, it was more than doubtful; the château in the mountains, of
+which he discoursed so fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce
+attacks on the man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented
+him from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly
+laughed at each one of Moronval&rsquo;s witticisms. The fact was, that Jack
+dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks invariably
+terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning, but he saw by the
+contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly. Madame Moronval would
+sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly word to Jack, or by sending
+him on some trifling errand. During his absence, she administered a reproof to
+her husband and his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; said Labassandre, &ldquo;he does not understand.&rdquo;
+Perhaps he did not fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very
+sore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the same
+as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one of the
+schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage. The boy was
+nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and Jack for the first
+time was severely flogged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that day the charm was broken, and Jack&rsquo;s daily life did not greatly
+differ from that of Mâdou, who was at this time very unhappy. The pleasant
+weather, and the day at the <i>Jardin d&rsquo;Aclimation</i>, had given him a
+terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took the form of a sullen
+revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all this was changed, the
+boy&rsquo;s eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about the house and the
+garden as if in a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One night the black boy was undressing, and Jack heard him singing to himself
+in a language that was strange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you singing, Mâdou?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not singing, sir; I&rsquo;m talking negro talk!&rdquo; and Mâdou
+confided to his friend his intention of running away from school. He had
+thought of it for some time, and was only waiting for pleasant weather; and now
+he meant to go to Dahomey, and find Kérika. If Jack would go with him, they
+would go to Marseilles on foot, and then go on board some vessel. Nothing could
+happen to them, for he had his amulet all safe. Jack made many objections.
+Dahomey had no charms for him. He thought of the copper basin, and the terrible
+heads, with an emotion of sick horror; and, besides, how could he go so far
+from his mother?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said Mâdou; &ldquo;you can remain here, and I will go
+alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; answered the negro, resolutely closing his eyes as if
+he knew that he would need all the strength that sleep could give him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning, when Jack passed through the large recitation-room, he saw
+Mâdou busily scrubbing the floor, and concluded that he had relinquished his
+project.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The classes were busy for an hour or two, when Moronval appeared. &ldquo;Where
+is Mâdou?&rdquo; he asked abruptly. &ldquo;He has gone to market,&rdquo;
+answered madame. Jack, however, said to himself that Mâdou would not return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a little while Moronval came back and asked the same question. His wife
+answered, uneasily, that she could not understand the boy&rsquo;s prolonged
+absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dinner-time came, but no Mâdou, no vegetables, and no meat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something must have happened,&rdquo; said Madame Moronval, more
+indulgent than her impatient husband, who paced up and down the corridor with
+his rod in his hand, while the hungry schoolboys were quite ready to devour
+each other. Finally, Madame Moronval sallied forth herself to buy some
+provisions; and on her return, burdened with packages, she was greeted by an
+enthusiastic shout from the children, who, when the fierceness of their hunger
+abated, ventured on surmises as to Mâdou&rsquo;s whereabouts. Moronval shrewdly
+suspected the truth. &ldquo;How much money did he have?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fifteen francs,&rdquo; was his wife&rsquo;s timid answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fifteen francs! Then it is certain he has run away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where has he gone?&rdquo; asked the doctor; &ldquo;he could hardly
+reach Dahomey with that amount.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval scowled fiercely, and went to report to the police, for it was very
+essential to him that the child should be found, or, at all events, prevented
+from reaching Marseilles. Moronval was in wholesome fear of Monsieur Bonfils.
+&ldquo;The world is so wicked, you know,&rdquo; he said to his wife; &ldquo;the
+boy might make some complaints which would injure the school.&rdquo;
+Consequently, in making his report at the police office, he stated that Mâdou
+had carried away a large sum. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, assuming an air of
+indifference, &ldquo;the money part of the matter is of very little importance,
+compared to the dangers that the poor child runs&mdash;this dethroned king
+without country or people;&rdquo; and Moronval dashed away a tear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will find him, my good sir,&rdquo; said the official; &ldquo;have no
+anxiety.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Moronval was anxious, nevertheless, and so agitated, that, instead of
+awaiting quietly at home the result of the investigations, as he had been
+advised to do, he started out himself, with all the children to join in the
+search.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went to each one of the gates, interrogated the custom-house officers, and
+gave them a description of Mâdou. Then the party repaired to the police court,
+for Moronval had the singular idea that in this way his pupils might learn
+something of Parisian life. The children, fortunately, were too young to
+understand all they saw, but they carried away with them a most sinister
+impression. Jack especially, who was the most intelligent of the boys, returned
+to the academy with a heavy heart, shocked at the glimpse he had caught of this
+under-current of life. Over and over again he said to himself, &ldquo;Where can
+Mâdou be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the child consoled himself with the thought that the negro was far on the
+road to Marseilles; which road little Jack pictured to himself as running
+straight as an arrow, with the sea at its termination, and the vessel lying
+ready to sail. Only one thing disturbed him in regard to Mâdou&rsquo;s journey:
+the weather, that had been so fine the day of his departure, had suddenly
+changed; and now the rain fell in torrents,&mdash;hail too, and even snow; and
+the wind blew around their frail dwelling, causing the poor little children of
+the sun to shiver in their sleep, and dream of a rocking ship and a heavy sea.
+Curled up under his blankets one night, listening to the howling of the fierce
+wind, Jack thought of his friend, imagined him half frozen lying under a tree,
+his thin clothing thoroughly wet. But the reality was worse than this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is found!&rdquo; cried Moronval, rushing into the dining-room, one
+morning. &ldquo;He is found; I have just been notified by the police. Give me
+my hat and my cane!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was in a state of great excitement. As much from the desire to flatter the
+master, as from the love of noise that characterizes boys, the children hailed
+this news with a wild hurrah. Jack did not speak, but sighed as he said to
+himself, &ldquo;Poor Mâdou!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou had been, in fact, at the station-house since the evening before. It was
+there, amid criminals of all grades, that the presumptive heir of the kingdom
+of Dahomey was found by his excellent tutor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my unfortunate child! have I found you at last?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The worthy Moronval could say no more; and, on seeing him throw his long arms
+eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector of police could
+not help thinking: &ldquo;At last I have seen one teacher who loves his
+pupils!&rdquo; Mâdou, however, displayed the utmost indifference. His face was
+positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of apprehension was
+visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to see nothing; his face was
+pale&mdash;and the pallor of a negro is something appalling. He was covered
+with mud from head to foot, and looked like some amphibious animal who, after
+swimming in the water, had rolled in the mud on the shore. No hat, and no
+shoes. What had happened to him? He alone could have told you, and he would not
+speak. The policeman said, that, making his rounds the evening before, he had
+found the boy hidden in a lime-kiln, that he was half-starved, and stupefied by
+the excessive heat. Why had he lingered in Paris?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This question Moronval did not ask; nor, indeed, did he speak one word to Mâdou
+during their long drive to the academy. The boy was so worn out and crushed
+that he sank into a corner, while Moronval glanced at him occasionally with an
+expression of rage that at any other time would have terrified him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval&rsquo;s glance was like a keen rapier, with a flash like lightning,
+crossing a poor little broken blade, shivered and rusty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Jack saw the pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could hardly
+recognize the little king. Mâdou, as he passed, said good morning in so
+mournful a tone that Jack&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears. The children saw
+nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went on in their usual
+routine, and at intervals the sound of a lash was heard, and heavy groans from
+Moronval&rsquo;s private study. Madame Moronval turned pale, and the book she
+held trembled. Even when all was again silent, Jack fancied that he still heard
+the groans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At dinner the principal was radiant, though seemingly exhausted by fatigue.
+&ldquo;The little wretch!&rdquo; he said to Dr. Hirsch and his wife. &ldquo;The
+little wretch! Just, see the state he has put me into!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night Jack found the bed next to his occupied. Poor Mâdou had put his
+master into such a state that he himself had not been able to go to bed without
+assistance. Madame Moronval and Dr. Hirsch were there watching the lad, whose
+sleep was broken by those heavy sighs and sobs common to children after a day
+of painful excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, Dr. Hirsch, you don&rsquo;t think him ill?&rdquo; asked Madame
+Moronval, anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in the least, madame; that race has a covering like a
+monitor!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they were alone, Jack took Mâdou&rsquo;s hand and found it as burning hot
+as a brick from the furnace. &ldquo;Dear Mâdou,&rdquo; he whispered. Mâdou half
+opened his eyes and looked at his friend with an expression of utter
+discouragement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all over with Mâdou,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;Mâdou has
+lost his Gri-gri, and will never see Dahomey again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the reason, then, that he had not left Paris. Two hours after he had
+run away from the academy, the fifteen francs of market-money and his medal had
+been stolen from him. Then, relinquishing all idea of Marseilles, of the ship
+and of the sea, knowing that without his Gri-gri Dahomey was unattainable,
+Mâdou had spent eight days and nights in the lowest depths of Paris, looking
+for his amulet. Fearing that Moronval would discover his whereabouts, he hid
+during the day and ventured into the streets only after nightfall. He slept by
+the side of piles of bricks and mortar, which partly protected him from the
+wind; or crawled into an open doorway, or under the arches of a bridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Favored by his size and by his color, Mâdou glided about almost unseen; he had
+associated with criminals of all classes, and had escaped without
+contamination, for he thought only of finding his amulet. He had shared a crust
+of bread with assassins, and drank with robbers; but the little king escaped
+from these dangers as he had from others in Dahomey, where, when hunting with
+Kérika, he had been awakened by the trumpeting of elephants and the roaring of
+wild beasts, and saw, under some gigantic tree, the dim shadow of some strange
+animal passing between himself and the bivouac fires; or caught a glimpse of
+some great snake slowly winding through the underbrush. But the monsters to be
+found in Paris are more terrible even than those in the African forests; or
+they would have been, had he understood the dangers he incurred. But he could
+not find his Gri-gri. Mâdou could not talk much, his exhaustion was so great;
+and Jack fell asleep with his curiosity but partially satisfied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from Mâdou, who
+was singing and talking in his own language with frightful volubility. Delirium
+had begun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning, Dr. Hirsch announced that Mâdou was very ill. &ldquo;A
+brain-fever!&rdquo; he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This Dr. Hirsch was a terrible man. His head was stuffed full of all sorts of
+Utopian ideas, of impracticable theories, and notions absolutely without
+method. His studies had been too desultory to amount to anything. He had
+mastered a few Latin phrases, and covered his real ignorance by a smattering of
+the science of medicine as practised among the Indians and the Chinese. He even
+had a strong leaning toward the magic arts, and when a human life was intrusted
+to his care he took that opportunity to try some experiments. Madame Moronval
+was inclined to call in another physician, but the principal, less
+compassionate, and unwilling to incur the additional expense, determined to
+leave the case solely in the hands of Dr. Hirsch. Wishing to have no
+interference, this singular physician pretended that the disease was
+contagious, and ordered Mâdou&rsquo;s bed to be placed at the end of the garden
+in an old hot-house. For a week he tried on his little victim every drug he had
+ever heard of, the child making no more resistance than a sick dog would have
+done. When the doctor, armed with his bottles and his powders, entered the
+hot-house, the &ldquo;children of the sun,&rdquo; to whose minds a physician
+was always more or less of a magician, gathered about the door and listened,
+saying to each other in awed tones, &ldquo;What is he going to do now to
+Mâdou?&rdquo; But the doctor locked the door, and peremptorily ordered the
+children from its vicinity, telling them that they would be ill too, that
+Mâdou&rsquo;s illness was contagious; and this last idea added additional
+mystery to that corner of the garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, nevertheless, desired to see his friend so much that he alone of all the
+boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been too closely
+guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the doctor had gone in
+search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into the improvised infirmary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was one of those half rustic buildings which are used as a shelter for rakes
+and hoes, or even to house some tender plants. Close by the side of
+Mâdou&rsquo;s iron bed, in the corner, was a pile of earthen flowerpots; a
+broken trellis, some panes of glass, and a bundle of dried roots, completed the
+dismal picture; and in the chimney, as if for the protection of some fragile
+tropical plant, flickered a tiny fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou was not asleep. His poor little thin face had still the same expression
+of absolute indifference. His black hands, tightly clenched, lay on the outside
+of the bedclothes. There was a look of a sick animal in his whole attitude, and
+in the manner in which he turned his face toward the wall, as if an invisible
+road was open to his eyes through the white stones, and every chink in the wall
+had become a brilliant outlook toward a country known to him alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack whispered, &ldquo;It is I, Mâdou,&mdash;little Jack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child looked at him vacantly; he no longer understood the French language.
+In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct had effaced all
+that art had inculcated, and Mâdou understood and spoke nothing save his savage
+dialect. At this moment, another of &ldquo;the children of the sun,&rdquo;
+Said, encouraged by Jack&rsquo;s example, followed him into the sick-room, but,
+startled and disturbed by the strange scene, retreated to the doorway, and
+stood with affrighted eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mâdou drew one long, shivering sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is going to sleep, I think,&rdquo; whispered Said, shivering with
+terror; for, older than Jack, he intuitively felt the cold blast from the wings
+of Death, which already fanned the brow of the sick boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go,&rdquo; said Jack, pale and troubled; and they hastily ran
+down the garden-walk, leaving their comrade alone in the twilight. Night came
+on. In that silent room, which the children had left, the fire crackled
+cheerfully, burning brightly, and illuminating every corner as if in search of
+something that was hidden. The light flickered on the ceiling and was reflected
+on every small window-pane, glanced over the little bed, and brought out the
+color of Mâdou&rsquo;s red sleeve, until tired apparently of its fruitless
+search, discouraged and exhausted, and convinced that its heat was useless, for
+no one was there to warm. The fire gave one last expiring flicker, and then,
+like the poor little half-frozen king, who had so loved it, sank into eternal
+rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor Mâdou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for Moronval
+hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal prince or of a
+servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on the other, vanity and
+policy had a word to say. After much indecision, Moronval decided to strike a
+great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he had not profited much by the prince
+living, he might gain something from him dead. So a pompous funeral was
+arranged. All the daily papers published a biography of the little king of
+Dahomey. It was a short one, to be sure, but lengthened by a panegyric of the
+Moronval Institute, and of its principal. The discipline of the establishment
+was commended; its hygienic regulations, the peculiar skill of its medical
+adviser,&mdash;nothing had been forgotten, and the unanimity of the eulogiums
+was something quite touching.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its innumerable
+occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one eye open to all that
+goes on,&mdash;Paris saw on its principal boulevards a singular procession.
+Four black boys walked by the side of a bier. Behind, a taller lad, a tone
+lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,&mdash;our friend Said,&mdash;carried on a
+velvet cushion an order or two, some royal insignia fantastic in character.
+Then came Moronval, with Jack and the other schoolboys. The professors followed
+with the habitués of the house, the literary men whom we met at the soiree. How
+shabby were these last! How many worn-out coats and worn-out hearts were there!
+How many disappointed hopes and unattainable ambitions! All these slowly
+marched on, embarrassed by the full light of day to which they were
+unaccustomed; and this melancholy escort precisely suited the little deposed
+king. Were not all of these persons pretendents, too, to some imaginary kingdom
+to which they would never succeed? Where but in Paris could such a funeral be
+seen? A king of Dahomey escorted to the grave by a procession of Bohemians!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to fall, as if
+fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather, even to the very
+grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been lowered, Moronval
+pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it would not have warmed you,
+my poor Mâdou! Moronval spoke of the virtues and estimable qualities of the
+defunct, of the model sovereign he would one day have made had he lived. To
+those who had been familiar with that pitiful little face, who had seen the
+child abased by servitude, Moronval&rsquo;s discourse was at once
+heart-breaking and absurd.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"></a>
+CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+JACK&rsquo;S DEPARTURE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The death of
+his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and the lonely
+deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew too that now he must
+bear alone all Moronval&rsquo;s whims and caprices, for the other pupils all
+had some one who came occasionally to see them, and who would report any
+brutalities of which they were the victims. Jack&rsquo;s mother never wrote to
+him nowadays, and no one at the Institute knew even where she was. Ah! had he
+but been able to ascertain, how quickly would the child have gone to her, and
+told her all his sorrows. Jack thought of all this as they returned from the
+cemetery. Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch were in front of him, talking to each
+other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is in Paris,&rdquo; said Labassandre, &ldquo;for I saw her
+yesterday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack listened eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was he with her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She&mdash;he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet Jack
+knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet not have
+hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was meditating his
+escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head of the
+procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with a rallying
+gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys, whose legs were
+very weary with the distance they had walked. They would increase their speed
+for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again. Jack contrived to linger
+more and more among the last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come!&rdquo; cried Moronval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come!&rdquo; repeated Said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the entrance of the Champs Elysées Saïd turned for the last time,
+gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the
+Egyptian&rsquo;s arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any look of
+haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he drew nearer the
+Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took possession of him, and his little
+feet, in spite of himself, went faster and faster. Would the house be closed?
+And if Labassandre were mistaken, and his mother not in Paris, what would
+become of him? The alternative of a return to the academy never occurred to
+him. Indeed, if he had thought of it, the remembrance of the heavy blows and
+heartfelt sobs that he had heard all one afternoon would have filled him with
+terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is there,&rdquo; cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw
+all the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when his
+mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should take her
+away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule, he was struck by
+something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full of people all busily
+talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas and chairs, covered for a
+boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that in the broad light of day they
+looked faded. A mirror, framed in silver, and ornamented with cupids, was
+leaning against one of the stone pillars; a jardinière without flowers, and
+curtains that had been taken down and thrown over a chair, were near by.
+Several women richly dressed were talking together of the merits of a crystal
+chandelier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could hardly
+recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The visitors opened
+the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains,
+and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing
+her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself
+dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd
+surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see
+what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice
+that said,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A child&rsquo;s bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough men. He
+wished to exclaim,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bed is mine&mdash;my very own&mdash;I will not have it
+touched;&rdquo; but a certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from
+room to room looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Constant, his mother&rsquo;s maid&mdash;Constant, in her Sunday dress,
+wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is mamma?&rdquo; asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was
+so pitiful and troubled that the woman&rsquo;s heart was touched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your mother is not here, my poor child,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where is she? And what are all these people doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen, Master
+Jack, we can talk better there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was quite a party in the kitchen,&mdash;the old cook, Augustin, and
+several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne around the
+same table where Jack&rsquo;s future had been one evening decided. The
+child&rsquo;s arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them all, for
+the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother. As he was afraid
+that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack took good care not to say
+that he had run away, and merely spoke of an imaginary permission he had
+received to enable him to visit his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is not here, Master Jack,&rdquo; said Constant, &ldquo;and I really
+do not know whether I ought&mdash;&rdquo; Then, interrupting herself, Constant
+exclaimed, &ldquo;O! it is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his
+mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. &ldquo;Is it far
+from here?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eight good leagues,&rdquo; answered Augustin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated discussion as
+to the route to be taken to reach <i>Etiolles</i>. Jack listened eagerly, for
+he had already decided to attempt the journey alone and on foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a
+wood,&rdquo; said Constant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This and the
+name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The distance did not
+frighten him. &ldquo;I can walk all night,&rdquo; he said to himself,
+&ldquo;even if my legs are little.&rdquo; Then he spoke aloud. &ldquo;I must go
+now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I must go back to school.&rdquo; One question,
+however, burned on his lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this
+powerful barrier between his mother and himself? He dared not ask Constant,
+however. Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet felt very keenly
+that this was not the best side of his mother&rsquo;s life, and he avoided all
+mention of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The servants said &ldquo;good-bye,&rdquo; the coachman shook hands with him,
+and then the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He did
+not linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest for him, but
+hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey that would end by
+placing him with his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned as the
+first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find, although it was a
+good distance off, but the fear of being caught by Moronval spurred him on. An
+inquisitive look from a policeman startled him, a shadow on the wall, or a
+hurried step behind, made his heart beat, and over and above the noise and
+confusion of the streets he seemed to hear the cry of &ldquo;Stop him! Stop
+him!&rdquo; At last he climbed over the bank and began to run on the narrow
+path by the water&rsquo;s edge. The day was coming to an end. The river was
+very high and yellow from recent rains, the water rolled heavily against the
+arches of the bridge, and the wind curled it in little waves, the tops of which
+were just touched by the level rays of the setting sun. Women passed him
+bearing baskets of wet linen, fishermen drew in their lines, and a whole
+river-side population, sailors and bargemen, with their rounded shoulders and
+woollen hoods, hurried past him. With these there was still another class,
+rough and ferocious of aspect, who were quite capable of pulling you out of the
+Seine for fifteen francs, and of throwing you in again for a hundred sous.
+Occasionally one of these men would turn to look at this slender schoolboy who
+seemed in such a hurry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place it was
+black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal. Farther on,
+similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor of fresh orchards
+was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a great harbor; steamboats
+were loading at the wharves; a few rods more, and a group of old trees bathed
+their distorted roots in a limpid stream, and one could easily fancy
+one&rsquo;s self twenty leagues from Paris, and in an earlier century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But night was close at hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted, and
+illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very darkest
+body of water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long wharf,
+covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had reached Bercy, but
+it was night, and he was filled with terror lest he should be stopped at the
+gate; but the little fugitive was hardly noticed. He passed the barrier without
+hindrance, and soon found himself in a long, narrow street, solitary and dimly
+lighted. While the child was in the life and motion of the city, he was
+terrified only by one thought, and that was that Moronval would find him. Now
+he was still afraid, but his fear was of another character&mdash;born of
+silence and solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street was
+bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled on, these
+buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably lower in height.
+Although barely eight o&rsquo;clock, this road was almost deserted. Occasional
+pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp ground, while the dismal howling
+of a dog added to the cheerlessness of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step
+that he took led him further from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached
+the last wineshop. A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the
+child the limits of the inhabited world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go into the
+shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated at his desk;
+around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking and talking. When Jack
+lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had hideous faces&mdash;such faces
+as he had seen at the police stations the day they were looking for Mâdou. The
+woman, above all, was frightful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does he want?&rdquo; said one of the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of light from
+the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The darkness now seemed to
+the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until he found himself in the open
+country. Before him stretched field after field; a few small, scattered houses,
+white cubes, alone varied the monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by
+its long line of reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith&rsquo;s
+forge. The child stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone
+out of doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now
+suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what he had
+undertaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had he strength enough to reach his mother?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of the road,
+and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the spot he had selected,
+he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was stretched out there, his rags
+making a confused mass of dark shadow against the white stones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step forward or
+back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and to talk, still
+without waking. The child thought of the woman in the wine-shop, and feared
+that this creature was she, or some other equally repulsive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful
+beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If he
+extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that he should
+touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this stupor. An officer,
+accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern, suddenly appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening, gentlemen,&rdquo; said the child, gently, breathless with
+emotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldier who carried the lantern raised it in the direction of the voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a bad hour to travel, my boy,&rdquo; remarked the officer;
+&ldquo;are you going far?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, no, sir; not very far,&rdquo; answered Jack, who did not care to tell
+the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well! we can go on together as far as Charenton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a delight it was to the child to walk for an hour at the side of these two
+honest soldiers, to regulate his steps by theirs, and to see the cheerful light
+from the lantern! From the soldier, too, he casually learned that he was on the
+right road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we are at home,&rdquo; said the officer, halting suddenly.
+&ldquo;Good night. And take my advice, my lad, and don&rsquo;t travel alone
+again at night&mdash;it is not safe.&rdquo; And with these parting words, the
+men turned up a narrow lane, swinging the lantern, leaving Jack alone at the
+entrance of the principal street in Charenton. The child wandered on until he
+found himself on the quay; he crossed a bridge which seemed to him to be thrown
+over an abyss, so profound were the depths below. He lingered for a moment, but
+rough voices singing and laughing so startled him that he took to his heels and
+ran until he was out of breath, and was again in the open fields. He turned and
+looked back; the red light of the great city was still reflected on the
+horizon. Afar off he heard the grinding of wheels. &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; said the
+child; &ldquo;something is coming.&rdquo; But nothing appeared. And the
+invisible wagon, whose wheels moved apparently with difficulty, turned down
+some unseen lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack toiled on slowly. Who was that man that stood waiting for him at the
+turning of the road? One man! Nay, there were two or three. But they were
+trees,&mdash;tall, slender poplars,&mdash;or a clump of elms&mdash;those lovely
+old elms which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was environed
+by the mysteries of nature,&mdash;nature in the springtime of the year, when
+one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and the earth crackle as
+the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint, vague noises bewildered
+little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme with which his mother formerly
+rocked him to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was pitiful to hear the child, alone in the darkness, encouraging himself by
+these reminiscences of his happy, petted infancy. Suddenly the little trembling
+voice stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something was coming&mdash;something blacker than the darkness itself, sweeping
+down on the child as if to swallow him up. Cries were heard; human voices, and
+heavy blows. Then came a drove of enormous cattle, which pressed against little
+Jack on all sides; he feels the damp breath from their nostrils; their tails
+switch violently, and the heat of their bodies, and the odor of the stable, is
+almost stifling. Two boys and two dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs
+bark, and the uncouth peasants yell, until the noise is appalling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they pass on, the child is absolutely stupefied by terror. These animals
+have gone, but will there not be others? It begins to rain, and Jack, in
+despair, fails on his knees, and wishes to die. The sound of a carriage, and
+the sight of two lamps like friendly eyes coming quickly toward him, revives
+him suddenly. He calls aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The carriage stops. A head, with a travelling cap drawn closely down over the
+ears, bends forward to ascertain the whereabouts of the shrill cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am very tired,&rdquo; pleaded Jack; &ldquo;would you be so kind as to
+let me come into your carriage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man hesitated, but a woman&rsquo;s voice came to the child&rsquo;s
+assistance. &ldquo;Ah, what a little fellow! Let him come in here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; asked the traveller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child hesitated. Like all fugitives, he wished to hide his destination.
+&ldquo;To Villeneuve St George,&rdquo; he answered, nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; said the man, with gruff kindness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child was soon curled up under a comfortable travelling rug, between a
+stout lady and gentleman, who both examined him curiously by the light of the
+little lamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where was he going so late, and all alone, too? Jack would have liked to tell
+the truth, but he was in too great fear of being carried back to the Institute.
+Then he invented a story to suit the occasion. His mother was very ill in the
+country, where she was visiting. He had been told of this the night before, and
+he had at once started off on foot, because he had not patience to wait for the
+next day&rsquo;s train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said the lady. And the gentleman looked as if he
+understood also, but made many wise observations as to the imprudence of
+running about the country alone, there were so many dangers. Then he was asked
+in what house in Villeneuve his mother&rsquo;s friends resided.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the end of the town,&rdquo; answered Jack, promptly,&mdash;&ldquo;the
+last house on the right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was lucky that his rising color was hidden by the darkness. His
+cross-examination, however, was by no means over. The husband and wife were
+great talkers, and, like all great talkers, extremely curious, and could not be
+content until they had learned the private affairs of all those persons with
+whom they came in contact. They kept a little store, and each Saturday went
+into the country to get rid of the dust of the week; but they were making
+money, and some day would live altogether at Soisy-sous-Etiolles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that place far from Etiolles?&rdquo; asked Jack, with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, no, close by,&rdquo; answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut
+with his whip to his beast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have gone on
+in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary legs, and had a
+comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman&rsquo;s shawl, who asked him,
+every little while, if he was warm enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If he could but summon courage enough to say, &ldquo;I have told you a
+falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;&rdquo; but he was
+unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet, when
+they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could not restrain a
+sob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not cry, my little friend,&rdquo; said the kind woman; &ldquo;your
+mother, perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her
+well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the last house the carriage stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, this is it,&rdquo; said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind
+good-bye. &ldquo;How lucky you are to have finished your journey,&rdquo; said
+the woman; &ldquo;we have four good leagues before us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the garden-gate.
+&ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; said his new friends, &ldquo;good night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward the
+right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it with all his
+speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened by inadequate repose,
+refused all service. At the end of a few rods he could go no further, but sank
+on the roadside with a burst of passionate tears, while the hospitable
+proprietors of the carriage rolled comfortably on, without an idea of the
+despair they had left behind them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to think
+or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little boy sleeps
+quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and sees something
+monstrous&mdash;a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes that send forth
+a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving behind him a train like a
+comet&rsquo;s tail. A grove of trees, quite unsuspected by Jack, suddenly
+flashed out clearly; each leaf could have been counted. Not until this
+apparition was far away, and nothing of it was visible save a small green
+light, did Jack know that it was the express train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill and stiff
+in every limb. He had dreamed of Mâdou,&mdash;dreamed that they lay side by
+side in the cemetery; he saw Mâdou&rsquo;s face, and shivered at the thought of
+the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from this idea Jack
+resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened in the cold night wind,
+and his own footfall sounded in his ears so unnaturally heavy, that he fancied
+Mâdou was at his side or behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two. Another
+village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy plods on, with
+swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop. Occasionally he meets a huge
+covered wagon, driver and horses sound asleep. He asks, in a timid, tired
+voice, &ldquo;Is it far now to Etiolles?&rdquo; No answer comes save a loud
+snore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon, however, another traveller joins the child&mdash;a traveller whose
+praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of the
+frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety of
+expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the town
+where his mother was, the clouds divide&mdash;are torn apart suddenly, as it
+were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually broadens, with a
+waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light with a strength imparted
+by incipient delirium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting to
+welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and looked like a
+large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness. The road no longer
+dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth highway, without ditch or
+pavement, intended, it seemed, for the carriages of the wealthy. Superb
+residences, with grounds carefully kept, were on both sides of this road.
+Between the white houses and the vineyards were green lawns that led down to
+the river, whose surface reflected the tender blue and rosy tints of the sky
+above. O sun, hasten thy coming; warm and comfort the little child, who is so
+weary and so sad!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I far from Etiolles?&rdquo; asked Jack of some laborers who were
+going to their work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road straight
+on through the wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and the
+rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of wild roses was
+repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old oak-trees; the branches
+shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged creatures; and while the last of
+the shadows faded away, and the night-birds with silent, heavy flight hurried
+to their mysterious shelters, a lark suddenly rises from the field with its
+wings wide-spread, and flies higher and higher until it is lost in the sky
+above. The child no longer walks, he crawls; an old woman meets him, leading a
+goat; mechanically he asks if it is far to Etiolles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a little
+stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles over the
+pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he sees a steeple and
+a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will reach them. But he is dizzy
+and falls; through his half-shut eyes he sees close at hand a little house
+covered with vines and roses. Over the door, between the wavering shadows of a
+lilac-tree already in flower, he saw an inscription in gold letters:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PARVA  DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the blinds are
+still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are awake, for he hears a
+woman&rsquo;s voice singing,&mdash;singing, too, his own cradle-song, in a
+fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were thrown open, and a woman
+appeared in a white négligée, with her hair lightly twisted in a simple knot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mamma, mamma!&rdquo; cried Jack, in a weak voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor little
+worn and travel-stained lad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She screamed &ldquo;Jack!&rdquo; and in a moment more was beside him, warming
+him in her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out the
+anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"></a>
+CHAPTER IX.<br />
+PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go back
+to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I tell you that
+you shall never go there again, but shall always be with me. I will arrange a
+little room for you to-day, and you will see how nice it is to be in the
+country. We have cows and chickens, and that reminds me the poultry has not yet
+been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a while. I will wake you at dinner-time, but
+first drink this soup. It is good, is it not? And to think that while I was
+calmly sleeping, you were alone in the cold and dark night. I must go. My
+chickens are calling me;&rdquo; and with a loving kiss Ida went off on tiptoe,
+happy and bright, browned somewhat by the sun, and dressed with rather a
+theatrical idea of the proprieties. Her country costume had a great deal of
+black velvet about it, and she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, trimmed with
+poppies and wheat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by Mère Archambauld,
+his mother&rsquo;s cook, had restored his strength to a very great degree, and
+he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm, satisfied eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large, furnished
+in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the least gilding.
+Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the pigeons on the roof, and
+his mother&rsquo;s voice talking to her chickens, lulled him to repose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing troubled him: D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s portrait hung at the foot of
+the bed, in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child said to himself, &ldquo;Where is he? Why have I not seen him?&rdquo;
+Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue him either
+with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and her
+dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high heels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mère Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife of an
+employé in the government forests, who attended to the culinary department at
+Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack&rsquo;s mother lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heavens! how pretty your boy is!&rdquo; said the old woman, delighted by
+Jack&rsquo;s appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he not, Mère Archambauld? What did I tell you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa. Good
+day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well! if you can&rsquo;t sleep, let us go and look at the
+house,&rdquo; said his mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She
+shook down her skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which
+was situated a stone&rsquo;s throw from the village, and realized better than
+most poets&rsquo; dreams those of D&rsquo;Argenton. The house had been
+originally a shooting-box belonging to a distant château. A new tower had been
+added, and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense respectability
+to the place. They visited the stable and the orchard, and finished their
+examination by a visit to the tower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a large,
+round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular divan covered
+with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious old oaken chests, a
+Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high carved chair of the time of
+Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous table covered with papers, composed
+the furniture of the apartment. A charming landscape was visible from the
+windows, a valley and a river, a fresh green wood, and some fair meadow-land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is here that HE works,&rdquo; said his mother, in an awed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at her
+son,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I
+shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is very fond
+of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little severe sometimes.
+You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall be very unhappy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she spoke she looked at D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s picture hung at the end of
+this room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact, a
+portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the entrance-hall,
+and it was a most significant fact that there was no other portrait than his in
+the whole house. &ldquo;You promise me, Jack, that you will love him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack answered with much effort, &ldquo;I promise, dear mamma.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in that
+quaint old drawing-room. They heard Mère Archambauld rattling her dishes in the
+kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack sat and admired his
+mother. She thought him much grown and very large for his age, and they laughed
+and kissed each other every few minutes. In the evening they had some visitors.
+Père Archambauld came for his wife, as he always did, for they lived in the
+depths of the forest. He took a seat in the dining-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the health
+of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you sometimes into the
+forest?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of the poachers
+throughout the country, looked about the room with that restless glance
+acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and answered timidly,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I will, Madame d&rsquo;Argenton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This name of D&rsquo;Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little
+friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or dignities
+of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother&rsquo;s new title, and
+became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two dogs under the table. The
+old couple had just gone, when a carriage was heard at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it you, doctor?&rdquo; cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose
+arrival I have heard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy locks. The
+doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling walk, the result of
+twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through
+my servant, that he and you might require my services.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What good people these all were, and how thankful little Jack felt that he had
+forever left that detestable school!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother and child
+went tranquilly to their bedroom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D&rsquo;Argenton a long letter, telling
+him of her son&rsquo;s arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the
+little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her side.
+She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from her poet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness, and to
+the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less terrible than she
+had anticipated. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton concluded that it was well to be
+relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and while disapproving of the
+escapade, he thought it no great misfortune, as the Institution was rapidly
+running down. &ldquo;Had he not left it?&rdquo; As to the child&rsquo;s
+fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a week later, they would
+consult together as to what plan to adopt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of utter
+happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs and the goat, the
+forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his mother for many minutes at
+a time. He followed her wherever she went, laughed when she laughed without
+asking why, and was altogether content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another letter. &ldquo;He will come to-morrow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although D&rsquo;Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and wished
+to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused to permit him
+to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She gave him several
+injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each been guilty of some
+great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly mortifying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will remain at the end of the garden,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and do
+not come until I call you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the grinding of
+the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself behind the
+gooseberry bushes. He heard D&rsquo;Argenton speak. His tone was harder,
+sterner than ever. He heard his mother&rsquo;s sweet voice answer gently,
+&ldquo;Yes, my dear&mdash;no, my dear.&rdquo; Then a window in the tower
+opened. &ldquo;Come, Jack, I want you, my child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy&rsquo;s heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D&rsquo;Argenton
+was leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the dark
+wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to the little
+fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate to a certain extent.
+&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he said, in conclusion, &ldquo;life is not a romance; you
+must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your penitence; and if you
+behave well, I will certainly love you, and we three may live together happily.
+Now listen to what I propose. I am a very busy man.&mdash;I am, nevertheless,
+willing to devote two hours every day to your education. If you will study
+faithfully, I can make of you, frivolous as you are by nature, a man like
+myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You hear, Jack,&rdquo; said his mother, alarmed at his silence,
+&ldquo;and you understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for
+you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, mamma,&rdquo; stammered Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait, Charlotte,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton; &ldquo;he must
+decide for himself: I wish to force no one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to find
+words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying nothing. Seeing
+the child&rsquo;s embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him into the
+poet&rsquo;s arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, dear, how good you are!&rdquo; murmured the poor woman, while the
+child, dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In reality Jack&rsquo;s installation in the house was a relief to the poet. He
+loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also because he
+wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the name of Ida de
+Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her a complete slave. She
+had no will, no opinion of her own, and D&rsquo;Argenton had grown tired of
+being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he would have some one to
+contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to bully; and it was in this spirit
+that he undertook Jack&rsquo;s education, for which he made all arrangements
+with that methodical solemnity characteristic of the man&rsquo;s smallest
+actions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to the wall,
+and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a carefully prepared
+arrangement for the routine of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Rise at six</i>. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight,
+recitation; from eight to nine,&rdquo; and so on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose shutters
+hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light to see with.
+Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but D&rsquo;Argenton allowed
+no such laxity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s method of education was too severe for Jack, who was,
+however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in his
+studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to whom he had
+a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by the new life he was
+leading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the
+country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and charmed by
+Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside all books until the
+child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day, when he sat in the tower
+opposite his teacher, he was seized with a strong desire to leap out of the
+window, and rush into the fresh woods after the birds that had just flown away,
+or in search of the squirrel of which he had caught a glimpse. What a penance
+it was to write his copy, while the wild roses beckoned him to come and pluck
+them!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This child is an idiot,&rdquo; cried D&rsquo;Argenton, when to all his
+questions Jack stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if
+he had that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily watching.
+At the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished the task, that it
+was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no use to the boy, who
+neither could nor would learn anything. In reality, he was by no means
+unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had established, and which pressed with
+severity on himself as well as on the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no
+remonstrance. She preferred to think her boy incapable of study rather than
+endure the daily scenes, and the incessant lectures and tears of this
+educational experiment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as her
+intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future, however
+brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of present
+tranquillity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard:
+&ldquo;Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight,&rdquo;
+&amp;c. The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that
+his presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself for the
+whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to children and
+loungers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the morning
+he started for Father Archambauld&rsquo;s, just as the old man&rsquo;s wife,
+before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers, served her
+husband&rsquo;s breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light green paper
+that represented the same hunting-scene over and over again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started out on a
+long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants&rsquo; nests,
+with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the trees; the haunts
+of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the young kids. The
+hawthorn&rsquo;s white blossoms perfumed the air, and a variety of wild flowers
+enamelled the turf. The forester&rsquo;s duty was to protect the birds and
+their young broods from all injury, and to destroy the moles and snakes. He
+received a certain sum for the heads or tails of these vermin, and every six
+months carried to Corbiel a bag of dry and dusty relics. He would have been
+better pleased could he have taken also the heads of the poachers, with whom he
+was in constant conflict. He had also a great deal of trouble with the peasants
+who injured his trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a tree, the
+growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched them so carefully
+that he knew all their maladies. One species of fir was attacked by tiny worms,
+which come in some mysterious way by thousands. They select the strongest and
+handsomest specimens, and take possession of them. The trees have only their
+resinous sap as a weapon of defence. This sap they pour over their enemies, and
+over their eggs deposited in the crevices of the bark. Jack watched this
+unequal contest with the greatest interest, and saw the slow dropping of these
+odorous tears. Sometimes the fir-tree won the victory, but too often it
+perished and withered slowly, until at last the giant of the forest; whose
+lofty top had been the haunt of singing-birds, where bees had made their home,
+and which had sheltered a thousand different lives, stood white and ghastly as
+if struck by lightning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion talked
+very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable sounds about
+them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it touched. Among the
+pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the birches and aspens, it
+rattled the leaves like castanets; while from the borders of the ponds, which
+were numerous in this part of the forest, came gentle rustlings from the long,
+slender, silken-coated reeds. Jack learned to distinguish all these sounds and
+to love them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the peasants, who
+saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had sworn eternal hatred.
+Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats respectfully enough to Jack when
+they met him with Father Archambauld, but when he was alone, they shook their
+fists at him with horrible oaths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very dreams
+of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with her fagots on
+her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her tongue; and
+sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few steps. Poor little
+Jack often reached his mother&rsquo;s side breathless and terrified, but, after
+all, this only added another interest to his life. Sometimes Jack found his
+mother in the kitchen talking in a low voice; no sound was to be heard in the
+house save the ticking of the great clock in the dining-room. &ldquo;Hush, my
+dear,&rdquo; said his mother; &ldquo;He is up-stairs. He is at work!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With the
+awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he ought not
+to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, dear,&rdquo; exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother
+Archambauld, laying the table, moved on the points of her big feet&mdash;moved
+as lightly as possible, so as not to disturb &ldquo;her master who was at
+work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was heard up-stairs&mdash;pushing back his chair, or moving his table. He
+had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the title of
+his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that formerly he had
+said would enable him to make a reputation,&mdash;leisure, sufficient means,
+freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and country air. When he had had
+enough of the forest, he had but to turn his chair, and from another window he
+obtained an admirable view of sky and water. All the aroma of the woods, all
+the freshness of the river, came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him,
+unless it might be the cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now to work!&rdquo; cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized
+his pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion of
+the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful country about
+Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached by knots of
+rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around him every essential
+for poetry,&mdash;a charming woman named in memory of Goethe&rsquo;s heroine, a
+Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white goat to follow him from place
+to place, and an antique clock to mark the hours and to connect the prosaic
+Present with the romance of the Past! All these were very imposing, but the
+brain was as sterile as when D&rsquo;Argenton had given lessons all day and
+retired to his garret at night, worn out in body and mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Charlotte&rsquo;s step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression
+of profound absorption. &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; he said, in reply to her knock,
+timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to the
+elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face seemed to be
+the flour from some theatrical mill in an opéra bouffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have come to see my poet,&rdquo; she said, as she came in. She had a
+way of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. &ldquo;How are you
+getting on?&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;Are you pleased?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible
+profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to
+know&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his
+<i>Faust?</i> And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was not
+condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude&mdash;mental solitude, I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened to similar
+complaints from D&rsquo;Argenton, she had at last learned to understand the
+reproaches conveyed in his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet&rsquo;s tone signified, &ldquo;It is not you who can fill the blank
+around me.&rdquo; In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when
+alone with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him in this
+woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the luxury by which she was
+surrounded. Now that he had her all to himself&mdash;transformed and
+rechristened her, she had lost half her charm in his eyes, and yet she was more
+lovely than ever. It was amusing to witness the air of business with which he
+opened each morning the three or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke
+the seals as if he expected to find in their columns something of absorbing
+personal interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a
+resume of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these journals
+without missing one word, and always found something to arouse his contempt or
+anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces were played; and what
+pieces they were! Their books were printed; and such books! As for himself, his
+ideas were stolen before he could write them down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was produced;
+it was simply my <i>Pommes D&rsquo;Atlante</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur
+Angier,&rdquo; said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D&rsquo;Argenton lashed
+himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the heavy
+frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him very clearly
+that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth on the smallest
+provocation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></a>
+CHAPTER X.<br />
+THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon, when D&rsquo;Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack, who
+was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his usual
+excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges; distant
+rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of expectation
+which often precedes a storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fatigued by the child&rsquo;s restlessness, the forester&rsquo;s wife looked
+out at the weather, and said to Jack,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you to
+go and get me a little grass for my rabbits.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off to
+search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in clouds,
+when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, &ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell! Nice
+Panamas!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on his
+shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if he were
+footsore and weary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman must be? He
+knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can obtain the shelter
+of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a pedler, or any stranger,
+indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with distrustful eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo; For whose ears did he intend this repetition
+of his monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was it for
+the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm, had taken
+shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of stones, while Jack, on
+the other side of the road, examined him with much curiosity. His face was
+forbidding to a certain extent, but expressed so much suffering in the heavy
+features, that Jack&rsquo;s kind heart was filled with pity. At that moment a
+thunder-clap was heard; the man looked up at the skies anxiously, and then
+called to Jack to ask how far off the village was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half a mile exactly,&rdquo; answered the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the shower will be here in a few moments,&rdquo; said the pedler,
+despairingly. &ldquo;All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a kind act.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can come to our house,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and then your hats
+will not be injured.&rdquo; The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for
+his merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible; the
+man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you in pain?&rdquo; asked the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are so
+big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I should ever
+be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold of hats,
+and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the dining-room, saying,
+&ldquo;You must have a glass of wine and a bit of bread.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big loaf and a
+pot of wine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now a slice of ham,&rdquo; said Jack, in a tone of command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham,&rdquo; said the
+old woman, grumbling. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton was something of a glutton, and
+there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his especial
+enjoyment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind! bring it out!&rdquo; said the child, delighted at playing
+the part of host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The pedler&rsquo;s appetite was of the most
+formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple story. His name
+was Bélisaire, and he was the eldest of a large family, and spent the summer
+wandering from town to town.&mdash;A violent thunder-clap shook the house, the
+rain fell in torrents, and the noise was terrific. At that moment some one
+knocked. Jack turned pale. &ldquo;They have come!&rdquo; he said with a gasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was D&rsquo;Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not to
+have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they had given
+up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the poet was in a
+fearful rage with himself and every one else. &ldquo;A fire in the
+parlor,&rdquo; he said, in a tone of command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D&rsquo;Argenton
+perceived the formidable pile of hats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred
+feet under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The poet
+entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The child stammered
+a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it
+seems.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, Jack! Jack!&rdquo; cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not scold him, madame,&rdquo; stammered Bélisaire. &ldquo;I only am
+in fault!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here D&rsquo;Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most
+imposing gesture. &ldquo;Go at once,&rdquo; he said, violently; &ldquo;how dare
+you come into this house?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of
+remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress at the
+tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little Jack&mdash;who
+sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the Panamas,&mdash;and hurried
+down the garden walk. No sooner had the man reached the highway, than his
+melancholy voice resumed the cry, &ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a fire,
+and Charlotte was shaking the poet&rsquo;s coat, while he sulkily strode up and
+down the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler&rsquo;s
+knife had made sad havoc. D&rsquo;Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham
+was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. &ldquo;What! the
+ham, too!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically repeat
+his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was
+too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much yet, he
+is so young.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only beg
+pardon in a troubled tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon, indeed!&rdquo; cried the poet, giving way, as it must be
+admitted he rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently,
+exclaimed, &ldquo;What right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not
+yours. You know that nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the
+food you eat, you are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you? I
+know not even your name!&rdquo; Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte
+stopped the torrent of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room, and
+listening with eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed up stairs,
+banging the door after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her pretty
+hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done to merit such a
+hard fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and, naturally,
+her question remained unanswered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D&rsquo;Argenton was
+now taken with one of &ldquo;his attacks,&rdquo; a form of bilious fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The
+sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly nature, made
+her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How tenderly she protected
+his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the table under the white one to soften
+the noise of the plates and the silver. She piled the Henry II. chair with
+cushions, and had her rolls of hot flannels and her tisanes in readiness at all
+hours of the day and night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by a
+fretful exclamation from the poet. &ldquo;Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk too
+much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more. Charlotte
+met him in the hall. &ldquo;Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is
+suffering,&rdquo; she said, anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid tones,
+soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a new face, which
+made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a few moments later beheld
+him launched on some dazzling episode of his Parisian life. The doctor saw no
+reason to doubt the truth of these narrations told in such measured and careful
+phrases, and was always pleased with the appearance of the family,&mdash;the
+intellectual husband, the pretty gay wife, and the amusing child; and no
+intuition gave him a hint, as might have been the case with a more delicate
+organization, of the peculiarity and bitterness of the ties which bound the
+household together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor&rsquo;s horse was
+fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass carefully
+mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told of his wonderful
+adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears wide open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am
+quite sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;&rdquo; and
+the old man talked of his little Cécile, who was two years younger than Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring her to see us, doctor,&rdquo; said Charlotte; &ldquo;the two
+children would be so happy together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She
+never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere since
+our great sorrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his daughter
+and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some mystery surrounded
+this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld, who knew everything,
+contented herself with saying, &ldquo;Yes, poor things! they have had a great
+deal of trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, &ldquo;Keep him
+amused, madame; keep him amused!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little carriage;
+breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the forest; but he
+was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a tête-à-tête in the middle of the
+Seine was worse than one on shore; and the little boat soon lay moored at the
+landing, half full of water and dead leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an Italian
+terrace: but even this did not amuse him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of an
+AEolian harp. D&rsquo;Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic
+scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack&rsquo;s
+life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a soul in
+purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child&rsquo;s great relief, the
+poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the end of the garden;
+but its shrieks and moans were still heard. D&rsquo;Argenton fiercely commanded
+that the instrument should be buried, which was done, and the earth heaped upon
+it as over some mad animal. All these various occupations failing to amuse her
+poet, Charlotte reluctantly decided to invite some of his old friends, but was
+repaid for her sacrifice by witnessing D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s joy on being
+told that Dr. Hirsch and Labassandre were soon to visit them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of his old
+professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the sounds recalled
+the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped quietly into the garden, there
+to await the dinner-bell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, gentlemen,&rdquo; said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on
+the terrace,&mdash;her large white apron indicating that as a good housekeeper
+she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and take an
+active part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack as he
+took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large doors opened on
+the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a lucky fellow,&rdquo; said Labassandre. &ldquo;Tomorrow I shall
+be in that hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable
+dinner,&rdquo; grumbled Dr. Hirsch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not remain here for a time?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton,
+cordially. &ldquo;There is a room for each of you; the cellar has some good
+wine in it&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And we can make excursions,&rdquo; interrupted Charlotte, gayly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what would become of my rehearsals?&rdquo; said Labassandre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you, Dr. Hirsch,&rdquo; continued Charlotte, &ldquo;you are tied
+down to the opera-house!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this
+season.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no one
+laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, decide!&rdquo; cried the poet, &ldquo;In the first place, you
+would be doing me a favor, and could prescribe for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution, while
+I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute and of
+Moronval, and never wish to see either more.&rdquo; Thereupon the doctor
+launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported him. Moronval
+was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every one was giving him up;
+the affair of Mâdou had done him great injury; and finally Dr. Hirsch went so
+far as to compliment Jack on his energetic departure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was overjoyed at
+finding so gay and talkative a circle. &ldquo;You see, madame, I was right: our
+invalid only needed a little excitement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There I differ from you!&rdquo; cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the
+battle from afar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. &ldquo;Dr.
+Hirsch,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, &ldquo;allow me to present you to Dr.
+Rivals.&rdquo; They bowed like two duellists on the field who salute each other
+before crossing their swords. The country physician concluded his new
+acquaintance to be some famous Parisian practitioner, full of eccentricities
+and hobbies. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s illness was the occasion of a long
+discussion between the physicians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was droll to see the poet&rsquo;s expression. He was inclined to take
+offence that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and again to
+be equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a hundred diseases,
+each one with a worse name than the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is utter nonsense,&rdquo; cried Rivals, who had listened
+impatiently; &ldquo;there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if
+there were, our friend has no such symptoms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They hurled
+at each other titles of books in every language, names of every drug known and
+unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable than terrific, and was
+very much like one from &ldquo;Molière.&rdquo; Jack and his mother escaped to
+the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his voice. The winged
+inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the peacocks in the neighboring
+château answered by those alarmed cries with which they greet the approach of a
+thunder-shower; the neighboring peasants started from their sleep, and old
+Mother Archambauld wondered what was going on in the little house, where the
+moon shone so whitely on the legend in gold characters over the door:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"></a>
+CHAPTER XI.<br />
+CÉCILE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going so early?&rdquo; asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he
+saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the stairs,
+followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of Lord Pembroke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To church, my dear sir. Has not D&rsquo;Argenton told you that I have an
+especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being asked to
+distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats reserved for them on
+a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned with flowers. The choir-boys
+were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a rustic table the loaves of bread
+were piled high. To complete the picture, all the foresters, in their green
+costumes, with their knives in their belts and their carbines in their hands,
+had come to join in the Te Deum of this official fête.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one told her
+a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious festival in a
+village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse D&rsquo;Argenton, and that she
+would have all the consideration and prestige of a married woman. This new rôle
+amused and interested her. She corrected Jack, turned the pages of her
+prayer-book, and shook out her rustling silk skirts in the most edifying
+fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a halberd, came
+for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother&rsquo;s ear a question as to
+what little girl should be chosen to assist him; Charlotte hesitated, for
+&ldquo;she knew so few persons in the church. Then the Swiss suggested Dr.
+Rivals&rsquo; grandchild&mdash;a little girl on the opposite side sitting next
+an old lady in black. The two children walked slowly behind the majestic
+official, Cécile carrying a velvet bag much too large for her little fingers,
+and Jack bearing an enormous wax candle ornamented with floating ribbons and
+artificial flowers. They were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she
+simply dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and
+her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers mingled
+with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. Cécile
+presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave. The
+little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his own, reminded
+him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the forest. Did he dream
+that the little girl would be his best friend, and that, later, all that was
+most precious in life for him would come from her?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They would make a pretty pair,&rdquo; said an old woman, as the children
+passed her, and in a lower voice added, &ldquo;Poor little soul, I hope she
+will be more fortunate than her mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence of the
+hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in store for him. As
+they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame D&rsquo;Argenton and
+asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast. Charlotte colored
+high with gratification, straightened the boy&rsquo;s necktie, and, kissing
+him, whispered, &ldquo;Be a good child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old
+doctor&rsquo;s, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his
+neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a brass
+plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were black with
+age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that some attempts had
+been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of that nature had been
+interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and the old people had never had
+the heart to go on with their improvements since; an unfinished summer-house
+seemed to say, with a discouraged air, &ldquo;What is the use?&rdquo; The
+garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass grew over the walks, and weeds
+choked the fountain. The human beings in the house had much the same air. From
+Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her daughter&rsquo;s death, still wore
+the deepest of black, down to little Cécile, whose childish face had a
+precocious expression of sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter of a
+century had shared the griefs and sorrows of the family,&mdash;all seemed to
+live in an atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain
+intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was ever cheerful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Madame Rivals, Cécile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the child was
+a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the doctor, on the
+contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her mother&rsquo;s place,
+and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would give way to a loud and
+merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on meeting his wife&rsquo;s sad
+eyes, full of astonished reproach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Cécile&rsquo;s life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden,
+or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the apartment
+that had once been her mother&rsquo;s, and which was full of the souvenirs of
+that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this room, but little Cécile
+often stood on the threshold, awed and silent. The child had never been sent to
+school, and this isolation was very bad for her; she needed the association of
+other children. &ldquo;Let us ask little D&rsquo;Argenton here,&rdquo; said her
+grandfather: &ldquo;the boy is charming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they
+come?&rdquo; answered his wife. &ldquo;Who knows them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he is
+an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The woman is not
+quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will answer for their
+respectability.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
+husband&rsquo;s insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
+could possibly happen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cécile became close companions.
+The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw that he was neglected
+at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and that he had no lesson-hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you not go to school, my dear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, madame,&rdquo; was the answer; and then quickly added,&mdash;for a
+child&rsquo;s instinct is very delicate,&mdash;&ldquo;Mamma teaches me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot understand,&rdquo; said Madame Rivals to her husband,
+&ldquo;how they can let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from
+morning till night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The child is not very clever,&rdquo; answered the doctor, anxious to
+excuse his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack&rsquo;s best friends were in the doctor&rsquo;s house. Cécile adored him.
+They played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy if
+it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
+apothecary&rsquo;s store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself. She
+had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable experience,
+and was often consulted in her husband&rsquo;s absence. The children found vast
+amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles, and pasting on new ones.
+Jack did this with all a boy&rsquo;s awkwardness, while little Cécile used her
+hands as gravely and deftly as a woman grown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he went about
+the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large, the children small,
+so that the three were stowed in very comfortably, and merrily jogged over the
+rough roads. Wherever they went they were warmly welcomed, and while the doctor
+climbed the narrow stairs, the children roamed at will through the farm-yard
+and fields.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is never
+allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life. The animals
+must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to pasture in the morning,
+whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the wife has no time to nurse him,
+or even to be anxious. After a hard day&rsquo;s toil she throws herself on her
+pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn, while her good man tosses feverishly at
+her side, longing for morning. Every one worshipped the doctor, who they
+affirmed would have been very rich, had he not been so generous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for home.
+The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet occasional bars
+of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees, with their foliage heavily
+massed at the top, like palms, and the low white houses along the brink, gave a
+vague suggestion of an Eastern scene. &ldquo;It is like Nazareth,&rdquo; said
+little Cécile; and the two children told each other stories while the carriage
+rolled slowly homeward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
+intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to himself
+supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an hour&rsquo;s
+instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of enjoying a
+siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by the old man, when I
+add that it was this precise time that he now freely gave to the little boy,
+who, in his turn, gratefully applied himself with his whole heart to his
+lessons. Cécile was almost always present, and was as pleased as Jack himself
+when her grandfather, examining the copy-book, said, &ldquo;Well done!&rdquo;
+To his mother, Jack said nothing of his labors; he determined to prove to her
+at some future day that the diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This
+concealment was rendered very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more
+indifferent to her child, and more completely absorbed in D&rsquo;Argenton. The
+boy&rsquo;s comings and goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was
+often vacant, but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the board,
+for D&rsquo;Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means generous in
+his hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him, timidly, &ldquo;I am out
+of money, my friend,&rdquo; he would reply by a wry face and the word,
+&ldquo;Already?&rdquo; But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the pleasure
+of patronizing his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he had formerly lived,
+carried the day. They all knew that he had a pleasant home, that the air was
+good and the table better; consequently, one would say to another, &ldquo;Who
+wants to go to Etiolles to-night?&rdquo; They came in droves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor Charlotte was in despair. &ldquo;Madame Archambauld, are there
+eggs?&mdash;is there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give
+them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved,&rdquo;
+said the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
+her master&rsquo;s friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
+dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as happy and
+frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh country, in the full
+sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed more rusty and more worn than
+when seen in Paris; but they were happy, and D&rsquo;Argenton radiant. No one
+ventured to dispute his eternal &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; and &ldquo;I
+know.&rdquo; Was he not the master of the house, and had he not the key of the
+wine cellar?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
+Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She was
+flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was pleased to
+show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy mists of
+autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the fierce winds of
+March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and violets, gladdened the
+hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing was changed there.
+D&rsquo;Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms, dignified by Doctor
+Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as totally without salient
+characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as she had always been. Jack had
+grown and developed amazingly, and having studied industriously, knew quite as
+much as other boys of his age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send him to school now,&rdquo; said Doctor Rivals to his mother,
+&ldquo;and I answer for his making a figure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, doctor, how good you are!&rdquo; cried Charlotte, a little ashamed,
+and feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
+stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that he
+had grave objections to a school, &amp;c., and when alone with Charlotte,
+expressed his indignation at the doctor&rsquo;s interference, but from that
+time took more interest in the movements of the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here, sir,&rdquo; said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child
+obeyed somewhat anxiously. &ldquo;Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the
+foot of the garden?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was I, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cécile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had manufactured a
+most ingenious snare of steel wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you make it yourself, without any aid?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; answered the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is wonderful, very wonderful,&rdquo; continued the singer, turning to
+the others. &ldquo;The child has a positive genius for mechanics.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the evening there was a grand discussion. &ldquo;Yes, madame/,&rdquo; said
+Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; &ldquo;the man of the future, the coming
+man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs, and now
+it is the workman&rsquo;s turn. You may to-day despise his horny hands, in
+twenty years he will lead the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is right,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch
+nodded approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the
+conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion felt a
+keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village forge.
+&ldquo;You know, my friends,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;whether I have been
+successful. You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals. You may
+believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part with all sooner
+than with this;&rdquo; and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve and displayed an
+enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two blacksmith&rsquo;s hammers were
+crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an inscription was above these emblems
+in small letters: <i>Work and Liberty</i>. Labassandre proceeded to deplore the
+unhappy hour when the manager of the opera at Nantes had heard him sing. Had he
+been let alone, he would by this time have been the proprietor of a large
+machine shop, with a provision laid up for his old age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Charlotte, &ldquo;but you were very strong, and I have
+heard you say that the life was a hard one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in question
+is sufficiently robust.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will answer for that,&rdquo; said Dr. Hirsch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more refined
+than others&mdash;&ldquo;that certain aristocratic instincts&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here D&rsquo;Argenton interrupted her in a rage. &ldquo;What nonsense! My
+friends occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
+absurdities.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire to fly
+at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his pretty mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in his
+mother&rsquo;s manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him with
+that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom we are about
+to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D&rsquo;Argenton say to Dr.
+Rivals, with a satirical smile, &ldquo;We are all busy, sir, in your
+pupil&rsquo;s interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will
+astonish you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, &ldquo;You see, my dear, that
+I did well to make them open their eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good
+to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with folded
+arms than trouble himself about you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"></a>
+CHAPTER XII.<br />
+LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had brought
+Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the garden busy with
+his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice came from the window of
+the poet&rsquo;s room. Something in its tone, or a certain instinct so marked
+in some persons, told the child that the crisis had come, and he tremblingly
+ascended the stairs. On the Henri Deux chair D&rsquo;Argenton sat, throned as
+it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch stood on either side. Jack saw at
+once that there were the tribunal, the judge, and the witnesses, while his
+mother sat a little apart at an open window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here!&rdquo; said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
+dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself had
+spoken. &ldquo;I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have seen
+me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn has now come to
+enter the arena. You are a man,&rdquo;&mdash;the child was but
+twelve,&mdash;&ldquo;you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For
+a year,&mdash;the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,&mdash;I have
+permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of observation, I
+have been able to decide on your path in life. I have watched the development
+of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and, with your mother&rsquo;s consent,
+have taken a step of importance.&rdquo; Jack was frightened, and turned to his
+mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat gazing from the window, shading her
+eyes from the sun. D&rsquo;Argenton called on Labassandre to produce the letter
+he had received. The singer pulled out a large, ill-folded peasant&rsquo;s
+letter, and read it aloud:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;FOUNDRY D&rsquo;INDRET.<br />
+    &ldquo;My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to the young
+man, your friend&rsquo;s son, and he is willing, in spite of his youth, to
+accept him as an apprentice. He may live under our roof, and in four years I
+promise you that he shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and
+Zénaïde send messages.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;Rondic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You hear, Jack,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton; &ldquo;in four
+years you will hold a position second to none in the world,&mdash;you will be a
+good workman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen a noisy
+crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o&rsquo;clock in the
+<i>Passage des Douze Maisons</i>. The idea of wearing a blouse was the first
+that struck him. He remembered his mother&rsquo;s tone of
+contempt,&mdash;&ldquo;Those are workmen, those men in blouses!&rdquo;&mdash;he
+remembered the care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she
+passed. But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest,
+the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from the
+window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much and had
+found again after so much difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand dashed
+away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading away of all her
+dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then must I go away?&rdquo; asked the child, faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In a week we will go, my boy,&rdquo; said Labassandre, cheeringly. But
+D&rsquo;Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, &ldquo;You can
+leave the room now, and be ready for your journey in a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did not stop to
+take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who listened to his story
+with indignation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is preposterous!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;The very idea of making a
+mechanic of you is absurd. I will see your father at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The persons who saw the two pass through the street&mdash;the doctor
+gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat&mdash;concluded that some one must
+be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr. Rivals heard loud
+talking and laughing as he entered the house, and Charlotte, as she descended
+the stairs, was singing a bar from the last opera.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Rivals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are among friends,&rdquo; answered D&rsquo;Argenton, &ldquo;and have
+no secrets. You have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These
+gentlemen know all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar
+circumstances of the case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my friend &ldquo;&mdash;Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the
+explanation that was forthcoming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on, doctor,&rdquo; interrupted the poet, sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at
+Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in the least, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can have no conception of the child&rsquo;s nature, nor of his
+constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are
+trifling. I assure you, madame,&rdquo; he continued, turning toward Charlotte,
+&ldquo;that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking now simply
+of his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally unfitted for
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are mistaken, doctor,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton; &ldquo;I
+know the boy better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and
+now that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this way, of
+exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes complaints of
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and
+continued,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I
+told him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to
+reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I deny the degradation,&rdquo; shouted Labassandre. &ldquo;Manual labor
+does not degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once
+floated a vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some
+feast-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear madame,&rdquo; cried the
+doctor, exasperated out of all patience. &ldquo;To make your boy a mechanic is
+to separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the world,
+and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is too late; the
+day will come that you will blush for him, when he will appear before you, not
+as the loving, tender son, but humble and servile, as holding a social position
+far inferior to your own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of the
+future, started up from his seat in the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not be a mechanic!&rdquo; he said, in a firm voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, Jack!&rdquo; cried his mother, in consternation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But D&rsquo;Argenton thundered out, &ldquo;You will not be a mechanic, you say?
+But you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have had
+enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites.&rdquo; Then, suddenly
+cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the boy to retire to
+his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry discussion going on below,
+but the words were not to be understood. Suddenly the hall-door opened, and Mr.
+Rivals was heard to say,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the first time
+she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had laid aside her rôle
+of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had shed had been those that age
+a mother&rsquo;s face, and leave ineffaceable marks upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen to me, Jack,&rdquo; she said, tenderly. &ldquo;You have made me
+very unhappy. You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends. I
+know, my child, that you will be happy in your new life. I acknowledge that at
+first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard what they said, did you not? A
+mechanic is very different nowadays from what it was once. And, besides, at
+your age you should rely on the judgment of those older than yourself, who have
+only your interests at heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sob from the child interrupted her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you, too, send me away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. &ldquo;I
+send you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with me, you
+should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be reasonable, and
+think a little of the future, which is dreary enough for us.&rdquo; And then
+Charlotte hesitatingly continued, &ldquo;You know, dear, you are very young,
+and there are many things you cannot understand. Some day, when you are older,
+I will tell you the secret of your birth. It is an absolute romance: some day
+you shall learn your father&rsquo;s name. But now all that is necessary for you
+to understand is, that we have not a penny in the world, and are absolutely
+dependent on&mdash;D&rsquo;Argenton.&rdquo; This name the poor woman uttered
+with shame and hesitation, accompanied, at the same time, with a touching look
+of appeal to her son. &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;ask him to
+do anything more for us; he has already done so much. Besides, he is not rich.
+What am I to do between you both? Ah, if I could only go in your place to
+Indret and earn my bread! And yet you would refuse an opening that gives you a
+certainty of earning your livelihood, and of becoming your own master.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the sparkle in her boy&rsquo;s eyes the mother saw that these words had
+struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, &ldquo;Do this for me,
+Jack; do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to look to
+you as my sole support.&rdquo; Did she really believe her own words? Was it a
+presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that illuminate the
+future&rsquo;s dark horizon? or had she simply talked for effect?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this generous
+nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother some day would
+lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He looked her straight in
+the eyes. &ldquo;Promise me that you will never be ashamed of me when my hands
+are black, and that you will always love me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and
+remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey to
+remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized contraction of the
+heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and possibly from
+shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; said the little fellow to
+D&rsquo;Argenton, as he opened the door; &ldquo;I was very wrong in refusing
+your kindness. I accept it with thanks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now
+express your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are
+indebted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous paw of
+the artist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious than sad,
+and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little wrinkles on his
+childish brow. He was determined not to go away without seeing Cécile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not be
+suitable,&rdquo; remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack&rsquo;s
+departure, D&rsquo;Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans,
+consented that the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there in the
+evening. The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from the
+library&mdash;if library it could be called&mdash;a mere closet, crammed with
+books. The doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, &ldquo;I was
+afraid they would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was partially my
+fault. I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me well. She has gone
+away, you know, with Cécile, to pass a month in the Pyrenees with my sister.
+The child was not well; I think I told her of your impending departure too
+abruptly. Ah, these children! we think they do not feel, but we are mistaken,
+and they feel quite as deeply as we ourselves.&rdquo; He spoke to Jack as one
+man to another. In fact, every one treated him in the same way at present. And
+yet the little fellow now burst into a violent passion of tears at the thought
+of his little friend having gone away without his seeing her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+&ldquo;Well, I am selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in
+this way every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I do
+not think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do so, I am
+sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,&rdquo;&mdash;the old man
+kissed the boy twice,&mdash;&ldquo;for Cécile and myself,&rdquo; he said,
+kindly; and, as the door closed, the child heard him say, &ldquo;Poor child,
+poor child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words were the same as at the Jesuits&rsquo; College; but by this time Jack
+had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started, Labassandre in
+a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for an expedition across the
+Pampas,&mdash;high gaiters, a green velvet vest, a knapsack, and a knife in his
+girdle. The poet was at once solemn and happy: solemn, because he felt that he
+had accomplished a great duty; happy, because this departure filled him with
+joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. &ldquo;You will take good care
+of him, M. Labassandre?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As of my best note, madame.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of
+working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end of the
+garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his memory a last
+picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled through her tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Write often!&rdquo; cried the mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, &ldquo;Remember, Jack, life is not a
+romance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish egotist! He
+stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on Charlotte&rsquo;s
+shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself in a pose
+pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having won the day, that
+he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to the child he had driven
+from the shelter of his roof.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"></a>
+CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+INDRET.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, &ldquo;Is not the scene
+beautiful, Jack?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about four o&rsquo;clock&mdash;a July evening; the waves glittered in
+the sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the golden
+atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they were boats
+from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white salt. Peasants in
+their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the caps of the women were as
+white as the salt Other boats were laden with grain. Occasionally a
+three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream, arriving, perhaps, from the end
+of the world after a two years&rsquo; voyage, and bearing with it something of
+the poetry and mystery of other lands. A fresh breeze came from the sea, and
+made one long for the deep blue of the ocean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Indret&mdash;where is it?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, that island opposite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly a row of
+poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a thick black smoke;
+at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on iron, and a continual
+whistling and puffing, as if the island itself had been an enormous steamer. As
+the boat slowly made her way to the wharf, the child saw long, low buildings on
+every side, and close at the river-side a row of enormous furnaces, which were
+filled from the water by coal barges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is Rondic!&rdquo; cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous
+chest sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the clatter
+of machinery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled each
+other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His face was closely
+shaven, and he wore a sailor&rsquo;s hat that shaded a true Breton peasant face
+tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as steel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how are you all?&rdquo; asked Labassandre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new
+apprentice?&mdash;he looks very small and not over-strong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in
+Paris!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we
+must present ourselves to the Director at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue terminated in a
+village street, with white houses on both sides, inhabited by the master and
+head-workmen. At this hour all was silent; life and movement were concentrated
+at the factory; and, but for the linen drying in the yards, an occasional cry
+of an infant, and a pot of flowers at the window, one would have supposed the
+place uninhabited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, the flag is lowered!&rdquo; said the singer, as they reached the
+door. &ldquo;Once that terrified me!&rdquo; and he explained to Jack that when
+the flag was dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the
+factory were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were marked as
+absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now admitted by the
+porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the large halls which were
+crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of copper were piled between old
+cannons brought there to be recast. Rondic pointed out all the different
+branches of the establishment; he could not make himself understood save by
+gestures, for the noise was deafening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors being
+set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of arms and
+blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow, and then with a
+red light playing over their polished surface.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an impalpable
+black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled like
+diamonds,&mdash;all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic of the
+place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of an enormous beast to
+shake off the chains that bound him in some subterranean dungeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had now reached an old château of the time of the League.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here we are,&rdquo; said Rondic; and addressing his brother, &ldquo;Will
+you go up with us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see &lsquo;the
+monkey&rsquo; once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and knapsack.
+Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were small and
+badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In the inner room, a
+man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a high window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, it is you, Père Rondic!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you
+for&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have an
+absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very strong. Is he
+delicate?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
+robust.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remarkably,&rdquo; repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply
+to the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the
+manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes, I remember,&rdquo; answered the Director, coldly enough, rising
+at the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
+&ldquo;Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of
+him. Under you he must turn out well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat
+crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and then the
+two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with a different
+impression. Jack thought of the words &ldquo;he does not look very
+strong,&rdquo; while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best
+might. &ldquo;Has anything gone wrong?&rdquo; he suddenly asked his
+brother,&mdash;&ldquo;the Director seems even more surly now than in my
+day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister&rsquo;s son, who is
+giving us a great deal of trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way?&rdquo; asked the artist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Since his mother&rsquo;s death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted
+debts. He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends them
+before he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he breaks his
+promises as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for him several times,
+but I can never do it again. I have my own family, you see, and Zénaïde is
+growing up, and she must be established. Poor girl! Women have more sense than
+we. I wanted her to marry her cousin, but she would not consent. Now we are
+trying to separate him from his bad acquaintances here, and the Director has
+found a situation at Nantes; but I dare say the obstinate fellow will object.
+You will reason with him to-night, can&rsquo;t you? He will, perhaps, listen to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will see what I can do,&rdquo; answered Labassandre, pompously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with all
+classes of people, some in mechanics&rsquo; blouses, others wearing coats. Jack
+was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this to one in Paris,
+composed of similar classes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that he
+received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His theatrical
+costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone first on one side
+and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to first one and then another
+of his old friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the door of Rondic&rsquo;s house stood a young woman talking to a youth two
+or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man&rsquo;s daughter,
+and then remembered that he had married a second time. She was tall and
+slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white throat, and a graceful
+head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by its rich weight of hair. Unlike
+the Breton peasants, she wore no cap; her light dress and black apron were
+totally unlike the costume of a working woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she not pretty?&rdquo; asked Rondic of his brother. &ldquo;She has
+been giving a lecture to her nephew.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. &ldquo;I
+hope,&rdquo; she said to the child, &ldquo;that you will be happy with
+us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table, Labassandre
+said with a theatrical start, &ldquo;And where is Zénaïde?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will not wait for her,&rdquo; answered Rondic; &ldquo;she will be
+here presently. She is at work now at the château, for she has become a famous
+seamstress.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under
+control, if she can work at the Director&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said Labassandre,
+&ldquo;for he is such an arrogant, haughty person&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are very much mistaken,&rdquo; interrupted Rondic; &ldquo;he is, on
+the contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master has to
+manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a disciplinarian. Is not
+that so, Clarisse?&rdquo; and the old man turned to his wife, who, seemingly
+occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to him. A certain preoccupation was
+very evident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking at the door,
+came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who replied coldly to his
+greeting; thinking, possibly, of the remonstrances he had promised to lavish
+upon him. Zénaïde quickly followed: a plump little girl, red and out of breath;
+not pretty, and square in face and figure, she looked like her father. She wore
+a white cap, and her short skirts, and small shawl pinned over her shoulders,
+increased her general clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square chin
+indicated an unusual amount of firmness and decision, offering the strongest
+possible contrast to the gentle, irresolute expression of her
+stepmother&rsquo;s sweet face. Without a moment&rsquo;s delay, not waiting to
+detach the enormous shears that hung at her side, or to disembarrass herself of
+the needles and pins which glittered on her breast like a cuirass, the girl
+slipped into a seat next to Jack. The presence of the strangers did not abash
+her in the least. Whatever she had to say she said, simply and decidedly; but
+when she spoke to her cousin Chariot, it was in a vexed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left more than
+one scar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I wished them to marry each other,&rdquo; said Father Rondic, in a
+despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I made no objection,&rdquo; said the young man with a laugh, as he
+looked at his cousin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I did, then,&rdquo; answered the girl abruptly, frowning and
+unabashed. &ldquo;And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I
+should have drowned myself by this time!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the handsome
+cousin was silent and discomfited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid look of
+appeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, Chariot,&rdquo; said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation:
+&ldquo;to prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid
+place at Guérigny for you. You will have a better salary there than here, and
+&ldquo;&mdash;here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face of the
+youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to finish his
+phrase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!&rdquo;
+answered Chariot, roughly. &ldquo;But I do not agree with you. If the Director
+does not want me, let him say so,&mdash;and I will then look out for
+myself!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is right!&rdquo; cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the
+table. A hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zénaïde did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her stepmother,
+who was busy about the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you, mamma,&rdquo; said she at last, &ldquo;is it not your opinion
+that Chariot should go to Guérigny?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, certainly,&rdquo; answered Madame Rondic, quickly, &ldquo;I
+think he ought to accept the offer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot rose quickly from his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said, moodily, &ldquo;since every one wishes to get
+rid of me here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the
+meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and to each
+as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked their pipes, and
+talked and laughed loudly and roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack listened to them sadly. &ldquo;Must I become like these?&rdquo; he said to
+himself, with a thrill of horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the workshops.
+Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw his future
+apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white hands. Jack was
+very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls were cut, to be sure,
+but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the air of distinction
+characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated D&rsquo;Argenton, was more
+apparent in his present surroundings than in his former home. Labescam muttered
+that he looked like a sick chicken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O,&rdquo; said Rondic, &ldquo;it is only the fatigue of his journey and
+these clothes that give him that look;&rdquo; and then turning to his wife, the
+good man said,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he
+is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five
+o&rsquo;clock!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories, the
+first floor divided into two rooms&mdash;one called the parlor, which had a
+sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with damask
+curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zénaïde&rsquo;s room the bed was in
+the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak filled one side of
+the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over by rosaries of all kinds, made
+of ivory, shells, and American corn, completed the simple arrangements. In a
+corner, however, stood a screen which concealed the ladder that led to the loft
+where the apprentice was to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is my room,&rdquo; said Zénaïde, &ldquo;and you, my boy, will be up
+there just over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you
+please, I sleep too soundly to be disturbed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft, which
+even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in the roof was
+all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared Jack for strange
+sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his miseries: here he had no
+Mâdou, here he had nobody. The child looked about him. On the bed lay his
+costume for the next day; the large pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse
+looked as if some person had thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack said half aloud, &ldquo;It is I lying there!&rdquo; and while he stood,
+sadly enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at the
+same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Zénaïde and her
+stepmother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young girl&rsquo;s voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a
+man&rsquo;s; Madame Rondic&rsquo;s tones, on the contrary, were thin and
+flute-like, and seemed at times choked by tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he is going!&rdquo; she cried, with more passion than her ordinary
+appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Zénaïde spoke&mdash;remonstrating, reasoning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these people, but
+the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her as he looked at the
+sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long, shivering sigh and a sob,
+and found that Madame Rondic was looking out into the night, and weeping like
+himself, at a window below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of wine and
+ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And there, could his
+foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she have taken her child from
+his laborious task, for which he was so totally unfitted by nature and
+education. The regulations for lack of punctuality were very strict. The first
+offence was a fine, and the third absolute dismissal. Jack was generally at the
+door before the first sound of the bell; but one day, two or three months after
+his arrival on the island, he was delayed by the ill-nature of others. His hat
+had been blown away by a sudden gust of wind just as he reached the forge.
+&ldquo;Stop it!&rdquo; cried the child, running after it. Just as he reached
+it, an apprentice coming up the street gave the hat a kick and sent it on;
+another did the same, and then another. This was very amusing to all save Jack,
+who, out of breath and angry, felt a strong desire to weep, for he knew that a
+positive hatred toward him was hidden under all this apparent jesting. In the
+meantime the bell was sounding its last strokes, and the child was compelled to
+relinquish the useless pursuit. He was utterly wretched, for it was no small
+expense to buy a new cap; he must write to his mother for money, and
+D&rsquo;Argenton would read the letter. This was bad enough; but the
+consciousness that he was disliked among his fellow-workmen troubled him still
+more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack was one
+of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in his new
+abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard quick breathing
+behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and turning, he saw a
+smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended the missing cap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where had he seen that face? &ldquo;I have it!&rdquo; he cried at last; but at
+that moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler, to
+whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely shelter on
+that showery summer&rsquo;s day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child&rsquo;s spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands
+were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts of the
+past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother&rsquo;s house; he
+heard the low rumbling of the doctor&rsquo;s gig, and felt the fresh breeze
+from the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of the machine-shop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening he searched for Bélisaire, but in vain; again the next day, but
+could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face that had revived so
+many beautiful memories, in the child&rsquo;s sick heart faded and died away,
+and he was again left alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played
+practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and relaxation. Then,
+with one of Dr. Rivals&rsquo; books, Jack sought a quiet nook on the bank of
+the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks, where he sat quite
+concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the rush, the magic, and the
+extent of the water before him. The distant church-bells rang out praises to
+the Lord, and all was rest and peace. Occasionally a vessel drifted past, and
+from afar came the laughter of children at play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift his
+eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the water on
+the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his mother and his
+little friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at the
+Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zénaïde in particular. The old man felt
+a certain contempt for Jack&rsquo;s physical delicacy, and said the boy stunted
+his growth by his devotion to books, but &ldquo;he was a good little fellow all
+the same!&rdquo; In reality, old Rondic felt a great respect for Jack&rsquo;s
+attainments, his own being of the most superficial description. He could read
+and write, to be sure, but that was all; and since he had married the second
+Madame Rondic, he had become painfully conscious of his deficiencies. His wife
+was the daughter of a subordinate artillery officer, the belle and beauty of a
+small town. She was well brought up,&mdash;one of a numerous family, where each
+took her share of toil and economy. She accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the
+disparity of years and his lack of education, and entertained for her husband
+the greatest possible affection. He adored his wife, and would make any
+sacrifice for her happiness or her gratification. He thought her prettier than
+any of the wives of his friends,&mdash;who were all, in fact, stout Breton
+peasants, more occupied with their household cares than with anything else.
+Clarisse had a certain air about her, and dressed and arranged her hair in a
+way that offered the greatest contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of
+the country, who covered their hair with thick folds of linen, and concealed
+their figures with the clumsy fullness of their skirts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His house, too, was different from those about him. Behind the full white
+curtains stood a pot of flowers, sweet basil or gillyflowers, and the furniture
+was carefully waxed and polished; and Rondic was delighted, when he returned
+home at night, to find so carefully arranged a home, and a wife as neatly
+dressed as if it were Sunday. He never asked himself why Clarisse, after the
+house was in order for the day, took her seat at the window with folded hands,
+instead of occupying herself with needlework, like other women whose days were
+far too short for all their duties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He supposed, innocently enough, that his wife thought only of him while
+adorning herself; but the whole village of Indret could have told him that
+another occupied all her thoughts, and in this gossip the names of Madame
+Rondic and Chariot were never separated. They said that the two had known each
+other before Madame Rondic&rsquo;s marriage, and that if the nephew had wished
+he could have married the lady, instead of his uncle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the young fellow had no such desire. He merely thought that Clarisse was
+charmingly pretty, and that it would be very nice to have her for his aunt. But
+later, when they were thrown so much together, while Father Rondic slept in the
+arm-chair and Zénaïde sewed at the château, these two natures were irresistibly
+attracted toward each other. But no one had a right to make any invidious
+remark; they had, besides, always watching over them a pair of frightfully
+suspicious eyes, those of Zénaïde. She had a way of interrupting their
+interviews, of appearing suddenly, when least expected; and, however fatigued
+she might be by her day&rsquo;s work, she took her seat in the chimney-corner
+with her knitting. Zénaïde, in fact, played the part of the jealous and
+suspicious husband. Picture to yourself, if you please, a husband with all the
+instincts and clearsightedness of a woman!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The warfare between herself and Chariot was incessant, and the little outbursts
+served to conceal the real antipathy; but while Father Rondic smiled
+contentedly, Clarisse turned pale as if at distant thunder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zénaïde had triumphed: she had so managed at the château that the Director had
+decided to send Chariot to Guérigny, to study a new model of a machine there.
+Months would be necessary for him to perfect his work. Clarisse understood very
+well that Zénaïde was at the bottom of this movement, but she was not
+altogether displeased at Chariot&rsquo;s departure; she flung herself on
+Zénaïde&rsquo;s stronger nature, and entreated her protection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had understood for some time that between these two women there was a
+secret. He loved them both: Zénaïde won his respect and his admiration, while
+Madame Rondic, more elegant and more carefully dressed, seemed to be a remnant
+of the refinements of his former life. He fancied that she was like his mother;
+and yet Ida was lively, gay, and talkative, while Madame Rondic was always
+languid and silent. They had not a feature alike, nor was there any similarity
+in the color of their hair. Nevertheless, they did resemble each other, but it
+was a resemblance as vague and indefinite as would result from the same perfume
+among the clothing, or of something more subtile still, which only a skilful
+chemist of the human soul could have analyzed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes on Sunday, Jack read aloud to the two women and to Rondic. The parlor
+was the room in which they assembled on these occasions. The apartment was
+decorated with a highly colored view of Naples, some enormous shells, vitrified
+sponges, and all those foreign curiosities which their vicinity to the sea
+seemed naturally to bring to them. Handmade lace trimmed the curtains, and a
+sofa and an arm-chair of plush made up the furniture of the apartment. In the
+arm-chair Father Rondic took his seat to listen to the reading, while Clarisse
+sat in her usual place at the window, idly looking out. Zénaïde profited by her
+one day at home to mend the house-hold linen, disregarding the fact of the day
+being Sunday. Among the books given to Jack by Dr. Rivals was Dante&rsquo;s
+<i>Inferno</i>. The book fascinated the child, for it described a spectacle
+that he had constantly before his eyes. Those half naked human forms, those
+flames, those deep ditches of molten metal, all seemed to him one of the
+circles of which the poet wrote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One Sunday he was reading to his usual audience from his favorite book; Father
+Rondic was asleep, according to his ordinary custom, but the two women listened
+with fixed attention. It was the episode of Francesca da Rimini. Clarisse bowed
+her head and shuddered. Zénaïde frowned until her heavy eyebrows met, and drove
+her needle through her work with mad zeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those grand sonorous lines filled the humble roof with music. Tears stood in
+the eyes of Clarisse as she listened. Without noticing them, Zenaïde spoke
+abruptly as the voice of the reader ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a wicked, impudent woman,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;not only to
+relate her crime, but to boast of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true that she was guilty,&rdquo; said Clarisse, &ldquo;but she was
+also very unhappy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unhappy! Don&rsquo;t say that, mamma; one would think that you pitied
+this Francesca.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why should I not, my child? She loved him before her marriage, and
+she was driven to espouse a man whom she did not love.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Love him or not makes but little difference. From the moment she married
+him she was bound to be faithful. The story says that he was old, and that
+seems to me an additional reason for respecting him more, and for preventing
+other people from laughing at him. The old man did right to kill them,&mdash;it
+was only what they deserved!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke with great violence. Her affection as a daughter, her honor as a
+woman, influenced her words, and she judged and spoke with that cruel candor
+that belongs to youth, and which judges life from the ideal it has itself
+created, without comprehending in the least any of the terrible exigencies
+which may arise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse did not answer. She turned her face away, and was looking out of the
+window. Jack, with his eyes on his book, thought of what he had been reading.
+Here, amid these humble surroundings, this immortal legend of guilty love had
+echoed &ldquo;through the corridors of time,&rdquo; and after four hundred
+years had awakened a response. Suddenly through the open casement came a cry,
+&ldquo;Hats! hats to sell!&rdquo; Jack started to his feet and ran into the
+street; but quick as he was, Clarisse had preceded him, and as he went out, she
+came in, crushing a letter into her pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pedler was far down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bélisaire!&rdquo; shouted Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man turned. &ldquo;I was sure it was you,&rdquo; continued Jack,
+breathlessly. &ldquo;Do you come here often?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, very often;&rdquo; and then Bélisaire added, after a moment,
+&ldquo;How happens it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that
+pretty house?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such a
+gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have lingered
+there at the corner of the street for an hour, but Bélisaire said he was in
+haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was very
+pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you want of that man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had been
+talking of his parents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She uttered a sigh of relief. But that whole evening she was even quieter than
+usual, and her head seemed bowed by more than the weight of her blonde braids.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"></a>
+CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.</h2>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;Chateau des Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his
+brother a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you have been at
+Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you, nevertheless, but
+does not seem to think you adapted for your present life. We are all grieved to
+hear this, and feel that you are not doing all that you might do. M. Rondic
+also says that the air of the workshops is not good for you, that you are pale
+and thin, and that at the least exertion the perspiration rolls down your face.
+I cannot understand this, and fear that you are imprudent, that you go out in
+the evening uncovered, that you sleep with your windows open, and that you
+forget to tie your scarf around your throat. This must not be; your health is
+of the first importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I admit that your present occupation is not as pleasant as running wild
+in the forest would be, but remember what M. D&rsquo;Argenton told you, that
+&lsquo;life is not a romance.&rsquo; He knows this very well, poor
+man!&mdash;better, too, to-day, than ever before. You have no conception of the
+annoyances to which this great poet is exposed. The low conspiracies that have
+been formed against him are almost incredible. They are about to bring out a
+play at the Théâtre Français called &lsquo;<i>La Fille de Faust</i>&rsquo; It
+is not D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s play, because his is not written, but it is his
+idea, and his title! We do not know whom to suspect, for he is surrounded with
+faithful friends. Whoever the guilty party may be, our friend has been most
+painfully affected, and has been seriously ill. Dr. Hirsch fortunately was
+here, for Dr. Rivals still continues to sulk. That reminds me to tell you that
+we hear that you keep up your correspondence with the doctor, of which M.
+d&rsquo;Argenton entirely disapproves. It is not wise, my child, to keep up any
+association with people above your station; it only leads to all sorts of
+chimerical aspirations. Your friendship for little Cécile M. d&rsquo;Argenton
+regards also as a waste of time. You must, therefore, relinquish it, as we
+think that you would then enter with more interest into your present life. You
+will understand, my child, that I am now speaking entirely in your interest.
+You are now fifteen. You are safely launched in an enviable career. A future
+opens before you, and you can make of yourself just what you please.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your loving mother,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charlotte.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P. S. Ten o&rsquo;clock at night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dearest,&mdash;I am alone, and hasten to add a good night to my letter,
+to say on paper what I would say to you were you here with me now. Do not be
+discouraged. You know just what he is. <i>He</i> is very determined, and has
+resolved that you shall be a machinist, and you must be. Is he right? I cannot
+say. I beg of you to be careful of your health; it must be damp where you are;
+and if you need anything, write to me under cover to the Archambaulds. Have you
+any more chocolate? For this, and for any other little things you want, I lay
+aside from my personal expenses a little money every month. So you see that you
+are teaching me economy. Remember that some day I may have only you to rely
+upon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you knew how sad I am sometimes in thinking of the future! Life is
+not very gay here, and I am not always happy. But then, as you know, my sad
+moments do not last long. I laugh and cry at the same time without knowing why.
+I have no reason to complain, either. He is nervous like all artists, but I
+comprehend the real generosity and nobility of his nature. Farewell! I finish
+my letter for Mère Archambauld to mail as she goes home. We shall not keep the
+good woman long. M. d&rsquo;Argenton distrusts her. He thinks she is paid by
+his enemies to steal his ideas and titles for books and plays! Good night, my
+dearest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between the lines of this lengthy letter Jack saw two faces,&mdash;that of
+D&rsquo;Argenton, dictatorial and stern,&mdash;and his mother&rsquo;s, gentle
+and tender. How under subjection she was! How crushed was her expansive nature!
+A child&rsquo;s imagination supplies his thoughts with illustrations. It seemed
+to Jack, as he read, that his Ida&mdash;she was always Ida to her boy&mdash;was
+shut up in a tower, making signals of distress to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, he would work hard, he would make money, and take his mother away from
+such tyranny; and as a first step he put away all his books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said old Rondic; &ldquo;your books distract your
+attention.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the workshop Jack heard constant allusions made to the Rondic household, and
+particularly to the relations existing between Clarisse and Chariot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one knew that the two met continually at a town half-way between Saint
+Nazarre and Indret. Here Clarisse went under pretence of purchasing provisions
+that could not be procured on the island. In the contemptuous glances of the
+men who met her, in their familiar nods, she read that her secret was known,
+and yet with blushes of shame dyeing the cheeks that all the fresh breezes from
+the Loire had no power to cool, she went on. Jack knew all this. No delicacy
+was observed in the discussion of such subjects before the child. Things were
+called by their right names, and they laughed as they talked. Jack did not
+laugh, however. He pitied the husband so deluded and deceived. He pitied also
+the woman whose weakness was shown in her very way of knotting her hair, in the
+way she sat, and whose pleading eyes always seemed to be asking pardon for some
+fault committed. He wanted to whisper to her, &ldquo;Take care&mdash;you are
+watched.&rdquo; But to Chariot he would have liked to say, &ldquo;Go away, and
+let this woman alone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was also indignant in seeing his friend Bélisaire playing such a part in
+this mournful drama. The pedler carried all the letters that passed between the
+lovers. Many a time Jack had seen him drop one into Madame Rondic&rsquo;s apron
+while she changed some money, and, disgusted with his old ally, the child no
+longer lingered to speak when they met in the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire had no idea of the reason of this coolness. He suspected it so
+little, that one day, when he could not find Clarisse, he went to the
+machine-shop, and with an air of great mystery gave the letter to the
+apprentice. &ldquo;It is for madame; give it to her secretly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack recognized the writing of Chariot. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said at once;
+&ldquo;I will not touch this letter, and I think you would do better to sell
+your hats than to meddle with such matters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire looked at him with amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know very well,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;what these letters are;
+and do you think that you are doing right to aid in deceiving that old
+man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pedler&rsquo;s face turned scarlet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never deceived any one; if papers are given to me to carry, I carry
+them, that is all. Be sure of one thing, and that is, if I were the sort of
+person you call me, I should be much better off than I am today!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack tried to make him see the thing as he saw it, but evidently the man,
+however honest, was without any delicacy of perception. &ldquo;And I,
+too,&rdquo; thought Jack, suddenly, &ldquo;am of the people now. What right
+have I to any such refinements?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That Father Rondic knew nothing of all that was going on, was not astonishing.
+But Zênaïde, where was she? Of what was she thinking?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zénaïde was on the spot,&mdash;more than usual, too, for she had not been at
+the château for a month. Her eyes were also widely open, and were more keen and
+vivacious than ever, for Zénaïde was about to be married to a handsome young
+soldier attached to the customhouse at Nantes, and the girl&rsquo;s dowry was
+seven thousand francs. Père Rondic thought this too much, but the soldier was
+firm. The old man had made no provision for Clarisse. If he should die, what
+would become of her?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But his wife said, &ldquo;You are yet young&mdash;we will be economical. Let
+the soldier have Zénaïde and the seven thousand francs, for the girl loves
+him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zénaïde spent a great deal of time before her mirror. She did not deceive
+herself. &ldquo;I am ugly, and M. Maugin will not marry me for my beauty, but
+let him marry me, and he shall love me later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the girl gave a little nod, for she knew the unselfish devotion of which
+she was capable, the tenderness and patience with which she would watch over
+her husband. But all these new interests had so absorbed her that Zénaïde had
+partially forgotten her suspicions; they returned to her at intervals, while
+she was sewing on her wedding-dress, but she did not notice her mother&rsquo;s
+pallor nor uneasiness, nor did she feel the burning heat of those slender
+hands. She did not notice her long and frequent disappearances, and she heard
+nothing of what was rumored in the town. She saw and heard nothing but her own
+radiant happiness. The banns were published, the marriage-day fixed, and the
+little house was full of the joyous excitement that precedes a wedding. Zénaïde
+ran up and down stairs twenty times each day with the movements of a young
+hippopotamus. Her friends came and went, little gifts were pouring in, for the
+girl was a great favorite in spite of her occasional abruptness. Jack wished to
+make her a present; his mother had sent him a hundred francs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This money is your own, my Jack,&rdquo; Charlotte wrote. &ldquo;Buy with
+it a gift for M&rsquo;lle Rondic, and some clothes for yourself. I wish you to
+make a good appearance at the wedding, and I am afraid that your wardrobe is in
+a pitiable condition. Say nothing about it in your letters, nor of me to the
+Rondics. They would thank me, which would be an annoyance, and bring me a
+reproof besides.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two days Jack carried this money with pride in his pocket. He would go to
+Nantes and buy a new suit. What a delight it would be! and how kind his mother
+was! One thing troubled him: What could he purchase for Zénaïde; he must first
+see what she had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So thinking one dark night, as he entered the house, he ran against some one
+who was coming down the steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that you, Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no reply, but as Jack pushed open the door, he saw that he was not
+mistaken, that Bélisaire had been there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse was in the corridor, shivering with the cold, and so absorbed by the
+letter she was reading in the gleam of light from the half open door of the
+parlor, that she did not even look up as Jack went in. The letter evidently
+contained some startling intelligence, and the boy suddenly remembered having
+that day heard that Chariot had lost a large sum of money in gambling with the
+crew of an English ship that had just arrived at Nantes from Calcutta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the parlor Zénaïde and Maugin were alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Père Rondic had gone to Chateaubriand and would not return until the next day,
+which did not prevent her future husband from dining with them. He sat in the
+large arm-chair, his feet comfortably extended. While Zénaïde, carefully
+dressed, and her hair arranged by her stepmother, laid the table, this calm and
+reasonable lover entertained her by an estimate of the prices of the various
+grains, indigos, and oils that entered the port of Nantes. And such a wonderful
+prestidigitateur is love that Zénaïde was moved to the depths of her soul by
+these details, and listened to them as to music.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack&rsquo;s entrance disturbed the lovers. &ldquo;Ah, here is Jack! I had no
+idea it was so late!&rdquo; cried the girl. &ldquo;And mamma, where is
+she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse came in, pale but calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor woman!&rdquo; thought Jack, as he watched her trying to smile, to
+talk, and to eat, swallowing at intervals great draughts of water, as if to
+choke down some terrible emotion. Zénaïde was blind to all this. She had lost
+her own appetite, and watched her soldier&rsquo;s plate, seeming delighted at
+the rapidity with which the delicate morsels disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maugin talked well, and ate and drank with marvellous appetite; he weighed his
+words as carefully as he did the square bits into which he cut his bread; he
+held his wine-glass to the light, testing and scrutinizing it each time he
+drank. A dinner, with him, was evidently a matter of importance as well as of
+time. This evening it seemed as if Clarisse could not endure it; she rose from
+the table, went to the window, listened to the rattling of the hail on the
+glass, and then turning round, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a night it is, M. Maugin! I wish you were safely at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t, then!&rdquo; cried Zénaïde, so earnestly that they all
+laughed. But the remark made by Clarisse bore its fruit, and the soldier rose
+to go. But it took him some time to get off. There was his lantern to light,
+his gloves to button; and the girl took all these duties on herself. At last
+the soldier was in readiness; his hood was pulled over his eyes, a scarf wound
+about his throat, then Zénaïde said good night, and watched her
+Esquimau-looking lover somewhat anxiously down the street. What perils might he
+not have to run in that thick darkness!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her stepmother called her impatiently. The nervous excitement of Clarisse had
+momentarily increased. Jack had noticed this, and also that she looked
+constantly at the clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How cold it must be to-night on the Loire,&rdquo; said Zénaïde.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cold, indeed!&rdquo; answered Clarisse, with a shiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, as the clock struck ten, &ldquo;let us go to
+bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then seeing that Jack was about to lock the outer door as usual, she stopped
+him, saying,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have done it myself. Let us go up stairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Zénaïde had not finished talking of M. Maugin. &ldquo;Do you like his
+moustache, Jack?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you go to bed?&rdquo; asked Madame Rondic, pretending to laugh, but
+trembling nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the three are on the narrow staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; said Clarisse; &ldquo;I am dying with sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But her eyes were very bright. Jack put his foot on his ladder, but
+Zénaïde&rsquo;s room was so crowded with her gifts and purchases, that it
+seemed to him a most auspicious occasion to pass them in review. Friends had
+had them under examination, and they were still displayed on the commode: some
+silver spoons, a prayer-book, gloves, and all about tumbled bits of paper and
+the colored ribbon that had fastened these gifts from the château; then came
+the more humble presents from the wives of the employés. Zénaïde showed them
+all with pride. The boy uttered exclamations of wonder. &ldquo;But what shall I
+give her?&rdquo; he said to himself over and over again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And my trousseau, Jack, you have not seen it! Wait, and I will show it
+to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a quaint old key she opened the carved wardrobe that had been in the
+family for a hundred years; the two doors swung open, a delicious violet
+perfume filled the room, and Jack could see and admire the piles of sheets spun
+by the first Madame Rondic, and the ruffled and fluted linen piled in snowy
+masses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In fact, Jack had never seen such a display. His mother&rsquo;s wardrobe held
+laces and fine embroideries, not household articles. Then, lifting a heavy
+pile, she showed Jack a casket. &ldquo;Guess what is in this,&rdquo; Zénaïde
+said, with a laugh; &ldquo;it contains my dowry, my dear little dowry, that in
+a fortnight will belong to M. Maugin. Ah, when I think of it, I could sing and
+dance with joy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the girl held out her skirts with each hand, and executed an elephantine
+gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand. Suddenly she stopped;
+some one had rapped on the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let the boy go to bed,&rdquo; said her stepmother in an irritated tone;
+&ldquo;you know he must be up early.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little ashamed, the future Madame Maugin shut her wardrobe, and said good
+night to Jack, who ascended his ladder; and five minutes later the little
+house, wrapped in snow and rocked by the wind, slept like its neighbors in the
+silence of the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is no light in the parlor of the Rondic mansion save that which comes
+from the fitful gleam of the dying fire in the chimney. A woman sat there, and
+at her feet knelt a man in vehement supplication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I entreat you,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;if you love me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If she loved him! Had she not at his command left the door open that he might
+enter? Had she not adorned herself in the dress and ornaments that he liked, to
+make herself beautiful in his eyes? What could it be that he was asking her now
+to grant to him? How was it that she, usually so weak, was now so strong in her
+denials? Let us listen for a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she answered, indignantly, &ldquo;it is
+impossible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I only ask it for two days, Clarisse. With these six thousand francs
+I will pay the five thousand I have lost, and with the other thousand I will
+conquer fortune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him with an expression of absolute terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;it cannot be. You must find some
+other way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there is none.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen. I have a rich friend; I will write to her and ask her to lend me
+the money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I must have it to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, find the Director; tell him the truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he will dismiss me instantly. No; my plan is much the best. In two
+days I will restore the money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You only say that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I swear it.&rdquo; And, seeing that his words did not convince her, he
+added, &ldquo;I had better have said nothing to you, but have gone at once to
+the wardrobe and taken what I needed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she answered, trembling, for she feared that he would yet do this,
+&ldquo;Do you not know that Zénaïde counts her money every day? This very night
+she showed the casket to the apprentice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot started. &ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; the poor girl is very happy. It would kill her to lose it. Besides,
+the key is not in the wardrobe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly perceiving that she was weakening her own position, she was silent.
+The young man was no longer the supplicating lover, he was the spoiled child of
+the house, imploring his aunt to save him from dishonor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through her tears she mechanically repeated the words, &ldquo;It is
+impossible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he rose to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will not? Very good. Only one thing remains then. Farewell! I will
+not survive disgrace.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He expected a cry. No; she came toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wish to die! Ah, well, so do I! I have had enough of life, of shame,
+of falsehood, and of love&mdash;love that must be concealed with such care that
+I am never sure of finding it. I am ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He drew back. &ldquo;What folly!&rdquo; he said, sullenly. &ldquo;This is too
+much,&rdquo; he added, vehemently, after a moment&rsquo;s silence, and hurried
+to the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed him. &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave me!&rdquo; he said, roughly. She snatched his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care!&rdquo; she whispered with quivering lips. &ldquo;If you take
+one more step in that direction, I will call for assistance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call, then! Let the world know that your nephew is your lover, and your
+lover a thief.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hissed these words, in her ear, for they both spoke very low, impressed, in
+spite of themselves, by the silence and repose of the house. By the red light
+of the dying fire he appeared to her suddenly in his true colors, just what he
+really was, unmasked by one of those violent emotions which show the inner
+workings of the soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She saw him with his keen eyes reddened by constant examination of the cards;
+she thought of all she had sacrificed for this man; she remembered the care
+with which she had adorned herself for this interview. Suddenly she was
+overwhelmed by profound disgust for herself and for him, and sank,
+half-fainting, on the couch; and while the thief crept up the familiar
+staircase, she buried her face in the pillows to stifle her cries and sobs, and
+to prevent herself from seeing and hearing anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The streets of Indret were as dark as at midnight, for it was not yet six
+o&rsquo;clock. Here and there a light from a baker&rsquo;s window or a
+wine-shop shone dimly through the thick fog. In one of these wineshops sat
+Chariot and Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another glass, my boy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more, thank you. I fear it would make me very ill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot laughed. &ldquo;And you a Parisian! Waiter, bring more wine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy dared make no farther objection. The attentions of which he was the
+object flattered him immensely. That this man, who for eighteen months had
+never vouchsafed him any notice, should, meeting him by chance that morning in
+the streets, have invited him to the cabaret and treated him, was a matter of
+surprise and congratulation to himself. At first Jack was somewhat distrustful
+of such courtesy, for the other had such a singular way of repeating his
+question, &ldquo;Is there nothing new at the Rondics? Really, nothing
+new?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; thought the apprentice, &ldquo;if he wishes me to carry
+his letters, instead of Bélisaire!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But after a little while the boy became more at ease. Perhaps Chariot, he
+thought, may not be such a bad fellow. A good friend might induce him to
+relinquish play, and make him a better man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After Jack had taken his third glass of wine, he became very cordial, and
+offered to become this good friend. Chariot accepting the offer with
+enthusiasm, the boy thought himself justified in at once offering his advice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, M. Chariot, listen to me, and don&rsquo;t play any
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blow struck home, for the young man&rsquo;s lips trembled nervously, and he
+swallowed a glass of brandy at one gulp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the factory-bell sounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; cried Jack, starting to his feet. And, as his friend
+had paid for the first and second wine they had drank, he considered it
+essential that he should now pay in his turn; so he drew a louis from his
+pocket, and tossed it on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo! a yellow boy!&rdquo; said the barkeeper, unaccustomed to seeing
+such in the possession of apprentices. Chariot started, but made no remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had Jack been to the wardrobe also?&rdquo; he said to himself. The boy
+was delighted at the sensation he had created. &ldquo;And I have more of the
+same kind,&rdquo; he added, tapping his pocket. And then he whispered in his
+companion&rsquo;s ear, &ldquo;It is for a present that I mean to buy
+Zénaïde.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot said, mechanically, &ldquo;Is it?&rdquo; and turned away with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The innkeeper fingered the gold piece with some uneasiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurry,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;or I shall be late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish, my boy,&rdquo; said Chariot, &ldquo;that you could have remained
+with me until my boat left, which will not be for an hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he gently drew the lad toward the Loire. It was easily done, for, coming
+out from the cabaret into the cold air, the wine the child had drank made him
+giddy. It seemed to him that his head weighed a thousand pounds. This did not
+last long, however. &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the bell has stopped, I
+think.&rdquo; They turned back. Jack was terrified, for it was the first time
+that he had ever been late at the Works. But Chariot was in despair. &ldquo;It
+is my fault,&rdquo; he reiterated. He declared that he would see the Director
+and explain matters, and was altogether so utterly miserable, that Jack was
+obliged to console him by saying that it was of no great consequence, after
+all; that he could afford to be marked &lsquo;absent&rsquo; for once. &ldquo;I
+will go with you to the boat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was so gratified by what he believed to be the good effect of his words
+on Chariot, that he enlarged on the noble nature of Père Rondic and of
+Clarisse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, had you seen her this morning, you would have pitied her. She was so
+pale that she looked as if she were dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she ate nothing. I am afraid she will be ill. And she never
+spoke.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor woman!&rdquo; said Chariot, with a sigh of relief which Jack took
+for one of sorrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They reached the wharf. The boat was not there. A thick fog covered the river
+from one shore to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go in here,&rdquo; said Chariot It was a little wooden shed,
+intended as a shelter for workmen while waiting in bad weather. Clarisse knew
+this shed very well, and the old woman who sold brandy and coffee in the corner
+had seen Madame Rondic many a time when she crossed the Loire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us take a drop of brandy to keep out the cold,&rdquo; said Chariot.
+At that moment a shrill whistle was heard; it was the boat for Saint Nazarre.
+&ldquo;Good-bye, Jack, and a thousand thanks for your good advice!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mention it,&rdquo; said the lad, heartily; &ldquo;but pray
+give up gambling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I will,&rdquo; answered the other, hurrying on board to hide
+his amusement. When Jack was again alone he felt no desire to return to the
+Works; he was in a state of unusual excitement. Even the heavy fog hanging over
+the Loire interested him. Suddenly he said to himself, &ldquo;Why do I not go
+to Nantes and buy Zénaïde&rsquo;s gift to-day?&rdquo; A few moments saw him on
+the way; but as there was no train until noon, he must wait for some time, and
+was compelled to pass that time in a room where there were several of the old
+employés of the Works, who had been discharged for various misdemeanors. They
+received the lad civilly enough, and listened attentively when he took up some
+remark that was made, and uttered some platitudes, stolen from
+D&rsquo;Argenton, on the rights of labor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; they said to each other; &ldquo;it is easy to see that
+the boy comes from Paris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, excited by this applause and sympathy, talked fast and freely. Suddenly
+the room swam around&mdash;all grew dark. A fresh breeze restored him to
+consciousness. He was seated on the bank of the river, and a sailor was bathing
+his forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you better?&rdquo; said the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, much better,&rdquo; answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then go on board.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go where?&rdquo; said the apprentice, in amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for provisions?
+And here comes the man with them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any point; he
+embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left, with which he could
+buy some little souvenir for Zénaïde, so that his trip to Nantes would not be
+thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted with a poor enough appetite, and sat at
+the end of the boat, wrapped in thought. He dreamily recalled books that he had
+read&mdash;tales of strange adventures on the sea; but why did a certain old
+volume of Robinson Crusoe persistently come before him? He saw the rubbed and
+yellowed page, the vignette of Robinson in his hammock surrounded by drunken
+sailors, and above it the inscription, &ldquo;And in a night of debauch I
+forgot all my good resolutions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and by a pair
+of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was annoyed by this
+gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Drink with me, captain!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, &ldquo;Let him
+alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled things for him;
+he thought you had more money than you ought to have!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his money
+was his own, that it had been given him by&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;. Here he
+stopped, remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention her name.
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I can have more money when I wish it,
+and I am going to buy a wedding present for Zénaïde.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He talked on, but no one listened, for a grand dispute between the two men was
+well under way as to the place where they should land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last they entered the harbor of Nantes. Old houses, with carved fronts and
+stone balconies, met his eyes, crowded as it were among the shipping at the
+wharves. Large vessels lay at anchor in the harbor, looking to the boy like
+captives who panted for liberty, sunshine, and space. Then he thought of Mâdou,
+of his flight and concealment among the cargo in the hold. But this thought was
+gone in a moment, and he found himself on shore between his two companions,
+whom he soon loses and finds again. They cross one bridge, and then another,
+and wander with neither end nor aim. They drink at intervals; night comes, and
+the boy accompanies the sailors to a low dance-house, still in the strange
+excitement in which he has been all day. Finally, he finds himself alone on a
+bench, in a public square, in a state of exhaustion that is far from sleep. The
+profound solitude terrifies him, when suddenly he hears the well-known
+cry,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hats! hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bélisaire!&rdquo; called the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Bélisaire. Jack made a futile effort at explanation. The man scolded the
+boy gently, lifted him up, and led him away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where are they going? And who comes here? and what do they want of him? Rough
+men accost him; they shake him and put irons on his wrists, and he cannot
+resist, for he is still more than half asleep. He sleeps in the wagon into
+which he is thrust; in the boat, where he lies utterly inert; and how happy he
+is after being thus buffeted about to finally throw himself on a straw pallet,
+shut out from all further disturbance by huge locks and bolts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning a frightful noise over his head awoke Jack suddenly. Ah, what a
+dismal awakening is that of drunkenness! The nervous trembling in every limb,
+the intense thirst and exhaustion, the shame and inexpressible anguish of the
+human being seeing himself reduced to the level of a beast, and so disgusted
+with his tarnished existence that he feels incapable of beginning life again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was still too dark to distinguish objects, but he knew that he was not in
+his little attic. He caught a glimpse of the coming dawn in the white light
+from two high windows. Where was he? In the corner he began to see a confused
+mass of cords and pulleys. Suddenly he heard the same noise that had awakened
+him: it was a clock, and one that he well knew. He was at Indret, then, but
+where?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Could it be that he was shut in the tower where refractory apprentices were
+occasionally put? And what had he done? He tried to recall the events of the
+day before, and, confused as his mind still was, he remembered enough to cover
+him with shame. He groaned heavily. The groan was answered by a sigh from the
+corner. He was not alone, then!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo; asked Jack, uneasily; &ldquo;is it
+Bélisaire?&rdquo; he added. But why should Bélisaire be there with him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it is I,&rdquo; answered the man, in a tone of desperation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the name of heaven tell me why we are shut up here like two
+criminals?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What other people have been doing I can&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; muttered
+the old man; &ldquo;I only speak for myself, and I have done no harm to any
+one. My hats are ruined,&mdash;and I, too, for that matter!&rdquo; continued
+Bélisaire, dolefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what have I done?&rdquo; asked Jack, for he could not imagine that
+among the many follies of which he had been guilty there was one more grave
+than another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say&mdash;But why do you make me tell you? You know well enough
+what they say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, I do not; pray, go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they say that you have stolen Zénaïde&rsquo;s dowry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy uttered an exclamation of horror. &ldquo;But you do not believe this,
+Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man did not answer. Every one at Indret thought Jack guilty. Every
+circumstance was against the boy. On the first report of the robbery, Jack was
+looked for, but was not to be found. Chariot had very well managed matters. All
+along the road there were traces of the robbery in the gold pieces displayed so
+liberally. Only one thing disturbed the belief of the boy&rsquo;s guilt in the
+minds of the villagers: what could he have done with the six thousand francs?
+Neither Bélisaire&rsquo;s pocket nor his own displayed any indication that such
+a sum of money had been in their possession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon after daybreak the superintendent sent for the prisoners. They were
+covered with mud, and were unwashed and unshorn; yet Jack had a certain grace
+and refinement in spite of all this; but Bélisaire&rsquo;s naturally ugly
+countenance was so distorted by grief and anxiety, that, as the two appeared,
+the spectators unanimously decided that this gentle-looking child was the mere
+instrument of the wretched being with whom he was unfortunately connected. As
+Jack looked about he saw several faces which seemed like those of some terrible
+nightmare, and his courage deserted him. He recognized the sailors, and the
+proprietors of several of the wineshops, with many others of those whom he had
+seen on that disastrous yesterday. The child begged for a private interview
+with the superintendent, and was admitted to the office, where he found Father
+Rondic, whom Jack went forward at once to greet with extended hand. The old man
+drew back sadly but resolutely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out of regard for your youth, Jack,&rdquo; said the Director, &ldquo;and
+from respect to your parents, and in consideration of your hitherto good
+behavior, I have begged that, instead of being carried to Nantes and placed in
+prison, you shall remain here. I now tell you that it is for you to decide what
+will be done. Tell me the truth. Tell Father Rondic and myself what you have
+done with the money, give him back what is left, and&mdash;no, do not interrupt
+me,&rdquo; continued the Director, with a frown. &ldquo;Return the money, and I
+will then send you to your parents.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Bélisaire attempted to speak. &ldquo;Be quiet, fellow!&rdquo; said the
+superintendent; &ldquo;I cannot understand how you can have the audacity to
+speak. We believe you to be in reality the guilty party, and that this child
+has simply been your tool.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack wished to protest against this condemnation of his friend; but old Rondic
+gave him no time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are quite right, sir, it is bad company that has led the lad astray.
+Everybody loved him in my house; we had every confidence in him until he met
+this miserable wretch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire looked so heart-broken at this wholesale condemnation that Jack
+rushed boldly forward in his defence. &ldquo;I assure you, sir, that I met
+Bélisaire late in the day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean,&rdquo; said the superintendent, &ldquo;that you committed
+this robbery all alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have done no wrong, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care, my lad&mdash;you are going down hill with rapidity. Your
+guilt is very evident, and it is useless to deny it. You were alone with the
+Rondic women in their house all night. Zénaïde showed you the casket, and even
+showed you where it was kept. In the night she heard some one moving in your
+attic; she spoke; naturally you made no reply. She knew that it must be you,
+for there was no one else in the house. Then you must remember that we know how
+much money you threw away yesterday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was about to say, &ldquo;My mother sent it to me,&rdquo; when he
+remembered that she had forbidden him to mention this. So he hesitatingly
+murmured that he had been saving his money for some time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What nonsense!&rdquo; cried the Director. &ldquo;Do you think you can
+make us believe that with your small wages you could have laid aside the amount
+you squandered yesterday? Tell the truth, my lad, and repair the evil you have
+done as well as possible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Father Rondic spoke. &ldquo;Tell us, my boy, where this money is. Remember
+that it is Zénaïde&rsquo;s dowry, that I have toiled day and night to lay it
+aside for her, feeling that with it I might make her happy. You did not think
+of all this, I am sure, and were led away by the temptation of the moment. But
+now that you have had time to reflect, you will tell us the truth. Remember,
+Jack, that I am old, that time may not be given me to replace this money. Ah,
+my good lad, speak!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor man&rsquo;s lips trembled. It must have been a hardened criminal who
+could have resisted such a touching appeal. Bélisaire was so moved that he made
+a series of the most extraordinary gestures. &ldquo;Give him the money, Jack,
+I beg of you!&rdquo; he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alas! if the child had had the money, how gladly he would have placed it in
+the hands of old Rondic, but he could only say,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have stolen nothing&mdash;I swear I have not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The superintendent rose from his chair impatiently. &ldquo;We have had enough
+of this. Your heart must be of adamant to resist such an appeal as has been
+made to you. I shall send you up-stairs again, and give you until to-night to
+reflect. If you do not then make a full confession, I shall hand you over to
+the proper tribunal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was then left all the long day in solitude. He tried to sleep, but the
+knowledge that every one thought him guilty, that his own shameful conduct had
+given ample reason for such a judgment, overwhelmed him with sorrow. How could
+he prove his innocence? By showing his mother&rsquo;s letter. But if
+D&rsquo;Argenton should know of it? No, he could not sacrifice his mother!
+What, then, should he do? And the boy lay on the straw bed, turning over in his
+bewildered brain the difficulties of his position. Around him went on the
+business of life; he heard the workmen come and go. It was evening, and he
+would be sent to prison. Suddenly he heard the stairs creak under a heavy
+tread, then the turning of the key, and Zénaïde entered hastily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;how high up you are!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She said this with a careless air, but she had wept so much that her eyes were
+red and inflamed, her hair was roughened and carelessly put up. The poor girl
+smiled at Jack. &ldquo;I am ugly, am I not? I have no figure nor complexion. I
+have a big nose and small eyes; but two days ago I had a handsome dowry, and I
+cared but little if some of the malicious young girls said, &lsquo;It is only
+for your money that Maugin wishes to marry you,&rsquo; as if I did not know
+this! He wanted my money, but I loved him! And now, Jack, all is changed.
+To-night he will come and say farewell, and I shall not complain. Only, Jack,
+before he comes, I thought I would have a little talk with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had hidden his face, and was crying. Zénaïde felt a ray of hope at this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will give me back my money, Jack, will you not?&rdquo; she added
+entreatingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I have not got it, I assure you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not say that. You are afraid of me, but I will not reproach you. If
+you have spent a little you are quite welcome, but tell me where the rest
+is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen to me, Zénaïde: this is horrible. Why should every one think me
+guilty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went on as if he had not spoken. &ldquo;Do you understand that without this
+money I shall be miserable? In your mother&rsquo;s name I entreat you here on
+my knees!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She threw herself on the floor by the side of the bed where the boy sat, and
+gave way to tears and sobs. Jack, who was as unhappy as she, tried to take her
+hand. Suddenly she started up. &ldquo;You will be punished. No one will ever
+love you because your heart is bad!&rdquo; and she left the room. She ran
+hastily down the stairs to the superintendent&rsquo;s room, whom she found with
+her father. She could not speak, for her tears choked her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be comforted, my child!&rdquo; said the Director. &ldquo;Your father
+tells me that the mother of this boy is married to a very rich man. We will
+write to them. If they are good people, your dowry will be restored to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wrote the following letter:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame: Your son has stolen a sum of money from the honest and
+hard-working man with whom he lived. This sum represents the savings of years.
+I have not yet handed him over to the authorities, hoping that he might be
+induced to restore at least a portion of this money. But I am afraid that it
+has all been squandered among drunken companions. If that is the case, you
+should indemnify the Rondics for their loss. The amount is six thousand francs.
+I await your decision before taking any further steps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he signed his name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor things&mdash;it is terrible news for them!&rdquo; said Père Rondic,
+who amid his own sorrows could still think of those of others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zénaïde looked up indignantly. &ldquo;Why do you pity these people? If the boy
+has taken my money, let them replace it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How pitiless is youth! The girl gave not one thought to the mother&rsquo;s
+despair when she should hear of her son&rsquo;s crime. Old Rondic, on the
+contrary, said to himself, &ldquo;She will die of shame!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In due time this letter written by the superintendent reached its destination,
+as letters which contain bad news generally do.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"></a>
+CHAPTER XV.<br />
+CHARLOTTE&rsquo;S JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+One gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines; the
+poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman reached
+Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! a letter from Indret!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, slowly opening
+his newspapers,&mdash;&ldquo;and some verses by Hugo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone that he
+does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else shall touch?
+Simply because Charlotte&rsquo;s eyes had kindled at the sight of it, and
+because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment he had become a
+secondary object in the mother&rsquo;s eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the hour of Jack&rsquo;s departure, his mother&rsquo;s love for him had
+increased. She avoided speaking of him, however, lest she should irritate her
+poet. He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the child increased. And
+when the early letters of Rondic contained complaints of Jack, he was very
+much delighted. But this was not enough. He wished to mortify and degrade the
+boy still more. His hour had come. At the first words of the letter, for he
+finally opened it, his eyes flamed with malicious joy. &ldquo;Ah! I knew
+it!&rdquo; he cried, and he handed the sheet to Charlotte.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a terrible blow for her! Wounded in her maternal pride before the poet,
+wounded, too, by his evident satisfaction, the poor woman was still more
+overwhelmed by the reproaches of her own conscience. &ldquo;It is my own
+fault!&rdquo; she said to herself, &ldquo;why did I abandon him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now he must be saved, and at all hazards. But where should she find the money?
+She had nothing. The sale of her furniture had brought in some millions of
+francs, but they had been quickly spent. The trifles of jewelry she had would
+not bring half the necessary sum. She never thought of appealing to
+D&rsquo;Argenton. First, he hated the boy; and next, he was very miserly.
+Besides, he was far from rich. They lived with great economy in the winter, the
+better to keep up their hospitality during the summer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have always felt,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, after leaving her time
+to finish the letter, &ldquo;that this boy was bad at heart!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no reply; indeed she hardly heard what he said. She was thinking that
+her child would go to prison if she could not obtain the money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He continued, &ldquo;What a disgrace this is to me!&rdquo; The mother was still
+saying to herself, &ldquo;The money, where shall I get it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He determined to prevent her asking him the question he saw on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are not rich enough to do anything!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! if you could,&rdquo; she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He became very angry. &ldquo;If I could!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I expected
+that! You know better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It
+is enough that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for the
+thefts he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not think of you,&rdquo; she answered, slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of whom, then?&rdquo; he questioned, sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered a name,
+expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was silent for a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte,&rdquo; he said,
+pompously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks! thanks! How good you are!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a most singular conversation&mdash;syllabic and disjointed&mdash;he
+affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. &ldquo;It was impossible to
+trust to a letter,&rdquo; Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own audacity,
+she added, &ldquo;Suppose I go to Tours myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the utmost tranquillity he answered, &ldquo;Very well, we will go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How good you are, dear!&rdquo; she cried: &ldquo;you will go with me
+there, and then to Indret with the money!&rdquo; and the foolish creature
+kissed his hands with tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go
+to Tours without him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy. Suppose
+she should never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow, so inconsistent!
+The sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had relinquished&mdash;the
+influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside the heavy chains with
+which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by no means averse to this little
+journey, nor to playing his part in the drama at Indret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready to share
+her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced Charlotte that he
+loved her more than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, &ldquo;We are obliged to go to Indret, the
+child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our absence.&rdquo; They
+left by the night express and reached Tours early in the morning. The old
+friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty châteaux overlooking the
+Loire. He was a widower without children, an excellent man, and a man of the
+world. In spite of her infidelity, he had none but the kindest recollection of
+the light-hearted woman who for a time had brightened his solitude. He
+consequently replied to a little note sent by Charlotte that he was ready to
+receive her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton and she took a carriage from the hotel, and as they approached
+the château, Charlotte began to grow uneasy. &ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; she
+said to herself, &ldquo;that he intends to go in with me!&rdquo; She sat in the
+corner of the carriage, looking out at the fields where she had so often
+wandered with the boy, who was now wearing a workman&rsquo;s blouse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton watched her from the corner of his eyes, gnawing his moustache
+with fury. She was very pretty that morning, a little pale from emotion and
+from a night of travel. D&rsquo;Argenton was uneasy and restless; he began to
+regret having accompanied her, and felt embarrassed by the part he was playing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he saw the château, with its grounds and fountains, its air of wealth, he
+reproached himself for his own imprudence. &ldquo;She will never return to
+Aulnettes,&rdquo; he thought. At the end of the avenue he stopped the carriage.
+&ldquo;I will wait here,&rdquo; he said, abruptly; and added, with a sad smile,
+&ldquo;Do not be long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ten minutes later he saw Charlotte on the terrace with a tall and
+elegant-looking man. Then began for him a terrible anguish. What were they
+saying? Should he ever see her again? And it was that detestable boy that had
+given him all this disturbance. The poet sat on the fallen trunk of a tree,
+watching feverishly the distant door. Before him was outspread a charming
+landscape&mdash;wooded hills, sloping vineyards, and meadows overhung with
+willows; on one side a ruin of the time of Louis IX., and on the other, one of
+those châteaux common enough on the shores of the Loire. Just below him a sort
+of canal was in process of building. He watched the workmen in a mechanical
+sort of way; they were clothed in uniform, and seemed an organized body. He
+rose and sauntered toward them. The laborers were only children, and their
+reddened eyes and pale faces told the story of their confinement to the poorer
+quarters of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are these children?&rdquo; questioned the poet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They belong to the penitentiary,&rdquo; was the answer from the official
+who superintended them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton asked question after question, saying that he was intimately
+connected with a family whose only son had just plunged them into deep
+affliction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send him to us,&rdquo; was the curt reply, &ldquo;as soon as he leaves
+the prison.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I doubt if he goes to prison,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, with a
+shade of regret in his voice; &ldquo;the parents have paid the amount.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, we have another establishment&mdash;the <i>Maison
+Paternelle</i>. I have some of the circulars here in my pocket, and perhaps you
+would glance over them, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton took the papers and turned back toward the house. The carriage
+was coming down the avenue, and soon Charlotte, her color heightened and her
+eyes bright with hope for her child, appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have succeeded,&rdquo; she cried, as the poet entered the carriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he answered, dryly, relapsing into silence, turning over his
+circulars with an air of affected interest. Charlotte, too, was silent,
+supposing his pride wounded; and finally he was obliged to say, &ldquo;You
+succeeded, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Completely. It has always been his intention to give Jack, on his coming
+of age, a present of ten thousand francs. He has given it to me now. Six
+thousand will repay the money, and the other four thousand I am to employ as I
+think best for my child&rsquo;s advantage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Employ it, then, in placing him in the <i>Maison Paternelle</i>, at
+Mertray, for two or three years. It is there only that one can learn to make an
+honest man from out of a thief.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started, for the harsh word recalled her to reality. We know that in that
+poor little brain impressions are very transitory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am ready to do whatever you choose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you have
+been so good and generous!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet was enchanted; he was still master, and he proceeded to read Charlotte
+a long lecture. Her maternal weakness was the cause of all that had happened.
+The master-hand of a man was absolutely essential. She did not answer, being
+occupied with joy at the thought of her child not being sent to prison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was on Sunday morning that they reached Basse Indret. The poet went at once
+to the superintendent&rsquo;s, while Charlotte remained alone at the inn, for
+hotel there was none at the village. The rain beating against the windows, and
+the loud talking in the house, gave her the first clear impression she had
+received of the exile to which she had condemned her boy. However guilty he
+might be, he was still her child&mdash;her Jack. She remembered him as a little
+fellow, bright, intelligent, and sensitive, and the idea that he would
+presently appear before her as a thief and in a workman&rsquo;s blouse, seemed
+almost incredible. Ah! had she kept her child with her, or had she sent him
+with other boys of his age to school, he would have been kept from temptation.
+The old doctor was right, after all. And Jack had lived with these people for
+two years! All the prejudices of her superficial nature revolted against her
+surroundings. She was incapable of comprehending the grandeur of a task
+accomplished, of a life purchased by the fatigue of the body and the labor of
+the hands. To change the current of her thoughts, she took up the prospectus of
+which we have spoken&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Maison Paternelle</i>.&rdquo; The system
+adopted was absolute isolation. The mother&rsquo;s heart swelled with anguish,
+and she closed the book and went to the window, where she stood with her eyes
+fixed on a small bit of the Loire that she saw at the foot of a street, where
+the water was as rough as the sea itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton, in the meantime, was accomplishing his mission. He would not
+have relinquished the duty for any amount of money. He was fond of attitudes
+and scenes. He prepared in advance the terms in which he should address the
+criminal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An old woman pointed out the house of the Rondics, but when he reached it he
+hesitated. Must he not have made a mistake? From the wide open windows came the
+sound of gay music, and heavy feet were heard keeping time to it. &ldquo;No,
+this cannot be it,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, who naturally expected to find
+a desolate house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Zénaïde, it is your turn,&rdquo; called some one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Zenaïde&rdquo;&mdash;why, that was Rondic&rsquo;s daughter! These people
+certainly did not take this affair much to heart. All at once a crowd of
+white-capped women passed the window, singing loudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Brigadier! come, Jack!&rdquo; said some one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhat mystified, the poet pushed open the door, and amid the dust and crowd
+he saw Jack, radiant with happiness, dancing with a stout girl, who smiled with
+her whole heart at a good-looking fellow in uniform. In a corner sat a
+gray-haired man, much amused by all that was going on; with him was a tall,
+pale, young woman, who looked very sad.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"></a>
+CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+CLARISSE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+This was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack&rsquo;s
+mother, the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic entered,
+pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness with which she was
+received, her conduct having for a long time habituated her to the silent
+contempt of all who respected themselves, she refused to sit down, and,
+standing erect, said slowly, attempting to conceal her emotion,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is
+not he who has stolen my stepdaughter&rsquo;s dowry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Director started from his chair. &ldquo;But, ma-dame, every proof is
+against him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What proofs? The most important is that, my husband being away, Jack was
+alone with us in the house. It is just this proof that I have come to destroy,
+for there was another man there that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What man? Chariot?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he took the money?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a moment&rsquo;s hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost
+inaudible reply was whispered, &ldquo;No, it was not he who took it; I gave it
+to him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unhappy woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I
+bore for that time the sight of my husband&rsquo;s despair and of
+Zénaïde&rsquo;s tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned.
+Nothing came from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I
+heard nothing, I should denounce myself,&mdash;and here I am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what am I to do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But your husband&mdash;it will kill him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And me, too,&rdquo; she replied, with haughty bitterness. &ldquo;To die
+is a very simple matter; to live is far more difficult.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If your death could repair your fault,&rdquo; returned the Director,
+gravely; &ldquo;if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could
+understand why you should wish to die. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall be done, then,&rdquo; she asked, plaintively; and all at once
+she became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination failed
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some of
+it still.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler played. She
+knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her, to procure this
+money, and that he would play until he had lost his last sou.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go at once to Saint Nazarre,&rdquo; said his chief; &ldquo;say to
+Chariot that I require his presence here at once. You will wait for him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame
+Rondic&rsquo;s; he cannot be far off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however, that
+Madame Rondic is here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke. She stood
+leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the machinery, the wild
+whistling of the steam, made a fitting accompaniment to the tumult of her soul.
+The door opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You sent for me,&rdquo; said Chariot, in a gay voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief, told the
+story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost its color, and he
+looked like an animal driven into a corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a word,&rdquo; said the Director; &ldquo;we know all that you wish
+to say. This woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You
+promised to return her the money in two days. Where is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him; she had
+seen him too well that terrible night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is the money?&rdquo; repeated the superintendent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&mdash;I have brought it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not finding her
+at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His chief took up the bills. &ldquo;Is it all here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All but eight hundred francs,&rdquo; the other answered, with some
+hesitation; &ldquo;but I will return them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now sit down and write at my dictation,&rdquo; said the superintendent,
+sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Write: &lsquo;It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six
+thousand francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that Clarisse
+would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The superintendent continued: &ldquo;&lsquo;I return the money; it burns me.
+Release the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle to
+forgive me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only when, through
+labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to shake an honest
+man&rsquo;s hand.&rsquo; Now sign it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily,
+&ldquo;Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter,
+and address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chariot signed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now go,&rdquo; resumed the superintendent, &ldquo;to Guérigny, if you
+will, and try to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the
+neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm was
+broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door closed tried to
+express her gratitude to the superintendent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not thank me, madame,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it is for your
+husband&rsquo;s sake that I have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most
+horrible torture that can overwhelm a man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is in my husband&rsquo;s name that I thank you. I am thinking of him,
+and of the sacrifice I must make for him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sacrifice?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the superintendent
+feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately, &ldquo;Keep up your
+courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered a placard
+to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy&rsquo;s innocence. He was
+fêted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and that was news of Bélisaire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack was
+greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily with Zénaïde
+and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when D&rsquo;Argenton
+appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that they explained the
+finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and that a second letter had been
+sent narrating all these facts; in vain did these good people treat Jack with
+familiar kindness: D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s manner did not relax; he expressed
+in the choicest terms his regret that Jack had given so much trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it is I who owe him every apology,&rdquo; cried the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty, and
+of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was confused,
+for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in which Zénaïde&rsquo;s
+lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore listened with downcast
+eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer, who fairly talked Father
+Rondic to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must be very thirsty after talking so long,&rdquo; said Zénaïde,
+innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the cake
+looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet&mdash;who was, as we know,
+something of an epicure&mdash;made a breach in it quite as large as that in the
+ham made by Bélisaire at Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had discovered one thing only from all D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s long
+words,&mdash;he had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him
+from disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great
+injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy, therefore,
+had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial reception of the Rondics,
+put the poet into the most amiable state of mind. You should have seen him with
+Jack as they trod the narrow streets of Indret!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?&rdquo; said
+D&rsquo;Argenton, unwilling to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character
+of hero and martyr; it was more than the selfish nature of the man could
+support. And yet, to deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing each
+other once more it was necessary to be provided with some reason; and this
+reason Jack himself soon furnished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability, acknowledged
+to M. d&rsquo;Argenton that he did not like his present life; that he should
+not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from his mother. He was not
+afraid of work, but he liked brain work better than manual labor. These words
+had hardly passed the boy&rsquo;s lips, when he saw a change in his hearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be very
+unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten apparently
+that I have said to you a hundred times that this century was no time for
+Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;&rdquo; and on this text he wandered on for
+more than an hour. And while these two walked on the side of the river, a
+lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in the inn, came down to the
+other bank, to watch for the boat that was to bring her the little
+criminal,&mdash;the boy whom she had not seen for two years, and whom she
+dearly loved. But D&rsquo;Argenton had determined to keep them apart. It was
+wisest&mdash;Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would be reasonable enough to
+comprehend this, and would willingly make the sacrifice for her child&rsquo;s
+interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the river,
+so near that they could have heard each other speak across its waters, did not
+meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"></a>
+CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.</h2>
+
+<p>
+How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such
+swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zénaïde was married, and since
+Jack&rsquo;s terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and loathes the
+thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since Zénaïde&rsquo;s
+marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her accustomed seat at
+the window, the curtain of which, however, is never lifted, for she expects no
+one now. Her days and nights are all alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic
+alone preserves his former serenity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island, part of
+which remained under water four months, and the air was filled with fogs and
+miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some weeks in the infirmary.
+Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender and loving when his mother wrote
+in secret, didactic and severe when the poet looked over her shoulder. The only
+news sent by his mother was, that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with
+the Moronvals, who now came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at
+Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moronval, Mâdou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who thought of
+himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could see little
+resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and the dainty pink
+and white child whose face he dimly remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus were Dr. Rivals&rsquo; words justified: &ldquo;It is social distinctions
+that create final and absolute separations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack thought often of the old doctor and of Cécile, and on the first of January
+each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had remained
+unanswered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need him,
+and he must work hard for her sake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not to the
+ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction of his career.
+He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he received but three francs
+per day. With these three francs he must pay for his room, his food, and his
+dress; that is, he must replace his coarse clothing as it was worn out; and
+what should he do if his mother were to write and say, &ldquo;I am coming to
+live with you &ldquo;?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said Père Rondic, &ldquo;your parents made a great
+mistake in not listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you
+like to make a voyage? The chief engineer of the &lsquo;Cydnus&rsquo; wants an
+assistant. You can have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed. Shall I
+write and say you will like the situation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that Mâdou&rsquo;s wild tales
+had awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly pleased at
+the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just four years after his
+arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became more fresh as the little
+steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack had never seen the sea. The fresh
+salt breeze inspired him with restless longing. Saint Nazarre lay before
+him,&mdash;the harbor crowded with shipping. They landed at the dock, and there
+learned that the Cydnus, of the <i>Compagnie Transatlantique</i>, would sail at
+three o&rsquo;clock that day, and was already lying outside,&mdash;this being,
+in fact, the only way to have the crew all on board at the moment of departure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack and his companion&mdash;for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him on
+board his ship&mdash;had no time to see anything of the town, which had all the
+vivacity of a market-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with fowls
+which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty. Near their
+merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for purchasers. They were
+in no hurry, and made no appeal to the passers-by. In contrast to these, there
+was a number of small peddlers, selling pins, cravats, and portemonnaies, who
+were loudly crying their wares. Sailors were hurrying to and fro, and Rondic
+learned from one of them that the chief engineer of the Cydnus was in a very
+bad humor because he had not his full number of stokers on board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must hasten,&rdquo; said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly
+threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic steamers lay
+at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large English ships just
+arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all hard at work. They passed
+between these motionless masses, where the water was as dark as a canal running
+through the midst of a city under high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying,
+with her steam on. A wiry little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes
+on his cap, hailed Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures were
+eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have come, then, have you?&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;I was afraid
+you meant to leave me in the lurch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was my fault,&rdquo; said Rondic; &ldquo;I wished to accompany the
+lad, and I could not get away yesterday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On board with you, quick!&rdquo; returned the engineer; &ldquo;he must
+get into his place at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who had never
+been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size and the depth of this
+one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes accustomed to the light of day
+could distinguish absolutely nothing. The heat was stifling, and a final ladder
+led to the engine-room, where the heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of
+oil, was almost insupportable. Great activity reigned in this room; a general
+examination was being made of the machinery, which glittered with cleanliness.
+Jack looked on curiously at the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon
+be his duty to watch it day and night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. &ldquo;That is where the coal
+is kept,&rdquo; said the engineer, carelessly; &ldquo;and on the other side the
+stokers sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the Rondics,
+were palaces in comparison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened by the
+reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked, were stirring
+the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here is your man,&rdquo; said Blanchet to the head workman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, sir,&rdquo; said the other without turning round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Farewell,&rdquo; said Rondic. &ldquo;Take care of yourself, my
+boy!&rdquo; and he was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the furnace
+to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very hard work: the
+baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change from the pure air above
+to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely suffocating. On the third trip Jack
+felt his legs giving way under him. He found it impossible to even lift his
+basket, and sank into a corner half fainting. One of the stokers, seeing his
+condition, brought him a large flask of brandy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you; I never drink anything,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other laughed. &ldquo;You will drink here,&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an
+effort of will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer ran to
+and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who came hurriedly on
+board. The passengers were representatives of all nations. Some were gay, and
+others were weeping, but in the faces of all was to be read an anxiety or a
+hope; for these displacements, these movings, are almost invariably the result
+of some great disturbance, and are, in general, the last quiver of the shock
+that throws you from one continent to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that strained
+at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty who had come, some of
+them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It animated the fishing-boats,
+whose sails were spread for a night of toil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the
+passengers,&mdash;those belonging to the cabins comfortably established, those
+of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they going? What
+wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality awaited them on their
+landing? One couple interested him especially: it was a mother and a child who
+recalled to him the memory of Ida and little Jack. The lady was young and in
+black, with a heavy wrap thrown about her, a Mexican sarape with wide stripes.
+She had a certain air of independence characteristic of the wives of military
+or naval officers, who, from the frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown
+on their own resources. The child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if
+he might have belonged to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they both turned
+aside, and the long silk skirts were lifted that they might not touch his
+blackened garments. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Jack
+understood it. A rough oath and a slap on the shoulder interrupted his sad
+thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!&rdquo; It
+was the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word, humiliated
+at the reproof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout the ship:
+she had started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand there!&rdquo; said the head stoker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty to fill
+it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not such an easy
+matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching of the vessel came near
+throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless toiled on courageously, but at
+the end of an hour he was blind and deaf, stifled by the blood that rushed to
+his head. He did as the others did, and ran to the outer air. Ah, how good it
+was! Almost immediately, however, an icy blast struck him between the
+shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quick, give me the brandy!&rdquo; he cried with a choked voice, to the
+man who had previously offered it to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before
+long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he was so
+cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable warmth spread over
+his whole system, and then began a burning sensation in his stomach. To
+extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within, and fire without,&mdash;flame
+upon flame,&mdash;was this the way that he was to live in future?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three
+years:&mdash;three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room down
+in the bowels of that big ship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian, French, and
+Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the climes they visited,
+the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had emptied his cinders, broken
+his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept the sleep of exhaustion and
+intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he lives. In the darkness of his life
+there was but one bright spot, his mother. She was like the Madonna in a chapel
+where all the lights are extinguished save the one that burns before her
+shrine. Now that he had become a man, much of the mystery of her life had
+become clear to him. His respect for Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and
+he loved her as we love those for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing
+moments he remembered the end for which he toiled, and a mechanical instinct
+made him carefully preserve almost every sou of his wages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother and son.
+Jack&rsquo;s letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte were
+frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life, that he read
+them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a living tenderness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Letters from Etiolles told him of D&rsquo;Argenton; later, some from Paris
+spoke of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the poet
+having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of friends. This
+would be a way of bringing his works prominently before the public, as well as
+to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a large package addressed to him.
+It was the first number of the magazine. The stoker mechanically turned its
+leaves, leaving on them the traces of his blackened fingers; and suddenly, as
+he saw the well-known names of D&rsquo;Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the
+smooth pages, he was seized with wild rage and indignation, and he cried aloud,
+as he shook his fist impatiently in the air, &ldquo;Wretches, wretches! what
+have you made of me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and, strangely
+enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and better able to
+support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed hardly to recognize any
+difference between his days when the ship tossed and groaned, and his nights
+when he slept a drunken sleep, disturbed only by an occasional nightmare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams? That
+rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,&mdash;was all that a dream?
+His comrades called him, shook him. &ldquo;Jack, Jack!&rdquo; they cried; he
+staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under water, the
+compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against each other in the
+darkness. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow ladder; at
+the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your
+furnaces! Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are
+obeyed.&rdquo; Each one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They
+charged the furnaces with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured out;
+while the water still ascending, in spite of the constant work at the pumps,
+was as cold as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces will not burn. The
+stokers are in water up to their shoulders before the voice of the chief
+engineer is heard: &ldquo;Save yourselves, my men, if you can!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"></a>
+CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+D&rsquo;ARGENTON&rsquo;S MAGAZINE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging to the
+last century, D&rsquo;Argenton had established himself as editor of the new
+magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor. Do not smile: this
+was really the case; his money had been used to establish it. Charlotte had some
+little scruple at first in so employing these funds, which she wished to
+preserve intact for the boy on his attaining his majority; but she yielded to
+the poet&rsquo;s persuasions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you know. Can there be a
+better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad, at
+least. Have I not placed my own funds in it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within six months D&rsquo;Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and
+the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous. Besides the
+offices of the magazine, D&rsquo;Argenton had hired in the same house a large
+apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the Seine, Nôtre Dame,
+numberless spires and domes, were all spread before his eyes. He saw the
+carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats glide through the arches.
+&ldquo;Here I can live and breathe,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;It was
+impossible for me to accomplish anything in that dull little hole of Aulnettes!
+How could one work in such a lethargic atmosphere?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte was still young and gay; she managed the house and the kitchen, which
+was no small matter with the number of persons who daily assembled around her
+table. The poet, too, had recently acquired the habit of dictating instead of
+writing, and as Charlotte wrote a graceful English hand, he employed her as
+secretary. Every evening, when they were alone, he walked up and down the large
+room and dictated for an hour. In the silent old house, his solemn voice, and
+another sweeter and fresher, awakened singular echoes. &ldquo;Our author is
+composing,&rdquo; said the concierge with respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us look in upon the D&rsquo;Argenton ménage. We find them installed in a
+charming little room, filled with the aroma of green tea and of Havana cigars.
+Charlotte is preparing her writing-table, arranging her pens, and straightening
+the ream of thick paper. D&rsquo;Argenton is in excellent vein; he is in the
+humor to dictate all night, and twists his moustache, where glitter many
+silvery hairs. He waits to be inspired. Charlotte, however, as is often the
+case in a household, is very differently disposed: a cloud is on her face,
+which is pale and anxious; but notwithstanding her evident fatigue, she dips
+her pen in the inkstand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us see&mdash;we are at chapter first. Have you written that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chapter first,&rdquo; repeated Charlotte, in a low, sad voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet looked at her with annoyance; then, with an evident determination not
+to question her, he continued,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He repeated these words several times, then turning to Charlotte, he said,
+&ldquo;Have you written this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made an effort to repeat the words, but stopped, her voice strangled with
+sobs. In vain did she try to restrain herself, her tears flowed in torrents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth is the matter?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton. &ldquo;Is it
+this news of the Cydnus? It is a mere flying report, I am sure, and I attach no
+importance to it. Dr. Hirsch was to call at the office of the Company to-day,
+and he will be here directly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke in a satirical tone, slightly disdainful, as the weak, children,
+fools, and invalids are often addressed. Was she not something of all these?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where were we?&rdquo; he continued, when she was calmer. &ldquo;You have
+made me lose the thread. Read me all you have written.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte wiped her tears away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all,&rdquo; she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet was very much surprised; it seemed to him that he had dictated much
+more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression bewildered him. All
+that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his brain, he fancied was
+already in form and on the page, and he was aghast at the disproportion between
+the dream and the reality. His delusion was like that of Don Quixote,&mdash;he
+believed himself in the Empyrean, and took the vapors from the kitchen for the
+breath of heaven, and, seated on his wooden horse, felt all the shock of an
+imaginary fall.. Had he been in such a state of mental exaltation merely to
+produce those two lines? Were these the only result of that frantic rubbing of
+his dishevelled hair, of that weary pacing to and fro?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was furious, for he felt that he was ridiculous. &ldquo;It is your
+fault,&rdquo; he said to Charlotte. &ldquo;How can a man work in the face of a
+crying woman? It is always the same thing&mdash;nothing is accomplished. Years
+pass away and the places are filled. Do you not know how small a thing disturbs
+literary composition? I ought to live in a tower a thousand feet above all the
+futilities of life, instead of being surrounded by caprices, disorder, and
+childishness.&rdquo; As he speaks he strikes a furious blow upon the table, and
+poor Charlotte, with the tears pouring from her eyes, gathers up the pens and
+papers that have flown about the room in wild confusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arrival of Dr. Hirsch ends this deplorable scene, and after a while
+tranquillity is restored. The doctor is not alone; Labassandre comes with him,
+and both are grave and mysterious in their manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte turns hastily. &ldquo;What news, doctor?&rdquo; she asks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None, madame; no news whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Charlotte detected a covert glance at D&rsquo;Argenton, and knew that the
+physician&rsquo;s words were false.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do the officers of the Company say?&rdquo; continued the
+mother, determined to learn the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Labassandre undertook to answer, and while he spoke, the doctor contrived to
+convey to D&rsquo;Argenton that the Cydnus had gone to the
+bottom,&mdash;&ldquo;a collision at sea&mdash;every soul was lost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s face never changed, and it would have been difficult
+to form any idea of his feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been at work,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Excuse me, I need the fresh
+air.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said Charlotte; &ldquo;go out for a walk;&rdquo;
+and the poor woman, who usually detained her poet in the house lest the
+high-born ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain should entrap him, is this evening
+delighted to see him leave her, that she may weep in peace&mdash;that she may
+yield to all the wild terror and mournful presentiments that assail her. This
+is why even the presence of the servant annoys her, and she sends her to her
+attic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame wishes to be alone! Is not madame afraid? The noise of the wind
+is very dismal on the balcony.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I am not afraid; leave me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last she was alone. She could think at her ease, without the voice of her
+tyrant saying, &ldquo;What are you thinking about?&rdquo; Ever since she had
+read in the Journal the brief words, &ldquo;There is no intelligence of the
+Cydnus,&rdquo; the image of her child had pursued her. Her nights had been
+sleepless, and she listened to the wind with singular terror. It seemed to blow
+from all quarters, rattling the windows and wailing through the chimneys. But
+whether it whispered or shrieked, it spoke to her, and said what it always says
+to the mothers and wives of sailors, who turn pale as they listen. The wind
+comes from afar, but it comes quickly and has met with many adventures. With
+one gust it has torn away the sails of a vessel, set fire to a quiet home, and
+carried death and destruction on its wings. This it is that gives to its voice
+such melancholy intonations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This night it was dreary enough: it rattles the windows and whistles under the
+doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this poor mother, and it
+sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking of the clock, the distant noise
+of a locomotive, all take the same plaintive tone and beseeching accent.
+Charlotte knows only too well what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story
+of a ship rolling on the broad ocean, without sails or rudder&mdash;of a
+maddened crowd on the deck, of cries and shrieks, curses and prayers. Her
+hallucination is so strong that she even hears from the ship a beseeching cry
+of &ldquo;Mamma!&rdquo; She starts to her feet; she hears it again. To escape
+it, she walks about the room, opens the door and looks down the corridor. She
+sees nothing, but she hears a sigh, and, raising her lamp higher, discovers a
+dark shadow crouched in the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is that?&rdquo; she cried, half in terror, half in hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is I, dear mother!&rdquo; said a weak voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran toward him. It is her boy&mdash;a tall, rough sailor&mdash;rising as
+she approached him, with the aid of a pair of crutches. And this is what she
+has made of her child! Not a word, not an exclamation, not a caress. They look
+at each other, and tears fill the eyes of both.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A certain fatality attaches itself to some people, which renders them and all
+that they do absolutely ridiculous. When D&rsquo;Argenton returned that night,
+he came with the determination to disclose the fatal news to Charlotte, and to
+have the whole affair concluded. The manner in which he turned the key in the
+lock announced this solemn determination. But what was his surprise to find the
+parlor a blaze of light! Charlotte&mdash;and on the table by the fire the
+remains of a meal. She came to him in a terrible state of agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush! Pray make no noise&mdash;he is here and asleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack, of course. He has been shipwrecked, and is severely injured. He
+has been saved as by a miracle. He has just come from Rio Janeiro, where he
+spent two months in a hospital.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton forced a smile, which Charlotte endeavored to believe was one
+of satisfaction. It must be acknowledged that he behaved very well, and said at
+once that Jack must stay there until he was entirely recovered. In fact, he
+could do no less for the actual proprietor of his Review.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first excitement over, the ordinary life of the poet and Charlotte was
+resumed, changed only by the presence of the poor lame fellow, whose legs were
+badly burned by the explosion of a boiler, and had not yet healed. He was
+clothed in a jacket of blue cloth. His light moustache, the color of ripe
+wheat, was struggling into sight through the thick coating of tan that darkened
+his face; his eyes were red and inflamed, for the lashes had been burned off;
+and in a state of apathy painful to witness, the son of Ida de Barancy dragged
+himself from chair to chair, to the irritation of D&rsquo;Argenton and to the
+great shame of his mother. When some stranger entered the house and cast an
+astonished glance at this figure, which offered so strange a contrast to the
+quiet, luxurious surroundings, she hastened to say, &ldquo;It is my son, he has
+been very ill,&rdquo; in the same way that the mothers of deformed children
+quickly mention the relationship, lest they should surprise a smile or a
+compassionate look. But if she was pained in seeing her darling in this state,
+and blushed at the vulgarity of his manners or his awkwardness at the table,
+she was still more mortified at the tone of contempt with which her
+husband&rsquo;s friends spoke of her son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack saw little difference in the habitués of the house, save that they were
+older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they were the
+same. They had attained no higher social position, and were still without
+visible means of support.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice each week
+they all dined at D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s table. Moronval generally brought
+with him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince of an indefinite
+age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed very small and slender. With
+his little cane and hat, he looked like a figure of yellow clay fallen from an
+étagère upon the Parisian sidewalk. The other, with narrow slits of eyes and a
+black beard, recalled certain vague remembrances to Jack, who at last
+recognized his old friend Said who had offered him cigar ends on their first
+interview.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished, but his
+parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the manners and customs
+of fashionable society. All these persons treated Jack with a certain air of
+condescension. He remained Master Jack to but one person&mdash;that was that
+most amiable of women, Madame Moronval, who wore the same silk dress that he
+had seen her in years before. He cared little whether he was called
+&ldquo;Master Jack,&rdquo; or &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo;&mdash;his two months in the
+hospital, his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the atmosphere of the
+engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion, had caused him such profound
+exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that he sat with his pipe between his
+teeth, silent and half asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is intoxicated,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argent on sometimes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the society
+of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent. Then he drew his
+chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than talk himself. Her voice
+made a delicious murmur in his ears like that of the first bees on a warm
+spring day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, &ldquo;When I
+was a child I went on a long voyage&mdash;did I not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life that he
+had asked a question in regard to his history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you wish to know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because, three years ago, the first day that I was on board a steamer, I
+had a singular sensation. It seemed to me that I had seen it all before; the
+cabins, and the narrow ladders, impressed me as familiar; it seemed to me that
+I had once played on those very stairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked around to assure herself that they were entirely alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not a dream, Jack. You were three years old when we came from
+Algiers. Your father died suddenly, and we came back to Tours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was my father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hesitated, much agitated, for she was not prepared for this sudden
+curiosity; and yet she could not refuse to answer these questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was called by one of the grandest names in France, my child&mdash;by
+a name that you and I would bear to-day if a sudden and terrible catastrophe
+had not prevented him from repairing his fault. Ah, we were very young when we
+met! I must tell you that at that time I had a perfect passion for the chase. I
+remember a little Arabian horse called Soliman&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was gone, at full speed, mounted on this horse, and Jack made no effort to
+interrupt her&mdash;he knew that it was useless. But when she stopped to take
+breath, he profited by this brief halt to return to his fixed idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was my father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo; he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of whom they
+had been speaking. She answered quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;He was called the Marquis
+de l&rsquo;Epau.&rdquo; Jack certainly had but little of his mother&rsquo;s
+respect for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he received with
+the greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his illustrious descent. What
+mattered it to him that his father was a marquis, and bore a distinguished
+name? This did not prevent his son from earning his bread as a stoker on the
+Cydnus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Charlotte,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton impatiently, one day,
+&ldquo;something must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He
+cannot remain here forever without doing anything. He is quite well again; he
+eats like an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but Dr. Hirsch says that
+is nothing,&mdash;that he will always cough. He must decide on something. If
+the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too severe for him, let him try a
+railroad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, &ldquo;If you could see how he loses his
+breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still feel that
+he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the office work?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will speak to Moronval,&rdquo; was the reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the office
+except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack fulfilled these
+various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of Moronval with the same
+indifference that he opposed to D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s cold contempt.
+Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it was small, to be sure,
+but he added to it by supplementary labors, for which he was paid certain sums
+on account. The subscription books lay open on the desk, expenses went on, but
+no receipts came in. In fact, there was but one subscriber, Charlotte&rsquo;s
+friend at Tours, and but one proprietor, and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was
+at work in a corner. Neither Jack nor any one else realized this; but
+D&rsquo;Argenton knew it and felt it hourly, and soon hated more strongly than
+ever the youth upon whose money he was living.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear,&rdquo; said Charlotte, &ldquo;he does all he can!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit
+nor how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and since this
+great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown ten years older, my
+love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he drinks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but whose fault
+was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change of
+air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing for
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go the next
+day to install her son at Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They arrived there on one of those soft autumnal mornings which have all the
+beauty of summer without its excessive heat. There was not a breath in the air;
+the birds sang loudly, the fallen leaves rustled gently, and a perfume of rich
+maturity of ripened grain and fruit filled the air. The paths through the woods
+were still green and fresh; Jack recognized them all, and, seeing them,
+regained a portion of his lost youth. Nature herself seemed to welcome him with
+open arms, and he was soothed and comforted. Charlotte left her son early the
+next morning, and the little house, with its windows thrown wide open to the
+soft air and sunlight, had a peaceful aspect.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"></a>
+CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+THE CONVALESCENT.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
+belief that my Jack was a thief!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, Dr. Rivals&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
+Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, on feet, at the forester&rsquo;s cottage that Jack and his old friend
+had met.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each day he
+had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons with whom he
+held any communication were the old forester and his wife, who had served
+Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched over his health, purchased
+his provisions, and often cooked his dinner over her own fire, while he sat and
+smoked at the door. These people never asked a question, but when they saw his
+thin figure and heard his constant cough, they shook their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing to both,
+but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor understood the
+truth, the awkwardness passed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, gayly, &ldquo;I hope we shall
+see you often. You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse,
+but you need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great
+care,&mdash;particularly in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you
+understand. Our house is changed, for my poor wife died four years
+ago,&mdash;died of absolute grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her
+place; she keeps my books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she will be
+to see you! Now when will you come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cécile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling
+of restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog is not
+good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now in with you
+quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall. If you do not appear
+I shall come for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It seemed
+to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives with the
+doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room, while the poet was
+above in the tower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of dried
+grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very chilly. As of old,
+when he returned from his country excursions with the doctor, the remembrance
+of his kindness and affection rendered him impervious to the slights he
+received at home, so now did the prospect of seeing Cécile people his solitude
+with dear phantoms and happy visions, that remained with him even while he
+slept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day he knocked at the Rivals&rsquo; door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office,&rdquo; was
+the reply of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he had
+known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient to behold his
+former companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, Jack,&rdquo; said a sweet voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming apparition on
+the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde hair, was not the sun
+itself. How intimidated he would have been had not the little hand slipped into
+his own recalled so many sweet recollections of their common child-hood!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;I have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved
+you, and often spoke of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as she stood
+leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her head slightly to
+talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cécile there was
+something indefinable&mdash;an aroma of some divine spring-time, something
+fresh and pure, to which Charlotte&rsquo;s mannerisms and graces bore little
+resemblance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of his own
+hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and the nails were
+broken and deformed,&mdash;irretrievably injured by contact with fire and iron.
+He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even by putting them in his pocket.
+But he saw himself now with the eyes of others, dressed in shabby clothes and
+an old vest of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s, that was too small for him and too
+short in the sleeves. In addition to this physical awkwardness, poor Jack was
+overwhelmed by the memory of all the disgraceful scenes through which he had
+passed. The drunken orgies, the hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to
+his recollection, and it seemed to him that Cécile knew them, too. The slight
+cloud that hung on her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all
+told him that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to run away
+and shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cécile, busy at her scales,
+writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time to recover his
+equanimity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid and
+wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with her sympathy,
+cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them gently for their
+mistakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack&rsquo;s,&mdash;the
+very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was little.
+Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor, burned by the sun,
+and powdered by the dust, old Salé yet retained a little life in her sharp
+eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been sick for months,&mdash;who could
+not work, and yet had to eat. She said two or three things calculated to
+disconcert a young girl, and looked Cécile directly in the face with malicious
+delight. Two or three times Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch
+out of the door; but he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with
+which Cécile listened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack going
+out, recognized him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;the little Aulnettes boy come to life
+again? Ah, Mademoiselle Cécile, your uncle won&rsquo;t want you to marry him
+now, I fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the
+doctor desired;&rdquo; and, chuckling, she left the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so many years
+ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only one who was
+disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was scarlet with annoyance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Catherine, bring the soup.&rdquo; It was the doctor who spoke.
+&ldquo;And you two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven
+years&rsquo; absence?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of his bad
+habits would show themselves; and his hands&mdash;what could he do with them?
+With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The whiteness of the linen
+made it look appallingly black. Cécile saw his discomfort, and understanding
+that her watchfulness increased it, hardly glanced again in his direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot water,
+sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her grandmother&rsquo;s
+death had mixed the doctor&rsquo;s grog. And the good man had not gained by the
+change; for she, as the doctor observed in a melancholy tone, &ldquo;diminished
+daily the quantity of alcohol.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had served her grandfather, Cécile turned toward their guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you drink brandy?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does he drink brandy?&rdquo; said the doctor, with a laugh, &ldquo;and
+he in an engine-room for three years? Don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;ignorant
+little puss that you are&mdash;that that is the only way the poor fellows can
+live? On board a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit
+at a draught. Make Jack&rsquo;s strong, my dear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you have some?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, mademoiselle,&rdquo; he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
+withdrew his glass,&mdash;for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
+one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and which
+are only understood by those whom they address.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my word, a conversion!&rdquo; said the doctor, laughing. But Jack
+was converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in God
+only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work in the
+fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had every reason to
+suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking to himself, and
+gesticulating wildly. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;M.
+d&rsquo;Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with my
+equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them.&rdquo; It was a very
+long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New thoughts and ideas
+crowded into his mind; among them was Cécile&rsquo;s image. What a marvel of
+grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that had he been differently
+educated, he might have ventured to ask her to become his wife. At this moment,
+as he turned a sharp angle in the road, he found himself face to face with
+Mother Salé, who was dragging a fagot of wood. The old woman looked at him with
+a wicked smile, that in his present mood exasperated him to such a degree that
+his look of anger so terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and
+ran into the wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp. Seated in
+a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass doors that led to
+the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb autumnal night was visible,
+he thought of his childhood, and of the last years of his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No, Cécile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
+secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life that
+this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among very scrupulous
+people. He had never heard his father&rsquo;s name mentioned, and therefore
+rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the extent of his loss as a
+deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of the senses he lacks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told it; but
+now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really a marquis? Was
+he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely to avoid the disclosure
+of a mortifying desertion? And if this father were still alive, would he not be
+willing to give his name to his son? The poor fellow was ignorant of the fact
+that a true woman&rsquo;s heart is more moved by compassion than by all the
+vain distinctions of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will write to my mother,&rdquo; he thought. But the questions he
+wished to ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at
+once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the work of
+words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech. Unfortunately he had no
+money for his railroad fare. &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can go on
+foot. I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it again.&rdquo; And he
+did try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less long and less lonely than
+it did before, it was far more sad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
+Saint-George&rsquo;s, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
+carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so terrified
+him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth could suddenly rise
+from the dust of the highway, he would be more afraid of the Jack of to-day
+than of any other dismal wanderer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling; and
+pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the present
+time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening when his mother
+appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in glory, and chasing away
+the shades of night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses, Jack
+saw D&rsquo;Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval, who was
+carrying a bundle of proofs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here is Jack!&rdquo; said Moronval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with so much
+care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet coat, much too short
+for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would have supposed that any tie
+could exist between them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack extended his hand to D&rsquo;Argenton, who gave one finger in return, and
+asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rented?&rdquo; said the other, not understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
+occupied, and you were compelled to leave it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; &ldquo;no one has even
+called to look at the place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you here for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To see my mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however,
+there are travelling expenses to be thought of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came on foot,&rdquo; said Jack, with simple dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; drawled D&rsquo;Argenton, and then added, &ldquo;I am
+glad to see that your legs are in better order than your arms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by Jack, but
+since the previous night he had not been the same person. His pride was now so
+wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes without seeing his mother, had
+he not wished to speak to her most seriously. He entered the salon; it was in
+disorder: chairs and benches were being brought in, for a great fête was in
+progress of arrangement, which was the reason that D&rsquo;Argenton was so out
+of temper on seeing Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some
+of her preparations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
+utterly,&mdash;that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going to
+Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments with
+perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were going to
+and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to speak seriously,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and
+to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations, it will
+be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary. I have arranged a
+veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not convenient?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished with a
+sofa and jardinière, but rather dismal-looking with the rain pattering on the
+zinc roof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack said to himself, &ldquo;I had better have written,&rdquo; and did not know
+what to say first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that
+graceful attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a
+moment, as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an étagère of trifles,
+for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head that
+leaned toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like&mdash;I should like to talk to you of my father,&rdquo; he
+said, with some hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the end of her tongue she had the words, &ldquo;What folly!&rdquo; If she
+did not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
+amazement and fear, spoke for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as it is
+to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you. Besides,&rdquo;
+she added, solemnly, &ldquo;I have always intended, when you were twenty, to
+reveal to you the secret of your birth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three months
+previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered no protest, he
+wished to compare her story of to-day with an older narration. How well he knew
+her!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it true that my father was noble?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed he was, my child.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A marquis?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, only a baron.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I supposed&mdash;in fact, you told me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no&mdash;it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was
+noble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was connected then with the Bulac family?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And his name was&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Baron de Bulac&mdash;a lieutenant in the navy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, &ldquo;How long since he
+died?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, years and years!&rdquo; said Charlotte, hurriedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a falsehood
+now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a L&rsquo;Epau?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are looking ill, child,&rdquo; said Charlotte, interrupting herself
+in the midst of a long romance she was telling, &ldquo;your hands are like
+ice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise,&rdquo; answered Jack, with
+difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before
+it is late.&rdquo; She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his
+throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his silence
+and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fête in which he was to
+have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the waiting coiffeur, she
+said good-bye hurriedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of
+yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother all the
+time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fête from which he was
+excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life from which he had
+been always shut out. He thought of the children who could love and respect
+their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a family. He remembered, too,
+that his unhappy fate would prevent him from asking any woman to share his
+life. He was wretched without realizing that to regret these joys was in fact
+to be worthy of them, and that it was only the fall perception of the sad
+truths of his destiny that would impart the strength to cope with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a spot
+where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere. It was just
+the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd, overwhelmed by
+discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets, going at once to the
+wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one word <i>Consolation</i>, as if
+drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole refuge for the wretched. Jack,
+feeling that darkness had settled down on his life as absolutely as it had on
+this cold autumnal night, uttered an exclamation of despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?&rdquo; and
+entering one of those miserable drinking-shops, Jack called for a double
+measure of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
+and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you drink brandy, Jack?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the shop
+abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks&rsquo; duration after this long
+walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals, who
+carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health, is too long
+a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack seated in a
+comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor&rsquo;s office. It
+was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky, the silent house,
+and the gentle footfall of Cécile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with watching the
+movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple home. She sewed and
+kept her grandfather&rsquo;s accounts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; she said, looking up from her book, &ldquo;that the
+dear man forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday,
+Jack?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mademoiselle!&rdquo; he answered, with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all his eyes.
+If Cécile said, &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; it seemed to Jack that no other person
+had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or good-night, his heart
+contracted as if he were never to see her again. Her slightest words were full
+of meaning, and her simple, unaffected ways were a delight to the youth. In his
+state of convalescence he was more susceptible to these influences than he
+would ordinarily have been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a large,
+deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a village street,
+communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was filled with the odors of
+plants culled in the splendor of their flowering, and he drank it in with
+delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in the
+forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor of the
+herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old volumes, and
+found those in which he had studied so long before, and which he could now far
+better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all day, and the two young people
+remained alone. This would have horrified many a prudent mother, and, of
+course, had Madame Rivals been living, it would not have been permitted; but
+the doctor was a child himself, and then, who knows? he may have had his own
+plans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile D&rsquo;Argenton, informed of Jack&rsquo;s removal to the Rivals, saw
+fit to take great offence. &ldquo;It is not at all proper,&rdquo; wrote
+Charlotte, &ldquo;that you should remain there. People will think us unwilling
+to give you the care you need? You place us in a false position.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote
+himself:&mdash;&ldquo;I sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country
+idiot to the science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now
+two days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of that
+time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant disobedience, and
+from that moment all is over between us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with much
+dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart from her
+poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least intimidated by
+her coldness, said at once, &ldquo;I ought to tell you, madame, that it is my
+fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed through a great
+crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions can be reformed, and I
+trust that his will resist the rough trials to which it has been exposed.
+Hirsch would have killed him with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him
+away from the poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger.
+Leave him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than
+ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor
+Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him
+forever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an
+insult?&rdquo; and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with a
+few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her son. She
+found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off some outer husk,
+but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He turned pale when he saw
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have come to take me away,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; she answered, hastily. &ldquo;The doctor wishes you
+to remain, and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
+tenderly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother, and a
+departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly caused him a
+relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked tired and troubled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
+reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese prince at
+the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D&rsquo;Argenton has translated it
+into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese tongue. I find it very
+difficult, and have come to the conclusion that literature is not my forte. The
+Review does not bring in a single cent, and has not now one subscriber. By the
+way, our good friend at Tours is dead. Do you remember him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment Cécile came in and was received by Charlotte with the most
+flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
+D&rsquo;Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely,
+for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in
+Cécile&rsquo;s pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless
+babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame
+D&rsquo;Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long,
+and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her delay, which
+should be in readiness when she encountered her poet&rsquo;s frowning face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your letter
+&lsquo;<i>to be called for</i>,&rsquo; for M. D&rsquo;Argenton is much vexed
+with you just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next
+letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my sentences
+sometimes; but don&rsquo;t mind, dear, you will understand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She acknowledged her slavery with naïveté, and Jack was consoled for the
+tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent spirits,
+and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her travelling-bag
+carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the depths
+of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they expand on the
+surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling the air with their
+delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of these two young hearts.
+With Cécile, the divine flower had grown in a limpid soul, where the most
+careless eyes could have discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled
+and deformed, but when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they
+straightened themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you wish,&rdquo; said M. Rivals, one evening, &ldquo;we will go
+to-morrow to the vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two
+can go in that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright morning at
+the end of October. A soft haze hung over the landscape, retreating before
+them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the bundles of golden grain,
+upon the slender plants, the last remains of the summer&rsquo;s brightness,
+long silken threads floated like particles of gray fog. The river ran on one
+side of the highway, bordered by huge trees. The freshness of the air
+heightened the spirits of the two young travellers, who sat on the rough seat
+with their feet in the straw, and holding on with both hands to the side of the
+wagon. One of the farmer&rsquo;s daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by
+the wasps, which are very numerous at the time when the air is full of the
+aroma of ripening fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a crowd at
+work. Jack and Cécile each snatched a wicker basket and joined the others. What
+a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen between the vine-draped
+arches, the narrow stream, winding and picturesque, full of green islands, a
+little cascade and its white foam, and above all, the fog showing through a
+golden mist, and a fresh breeze that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not leave
+Cécile&rsquo;s side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a skirt of
+flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the grapes, exquisite
+in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the wings of a butterfly. They
+examined the fruit together; and when Jack raised his eyes, he admired on the
+cheeks of the young girl the same faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the
+wind in a soft halo above her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a
+face so changed and brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her
+pretty toil, the gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers,
+had absolutely transformed M. Rivals&rsquo; quiet housekeeper. She became a
+child once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder,
+watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which Jack
+remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their heads their
+full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two young persons,
+overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance of a little grove
+where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly on the
+most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal twilight
+brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple homes scattered
+about, the wind freshened, and Cécile insisted on fastening around Jack&rsquo;s
+throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and softness of the fabric, the
+consciousness of being cared for, was like a caress to the lover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was all.
+When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they heard his
+cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal evenings has a
+charm that both Cécile and Jack felt as they entered the large room filled with
+the light from the fire. At supper innumerable dusty bottles were produced, but
+Jack manifested profound indifference to their charms. The doctor, on the
+contrary, fully appreciated them, so fully that his granddaughter quietly left
+her seat, ordered the carriage to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her
+cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving
+on the table his half-filled glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country roads;
+the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants, groaned a
+little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from the charm of the
+drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed to follow with a golden
+shower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you cold, Jack?&rdquo; said the doctor, suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How could he be cold? The fringe of Cécile&rsquo;s great shawl just touched
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew now that
+he loved Cécile, but he realized also that this love would be to him only an
+additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him, and although he had
+changed much since he had been so near her, although he had thrown aside much
+of the roughness of his habits and appearance, he still felt himself unworthy
+of the lovely fairy who had transformed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was distasteful to
+him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to grow ashamed of his
+hours of inaction in &ldquo;the office.&rdquo; What would she think of him
+should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he must go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning he entered M. Rivals&rsquo; house to thank him for all his
+kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said the old man; &ldquo;you are well now bodily
+and mentally, and you can soon find some employment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular attention with
+which M. Rivals regarded him. &ldquo;You have something to say to me,&rdquo;
+said the doctor, abruptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack colored and hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; continued the doctor, &ldquo;that when a youth was in
+love with a girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper
+thing was to speak to him frankly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why are you so troubled, my boy?&rdquo; continued his old friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not dare to speak to you,&rdquo; answered Jack; &ldquo;I am poor
+and without any position.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can remedy all this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there is something else: you do not know that I am
+illegitimate!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I know&mdash;and so is she,&rdquo; said the doctor, calmly.
+&ldquo;Now listen to a long story.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were in the doctor&rsquo;s library. Through the open window they saw a
+superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless trees; and
+beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated, and its crosses
+upheaved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have never been there,&rdquo; said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack
+this melancholy spot. &ldquo;Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on
+which is the one word Madeleine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There lies my daughter, Cécile&rsquo;s mother. She wished to be placed
+apart from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put upon
+her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her father and
+mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing to merit this exile
+after death, and if any should have been punished, it was I, an old fool, whose
+obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry
+on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Forêt de Sénart. A
+gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man on the state-bed at
+the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with light hair and eyes, those
+northern eyes that have something of the cold glitter of ice. He bore with
+admirable courage the extraction of the balls, and, the operation over, thanked
+me in excellent French, though with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved
+without danger, I continued to attend him at the forester&rsquo;s; I learned
+that he was a Russian of high rank,&mdash;&lsquo;the Comte Nadine,&rsquo; his
+companions called him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
+constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was soon able to
+leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took compassion on his
+loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet home to my own house to dine.
+Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he spent the night with us. I must
+acknowledge to you that I adored the man. He had great stores of information,
+had been everywhere, and seen everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic
+recipes of his own land, to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine.
+We were positively enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face
+homeward on a rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find so
+congenial a person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the general
+enthusiasm, but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a certain distrust as a
+balance to my recklessness, I paid little attention. Meanwhile our invalid was
+quite well enough to return to Paris, but he did not go, and I did not ask
+either myself or him why he lingered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One day my wife said, &lsquo;M. Nadine must explain why he comes so
+often to the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and
+himself.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What nonsense!&rsquo; I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that
+the count lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long
+talks, idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the room,
+I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her embroidery
+all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind as those which will
+not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when Madeleine acknowledged to her
+mother that they loved each other, I went to find the comte to force an
+explanation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
+wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way by his
+family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for himself, and that he
+had some small income, which, added to the amount that I could give Madeleine,
+would secure their comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the very
+moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of lordly decision,
+his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly attractive. In short, he
+was installed in the house as my future son-in-law, without my asking too
+curiously by what door he entered. I realized that there was something a little
+irregular in the affair, but my daughter was very happy; and when her mother
+said, &lsquo;We must know more before we give up our daughter,&rsquo; I laughed
+at her, I was so certain that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M.
+Viéville, one of the huntsmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,&rsquo; he said;
+&lsquo;he strikes me as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated
+name, and that he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should
+wish to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the Russian
+embassy; they can tell you everything there.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what I
+did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I have never
+been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have never had any time;
+my whole existence has been too short for the half of what I have wished to do.
+Tormented by my wife on the subject of this additional information, I finished
+by lying, &lsquo;Yes, yes, I went there; everything is satisfactory.&rsquo;
+Since then I remember the singular air of the comte each time he thought I was
+going to Paris; but at that time I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans
+that my children were making for their future happiness. They were to live with
+us three months in the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St.
+Petersburg, where Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor wife ended
+in sharing my joy and satisfaction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count&rsquo;s papers
+were long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last the
+papers came&mdash;a package of hieroglyphics impossible to
+decipher,&mdash;certificates of birth, baptism, &amp;c. That which particularly
+amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law,
+Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Have you really as many names as that?&rsquo; said my poor child,
+laughing; &lsquo;and I am only Madeleine Rivals.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris with
+great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave the paternal
+authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at Etiolles, in the little
+church where to this very day are to be seen the records of an irreparable
+falsehood. How happy I was that morning as I entered the church with my
+daughter trembling on my arm, feeling that she owed all her happiness to me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the
+bridal couple in a post-chaise&mdash;I can see them now as they drove away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough. When
+we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our side was
+dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but the poor mother
+was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart was devoured by her
+regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their sorrows and their griefs come
+from within, and are interwoven with their daily lives and employments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence, were
+radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the side of our own;
+we chose the furniture and the wall papers. &lsquo;They are here&mdash;they are
+there,&rsquo; we said; and at last we expected the final letters we should
+receive before they returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped
+alone; when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my daughter
+appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had parted with a
+month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly dressed, and carried in her
+hand a little travelling-bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;It is I,&rsquo; she whispered hoarsely; &lsquo;I have
+come.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from
+head to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your
+husband?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I have none&mdash;I have never had one;&rsquo; and suddenly,
+without looking at me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible
+history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew by the
+name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga, married at St.
+Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by himself. His resources
+he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills on the Russian bank. At Turin he
+had been arrested on an order of extradition. Think of my little girl alone in
+this foreign town, separated violently from her husband, learning abruptly that
+he was a forger and a bigamist,&mdash;for he made a full confession of his
+crimes. She had but one thought, that of seeking refuge with us. Her brain was
+so bewildered, that, as she told us afterwards, when she was asked where she
+was going, she simply answered &lsquo;To mamma.&rsquo; She left Turin hastily,
+without her luggage, and at last she was safe with us, and weeping for the
+first time since the catastrophe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your
+mother!&rsquo; but my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife
+learned all; she did not reproach me. &lsquo;I knew,&rsquo; she said,
+&lsquo;from the beginning that there was some misfortune in this
+marriage.&rsquo; And, in fact, she had certain presentiments of evil from the
+hour that the man came under our roof. What is the diagnosis of a physician
+compared to the warning and confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of
+certain women? In the neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known.
+&lsquo;Your travellers have returned,&rsquo; they said. They asked few
+questions, for they readily saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count
+was not with us, that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very soon I
+found myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to bear than
+anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a child would be born
+from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day after day, ornamenting the
+dainty garments, which are the joy and pride of mothers, with ribbons and lace;
+I fancied, however, that she looked at them with feelings of shame, for the
+least allusion to the man who had deceived her made her turn pale. But my wife,
+who saw things with clearer vision than my own, said, &lsquo;You are mistaken:
+she loves him still.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love
+was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon after
+Cécile&rsquo;s birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all its
+folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written before their
+marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once pronouncing the name
+that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
+drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the crowded
+cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance as it were, a
+little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am reminded of those spent
+balls which during a battle kill a laborer at work in the fields, or a child
+returning from school. I think if we had not had little Cécile, my wife would
+have died with her daughter. Her life from that hour was one long silence, full
+of regrets and self-reproach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in
+ignorance of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of difficulty;
+it is true that we were relieved of her father, who died a few months after his
+condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew the whole story; and we
+wished to preserve Cécile from all the gossip she would hear if she associated
+with other children. You saw how solitary her life was. Thanks to this
+precaution, she to-day knows nothing of the tempest that surrounded her birth;
+for not one of the kind people about us would utter one word which would give
+her reason to suspect that there was any mystery. My wife, however, was always
+in dread of some childish questions from Cécile. But I had other fears: who
+could be certain that the child of my child did not inherit from her father
+some of his vices? I acknowledge to you, Jack, that for years I dreaded seeing
+her father&rsquo;s characteristics in Cécile; I dreaded the discovery of deceit
+and falsehood; but what joy it has been to me to find that the child is the
+perfected image of her mother! She has the same tender and half-sad smile, the
+same candid eyes, and lips that can say No.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn
+the truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;She must never love any one,&rsquo; said her grandmother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
+protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her own.
+Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we knew no one.
+It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our minds that your mother
+came to this place. She was supposed to be the wife of D&rsquo;Argenton, but
+the forester&rsquo;s wife told me the real circumstances. I said to myself
+instantly, &lsquo;This boy ought to be Cécile&rsquo;s husband;&rsquo; and from
+that time I attended to your education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to me and
+ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so indignant when
+D&rsquo;Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself, however, Jack may emerge
+from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if he works with his head as well as
+his hands, he may still be worthy of the wife I wish to give him. The letters
+that we received from you were all that they should be, and I ventured to
+indulge the hope I have named. Suddenly came the intelligence of the robbery.
+Ah, my friend, how terrified I was! how I bemoaned the weakness of your mother,
+and the tyranny of the monster who had driven you to evil courses! I respected,
+nevertheless, the tender affection that existed toward you in the heart of my
+little girl, I had not the courage to undeceive her. We talked of you
+constantly until the day when I told her that I had seen you at the
+forester&rsquo;s. If you could have seen the light in her eyes, and how busy
+she was all day! a sign with her always of some excitement, as if her heart
+beating too quickly needed something, either a pen or a needle, to regulate its
+movements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I
+am satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study medicine
+and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you here, but I
+concluded that it would take four years to complete your studies, and that your
+residence with us for that length of time would not be advisable. In Paris you
+can study in the evening, and work all day, and come to us on Sundays. I will
+examine your week&rsquo;s work and advise you, and Cécile will encourage you.
+Velpeau and others have done this, and you can do the same. Will you try?
+Cécile is the reward.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of the old
+man. But perhaps Cécile&rsquo;s affection was only that of a sister: and four
+years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions,&rdquo; said M. Rivals,
+gayly; &ldquo;but I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. Cécile is
+up-stairs; go and speak to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a trip-hammer, and
+a voice choked with emotion. Cécile was writing in the office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cécile,&rdquo; he said, as he entered the room, &ldquo;I am going
+away.&rdquo; She rose from her seat, very pale. &ldquo;I am going to
+work,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Your grandfather has given me permission to
+tell you that I love you, and that I hope to win you as my wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than Cécile would have failed
+to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this room, lighted
+by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl stood listening to this
+declaration of love as to an echo of her own thoughts. She was perfectly
+unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile on her lips, and her eyes full of
+tears. She understood perfectly that their life would be no holiday, that they
+would be racked by separations and long years of waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; she said, after he had explained all his plans, &ldquo;I
+will wait for you, not only four years, but forever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
+Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not too far
+removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and courage, impatient
+to begin his double work as mechanic and student. The crowd pushed against him,
+and he did not feel them; nor was he conscious of the cold of this December
+night; nor did he hear the young apprentice girls, as they passed him, say to
+each other, &ldquo;What a handsome man!&rdquo; The great Faubourg was alive and
+seemed to encourage him with its gayety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a pleasure it is to live!&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;and how hard I
+mean to work!&rdquo; Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled
+with fur hats and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker&rsquo;s
+stall. Jack looked in and saw Bélisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner and
+better clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once; but
+Bélisaire was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of shoes that
+the cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were not for himself, but
+for a tiny child of four or five years of age, pale and thin, with a head much
+too large for his body. Bélisaire was talking to the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
+feet warm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack&rsquo;s appearance did not seem to surprise him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you come from?&rdquo; he asked, as calmly as if he had seen
+him the night before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you, Bélisaire? Is this your child?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber,&rdquo; said the pedler, with a sigh;
+and when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted, Bélisaire
+drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out some silver pieces
+that he placed in the cobbler&rsquo;s hand with that air of importance assumed
+by working people when they pay away money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going, comrade?&rdquo; said the pedler to Jack, as they
+stood on the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you
+take this side, I shall go the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, &ldquo;I hardly
+know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck&rsquo;s, and I want to
+find a room not too far away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At Eyssendeck&rsquo;s?&rdquo; said the pedler. &ldquo;It is not easy to
+get in there; one must bring the best of recommendations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. Bélisaire believed him guilty of
+the robbery,&mdash;so true it is that accusations, however unfounded and
+however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes. When Bélisaire saw the
+letters of the superintendent at Indret, and heard the whole story, his whole
+face lighted up with his old smile. &ldquo;Listen, Jack, it is too late to seek
+a lodging to-night; come with me, for I have a room where you can sleep
+tonight, and perhaps can suggest something that will suit you. But we will talk
+about that as we sup. Come now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behold the three&mdash;Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber&rsquo;s little one,
+whose new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously&mdash;were soon hurrying
+along the streets. Bélisaire informed Jack that his sister was now a widow, and
+that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in the full tide of his
+history, he stopped to shout his old cry of &ldquo;Hats! hats! Hats to
+sell!&rdquo; But before he reached his home, he was obliged to lift into his
+arms Madame Weber&rsquo;s little boy, who had begun to weep despairingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor little fellow!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, &ldquo;he is not in the habit
+of walking. He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out with
+me sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His mother is
+away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working woman, and has to
+leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we are!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like narrow
+slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which serve as
+ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their boxes. At this
+hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in at the doors, which
+stood wide open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said the pedler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said the friendly voices from within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light&mdash;a woman and
+children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pedler&rsquo;s room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud
+of it. &ldquo;I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must
+wait until I have taken this child to its mother.&rdquo; He looked under the
+door of a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it, went
+directly to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the evening meal.
+He lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high chair at the table, gave
+it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and then said, &ldquo;Come away
+quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute, and I wish to hear what she
+will say when she sees the child&rsquo;s new shoes.&rdquo; He smiled as he
+opened his room&mdash;a long attic divided in two. A pile of hats told his
+business, and the bare walls his poverty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of a fine
+salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two plates, bread and
+wine, and placed them on a little table. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, with an
+air of triumph, &ldquo;all is ready, though it is not much like that famous ham
+you gave me in the country.&rdquo; The potato salad was excellent, however, and
+Jack did justice to it. Bélisaire was delighted with the appetite of his guest,
+and did his duty as host with great delight, rising every two or three minutes
+to see if the water was boiling for the coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have a taste for housekeeping, Bélisaire,&rdquo; said Jack,
+&ldquo;and have things nicely arranged.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; answered the pedler; &ldquo;I need very many
+articles,&mdash;in fact, these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are
+waiting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Waiting for what?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Until we can be married!&rdquo; answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent
+to Jack&rsquo;s gay laugh. &ldquo;Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will
+see her soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
+could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him, do his
+washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any more than for us.
+Where there is enough for two there is always enough for three, you know! The
+difficulty is to find some one who is orderly and sober, and won&rsquo;t make
+too much trouble in the house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How should I do, Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour, but
+did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Bélisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very
+economical, for I, too, am thinking of marrying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really! But in that case we can&rsquo;t make our arrangements.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four years
+later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
+Hark! I hear Madame Weber.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began a
+melancholy wail. &ldquo;I am coming,&rdquo; cried the woman from the end of the
+corridor, to console the little one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; said Bélisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed
+by a laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her arm,
+entered Bélisaire&rsquo;s room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of about
+thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one&rsquo;s feet, but
+there was a tear in her eye as she said, &ldquo;You are the person who has done
+this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Bélisaire, with simplicity, &ldquo;how could she guess
+so well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack was
+presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that she
+received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the aspirant for
+this distinction, and learned that the two men had known each other for ten
+years, and that she had before her the hero of the story of the ham that she
+had heard so many times, her face lost its expression of distrust, and she held
+out her hand to Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This time Bélisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
+comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very innocent,
+because he is so good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until the
+marriage he should share Bélisaire&rsquo;s room and buy himself a bed; they
+would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every Saturday.
+After the marriage, they would establish themselves more commodiously, and
+nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment recalled to him Indret on a
+smaller scale. Owing to lack of space, there were in the same room three rows,
+one above the other, of machines. Jack was on the upper floor, where all the
+noise and dust of the place ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the
+gallery, he beheld a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous
+beat of machinery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less ventilation;
+but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life supported him through all
+the trials of the day. His companions saw intuitively that he lived apart from
+them, indifferent to their petty quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither
+their pleasures nor their hatreds. He never listened to their sullen
+complaints, nor the muttered thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a
+Ghetto in this magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic
+theories, the natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering
+so near the wealthier classes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am not disposed to assert that Jack&rsquo;s companions liked him especially,
+but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen, they looked upon him
+much as a Prince Rodolphe,&mdash;for they had all read &ldquo;The Mysteries of
+Paris,&rdquo;&mdash;and admired his tall, slender figure and his careful dress.
+But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he passed their corner of the
+establishment with scarcely a glance. This corner was never without its
+excitement and drama, for most of the workwomen had a lover among the men, and
+this led to all sorts of jealousies and scenes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to reach his
+lodgings, to throw aside his workman&rsquo;s blouse, and to bury himself in his
+books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he had used at school, he
+commenced the labors of the evening, and was astonished to find with what
+facility he regained all that he thought he had forever lost. Sometimes,
+however, he encountered an unexpected difficulty, and it was touching to see
+the young man, whose hands were distorted and clumsy from handling heavy
+weights, sometimes throw aside his pen in despair. At his side Bélisaire sat
+sewing the straw of his summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of
+a savage assistant at a magician&rsquo;s incantations. He frowned when Jack
+frowned, grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
+passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
+pedler&rsquo;s big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student&rsquo;s
+pen scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up and
+thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere; and when
+Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of other lamps, and
+other shadows courageously prolonging their labors into the middle of the
+night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil, brought
+her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It had been decided
+that they should not marry until spring, the winter to the poor being always a
+season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he wrote, thought, &ldquo;How happy
+they are.&rdquo; His own happiness came on Sundays. Never did any coquette take
+such pains with her toilette as did Jack on those days, for he was determined
+that nothing about him should remind Cécile of his daily toil; well might he
+have been taken for Prince Rodolphe had he been seen as he started off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Delicious day! without hours or minutes&mdash;a day of uninterrupted felicity.
+The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in the salon, flowers
+bloomed at the windows, and Cécile and the doctor made him feel how dear he was
+to them both. After they had dined, M. Rivals examined the work of the week,
+corrected everything, and explained all that had puzzled the youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they often passed
+the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain experiments. So black
+was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that one would have fancied that
+the man was burning all the drugs in the world. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you smell
+the poison?&rdquo; said M. Rivals, indignantly. But the young people passed the
+house in silence; they instinctively felt that there were no kindly sentiments
+within those walls toward them, and, in fact, feared that the fanatic Dr.
+Hirsch was sent there as a spy. But what had they to fear, after all? Was not
+all intercourse between D&rsquo;Argenton and Charlotte&rsquo;s son forever
+ended? For three months they had not met. Since Jack had been engaged to
+Cécile, and understood the dignity and purity of love, he had hated
+D&rsquo;Argenton, making him responsible for the fault of his weak mother,
+whose chains were riveted more closely by the violence and tyranny under which
+a nobler nature would have revolted. Charlotte, who feared scenes and
+explanations, had relinquished all hope of reconciliation between these two
+men. She never mentioned her son to D&rsquo;Argenton, and saw him only in
+secret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled, and
+Jack&rsquo;s fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman elegant
+in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of gossip in regard to
+the mysterious visitor, which finally reached Jack&rsquo;s ears, who begged his
+mother not to expose herself to such remarks. They then saw each other in the
+gardens, or in some of the churches; for, like many other women of similar
+characteristics, she had become <i>dévote</i> as she grew old, as much from an
+overflow of idle sentimentality as from a passion for honors and ceremonies. In
+these rare and brief interviews Charlotte talked all the time, as was her
+habit, but with a worn, sad air. She said, however, that she was happy and at
+peace, and that she had every confidence in M. d&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s
+brilliant future. But one day, as mother and son were leaving the church-door,
+she said to him, with some embarrassment, &ldquo;Jack, can you let me have a
+little money for a few days? I have made some mistake in my accounts, and have
+not money enough to carry me to the end of the month, and I dare not ask
+D&rsquo;Argenton for a penny.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the whole
+amount in his mother&rsquo;s hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw what the
+obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a look of despair on
+the face that was generally so smiling and fresh. Intense compassion filled his
+heart. &ldquo;You are unhappy,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;come to me, I shall-be so
+glad to have you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started. &ldquo;No, it is impossible,&rdquo; she said, in a low voice;
+&ldquo;he has so many trials just now;&rdquo; and she hurried away as if to
+escape some temptation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"></a>
+CHAPTER XX.<br />
+THE WEDDING-PARTY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was a summer morning. The pedler and his comrade were up before daybreak.
+One was sweeping and dusting, with as little noise as possible, careful not to
+disturb his companion, who was established at the open window. The sky was the
+cloudless one of June, pale blue with a faint tinge of rose still lingering in
+the east, that could be seen between the chimneys. In front of Jack was a zinc
+roof, which, when the sun was in mid-heaven, became a terrible mirror. At this
+moment it reflected faintly the tints of the sky, so that the tall chimneys
+looked like the masts of a vessel floating on a glittering sea. Below was heard
+the noise from the poultry owned by the various inhabitants of the Faubourg.
+Suddenly a cry was heard: &ldquo;Madame Jacob! Madame Mathieu! Here is your
+bread.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was four o&rsquo;clock. The labors of the day had begun. The woman whose
+daily business it was to supply that quarter with bread from the baker&rsquo;s
+had begun her rounds. Her basket was filled with loaves of all sizes,
+sweet-smelling and warm. She carries them all through the corridors, placing
+them at the corners of the various doors; her shrill voice aroused the
+sleepers; doors opened and shut; childish voices uttered cries of joy, and
+little bare feet pattered to meet the good woman, and returned hugging a loaf
+as big as themselves, with that peculiar gesture that you see in the poor
+people who come out of the bake-shops, and which shows the thoughtful observer
+what that hard-earned bread signifies to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the world is now astir; windows are thrown open, even those where the lamps
+have burned the greater part of the night. At one sits a sad-faced woman, at a
+sewing-machine, aided by a little girl, who hands her the several pieces of her
+work. At another a young girl, with hair already neatly braided, is carefully
+cutting a slice of bread for her slender breakfast, watching that no crumb
+shall fall on the floor she swept at daybreak. Further on is a window shaded by
+a large red curtain to keep off the reflection from the zinc roof. All these
+rooms open on the other side into a dark and ugly house of enormous size. But
+the student heeds nothing but his work. One sound only depresses him at times,
+and that is the voice of an old woman, who says every morning, before the
+noises of the street have begun, &ldquo;How happy people ought to be who can go
+to the country on a day like this!&rdquo; To whom does the poor woman utter
+these words, day after day? To the whole world, to herself, or only to the
+canary, whose cage, covered with fresh leaves, she hangs on the shutters?
+Perhaps she is talking to her flowers. Jack never knew, but he is much of her
+opinion, and would gladly echo her words; for his first waking thoughts turn
+toward a tranquil village street, toward a little green door, Jack has just
+reached this point in his reverie when a rustle of silk is heard, and the
+handle of his door rattles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turn to the right,&rdquo; said Bélisaire, who was making the coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The handle is still aimlessly rattled. Bélisaire, with the coffee-pot in his
+hand, impatiently throws it open, and Charlotte rushes in. Bélisaire, stupefied
+at this inundation of flounces, feathers, and laces, bows again and again,
+while Jack&rsquo;s mother, who does not recognize him, excuses herself, and
+retreats toward the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I made a mistake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound of her voice Jack rises from his chair in astonishment
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother!&rdquo; he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran to him and took refuge in his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Save me, my child, save me! That man, for whom I have sacrificed
+everything,&mdash;my life and that of my child,&mdash;has beaten me cruelly.
+This morning, when he came in after two days&rsquo; absence, I ventured to make
+some observation; I thought I had a right to speak. He flew into a frightful
+passion, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The end of her sentence was lost in a torrent of tears and in convulsive sobs.
+Bélisaire had retired at her first words, and discreetly closed the door after
+him. Jack looks at his mother, full of terror and pity. How pale and how
+changed she is! In the clear light of the young day the marks of time are
+clearly visible on her face, and the gray hairs, that she has not taken the
+trouble to conceal, shine like silver on her blue-veined temples. Without any
+attempt at controlling her emotion, she speaks without restraint, pouring forth
+all her wrongs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How I have suffered, Jack! He passes his life now at the cafés and in
+dissipation. Did you know that, when he went to Indret with that money, I was
+there in the village, and crazy to see you? He reproaches me with the bread you
+ate under his roof, and yet&mdash;yes, I will tell you what I never meant you
+to know&mdash;I had ten thousand francs of yours that were given to me for you
+exclusively. Well, D&rsquo;Argenton put them into his Review; I know that he
+meant to pay you large interest, but the ten thousand francs have been
+swallowed up with all the others, and when I asked him if he did not intend to
+account to you for them, do you know what he did? He drew up a long bill of all
+that he has paid for you. Your board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen
+thousand francs. But he does not ask you to pay the difference; is not that
+very generous?&rdquo; and Charlotte laughed sarcastically. &ldquo;I tell you I
+have borne everything,&rdquo; she continued,&mdash;&ldquo;the rages he has
+fallen into on your account, and the mean way in which he has talked with his
+friends of the affair at Indret; as if your innocence had never been fully
+established!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his time
+with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,&mdash;for those women are all
+crazy about him,&mdash;and then to receive my reproaches with such disdain, and
+finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too much. I dressed, and put
+on my hat, and then I went to him. I said, &lsquo;Look at me, M.
+d&rsquo;Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that you will see me; I
+am going to my child.&rsquo; And then I came away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and paler, and
+so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he could not look at
+her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently, and with much sweetness,
+but also with much solemnity, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
+lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take care! I
+shall never allow you to leave me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together&mdash;we two. You know
+I told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under her son&rsquo;s caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
+occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how happy we may be. I owe you much
+care and tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare
+and small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This brief summary of the apartment regarded by Bélisaire as so magnificent,
+disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no time now for
+discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave, and he must decide
+at once on something definite. He must consult Bélisaire, whom he heard
+patiently pacing the corridor, and who would have waited until nightfall
+without once knocking to see if the interview was over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bélisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we
+manage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire started as he thought, &ldquo;And now the marriage must be postponed,
+for Jack will not be one of our little ménage!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest some plan
+that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It was decided finally
+that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his mother and find for himself
+a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock of hats and his furniture with
+Madame Weber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack presented his friend to Bélisaire, who remembered very well the fair lady
+at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the service of Ida de
+Barancy; for &ldquo;Charlotte&rdquo; was no more heard of. A bed must be
+purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took from the drawer
+where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces which he gave his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that if marketing is disagreeable to
+you, good Madame Weber will attend to the dinners.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all; Bélisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do
+everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have ready for
+you when you come back to-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready to begin
+her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her with his whole
+heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind. With what courage he
+toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and hopeless future of his
+mother had troubled him for some time, and marred his joys and his hopes. To
+what depth of degradation would D&rsquo;Argenton compel her to sink! To what
+end was she destined! Now all was changed. Ida, tenderly protected by his
+filial love, would become worthy of her whom she would some day call &ldquo;my
+daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished the
+distance between Cécile and himself, and he smiled to himself as he thought of
+it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was seized by a panic.
+Should he find his mother there? He knew with what promptitude Ida gave wings
+to her fancies and caprices, and he feared lest she had felt the temptation to
+re-tie the knot so hastily broken. But on the staircase this dread vanished.
+Above all the noises of the house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a
+lark. Jack stood on the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and
+cleaned, with Bélisaire&rsquo;s goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty
+bed and dainty dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There
+were flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white cloth, on
+which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an embroidered
+skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her puffs, hardly
+looked like herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well!&rdquo; she said, running to meet him; &ldquo;and what do you think
+of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; Bélisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them
+to dine with us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what will you do for dishes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side
+have lent me some. They are very obliging also.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant, opened his
+eyes wide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell
+them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that I had
+to take a carriage to return.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save fifteen
+cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from the
+<i>Palais Royale</i>. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that
+something was wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I spent too much?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I think not,&mdash;for one occasion,&rdquo; he answered, with same
+hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I have not been extravagant. Look here,&rdquo; she said, and she
+showed him a long green book; &ldquo;in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will
+show my entries to you after dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was truly
+delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received them; but
+her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at their ease.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must be
+indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his &ldquo;comrade.&rdquo; Ah, one may
+well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by children,
+which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same time feels all the
+hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the light, while his companion
+descended toward the implacable reality. To begin with, the person called
+Bélisaire&mdash;who should in reality have been named Resignation, Devotion, or
+Patience&mdash;was now obliged to relinquish his pleasant room and sleep in a
+closet, the only place on that floor; not for worlds would he have gone farther
+from Madame Weber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to see him
+bring out a pile of books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to study.&rdquo; And he then told her of the double life he
+led; of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until
+then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform
+D&rsquo;Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way
+his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to him
+alone, he could speak to her of Cécile and of his supreme joy. Jack talked with
+enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not understand him.
+She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not the same signification
+for her that it had for him. She listened to him with the same interest that
+she would have felt in the third act at the <i>Gymnase</i>, when the
+<i>Ingenue</i> in a white dress, with rose-colored ribbons, listened to the
+declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She was pleased with the spectacle as
+presented by her son, and said two or three times, &ldquo;How nice! how very
+nice! It makes me think of Paul and Virginia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the echoes of
+their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed, heard none of the
+commonplace comments of his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Bélisaire came to
+meet him with a radiant face. &ldquo;We are to be married at once! Madame Weber
+has found a &lsquo;comrade.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend&rsquo;s
+disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did not last;
+for, on seeing &ldquo;the comrade,&rdquo; he received a most unpleasant
+impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of his
+face was far from agreeable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is generally
+given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the church; but the
+people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they generally take
+Saturday for the two ceremonies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire&rsquo;s wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one
+of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to the
+municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing, Madame Weber,
+in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue of that bright indigo
+shade so dear to persons who like solid colors; a many-hued shawl was carefully
+folded on her arm, and a superb cap, ornamented with ribbons and flowers,
+displayed her beaming peasant face. She walked by the side of Bélisaire&rsquo;s
+father, a little dried-up old man, with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and
+a perpetual cough that his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing
+his back with considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat
+disturbed the dignity of the wedding procession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as hooked as
+her father&rsquo;s. Bélisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led by one
+hand Madame Weber&rsquo;s little child. Then came a crowd of relatives and
+friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do more than
+honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to take place at
+Vincennes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room engaged
+by Bélisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look at the lake and to
+amuse themselves with examining the crowd of merrymakers. They were dancing and
+singing, playing blind-man&rsquo;s-buff and innumerable other games; under the
+trees a girl was mending the flounces of a bride&rsquo;s dress. O, those white
+dresses! With what joy those girls let them drag over the lawn, imagining
+themselves for that one occasion women of fashion. It is precisely this
+illusion that the people seek in their hours of amusement: a pretence of
+riches, a momentary semblance of the envied and happy of this earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bélisaire&rsquo;s party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy the
+announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in one of those
+large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and whose size was
+apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each end of the table was a
+huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a centrepiece of pink and white
+sugar, and ornaments of the same, which had officiated at many a wedding-dinner
+in the previous six months. They took their seats in solemn silence, though
+Madame de Barancy had not yet arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who
+disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per head,
+a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and envied
+Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment. The waiters were,
+however, filled with profound contempt, which they expressed by winks at each
+other, invisible however to the guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him with holy
+horror; another, opposite behind his wife&rsquo;s chair, watched him so
+disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from the
+<i>carte</i>,&mdash;on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens, and
+beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and
+battles&mdash;Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. Bélisaire, like the others, was
+stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with the
+question, &ldquo;Bisque, or Purée de Crécy?&rdquo; Or two bottles:
+&ldquo;Xeres, or Pacaset, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where you
+are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was of little
+consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless mixture. There was
+so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be very dull, and interminable
+as well, from the indecision of the guests as to the dishes they should accept.
+It was Madame Weber&rsquo;s clear head and decided hand that cut this Gordian
+knot. She turned to her child. &ldquo;Eat everything,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;it costs us enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after a
+little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and Ida de
+Barancy entered, smiling and charming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity nowadays
+of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary effect. The way in
+which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her gloves in a wineglass, the
+manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to bring her the carte,
+overwhelmed the assembly with admiration. It was delightful to see her order
+about those imposing waiters. One of them she had recognized, the one who
+terrified Bélisaire so much. &ldquo;You are here then, now!&rdquo; she said
+carelessly; and shook her bracelets, and kissed her hand to her son, asked for
+a footstool, some ice, and eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew the resources of the
+establishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!&rdquo; she cried suddenly.
+She rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. &ldquo;I ask
+permission to change places with Madame Bélisaire; I am quite sure that her
+husband will not complain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber uttered a
+shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair, and all this
+noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and restraint into
+laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the table executing
+marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck so adroitly carved and
+served that each one had as much as he wanted. And the peas fell like hail on
+the plates; and the beans&mdash;prepared at one end of the table with salt,
+pepper, and butter; and such butter!&mdash;were mixed by a waiter who smiled
+maliciously as he stirred the fell combination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person there
+knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne signified to them
+riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They talked about it in a low
+voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at dessert, a waiter appeared with a
+silver-capped bottle that he proceeded to open. Ida, who never lost an
+opportunity of making a sensation and assuming an attitude, put her pretty
+hands over her ears, but the cork came out like any other cork; the waiter,
+holding the bottle high, went around the table very quickly. The bottle was
+inexhaustible; each person had some froth and a few drops at the bottom of the
+glass, which he drank with respect, and even believed that there was still more
+in the bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word champagne had produced
+its effect, and there is so much French gayety in the least particle of its
+froth that an astonishing animation at once pervaded the assembly. A dance was
+proposed; but music costs so much!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! if we only had a piano,&rdquo; said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at
+the same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
+Bélisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a village
+musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his mother at first
+felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued, but Ida finally
+organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk skirts and the jangling of
+her bracelets filled the souls of the younger women with admiration and
+jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the little Weber was asleep wrapped in a
+shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack had made many signs to Ida, who pretended
+not to understand, carried away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about
+her. Jack was like an old father who is anxious to take his daughter home from
+a ball.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is late,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait, dear,&rdquo; was her answer. At length, however, he seized her
+cloak, and wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that
+hour, and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which they
+hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot through the Bois
+de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious after the heat of the
+restaurant; the child slept sweetly on Bélisaire&rsquo;s shoulder, and did not
+even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame Bélisaire threw aside her
+wedding-dress, assumed a plainer one, and at once entered on the duties of the
+day.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"></a>
+CHAPTER XXI.<br />
+EFFECTS OF POETRY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great pleasure and
+also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he knew her, nevertheless,
+to be weak and rash. He feared Cécile&rsquo;s calm judgment and intuitive
+perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes are in the young. The first few
+moments tranquillized him a little. The emphatic tone in which Ida addressed
+Cécile as &ldquo;my daughter&rdquo; was all well enough, but when under the
+influence of a good breakfast Madame de Barancy dropped her serious air and
+began some of her extravagant stories, Jack felt all his apprehensions revive.
+She kept her auditors on the <i>qui vive</i>. Some one spoke of relatives that
+M. Rivals had in the Pyrenees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;Gavarni, the Mer de
+Glace, and all that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my
+family, the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at Biarritz in
+a most amusing way!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cécile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma! I
+was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who insisted on my
+drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very angry, and opened the
+window, took me just at the waist, and held me above the water in the lightning
+and rain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to life again,
+like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain life and animation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his lessons
+were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cécile to go down into the
+garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched them from the
+window; Cécile&rsquo;s slender figure and quiet movements were those of a
+well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but loud in her style
+and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For the first time Jack felt
+his lessons to be very long, and only breathed freely again when they were all
+together walking in the woods. But on this day his mother&rsquo;s presence
+disturbed the harmony. She had no comprehension of love, and saw it only as
+something utterly ridiculous. But the worst of all was the sudden respect she
+entertained for <i>les convenances</i>. She recalled the young people, bade
+them &ldquo;not to wander away so far, but to keep in sight,&rdquo; and then
+she looked at the doctor in a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his
+mother grated on the old doctor&rsquo;s nerves; but the forest was so lovely,
+Cécile so affectionate, and the few words they exchanged were so mingled with
+the sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the poor
+boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation, so they
+stopped at the forester&rsquo;s. Mère Archambauld was delighted to see her old
+mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked not a question in regard to
+D&rsquo;Argenton, her keen personal sense telling her that she had best not.
+But the sight of this good creature, for a long time so intimately connected
+with their life at Aulnettes, was too much for Ida. Without waiting for the
+lunch so carefully prepared by Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her
+chair, as suddenly as if in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went
+swiftly through the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the blinds
+were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the tale told
+with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke a branch from the
+clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and inhaled the breath of its
+starry white blossoms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, dear mother?&rdquo; said Jack, who had hastened to follow
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, with rapidly falling tears, &ldquo;you know I have
+so much buried here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin inscription over
+the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for that evening her gayety
+was gone. In vain did Cécile, who had been told that Madame D&rsquo;Argenton
+was separated from her husband, try with minor cares to efface the painful
+impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek to interest her in all his
+projects for the future.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, my child,&rdquo; she said, on her way home, &ldquo;that it is
+not best for me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound
+is too recent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the humiliations to
+which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished what to
+him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk, and the quiet
+talk with Cécile, that he might return to Paris in time to dine with his
+mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from the tranquillity of the
+country to the animation of a Sunday in the Faubourg. The sidewalks were
+covered by little tables, where families sat drinking their coffee, and crowds
+were standing, with their noses in the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon
+that had just been released from its moorings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the courtyard
+of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with his neighbors, who
+had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher than they could obtain in
+their confined quarters within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes, in Jack&rsquo;s absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to a
+little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Lévèque. The shop was filled with
+mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and illustrated papers,
+which she let for a sou a day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making a
+certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seems that Madame Lévèque had known better days, and that under the first
+empire her father was a man of considerable importance. &ldquo;I am the
+godchild of the Duc de Dantzic,&rdquo; she said to Ida, with emphasis. She was
+one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in the secluded
+corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop, her gilt-edged books
+torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered with stories of past splendors.
+That enchanting reign, of which she had seen but the conclusion, had dazzled
+her eyes, and the mere tone in which she pronounced the titles of that time
+evoked the memory of epaulettes and gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine,
+and of the ladies of the court! One especial tale Madame Lévèque was never
+tired of telling: it was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of the
+famous ball given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her subsequent years
+had been lighted by those flames, and by that light she saw a procession of
+gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low dresses, with heads dressed <i>à la
+Titus or à la Grecque</i>, and the emperor, in his green coat and white
+trousers, carrying in his arms across the garden the fainting Madame de
+Schwartzenberg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this half-crazed
+old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark shop, with the names of
+dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their tongues, a workman would come in
+to buy a paper for a sou, or some woman, impatient for the conclusion of some
+serial romance, would come in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and
+cheerfully pay the two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her
+snuff, and, if she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Occasionally Madame Lévèque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida had no
+other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a pile of books
+taken at hazard from Madame Lévèque&rsquo;s shelves. These books were soiled
+and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread upon them, showing that
+they had been read while eating. She sat reading by the window,&mdash;reading
+until her head swam. She read to escape thinking. Singularly out of place in
+this house, the incessant toil that she saw going on about her depressed her,
+instead of, as with her son, exciting her to more strenuous exertions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other with her
+sing-song repetition of the words, &ldquo;How happy people ought to be who can
+go to the country in such weather!&rdquo; exasperated her almost beyond
+endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air, made all these
+miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same way that the repose of
+Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the twitter of the sparrows on the
+roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits. She thought of her early life, of her
+drives and walks, of the gay parties in the country, and above all of the more
+recent years at Etiolles. She thought of D&rsquo;Argenton reciting one of his
+poems on the porch in the moonlight. Where was he? What was he doing? Three
+months had passed since she left him, and he had not written one word. Then the
+book fell from her hands, and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of
+her son, whom she endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole
+story in the disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in
+readiness for dinner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have done nothing,&rdquo; she said, sadly. &ldquo;The weather is so
+warm, and I am discouraged.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some little
+amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day,&rdquo; he continued, with a tender,
+pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out from her wardrobe
+some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too coquettish, too conspicuous
+for her present circumstances. To dress as modestly as possible, and walk
+through these poor streets, afforded her no amusement. In spite of her care to
+avoid anything noticeable in her costume, Jack always detected some
+eccentricity,&mdash;in the length of her skirts, which required a carriage, or
+in the cut of her corsage, or the trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then
+went to dine at Bagnolet or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They
+attempted some little conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their
+lives had been so different that they really now had little in common. While
+Ida was disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
+with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
+perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother&rsquo;s
+ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had certain phrases caught from D&rsquo;Argenton, a peremptory tone in
+discussion, a didactic &ldquo;I think so; I believe; I know.&rdquo; She
+generally began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
+signified, &ldquo;I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you.&rdquo;
+Thanks to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
+husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an occasional
+look of D&rsquo;Argenton on his mother&rsquo;s face. On her lips was often to
+be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of his boy-hood, and
+which he always dreaded to see in D&rsquo;Argenton. Never had a sculptor found
+in his clay more docile material than the pretentious poet had discovered in
+this poor woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings was the
+Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the old heights of
+Montfauçon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and pine groves, seemed to
+add to the general dreariness. But there was something artificial and romantic
+in the place that pleased Ida by its resemblance to a park. She allowed her
+dress to trail over the sand of the alleys, admired the exotics, and would have
+liked to write her name on the ruined wall, with the scores of others that were
+already there. When they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the
+summit of the hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them.
+Paris, softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The heights
+around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle, connected by
+Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other, with Montfauçon;
+nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the people. In the winding
+alleys and under the groups of trees young people were singing and dancing,
+while on the hillside, sitting amid the yellowed grass, and on the dried red
+earth, families were gathered together like flocks of sheep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude said,
+&ldquo;How inexpressibly tiresome it is!&rdquo; Jack felt helpless before this
+persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some one of
+these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his mother might be
+cheered. Once he thought he had found what he wanted. It was one Sunday. Before
+them walked an old man, rustic in appearance, leading two little children, over
+whom he was bending with that wonderful patience which only grandfathers are
+possessed of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I certainly know that man,&rdquo; said Jack to his mother; &ldquo;it
+is&mdash;it must be M. Rondic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder that his
+former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a miniature of
+Zénaïde, while the boy looked like Maugin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile was sad,
+and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth dared not ask a
+question until, as they turned a corner, Zénaïde bore down upon them like a
+ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited skirt and ruffled cap for a
+Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked larger than ever. She had the arm of her
+husband, who was now attached to one of the custom-houses, and who was in
+uniform. Zénaïde adored M. Maugin and was absurdly proud of him, while he
+looked very happy in being so worshipped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they divided into
+two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaïde, &ldquo;What has happened? Is it
+possible that Madame Clarisse&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she added, &ldquo;We say &lsquo;accidentally&rsquo; on father&rsquo;s
+account; but you, who knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no
+accident that she perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again.
+Ah, what wicked men there are in this world!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock,&rdquo;
+resumed Zénaïde; &ldquo;but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin
+got his position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together
+in the Rue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won&rsquo;t you,
+Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse him.
+Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking at us, and
+thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
+approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D&rsquo;Argenton, as
+indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes, which, had
+she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken long. They separated,
+promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long afterward, called upon them
+with his mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know so well
+at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big wardrobe as an old
+friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and presented a perfect picture of a
+Breton interior transplanted to Paris. But he soon saw that his mother was
+bored by Zénaïde, who was too energetic and positive to suit her, and that
+there, as everywhere else, she was haunted by the same melancholy and the same
+disgust which she expressed in the brief phrase, &ldquo;It smells of the
+work-shop.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed impregnated
+with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the window, she perceived it
+even more strongly; if she went out, each breath of wind brought it to her. The
+people she saw&mdash;even her own Jack, when he returned at night with his
+blouse spotted with oil&mdash;exhaled the same baleful odor, which she fancied
+clung even to herself&mdash;the odor of toil&mdash;and filled her with immense
+sadness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary excitement; her
+eyes were bright and complexion animated. &ldquo;D&rsquo;Argenton has written
+to me!&rdquo; she cried, as he entered the room; &ldquo;yes, my dear, he has
+actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe a syllable.
+He writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and that, if I need him,
+he is at my disposal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do not need him, I think,&rdquo; said Jack, quietly, though he was
+in reality as much moved as his mother herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I do not,&rdquo; she answered, hurriedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what shall you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not yet
+know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just finished his
+letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious to see his house,
+though, now that I am not there to keep all in order. He is evidently out of
+spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has been for two months
+at&mdash;what is the name of the place?&rdquo; and she calmly drew from her
+pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. &ldquo;Ah, yes, it is at
+the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense! Those mineral springs
+have always been bad for him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening she was
+busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation of her first days
+with her son. While at work she talked to herself. Suddenly she crossed the
+room to Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are full of courage, my boy,&rdquo; she said, kissing him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother&rsquo;s
+mind. &ldquo;It is not I whom she kisses,&rdquo; he said, shrewdly; and his
+suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the past had
+taken possession of the poor woman&rsquo;s mind. She never ceased humming the
+words of a little song of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s, which the poet was in the
+habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and over again she
+sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack&rsquo;s mind only sad and
+shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would have said to the
+woman before him! But she was his mother; he loved her, and wished by his own
+respect to teach her to respect herself. He therefore kept strict guard over
+his lips. This first warning of coming danger, however, awoke in him all the
+jealous foreboding of a man who was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of
+saying good-bye to him when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her smile
+of greeting on his return. He could not watch her himself, nor could he confide
+to any other person the distrust with which she inspired him. He knew how often
+a woman surrounds the man whom she deceives in an atmosphere of tender
+attentions,&mdash;the manifestations of hidden remorse. Once, on his way home,
+he thought he saw Hirsch and Labassandre turning a distant corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has any one been here?&rdquo; he said to the concierge; and by the way
+he was answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him. The
+Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so completely
+absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in. He would not have
+noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not Ida made an attempt to
+conceal the book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You startled me,&rdquo; she said, half pouting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you reading?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&mdash;some nonsense. And how are our friends?&rdquo; But as she
+spoke, a blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin. It
+was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at once
+prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze, she rose from
+her chair. &ldquo;You wish to know what I am reading! Look, then.&rdquo; He saw
+once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read for the first time in
+the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was thinner and smaller. Jack would not
+have opened it if the following title on the outer page had not met his
+eyes:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE   PARTING.<br />
+<br />
+A  POEM.<br />
+<br />
+By the Vicomte Amacry d&rsquo;Abgenton.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+And commenced thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.<br />
+&ldquo;What! with out one word of farewell,<br />
+Without a turn of the head...&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the name of
+Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine with a shrug of
+the shoulders. &ldquo;And he dared to send you this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; two or three days ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After a while
+she stooped, carelessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply
+absurd.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I do not think them so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
+human heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be more just, Jack,&rdquo;&mdash;her voice trembled,&mdash;&ldquo;heaven
+knows that I know M. D&rsquo;Argenton better than any one, his faults and the
+defects of his nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to
+you; as to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
+peculiarity of M. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s genius is the sympathetic quality of
+his verses. Musset had its irksome degree; and I think that the beginning of
+this poem, &lsquo;The Parting,&rsquo; is very touching: the young woman who
+goes away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of
+farewell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack could not restrain himself. &ldquo;But the woman is yourself,&rdquo; he
+cried, &ldquo;and you know under what circumstances you left.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She answered, coldly,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
+D&rsquo;Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
+able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the poets of
+France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt to-day, will yet
+be proud of having known him and of having sat at his table!&rdquo; And as she
+finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack took his seat at his desk,
+but his heart was not in his work. He felt that &ldquo;the enemy,&rdquo; as in
+his childish days he had called the vicomte, was gradually making his
+approaches. In fact Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton was as unhappy apart from Charlotte
+as she was herself. Victim and executioner, indispensable to each other, he
+felt profoundly the emptiness of divided lives. From the first hour of their
+separation the poet had adopted a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken
+heart. He was seen in the restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of
+flatterers who talked of her; he wished to have every one know his misery and
+its details; he wished to have people think that he was drowning his sorrows in
+dissipation. When he said, &ldquo;Waiter! bring me some pure absinthe,&rdquo;
+it was that some one at the next table might whisper, &ldquo;He is killing
+himself by inches&mdash;all for a woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
+constitution. His &ldquo;attacks&rdquo; were more frequent, and
+Charlotte&rsquo;s absence was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would
+ever have endured his perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders
+and tisanes. He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or
+another, sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
+environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
+contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would burn,
+and currents of air whistled under all the doors; and in the depths of his
+selfish nature D&rsquo;Argenton sincerely regretted his companion, and became
+seriously unhappy. Then he decided to take a journey, but that did him no good,
+to judge from the melancholy tone of his letters to his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy away from
+him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, &ldquo;Write a poem about
+it,&rdquo; and D&rsquo;Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of being
+calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and the separation
+became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review appeared, Hirsch and
+Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to the Rue des Panoyeaux.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This done, D&rsquo;Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand
+<i>coup</i>. He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself
+at Charlotte&rsquo;s door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away.
+D&rsquo;Argenton was very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of
+the greatest mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart, and
+that that heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved him, but he
+saw a certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed at the corner as
+for an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying his hatred of Jack. He
+pictured to himself the disappointment of the youth on his return to find that
+the bird had flown. He meant to appear suddenly before Charlotte, to throw
+himself at her feet, and, giving her no time to think, to carry her away with
+him at once. She must be very much changed since he last saw her if she could
+resist him. He entered her room without knocking, saying in a low voice,
+&ldquo;It is I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on account of
+the occurrence of his mother&rsquo;s birthday, had a holiday, and was at work
+with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove. The two men looked at
+each other in silence. This time the poet had not the advantage. In the first
+place, he was not at home; next, how could he treat as an inferior this tall,
+proud-looking fellow, in whose intelligent face appeared, as if still more to
+exasperate the lover, something of his mother&rsquo;s beauty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you come here?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other stammered and colored. &ldquo;I was told that your mother was
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D&rsquo;Argenton by
+the shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
+difficulty preserved his footing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he said, endeavoring to be dignified,&mdash;&ldquo;there
+has been a misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a
+man, all this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Of what use are these theatricals between
+us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
+hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
+bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what are you?
+Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you without anger, it has
+never been without a blush of shame.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been entirely
+false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jack cut short this discourse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a
+very serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say that
+every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one of them in
+useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your slave. All that I
+suffered in this time my pride will never let you know. My mother now belongs
+to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you want of her? Her hair is gray, and
+your treatment of her has made great wrinkles on her forehead. She is no longer
+a pretty woman, but she is my mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that narrow,
+squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so humiliating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You strangely mistake the sense of my words,&rdquo; said the poet,
+deadly pale. &ldquo;I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come,
+as an old friend, to see if I can serve you in any way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we
+require.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
+forced to endure, has now become odious to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his looks so
+thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not add one word, and
+descended the stairs, where his careful costume was strangely out of place.
+When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned to his room: on the threshold
+stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes swollen with tears and sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was there,&rdquo; she said in a low voice; &ldquo;I heard everything,
+even that I was old and had wrinkles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not far away. Shall I call him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one of those
+sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly unworthy, exclaimed,
+&ldquo;You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only your mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M.
+Rivals:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened
+in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the blow. Alas!
+she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more dignified to keep
+silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro lad who said, &lsquo;If
+the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!&rsquo; I never fully
+understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I do not write you
+this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait until Sunday because I
+could not speak before Cécile. I told you of the explanation that man and I
+had, did I not? Well, from that time my mother was so very sad, and seemed so
+worn out by the scene she had gone through, that I resolved to change our
+residence. I understood that a battle was being fought, and that, if I wished
+her to be victorious, if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ
+all means and devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted something
+gayer and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas three rooms newly
+papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All the money I had
+saved&mdash;pardon me these details&mdash;I devoted to this purpose. Bélisaire
+aided me in moving, while Zénaïde was in the same street, and I counted on her
+in many ways. All these arrangements were made secretly, and I hoped a great
+surprise and pleasure was in store for my mother. The place was as quiet as a
+village street, the trees were well grown and green, and I fancied that she
+would, when established there, have less to regret in the country-life she had
+so much enjoyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell her
+that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take her to our
+new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all the windows, and
+great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made a little fire, for the
+evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the room. In the midst of my
+contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It was like an electric spark.
+&lsquo;She will not come.&rsquo; In vain did I call myself an idiot, in vain
+did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her footstool. I knew that she would
+never come. More than once in my life I have had these intuitions. One might
+believe that Fate, before striking her heaviest blows, had a moment of
+compassion, and gave me a warning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did not come, but Bélisaire brought a note from her. It was very
+brief, merely stating that M. D&rsquo;Argenton was very ill, and that she
+regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well she would
+return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself ill, too, and keep
+her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the wretch! How thoroughly he
+had studied that weak but kindly nature! You remember those
+&lsquo;attacks&rsquo; he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon disappeared
+after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has. But my mother was
+only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be deceived. But to return
+to my story. Behold me alone in this little home, amid all the wasted efforts,
+time and money! Was it not cruel? I could not remain there; I returned to my
+old room. The house seemed to me as sad as a funeral-chamber. I permitted the
+fire to die out, and the roses wither and fall on the marble hearth below with
+a gentle rustle. I took the rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with
+something of the same superstition with which one preserves for a long time the
+cage from which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother returns we will go
+there together. But if she does not I shall never inhabit the place. I have now
+told you all, but do not let Cécile see this letter. Ah, my friend, will she
+too desert me? The treachery of those we love is terrible indeed. But of what
+am I thinking; I have her word and her promise, and Cécile always tells the
+truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"></a>
+CHAPTER XXII.<br />
+CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+For a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the morning, in
+the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he heard the rustling of
+her dress, her light step on the threshold. When he went to the Rondics he
+glanced at the little house, hoping to see the windows opened and Ida installed
+in the refuge, the address of which, with the key, he had sent to her:
+&ldquo;The house is ready. Come when you will.&rdquo; Not a word in reply. The
+desertion was final and absolute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and grieves us,
+and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But Cécile was the
+magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use, and her delicate
+tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great resource to him at this
+time was hard work, which is one&rsquo;s best defence against sorrow and
+regrets. While his mother had been with him, she, without knowing it, had often
+prevented him from working. Her indecision had been at times very harassing.
+She sometimes was all ready to go out, with hat and shawl on, when she would
+suddenly decide to remain at home. Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides
+and regained his lost time. Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once
+more in love, and wiser. The doctor was delighted with the progress of his
+pupil; before a year was over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could
+take his degree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to Bélisaire, the
+little attic positively glowed and palpitated with happiness. Madame Bélisaire
+was suddenly filled with a desire to learn, and her husband must teach her to
+read. But while M. Rivals was pleased at Jack&rsquo;s progress with his books,
+he was discontented with the state of his health; the old cough had come back,
+his eyes were feverish and his hands hot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not like this,&rdquo; said the good man; &ldquo;you work too hard;
+you must stop; you have plenty of time: Cécile does not mean to run
+away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel that she
+must take his mother&rsquo;s place as well as her own; and it was precisely
+this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions each day. His bodily
+frame was in the same condition as that of the Fakirs of India&mdash;urged to
+such a point of feverish excitement that pain becomes a pleasure. He was
+grateful to the cold of his little attic, and to the hard dry cough that kept
+him from sleeping. Sometimes at his writing-table he suddenly felt lightness
+throughout all his being&mdash;a strange clearness of perception and an
+extraordinary excitement of all his intellectual faculties; but this was
+accompanied with great physical exhaustion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task disappeared.
+He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he not received a
+painful shock. A telegram arrived:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.<br />
+    Rivals.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack received that despatch just as Madame Bélisaire had ironed his fine linen
+for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the brevity of the
+despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his friend&rsquo;s
+well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a letter from
+Cécile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing came, and for a week
+he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth was: neither Cécile nor the
+doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals wished for time to prepare the youth
+for an unexpected blow&mdash;for a decision of Cécile&rsquo;s so extraordinary
+that he hoped his granddaughter would be induced to reconsider it. One evening,
+on coming into the house, he had found Cécile in a state of singular agitation;
+her lips were pale but firmly closed. He tried to make her smile at the
+dinner-table, but in vain; and suddenly, in reply to some remark of his in
+regard to Jack&rsquo;s coming, she said, &ldquo;I do not wish him to
+come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a firm voice
+she repeated, &ldquo;I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the matter, my child?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You frighten me, Cécile! Tell me what you mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
+mistaken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
+misunderstanding.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister&rsquo;s
+friendship, nothing more. I cannot be his wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor was startled. &ldquo;Cécile,&rdquo; he said, gravely, &ldquo;do you
+love any other person?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She colored. &ldquo;No; but I do not wish to marry;&rdquo; and to all that M.
+Rivals said she would make no other reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little world.
+&ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that to Jack this will be a frightful
+blow; his whole future will be sacrificed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cécile&rsquo;s pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;think well before you decide a question
+of such importance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;the sooner he knows my decision the
+better for us both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer
+we delay the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows the
+truth; I am incapable of such treachery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal,&rdquo; said the doctor, in
+a rage. &ldquo;Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped short.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
+yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and shall
+always be one until the bitter end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen letters,
+destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that Cécile would
+have come to her senses before the week was over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, &ldquo;He will
+come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Irrevocable,&rdquo; she said, slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant said,
+&ldquo;My master is waiting for you in the garden.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor&rsquo;s face increased his
+fears, for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human
+suffering, was as troubled as Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cécile is here&mdash;is she not?&rdquo; were the youth&rsquo;s first
+words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my friend, I left her&mdash;at&mdash;where we have been, you know;
+and she will remain some time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again? Is
+that it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should fall. They
+were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright November morning;
+hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over the distant hills and
+reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage, and their first whisper of
+love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his shoulder. &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he
+whispered, &ldquo;do not be unhappy. She is very young and will perhaps change
+her mind. It is a mere caprice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, doctor, Cécile never has caprices. That would be horrible&mdash;to
+drive a knife into a man&rsquo;s heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
+reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew that her
+love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also perish. If she
+has done this, then it is because she knew well that it was her duty so to do.
+I ought to have expected it; I should have known that so great a happiness
+could not be for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. &ldquo;Forgive me, my brave
+boy; I hoped to make you both happy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
+year,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I began the only happy season of my life. I
+was born on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to you
+and to Cécile;&rdquo; and the youth hurried away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you will breakfast with me,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I should be too sad a guest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once looking
+back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the curtain of a window
+in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as his own. The girl extended
+her slender arms, and tears rained down her cheeks. The following days were sad
+enough. The little house that had for months been bright and gay, resumed its
+ancient mournful aspect. The doctor, much troubled, noticed that his
+granddaughter spent much of her time in her mother&rsquo;s former room. Where
+Madeleine had formerly wept, her child now shed in turn her tears. &ldquo;Would
+she die as did her mother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why was she
+so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old man was sure that
+there was some mystery, something that he ought to know; but at the least
+question, Cécile ran away as if in fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband of old
+Salé, who had met with an accident. These people lived near Aulnettes, in a
+miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the corner lay the sick man. When
+Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly suffocated by the odor of burning
+herbs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have you been doing here, Mother Salé?&rdquo; he said. The old
+woman hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time, however.
+&ldquo;So Hirsch is here again, is he?&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Open the
+doors and windows, you will be suffocated.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. &ldquo;Tell
+him, wife, tell him,&rdquo; he muttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: &ldquo;Tell him, I
+say, tell him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor looked at Mother Salé, who turned a deep scarlet. &ldquo;I am sure I
+am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good young
+lady,&rdquo; she muttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What young lady? Of whom do you speak?&rdquo; asked the doctor, turning
+hastily around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
+francs to tell Mamselle Cécile the story of her father and mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you dared to do that?&rdquo; he cried, in a furious rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for the
+twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it until he told
+me, so that I could repeat it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The wretch! But who could have told him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the long
+night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste to Etiolles
+and went directly in search of Cécile. Her room was empty, and the bed had not
+been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to the office, still he found no
+one. But the door of Madeleine&rsquo;s old room stood open, and there among the
+relics of the dear dead, prostrate on the <i>Prie-Dieu</i>, was Cécile asleep,
+in an attitude that told of a night of prayer and tears. She opened her eyes as
+her grandfather touched her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains to
+hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little darling, the
+sad tale we concealed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hid her face on his shoulder. &ldquo;I am so ashamed,&rdquo; she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me
+why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother&rsquo;s dishonor, and my
+conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was but one
+thing to do, and I did it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you love him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
+marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to such a
+sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father&mdash;who has no name,
+or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
+with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if you had
+had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to us all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he was willing to marry me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
+father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference between you
+is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the doctor, who had told Jack Cécile&rsquo;s history, now related to her
+the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile from his
+mother&rsquo;s arms&mdash;of all that he had endured. &ldquo;I understand it
+all now,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;it is she who has told Hirsch of your
+mother&rsquo;s marriage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the doctor was talking, Cécile was overwhelmed with despair to think that
+she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless sorrow. &ldquo;O, how
+he has suffered!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;Have you heard anything from
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to
+know,&rdquo; answered her grandfather, with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he may not wish to come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
+him home with us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their way to
+Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He looked at the
+little door. &ldquo;This is the place,&rdquo; he said, and he rang. The servant
+opened the door, but seeing before her one of those dangerous pedlers that
+wander through the country, she attempted to close it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gentleman of the house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the young lady?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is not at home, either.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When will they be back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no idea!&rdquo; And she closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, in a choked voice; &ldquo;and must
+he be permitted to die without any help?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIII.<br />
+A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+That evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of the
+Review; a fête had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte&rsquo;s return, at
+which it was proposed that D&rsquo;Argenton should read his new poem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence of a
+person who was then present? And how could he describe the sufferings of a
+deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be at the summit of bliss,
+by reason of the return of the beloved object? Never had the apartments been so
+luxuriously arranged; flowers were there in profusion. The toilet of Charlotte
+was in exquisite taste, white with clusters of violets, and all the
+surroundings breathed an atmosphere of riches. Yet nothing could have been more
+deceptive. The Review was in a dying condition; the numbers appearing at longer
+intervals, and growing small by degrees and beautifully less. D&rsquo;Argenton
+had swallowed up in it the half of his fortune, and now wished to sell it. It
+was this unfortunate situation, added to an attack skilfully managed, that had
+induced the foolish Charlotte to return to him. He had only to assume before
+her the air of a great man crushed by unmerited misfortune, for her to reply
+that she would serve him always.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton was foolish and conceited, but he understood the nature of
+this woman in a most wonderful degree. She thought him handsomer and more
+fascinating than he was twelve years before, when she saw him for the first
+time, under the chandeliers of the Moronval salon. Many of the same persons
+were there also: Labassandre in bottle-green velvet, with the high boots of
+Faust; and Dr. Hirsch with his coat-sleeves spotted by various chemicals; and
+Moronval in a black coat very white in the seams, and a white cravat very black
+in the folds; several &ldquo;children of the sun,&rdquo;&mdash;the everlasting
+Japanese prince, and the Egyptian from the banks of the Nile. What a strange
+set of people they were! They might have been a band of pilgrims on the march
+toward some unknown Mecca, whose golden lamps retreat before them. During the
+twelve years that we have known them, many have fallen from the ranks, but
+others have risen to take their places; nothing discourages them, neither cold
+nor heat, nor even hunger. They hurry on, but they never arrive. Among them
+D&rsquo;Argenton, better clothed and better fed, resembled a rich Hadji with
+his harem, his pipes, and his riches; on this evening he was especially
+radiant, for he had triumphed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the reading of the poem Charlotte sat in an attitude of feigned
+indifference, blushing occasionally at veiled allusions to herself. Near her
+was Madame Moronval, who, small as she was, seemed quite tall because of the
+extraordinary height of her forehead and the length of her chin. The poem went
+on and on, the fire crackled on the hearth, and the wind rattled against the
+glass doors of the balcony, as it did on a certain night of which Charlotte
+apparently had but little remembrance. Suddenly, during a most pathetic
+passage, the door opened suddenly; the servant appeared, and with a terrified
+air summoned her mistress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame, madame!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte went to her. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man insists on seeing you. I told him that it was impossible; but he
+said he would wait for you, and he seated himself on the stairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will see him,&rdquo; said Charlotte, much moved; for she guessed at
+the purport of the message.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But D&rsquo;Argenton objected, and turning toward Labassandre, he said,
+&ldquo;Will you have the goodness to see who this intruder is?&rdquo; and the
+poet turned back to the table to resume his reading. But the door opened again
+wide enough to admit the head and arm of Labassandre, who beckoned earnestly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, impatiently, when he reached
+the ante-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack is very ill,&rdquo; said the tenor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; answered the poet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This man swears that it is so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D&rsquo;Argenton looked at the man, whose face was not absolutely unknown to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you come from the gentleman,&mdash;that is to say, did he send
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; he is too sick to send any one. It is three weeks since he has been
+in his bed, and very, very ill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is his disease?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something on the lungs, and the doctors say that he cannot live; so I
+thought I had better come and tell his mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bélisaire, sir; but the lady knows me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; said the poet, &ldquo;you will say to the one
+who sent you, that the game is a good one, though rather old, and he had better
+try something else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir?&rdquo; said the pedler, interrogatively, for he did not comprehend
+these sarcastic words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But D&rsquo;Argenton had left the room, and Bélisaire stood in silent
+amazement, having caught a glimpse of the lighted salon and its crowd of
+people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is nothing, only a mistake,&rdquo; said the poet on his entrance; and
+while he majestically resumed his reading, the pedler hurried home through the
+dark streets, through the sharp hail and fierce wind, eager to reach Jack, who
+lay in a high fever, on the narrow iron bed in the attic-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been taken ill on his return from Etiolles; he lay there, almost without
+speaking, a victim to fever and a severe cold, so serious, that the physicians
+warned his friends that they had everything to fear. Bélisaire wished to summon
+M. Rivals, but to this Jack refused to consent. This was the only energy he had
+shown since his illness, and the only time he had spoken voluntarily, save when
+he told his friend to take his watch, and a ring he owned, and sell them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All Jack&rsquo;s savings had been absorbed in furnishing the rooms at Charonne,
+and the Bélisaire household was equally impoverished through their recent
+marriage. But it mattered very little; the pedler and his wife were capable of
+every sacrifice for their friend; they carried to the Mont de Piété the greater
+part of their furniture, piece by piece&mdash;for medicines were so dear. They
+were advised to send Jack to the hospital. &ldquo;He would be better off; and,
+besides, he would then cost you nothing,&rdquo; was the argument employed. The
+good people were now at the end of their resources, and decided to inform
+Charlotte of her son&rsquo;s danger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring her back with you,&rdquo; said Madame Bélisaire to her husband.
+&ldquo;To see his mother would be such a comfort to the lad. He never speaks of
+her because he is so proud.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Bélisaire did not bring her. He returned in a very unhappy frame of mind,
+from the reception he had received. His wife, with her child asleep on her lap,
+talked in a low voice to a neighbor, in front of a poor little fire&mdash;such
+a one as is called a widow&rsquo;s fire by the people. The two women listened
+to Jack&rsquo;s painful breathing, and to the horrible cough that choked him.
+One would never have recognized this unfurnished, dismal room as the bright
+attic where cheerful voices had resounded such a short time before. There was
+no sign of books or studies. A pot of tisane was simmering on the hearth,
+filling the air with that peculiar odor which tells of a sickroom. Bélisaire
+came in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alone?&rdquo; said his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told in a low voice that he had not been permitted to see Jack&rsquo;s
+mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But had you no blood in your veins? You should have entered by force and
+called aloud, &lsquo;Madame, your son is dying!&rsquo; Ah, my poor Bélisaire,
+you will never be anything but a weak chicken!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, had I undertaken such a thing, I should simply have been
+arrested,&rdquo; said the poor man, in a distressed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what are we going to do?&rdquo; resumed Madame Bélisaire.
+&ldquo;This poor boy must have better care than we can give him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A neighbor spoke. &ldquo;He must go to the hospital, as the physician
+said.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, hush! not so loud!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, pointing to the bed;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid he heard you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be
+better for you in every respect.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he is my friend,&rdquo; answered Bélisaire, proudly; and in his tone
+was so much honest devotion that his wife&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their departure,
+the room looked less cold and less bare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept little, and
+lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open. If that blank
+surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very old woman, could have
+spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful eyes but one expression could
+have been seen, that of utter and overwhelming despair. He never complained,
+however; he even tried, at times, to smile at his stout nurse, when she brought
+him his tisanes. The long and solitary days passed away in this inaction and
+helplessness. Why was he not strong in health and body like the people about
+him, and yet for whom did he wish to labor? His mother had left him, Cécile had
+deserted him. The faces of these two women haunted him day and night. When
+Charlotte&rsquo;s gay and indifferent smile faded away, the delicate features
+of Cécile appeared before him, veiled in the mystery of her strange refusal;
+and the youth lay there incapable of a word or a gesture, while his pulses beat
+with accelerated force, and his hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day after this conversation at Jack&rsquo;s bedside, Madame Bélisaire was
+much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt, sitting in
+front of the fire. &ldquo;Why are you out of your bed?&rdquo; she asked with
+severity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to
+stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to Madame
+Bélisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of farewell at the humble
+home which had been illuminated by so many fair dreams and hopes. How long the
+walk was! They stopped occasionally, but dared not linger long, for the air was
+sharp. Under the lowering December skies the sick youth looked worse even than
+when he lay in his bed. His hair was wet with perspiration, the hurrying crowds
+made him dizzy and faint. Paris is like a huge battlefield where mere existence
+demands a struggle; and Jack seemed like a wounded soldier borne from the field
+by a comrade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was, however,
+they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An enormous stove made
+the air of the room almost intolerable, with its smell of hot iron. When Jack
+entered, assisted by Bélisaire/all eyes were turned upon him. They were
+awaiting the arrival of the physician, who would give, or refuse, a card of
+admittance. Each one was describing his symptoms to some indifferent hearer,
+and endeavoring to show that he was more ill than any one else. Jack listened
+to these dismal conversations, seated between a stout man who coughed
+violently, and a slender young girl whose thin shawl was so tightly drawn over
+her head that only her wild and affrighted eyes were to be seen. Then the door
+opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it was the physician. A profound
+silence followed all along the benches. The doctor warmed his hands at the
+stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance about the room. Then he began his
+rounds, followed by a boy carrying the cards of admission to the different
+hospitals. What joy for the poor wretches when they were pronounced sick enough
+to receive a ticket. What disappointment, what entreaties from those who were
+told that they must struggle on yet a little longer! The examination was brief,
+and if it seemed somewhat brutal at times, it must be remembered that the
+number of applicants was very large, and that the poor creatures loved to
+linger over the recital of their woes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. &ldquo;And what is
+the matter with you, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My chest burns like fire,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink too
+much brandy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, sir,&rdquo; answered the patient indignantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I drink what I want of that, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On pay-days I do, certainly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his age and
+how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty, and while he
+spoke, Bélisaire stood behind him with a face full of anxiety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand up, my man,&rdquo; and the doctor applied his ear to the damp
+clothing of the invalid. &ldquo;Did you walk here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state in
+which you are; but you must not try it again;&rdquo; and he handed him a ticket
+and passed on to continue his inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives in the
+streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than the sight of one of
+those litters, sheltered from the sun&rsquo;s rays by a striped cover, and
+borne by two men, one behind and the other in front,&mdash;the form of a human
+being vaguely defined under the linen sheets? Women cross themselves when these
+litters pass them, as they do when a crow flies over their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the sick
+man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which the poor are
+subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the familiar tread of his
+faithful Bélisaire, who occasionally took his hand to prove to him that he was
+not completely deserted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered. It was
+a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden, on the other on
+a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove, were the furniture of
+the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or six phantoms in cotton
+nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to inspect him, and two or three
+more started from the stove as if frightened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated with
+flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron, who came
+forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost among the
+folds of her veil, said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no
+bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are waiting,
+we will put him on a couch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This couch was placed close to the bed &ldquo;that would soon be empty,&rdquo;
+from whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a
+thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they were
+heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack was himself too
+ill to notice this. He hardly heard Bélisaire&rsquo;s &ldquo;<i>au
+revoir</i>&rdquo; nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a
+whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue. Suddenly a
+woman&rsquo;s voice, calm and clear, said, &ldquo;Let us pray.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain did he
+attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The concluding
+sentence reached him, however.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and travellers,
+the sick and the dying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of
+prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over endless
+roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like that of
+Etiolles; Cécile and his mother were before him refusing to wait until he could
+reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of enormous machines, the
+pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste, and from whose chimneys were
+pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack determined to pass between them; he is
+seized by their iron arms, torn and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam;
+but he got through and took refuge in the Foret de Sénart, amid the freshness
+of which Jack became once more a child and was on his way to the
+forester&rsquo;s; but there at the cross-road stood mother Salé; he turned to
+run, and ran for miles, with the old woman close behind him; he heard her
+nearer and nearer, he felt her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at
+last, and with all her weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he
+recognized the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs.
+He dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body,
+something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses ran, and
+lifted something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the curtains round it
+closely.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIV.<br />
+DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, wake up! Visitors are here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains of
+the next bed,&mdash;they hung in such straight and motionless folds to the very
+ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in
+the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were terribly
+frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you. But you are very
+weak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and a
+white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the sick
+man&rsquo;s pulse and asks him some questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is your trade?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A machinist.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you drink?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not now; I did at one time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a long silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack saw in the physician&rsquo;s face the same sympathetic interest that he
+had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the doctor
+explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at once
+interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some curiosity to the
+words &ldquo;inspiration,&rdquo; &ldquo;expiration,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;phthisis,&rdquo; &amp;c., and at last understood that his was looked
+upon as a most critical case,&mdash;so critical that, after the physician had
+left the room, the good sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if
+his family were in Paris, and if he could send to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His family! Who were they? A man and a woman who were already there at the foot
+of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no other friends
+than these, no other relatives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how are we to-day?&rdquo; said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept
+his tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine
+oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the good woman, suddenly, &ldquo;I am going to find
+your mother;&rdquo; and she smiled encouragingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets all
+the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Bélisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in utter
+contempt &ldquo;the fine lady,&rdquo; as she calls Jack&rsquo;s mother, that
+she detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and
+perhaps&mdash;who knows but the police may be called in?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that is all nonsense;&rdquo; but finally
+yielded to the persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will bring her this time, never fear!&rdquo; he said, with an air of
+confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; asked the concierge, stopping him at the
+foot of the staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To M. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you the man who was here last night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely,&rdquo; answered Bélisaire, innocently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to
+the country, and will not return for some time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In vain did he
+insist, in vain did he say that the lady&rsquo;s son was very ill&mdash;dying
+in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and would not permit
+Bélisaire to go one step further.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck
+him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had taken place
+between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the fact that the marriage
+was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had often spoken of the goodness
+and charity of the kind doctor. If he could only be induced to come to
+Jack&rsquo;s bedside, so that the poor boy could have some familiar face about
+him! Without further hesitation he started for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at
+the end of this long walk!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During all this time, his wife sat at their friend&rsquo;s side, and knew not
+what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation into
+which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his mother. His
+excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that always appeared on
+Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the doors was thrown open, and
+each time Jack expected to see his mother. The visitors were clean and neatly
+dressed who gathered about the patients they had come to see, telling them
+family news and encouraging them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears,
+though the eyes were dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the
+perfume of oranges filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after
+being lifted by the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his
+mother had not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the slender
+thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach itself to the
+robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into the far away days
+when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of Ida de Barancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased
+surprise at their father&rsquo;s emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered
+exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar. But
+Jack&rsquo;s mother did not appear. Madame Bélisaire knows not what to say. She
+has hinted that M. D&rsquo;Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is driving
+in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her knees and pares
+an orange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She will not come!&rdquo; said Jack. These very words he had spoken in
+that little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care.
+But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its accents.
+&ldquo;She will not come!&rdquo; he repeated; and the poor boy closed his eyes,
+but not in sleep. He thought of Cécile. The sister heard his sighs, and said to
+Madame Bélisaire, whose large face was shining with tears,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled that
+she does not come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she must be sent for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won&rsquo;t come
+to a hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, dear,&rdquo; said she to Jack, as she would have spoken
+to her little child; &ldquo;I am going for your mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still
+continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, &ldquo;She will not come! she
+will not come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sister tried to soothe him. &ldquo;Calm yourself, my child.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. &ldquo;I tell you she will not come. You
+do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my miserable life
+has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the gashes she has cut in
+it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to him on wings, and would never
+again leave him; and I am dying, and she refuses to come to me. What a cruel
+mother! it is she who has killed me, and she does not wish to see me
+die!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow, and the
+sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter&rsquo;s day ended
+in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte and D&rsquo;Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just
+returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in velvet and
+furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of spirits. Remember that she
+had just shown herself in public with her poet, and had shown herself, too, to
+be as pretty as she was ten years before. The complexion was heightened by the
+sharp wintry air, and the soft wraps in which she was enveloped added to her
+beauty as does the satin and quilted lining of a casket enhance the brilliancy
+of the gems within. Â woman of the people stood on the sidewalk, and rushed
+forward on seeing her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame, madame! come at once!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame Bélisaire!&rdquo; cried Charlotte, turning pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your child is very ill; he asks for you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is a persecution,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton. &ldquo;Let us
+pass. If the gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the
+hospital.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the hospital!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you
+wish to see him you must hurry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap laid
+ready for you;&rdquo; and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can
+have a heart like this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte turned toward her. &ldquo;Show me where he is,&rdquo; she said; and
+the two women hurried through the streets, leaving D&rsquo;Argenton in a state
+of rage, convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as Madame Bélisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in,&mdash;a
+young girl and an old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A divine face bent over Jack. &ldquo;It is I, my love, it is Cécile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by reason of her
+tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was the slender one that
+had already brought the youth such happiness, and yet did its part in bringing
+him where we now see him; for fate is often cruel enough to strike you through
+your dearest and best. The sick youth opens his weary eyes to see that he is
+not dreaming. Cécile is really there; she implores his pardon, and explains why
+she gave him such pain. Ah, if she had but known that their destinies were so
+similar!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness and anger
+of the past weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you love me?&rdquo; he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Jack; I have always loved you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word love
+had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had taken refuge
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How good you are to come, Cécile! Now I shall not utter another murmur.
+I am ready to die, with you at my side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Die! Who is talking of dying?&rdquo; said the old doctor in his
+heartiest voice. &ldquo;Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do
+not look like the same person you were when we came.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed
+Cécile&rsquo;s hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of
+tenderness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have
+been friend and sister, wife and mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color to
+frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly visible.
+Cécile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full of shadows, and
+it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more sombre, more mysterious
+than Night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: &ldquo;I hear her,&rdquo; he whispered;
+&ldquo;she is coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the corridors, the
+steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and the distant noises in the
+street. He listened a moment, said a few unintelligible words, then his head
+fell back and his eyes closed. But he was right. Two women were running up the
+stairs. They had been allowed to enter, though the hour for the admittance of
+visitors had long since passed. But it was one of those occasions where rules
+may be broken and set aside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they arrived at the outer door, Charlotte stopped. &ldquo;I cannot go
+on,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am frightened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; the other answered, roughly; &ldquo;you must. Ah, to
+such women as you, God should never give children!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she pushed Charlotte toward the staircase. The large room, the shaded
+lamps, the kneeling forms, the mother saw at one glance; and farther on, at the
+end of the apartment, were two men bending over a bed, and Cécile Rivals, pale
+as death, supporting a head on her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack, my child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Rivals turned. &ldquo;Hush,&rdquo; he said, sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a sigh&mdash;a long, shivering sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte crept nearer, with failing limbs and sinking heart. It was Jack
+indeed, with arms stiffly falling at his side, and eyes fixed on vacancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor bent over him. &ldquo;Jack, my friend; it is your mother, she is
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she, unhappy woman, stretched out her arms toward him. &ldquo;Jack, it is
+I! I am here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mother cried in a tone of horror, &ldquo;Dead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said old Rivals; &ldquo;no,&mdash;<i>Delivered</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***</div>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #25302 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25302)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jack
+       1877
+
+Author: Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25302]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+By Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.
+
+Estes And Lauriat, 1877
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.
+
+"With a _k_, sir; with a _k_. The name is written and pronounced as
+in English. The child's godfather was English. A major-general in the
+Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
+and of the highest connections. But--you understand--M. l'Abb�! How
+deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some years
+since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of his
+friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
+country,--and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name? Wait
+a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah."
+
+"Pardon me, madame," interrupted the abb�, smiling, in spite of himself,
+at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas. "After
+Jack, what name?"
+
+With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest
+examined from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical
+shrewdness, the young woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing
+at her side.
+
+The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the hour.
+It was December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous folds of
+her black costume, and the discreet originality of her hat, all told the
+story of a woman who owns her carriage, and who steps from her carpets
+to her coup� without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was
+small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the
+bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted
+by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even
+when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance was
+extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to
+speak, or the narrow brow,--something there was, at all events, that
+indicated an absence of reflective powers, a lack of culture, and
+possibly explained the blanks in the conversation of this pretty woman;
+blanks that reminded one of those little Japanese baskets fitting one
+into another, the last of which is always empty.
+
+As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or eight,
+who had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as English boys
+are dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a _k_. His legs
+were bare, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume was in
+accordance with his years, but not with his long neck and slim figure.
+
+He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he
+would occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing
+expression, as if he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole
+Indian army.
+
+Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding,
+and with the transformation of a pretty woman's face to that of an
+intelligent man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in
+meaning; the same brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were
+firmly closed.
+
+Over the woman's face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
+furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to
+retain a certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the
+contrary, one felt that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air
+would have been almost painful, had it not been combined with a certain
+caressing indolence of attitude that indicated a petted child.
+
+Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened
+to her words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the
+priest and at all the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had promised
+not to cry, but a stifled sob shook him at times from head to foot.
+Then his mother looked at him, and seemed to say, "You know what you
+promised." Then the child choked back his tears and sobs; but it
+was easy to see that he was a prey to that first agony of exile and
+abandonment which the first boarding-school inflicts on those children
+who have lived only in their homes.
+
+This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or
+three minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but
+Father O------, who had been the director for twenty-five years of the
+aristocratic institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the
+world, and knew too well the best Parisian society, all its shades of
+manner and dialect, not to understand that in the mother of his new
+pupil he beheld a representative of an especial class.
+
+The self-possession with which she entered his office,--self-possession
+too apparent not to be forced,--her way of seating herself, her uneasy
+laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which she
+sought to conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of
+the priest a vague distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so
+mixed, the community of pleasures and similarity of toilets have so
+narrowed the line of demarcation between fashionable women of good and
+bad society, that the most experienced may at times be deceived, and
+this is the reason that the priest regarded this woman with so much
+attention. The principal difficulty in arriving at a decision arose from
+the unconnected style of her conversation; but the embarrassed air of
+the mother when he asked for the other name of the child, settled the
+question in his mind.
+
+She colored, hesitated. "True," she said; "excuse me; I have not yet
+presented myself. What could I have been thinking of?" and drawing a
+small, highly-perfumed case from her pocket, she took from it a card, on
+which, in long letters, was to be read the insignificant name--
+
+     _Ida de Barnacy_
+
+Over the face of the priest flashed a singular smile.
+
+"Is this the child's name?" he asked.
+
+The question was almost an impertinence. The lady understood him, and
+concealed her embarrassment under an assumption of great dignity.
+
+"Certainly, sir, certainly."
+
+"Ah!" said the priest, gravely.
+
+It was he now who found it difficult to express what he wished to say.
+He rolled the card between his fingers with a little movement of the
+lips natural to a man who measures the weight and effect of the words he
+is about to speak.
+
+Suddenly he arose from his chair, and approaching one of the large
+windows that looked on a garden planted with fine trees, and reddened
+by the wintry sun, tapped lightly on the glass. A black silhouette was
+drawn on the window, and a young priest appeared immediately within the
+room.
+
+"Duffieux," said the Superior, "take this child out to walk with you.
+Show him our church and our hot-houses; he is tired of us, poor little
+man!"
+
+Jack supposed that he was sent out to walk so that he might be spared
+the pain of saying good-bye to his mother, and his terrified, despairing
+expression so touched the kind priest that he hastily added,--
+
+"Don't be frightened, Jack. Your mother is not going away; you will find
+her here."
+
+The child still hesitated.
+
+"Go, my dear," said Madame de Barancy, with a queenly gesture.
+
+Then he went without another word, as if he were already conquered by
+life, and prepared for all its evils.
+
+When the door closed behind him, there was a moment of silence. The
+steps of the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel,
+and dying away, left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the chirps
+of the sparrows on the eaves, the distant pianos, and an indistinct
+murmur of voices--the hum of a great boarding-school.
+
+"This child seems to love you, madame," said the Superior, touched by
+Jack's submission.
+
+"Why should he not love me?" answered Madame de Barancy, somewhat
+melodramatically; "the poor dear has but his mother in the world."
+
+"Ah! you are a widow?"
+
+"Alas! yes, sir. My husband died ten years ago, the very year of our
+marriage, and under the most painful circumstances. Ah! Monsieur l'Abb�,
+romance-writers, who are at a loss to invent adventures for their
+heroines, do not know that many an apparently quiet life contains enough
+for ten novels. My own story is the best proof of that. The Comte
+de Barancy belonged, as his name will tell you, to one of the oldest
+families in Touraine."
+
+She made a fatal mistake here, for Father O------ was born at Amboise,
+and knew the nobility of the entire province. So he at once consigned
+the Comte de Barancy to the society of Major-General Pembroke and the
+Rajah of Singapore. He did not let this appear, however, and contented
+himself with replying gently to the _soi-disant_ comtesse,--
+
+"Do you not think with me, madame, that there would be some cruelty in
+sending away a child that seems so warmly attached to you? He is still
+very young; and do you think his physical health good enough to support
+the grief of such a separation?"
+
+"But you are mistaken, sir," she answered, promptly. "Jack is a very
+robust child; he has never been ill. He is a little pale, perhaps,
+but that is owing to the air of Paris, to which he has never been
+accustomed."
+
+Annoyed to find that she was not disposed to comprehend him, the priest
+continued,--
+
+"Besides, just now our dormitories are full; the scholastic year is very
+far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new pupils
+until the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then, madame;
+and even then--"
+
+She understood him at last.
+
+"So," she said, turning pale, "you refuse to receive my son. Do you
+refuse also to tell me why?"
+
+"Madame," answered the priest, "I would have given much if this
+explanation could have been avoided. But since you force it upon me, I
+must inform you that this institution, whose head I am, exacts from
+the families who confide their children to us the most unexceptionable
+conduct and the strictest morality. In Paris there are many laical
+institutions where your little Jack will receive every care, but with
+us it would be impossible. I beg of you," he added, with a gesture of
+indignant protestation, "do not make me explain further. I have no right
+to question you, no right to reproach you. I regret the pain I am now
+giving, and believe me when I say that my words are as painful to myself
+as to you."
+
+While the priest spoke, over the countenance of Madame de Barancy
+flitted shadows of anger, grief, and confusion. At first she tried to
+brave it out, throwing her head back disdainfully; but the kind words of
+the priest falling on her childish soul made her burst suddenly into a
+passion of sobs and tears.
+
+"She was so unhappy," she cried, "no one could ever know all she had
+done for that child! Yes, the poor little fellow had no name, no father,
+but was that any reason why a crime should be made of his misfortune,
+and that he should be made responsible for the faults of his parents?
+Ah! M. l'Abb�, I beg of you--"
+
+As she spoke she took the priest's hand. The good father sought to
+disengage it with some little embarrassment.
+
+"Be calm, dear madame," he cried, terrified by these tears and outcries,
+for she wept, like the child that she was, with vehement sobs, and
+with the abandonment in fact of a somewhat coarse nature. The poor man
+thought, "What could I do with her if this lady should be taken ill?"
+
+But the words he used to calm her only excited her more.
+
+She wished to justify herself, to explain things, to narrate the story
+of her life, and, willing or not, the Superior found himself compelled
+to follow her through an obscure recital, whose connecting thread she
+broke at every step, without looking to see how she should ever get back
+again to the light.
+
+The name of Barancy was not hers, but if she should tell him her name,
+he would be astonished. The honor of one of the oldest families in
+France was concerned, and she would rather die than speak.
+
+The Superior hastened to assure her that he had no intention of
+questioning her, but she would not listen to him. She was started, and a
+wind-mill under full sail would have been more easily arrested than
+her torrent of words, of which probably not one was true, for she
+contradicted herself perpetually throughout her incoherent discourse,
+yet withal there was something sincere, something touching even in this
+love between mother and child. They had always been together. He had
+been taught at home by masters, and she wished now to separate from him
+only because of his intelligence and his eyes that saw things that were
+not intended for his vision.
+
+"The best thing to do, it seems to me," said the priest, gravely, "would
+be to live such a life that you need fear neither the scrutiny of your
+child nor of any one else."
+
+"That was my wish, sir," she answered. "As Jack grew older, I wished to
+make his home all that which it ought to be. Besides, before long, my
+position will be assured. For some time I have been thinking of
+marrying, but to do this it was necessary to send my boy away for a time
+that he might obtain the education worthy of the name he ought to bear.
+I thought that nowhere could he do as well as here, but at one blow you
+repulse him and discourage his mother's good resolutions."
+
+Here the Superior arrested her with an exclamation of astonishment. He
+hesitated a moment; then looking her straight in her eyes, said,--
+
+"So be it, madame. I yield to your wishes. Little Jack pleases me very
+much; I consent to receive him among our pupils."
+
+"My dear sir!"
+
+"But on two conditions."
+
+"I am ready to accept all."
+
+"The first is, that until the day that your position is assured, the
+child shall spend his vacations under this roof, and shall not return to
+yours."
+
+"But he will die, my poor Jack, if he does not see his mother!"
+
+"Oh, you can come here whenever you please; only--and this is my second
+condition--you will not see him in the parlor, but always here in my
+private room, where I shall take care that you are not interfered with
+and that no one sees you."
+
+She rose in indignation.
+
+The idea that she could never enter the parlor, or be present on the
+reception-days, when she could astonish the other guests with the beauty
+of her child, with the richness of her toilette, that she could never
+say to her friends, "I met at the school, yesterday, Madame de C------,
+or Madame de V------," that she must meet Jack in secret, all this
+revolted her.
+
+The astute priest had struck well.
+
+"You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for which
+I have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as woman
+and mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my child
+think--"
+
+She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the
+child, with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a
+sign from his mother, he entered quickly.
+
+"Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!"
+
+She took his hand hastily.
+
+"You will go with me," she answered; "we are not wanted here."
+
+And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was stupefied
+by this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She hardly
+acknowledged the respectful salute of the good father, who had also
+risen hastily from his chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not too
+quick for Jack to hear a gentle voice murmur, "Poor child! poor child!"
+in a tone of compassion that went to his heart. He was pitied--and why?
+For a long time he pondered over this.
+
+The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was not
+a comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even
+Ida. Whence came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated
+existences have fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that
+one never knows the last shape they assume. One might liken them to
+those revolving lighthouses that have long intervals of shadow between
+their gleams of fire. Of one thing only was there any certainty: she
+was not a Parisian, but came from some provincial town whose accent she
+still retained. It was said that at the Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons
+merchants thought they recognized in her a certain M�lanie Favrot, who
+formerly kept an establishment of "gloves and perfumery;" but these
+merchants were mistaken.
+
+Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight
+years before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that
+resemblances are often impertinences.
+
+Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment of
+the fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve any
+facts from the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and her
+life. One day Ida was born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a
+charming cr�ole, of her plantation and her negroes. Another time she had
+passed her childhood in a great chateau on the Loire. She seemed utterly
+indifferent as to the manner in which her hearers would piece together
+these dislocated bits of her existence.
+
+As may be imagined, in these fantastic recitals, vanity reigned
+triumphant, the vanity of a chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles
+and riches, were the texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was.
+She had a small hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and
+carriages, gorgeous furniture in most questionable taste, three or four
+servants, and led a most indolent existence, trifling away her life
+among women like herself, less confident in her bearing, perhaps,
+than they, from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain
+freshness, the result of a childhood passed in the open air, all kept
+her somewhat out of the current of Parisian life, where, too, being so
+newly arrived, she had not yet found her place.
+
+Once each week, a man of middle age, and of distinguished appearance,
+came to see her. In speaking of him, Ida always said "Monsieur" with an
+air of such respect that one would have supposed him to be at the court
+of France in the days when the brother of the king was so denominated.
+The child spoke of him simply as "our friend." The servants announced
+him as "M. le Comte," but among themselves they called him "the old
+gentleman."
+
+The old gentleman was very rich, for madame spared nothing, and there
+was an enormous expenditure going on constantly in the house. This was
+managed by Mademoiselle Constant, Ida's waiting-maid. It was this woman
+who gave her mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her
+inexperience through the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida's pet dream and
+hope was to be taken for a woman of irreproachable character, and of the
+highest fashion.
+
+Thus it will be seen into what state of mind the reception of Father
+O------ had thrown her, and in what a rage she left his presence. An
+elegant coup� awaited her at the door of the Institution. She threw
+herself into it with her child, retaining only sufficient self-command
+to say "home," in so loud a voice that she was heard by a group of
+priests who were talking together, and who quickly dispersed before this
+whirlwind of furs and curled hair. In fact, as soon as the carriage-door
+was closed, the unhappy woman sank into a corner, not in her usual
+coquettish position, but overwhelmed and in tears, stifling her sobs in
+the quilted cushions.
+
+What a blow! The priest had refused to take her child, and at the first
+glance had discovered the humiliating truth that she believed to have
+thoroughly disguised under the luxurious surroundings of a woman of the
+world and of an irreproachable mother.
+
+Her wounded pride recalled with renewed flushes of shame the keen eyes
+of the good father. She recalled all her falsehood, all her folly, and
+remembered his incredulous smile at almost her first words.
+
+Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack,
+looking sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He
+vaguely conceived himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and
+yet was secretly glad that he had not been left at the school.
+
+For a fortnight he had heard of it night and day; his mother had
+extorted a promise from him not to weep; his trunk was packed, and all
+was ready, and the child's heart was full of trouble; and now at the
+last moment he was reprieved.
+
+If his mother had not been in so much trouble now, he would have thanked
+her; how happy would he have been curled up at her side, under her
+furs, in the little coup� in which they had had so many happy hours
+together--hours which were now to be repeated. And Jack thought of
+the afternoons in the Bois, of the long drives through the gay city
+of Paris--a city so new to both of them, and full of excitement and
+interest. A monument, perhaps, or even a mere street incident, delighted
+them.
+
+"Look, Jack--"
+
+"Look, mamma--"
+
+They were two children together, and together they peered from the
+window,--the child's head with its golden curls close to the mother's
+face tightly veiled in black lace.
+
+A despairing cry from Madame de Barancy aroused the boy from all these
+sweet recollections. "_Mon dieu!_" she cried, wringing her hands, "what
+have I done to be so wretched?"
+
+This exclamation naturally elicited no response, and little Jack, not
+knowing what to say, or how to console her, timidly caressed her hand,
+even at last kissing it with the fervor of a lover.
+
+She started and looked wildly at him.
+
+"Ah! cruel, cruel child, what harm you have done me in this world!"
+
+Jack turned pale. "I? What have I done?"
+
+He loved but one person on the face of the earth, his mother. He thought
+her absolutely perfect; and without knowing it, he had injured her in
+some mysterious way. The poor child was now overwhelmed with despair
+also, but remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his
+mother had shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on
+his own part. He was seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother
+took him in her arms. "No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be
+sensible, dear. What! must I rock my long-legged boy as if he were a
+baby? No, little Jack, you never did me any harm. It is I who did wrong.
+Come, do not weep any more. See, I am not crying."
+
+And the strange creature, forgetful of her recent grief, laughed
+gayly, that Jack too might laugh. It was one of the privileges of this
+inconsequent nature never to retain impressions for any length of time.
+Singularly enough, too, the tears she had just shed only seemed to add
+new freshness and brilliancy to her youthful beauty, as a sudden shower
+upon a dove's plumage seems to bring out new lustre without penetrating
+below the surface.
+
+"Where are we now?" said she, suddenly dropping the window that was
+covered with mist. "At the Madeleine. How quickly we have come! We must
+stop somewhere; at the pastry-cook's, I think. Dry your eyes, little
+one, we will buy some meringues."
+
+They alighted at the fashionable confectioner's, where there was a great
+crowd. Rich furs and rustling silks crushed each other; and women's
+faces with veils half lifted were reflected in the surrounding mirrors
+which were set in gilt frames and cream-colored panels; glittering
+glass, and a variety of cakes and dainties delighted the spectators.
+Madame de Barancy and her child were much looked at. This charmed her,
+and this small success following upon the mortification of the previous
+hour, gave her an appetite. She called for a quantity of meringues and
+nougat, and finished by a glass of wine. Jack followed her example, but
+with more moderation, his great grief having filled his eyes with unshed
+tears and his heart with suppressed sighs.
+
+When they left the shop the weather was so fine, although cold, and the
+flower-market of the Madeleine so fragrant with the sweet perfume of
+violets, that Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on foot.
+Briskly, and yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated a woman
+accustomed to admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack by
+the hand. The fresh air, the gay streets and attractive shops, quite
+restored Ida's good-humor. Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas
+I know not, she remembered a masqued ball to which she was going that
+night, preceded by a restaurant dinner.
+
+"Mercy! I had forgotten. Hurry! little Jack--quick!" She wanted flowers,
+a bouquet, a dozen forgotten trifles: and the child, whose life had
+always been made up of just such trifles, and who felt as much as his
+mother the subtile charm of these elegances, followed her in high glee,
+delighted by the idea of the f�te that he was not to see. The toilette
+of his mother always interested him, and he fully appreciated the
+admiration her beauty excited as they went through the streets and into
+the various shops.
+
+"Exquisite! exquisite! Yes, you may send it to me--Boulevard Haussmann."
+
+Madame de Barancy tossed down her card, and went out, talking gayly to
+Jack of the beauty of her purchases. Suddenly she assumed a graver air.
+"Remember, Jack, what I say. Do not tell our good friend that I went to
+this ball; it is a great secret, It is five o'clock. How Constant will
+scold!"
+
+She was not mistaken.
+
+Her maid, a tall, stout person of forty years, ugly and masculine,
+rushed toward Ida as she entered the house.
+
+"The costume is here. There is no sense in being so late. Madame will
+not be ready in season. No one could make her toilette in such a little
+while."
+
+"Don't scold, Constant. If you only knew what had happened. Look!" and
+she pointed to Jack.
+
+The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. "What! Master Jack back
+again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police
+will have to come and take you to school; your mother is too good."
+
+"No, no, it was not he. The priest would not have him. Do you
+understand? They insulted me!" Whereupon she began to cry again, and to
+ask of heaven why she was so unhappy. What with the meringues and the
+nougat, the wine and the heat of the room, she soon felt very ill.
+She was carried to her bed; salts and ether were hastily sought.
+Mademoiselle Constant acquitted herself with the propriety of a woman
+who is no stranger to such scenes, went in and out of the room, opened
+and shut wardrobes, with a certain self-possession that seemed to
+say, "This will soon pass off." But she did not perform her duties in
+silence.
+
+"What folly it was to take this child to the Fathers! As if it was a
+place for him in his position! It would not have been done certainly,
+had I been consulted. I would engage to find a place for this boy at
+very short notice."
+
+Jack, terrified at seeing his mother so ill, had seated himself on the
+edge of the bed; where, looking at her anxiously, he in silence asked
+her pardon for the sorrow he had caused her.
+
+"There! get away, Master Jack. Your mother is all right. I must help her
+dress now."
+
+"What! You do not mean, Constant, that I must go to this ball. I have no
+heart to amuse myself."
+
+"Pshaw! I know you, madame. You have but five minutes. Just look at this
+pretty costume, these rose-colored stockings, and your little cap."
+
+She shook out the skirts, displayed the trimming, and jingled the little
+bells which adorned it, and Ida ceased to resist.
+
+While his mother was dressing, Jack went into the boudoir, and remained
+alone in the dark. The little room, perfumed and coquettish, was, it
+is true, partially illuminated by the gas lamps on the boulevard. Sadly
+enough the child leaned against the windows and thought of the day that
+was just over. By degrees, without knowing how, he felt himself to be
+"the poor child" of whom the priest had spoken in such compassionate
+tones.
+
+It is so singular to hear one's self pitied when one believes one's self
+to be happy. There are sorrows, in fact, so well concealed, that those
+who have caused them, and even sometimes their victims, do not divine
+them.
+
+The door opened--his mother was ready.
+
+"Come in, Master Jack, and see if this is not lovely."
+
+Ah! what a charming Folly! Silver and pink, lustrous satin and delicate
+lace. What a lovely rustling of spangles when she moved!
+
+The child looked on in admiration, while the mother, light and airy,
+waving her Momus staff, smiled at Jack, and smiled at herself in the
+Psyche, without at that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then
+Constant threw over her shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to
+the carriage, while Jack, leaning over the railing, watched from stair
+to stair, moving almost as if she were dancing the little pink slippers
+embroidered with silver, that bore his mother to balls where children
+could not go. As the last sound of the silver bells died away, he turned
+towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the first time by the
+solitude in which he ordinarily passed his evenings.
+
+When Madame de Barancy dined out, Master Jack was confided to the tender
+mercies of Constant. "She will dine with you," said Ida.
+
+Two places were laid in the dining-room that seemed so huge on such
+days. But very often Constant, finding her dinner anything but cheerful,
+took the child and joined her companions below, where they feasted
+gayly. The table-cloth was soiled, and the conversation was not of the
+purest; and very often the conduct of the mistress of the house was
+commented upon, in words to be sure that were slightly veiled, so as not
+to frighten the child. This evening there was a grand discussion as to
+the refusal of the Fathers to receive the boy. The coachman declared
+that it was all for the best,--that the priests would have made of the
+child "a hypocrite and a Jesuit."
+
+Constant protested against these words. She was not a professor of
+religion, she said, but she would not hear it spoken ill of. Then the
+discussion changed to the great disappointment of Jack, who listened
+with all his little ears, hoping to hear why this priest, who appeared
+so good, was not willing to receive him.
+
+But for the moment Jack was of little consequence; each was absorbed in
+narrating his or her religious convictions.
+
+The coachman, who had been drinking, said that his God was the sun; in
+fact, he, like the elephants, adored the sun! Suddenly some one asked
+how he knew that elephants adored the sun.
+
+"I saw it once in a photograph," said he, sternly. Upon which
+Mademoiselle Constant vehemently accused him of impiety and atheism;
+while the cook, a stout Picardian with true peasant shrewdness, told
+them to be quiet.
+
+"Hush!" she said; "you should never quarrel over your religions."
+
+And Jack--what was he doing all this time?
+
+At the end of the table, stupefied by the heat and the interminable
+discussions of these brutes, he slept, with his head on his arms, and
+his fair curls spread over his velvet sleeves. In his unrestful slumber
+he heard the hum of the servants' voices, and at last he fancied that
+they were talking of him; but the voices seemed to reach from afar
+off--through a fog, as it were.
+
+"Who is he, then?" asked the cook.
+
+"I don't know," answered Constant; "but one thing is certain, he can't
+remain here, and she wishes me to find a school for him."
+
+Between a yawn and a hiccough, the coachman spoke,--
+
+"I know a capital school, and one that will, just answer your purpose.
+It is called the Moronval College--no, not college--but the Moronval
+Academy. But what of that? it is a college all the same. I put my child
+there once, when I was ordered off with the Egyptian army. The grocer
+gave me the prospectus, and I think I have it still."
+
+He looked in his portfolio, and from among the tumbled and soiled papers
+he extracted one, dirtier even than the others.
+
+"Here it is!" he cried, with an air of triumph.
+
+He unfolded the prospectus and began to read, or rather to spell with
+difficulty:
+
+"Gymnase Moronval--in the--in the--"
+
+"Give it to me," said Mademoiselle Constant; and taking it from him, she
+read it at one glance.
+
+"Moronval Academy--situated in the finest quarter of Paris--a
+family school--large garden--the number of pupils limited--course of
+instruction--particular attention paid to the correction of the accent
+of foreigners--"
+
+Mademoiselle Constant interrupted herself here to breathe, and to
+exclaim, "This seems all right enough!"
+
+"I think so," said the cook.
+
+The reading of the prospectus was resumed, but Jack was soundly asleep,
+and heard no more.
+
+He was dreaming. Yes, while his future was thus under discussion
+around this kitchen-table, while his mother was dancing as Folly in
+her rose-colored skirts and silver bells, he was dreaming of the kind
+priest, and of the tender voice that had murmured--"Poor child!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.~~THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.
+
+"23 Avenue Montaigne, in the best quarter of Paris," said the
+prospectus. And no one can deny that the Avenue Montaigne is well
+situated in the Champs Elys�es, but it has an incongruous unfinished
+aspect, as of a road merely sketched and not completed.
+
+By the side of the fine hotels with their plate-glass windows hung with
+silken draperies, stand the houses of workmen, whence issue the noise of
+hammers and grating of saws. One part of the Faubourg seems also to be
+relinquished to gardens after the style of Mabille.
+
+At the time of which I speak, and possibly now? from the avenue ran two
+or three narrow lanes whose sordid aspect offered a strange contrast to
+the superb buildings near them. One of these lanes opened at the number
+23, and announced on a gilded sign swinging in the passage, that the
+Moronval Academy was there situated. This sign, however, once passed, it
+seemed to you that you were taken back forty years, and to the other
+end of Paris. The black mud, the stream in the centre of the lane, the
+reverberations from the high walls, the drinking-shops built from old
+planks, all seemed to belong to the past. From every nook and cranny,
+from stairs and balconies, whence fluttered linen hung to dry, streamed
+forth a crowd of children escorted by an army of lean and hungry cats.
+It was amazing to see that so small a spot could accommodate such a
+number of persons. English grooms in shabby liveries, worn-out jockeys,
+and dilapidated body-servants, seemed there to congregate. To these must
+be added the horde of workpeople who returned at sunset; those who let
+chairs, or tiny carriages drawn by goats; dog-fanciers, beggars of all
+sorts, dwarfs from the hippodrome and their microscopic ponies. Picture
+all these to yourself, and you will have some idea of this singular
+spot--so near to the Champs Elys�es that the tops of the green trees
+were to be seen, and the roar of carriages was but faintly subdued.
+
+It was in this place that the Moronval Academy was situated. Two or
+three times during the day a tall, thin mulatto made his appearance in
+the street. He wore on his head a broad-brimmed Quaker hat placed so far
+back that it resembled a halo; long hair swept over his shoulders, and
+he crossed the street with a timid, terrified air, followed by a troop
+of boys of every shade of complexion varying from a coffee tint to
+bright copper, and thence to profound black. These lads wore the coarse
+uniform of the school, and had an unfed and uncared-for aspect.
+
+The principal of the Moronval Academy himself took his pupils--his
+children of the sun, as he called them--out for their daily walks; and
+the comings and goings of this singular party gave the finishing touch
+of oddity to the appearance of the _Passage des Douze Maisons_.
+
+Most assuredly, had Madame de Barancy herself brought her child to the
+Academy, the sight of the place would have terrified her, and she would
+never have consented to leave her darling there. But her visit to the
+Jesuits had been so unfortunate, her reception so different from that
+which she had anticipated, that the poor creature, timid at heart and
+easily disconcerted, feared some new humiliation, and delegated to
+Madame Constant, her maid, the task of placing Jack at the school chosen
+for him by her servants.
+
+It was one cold, gray morning that Ida's carriage drew up in front of
+the gilt sign of the Moronval Academy. The lane was deserted, but the
+walls and the signs all had a damp and greenish look, as if a recent
+inundation had there left its traces. Constant stepped forward bravely,
+leading the child by one hand, and carrying an umbrella in the other. At
+the twelfth house she halted. It was at the end of the lane just where
+it closes, save for a narrow passage into La Rue Marbouf, between
+two high walls on which grated the dry branches of old shrubbery and
+ancient trees. A certain cleanliness indicated the vicinity of the
+aristocratic institution; and the oyster-shells, old sardine-boxes, and
+empty bottles were carefully swept away from the green door, that was as
+solid and distrustful in aspect as if it led to a prison or a convent.
+
+The profound silence that reigned was suddenly broken by a vigorous
+assault of the bell by Madame Constant. Jack felt chilled to the heart
+by the sound of this bell, and the sparrows on the one tree in the
+garden fluttered away in sudden fright.
+
+No one opened the door, but a panel was pushed away, and behind
+the heavy grating appeared a black face, with protuberant lips and
+astonished eyes.
+
+"Is this the Moronval Academy?" said Madame de Barancy's imposing maid.
+
+The woolly head now gave place to one of a different type,--a Tartar,
+possibly,--with eyes like slits, high cheekbones, and narrow, pointed
+head. Then a Creole, with a pale yellow skin, was also inspired by
+curiosity and peered out. But the door still remained closed, and
+Madame Constant was losing her temper, when a sharp voice cried from a
+distance,--
+
+"Well do you never mean to open that door, idiots?"
+
+Then they all began to whisper; keys were turned, bolts were pushed
+back, oaths were muttered, kicks were administered, and after many
+ineffectual struggles the door was finally opened; but Jack saw only the
+retreating forms of the schoolboys, who ran off in as much fright as did
+the sparrows just before.
+
+In the doorway stood a tall, colored man, whose large white cravat made
+his face look still more black. M. Moronval begged Madame Constant to
+walk in, offered her his arm, and conducted her through a garden, large
+enough, but dismal with the dried leaves and d�bris of winter storms.
+
+Several scattered buildings occupied the place of former flower-beds.
+The academy, it seemed, consisted of several old buildings altered by
+Moronval to suit his own needs.
+
+In one of the alleys they met a small negro with a broom and a pail. He
+respectfully stood aside as they passed, and when M. Moronval said, in a
+low voice, "A fire in the drawing-room," the boy looked as much startled
+as if he had been told that the drawing-room itself was burning.
+
+The order was by no means an unnecessary one. Nothing could have been
+colder than this great room, whose waxed floor looked like a frozen,
+slippery lake. The furniture itself had the same polar aspect, enveloped
+in coverings not made for it. But Madame Constant cared little for the
+naked walls and the discomforts of the apartment; she was occupied with
+the impression she was making, and the part she was playing, that of
+a lady of importance. She was quite condescending, and felt sure
+that children must be well off in this place, the rooms were so
+spacious,--just as well, in fact, as if in the country.
+
+"Precisely," said Moronval, hesitatingly.
+
+The black boy kindled the fire, and M. Moronval looked for a chair for
+his distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned,
+made her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long,
+pale face all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great
+erectness, as if reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to
+disguise a trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind and
+womanly expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his long
+curls and his eyes.
+
+"Yes, his eyes are like his mother's," said Moronval, coolly, examining
+Madame Constant as he spoke.
+
+She made no attempt to disclaim the honor; but Jack cried out in
+indignation, "She is not my mamma! She is my nurse!"
+
+Upon which Madame Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more
+reserved. Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and
+concluded that a servant trusted to the extent of placing her master's
+children at school, must be a person of some importance in the house.
+
+Madame Constant soon convinced him of the correctness of this
+conclusion. She spoke loudly and decidedly--stated that the choice of a
+school had been left entirely to her own discretion, and each time that
+she pronounced the name of her mistress, it was with a patronizing air
+that drove poor Jack to the verge of despair.
+
+The terms of the school were spoken of: three thousand francs per annum
+was named as the amount asked; and then Moronval launched forth on the
+superior advantages of his institution; it combined everything needed
+for the development of both soul and body. The pupils accompanied their
+masters to the theatre and into the world. Instead of making of the boys
+intrusted to his charge mere machines of Greek and Latin, he sought to
+develop in them every good quality, to prepare them for their duties
+in every position in life, and to surround them with those family
+influences of which they had too many of them been totally deprived. But
+their mental instruction was by no means neglected; quite the contrary.
+The most eminent men, savans and artists, did not shrink from the
+philanthropic duty of instructing the young in this remarkable
+institution, and were employed as professors of sciences, history,
+music, and literature. The French language was made a matter of especial
+importance, and the pronunciation was taught by a new and infallible
+method of which Madame Moronval was the author. Besides all this, every
+week there was a public lecture, to which friends and relatives of the
+pupils were invited, and where they could thoroughly convince themselves
+of the excellence of the system pursued at the Moronval Academy.
+
+This long tirade of the principal, who needed, possibly, more than any
+one else the advantages of lessons in pronunciation from his wife,
+was achieved more quickly for the reason that, in Creole fashion, he
+swallowed half his words, and left out many of his consonants.
+
+It mattered not, however, for Madame Constant was positively dazzled.
+
+The question of terms, of course, was nothing to her, she said; but it
+was necessary that the child should receive an aristocratic and finished
+education.
+
+"Unquestionably," said Madame Moronval, growing still more erect.
+
+Here her husband added that he only received into his establishment
+strangers of great distinction, scions of great families, nobles,
+princes, and the like. At that very time he had under his roof a child
+of royal birth,--a son of the king of Dahomey. At this the enthusiasm of
+Madame Constant burst all boundaries.
+
+"A king's son! You hear, Master Jack--you will be educated with the son
+of a king!"
+
+"Yes," resumed the instructor, gravely; "I have been intrusted by his
+Dahomian Majesty with the education of his royal Highness, and I believe
+that I shall be able to make of him a most remarkable man."
+
+What was the matter with the black boy, who was still at work at the
+fire, that he shook so convulsively, and made such a hideous noise with
+the shovel and tongs?
+
+M. Moronval continued. "I hope, and Madame Moronval hopes, that the
+young king, when on the throne of his ancestors, will remember the good
+advice and the noble examples afforded him by his teachers in Paris,
+the happy years spent with them, their indefatigable cares and assiduous
+efforts on his behalf."
+
+Here Jack was surprised to see the black boy kneeling before the
+chimney, turn toward him, and shake his woolly head violently, while his
+mouth opened wide in silent but furious denial.
+
+Did he wish to say that his royal Highness would never remember the
+good lessons received at the academy, or did he mean that he would never
+forget them? But what could this poor black boy know about it?
+
+Madame Constant announced, in pompous terms, that she was willing to pay
+a quarter in advance. Moronval waved his hand condescendingly, as if to
+say, "There is no need of that."
+
+But the old house told a far different tale,--the shabby furniture, the
+dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of
+Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little woman with the
+long chin.
+
+But that which proved the fact more than anything else was the eagerness
+with which the pair went to find in another room the superb register in
+which they inscribed the ages of the pupils, their names, and the date
+of their entrance into the academy.
+
+While these important facts were being written, the black boy remained
+crouched in front of the fire, which seemed quite useless while he
+absorbed all its heat. The chimney, which at first had refused to
+consume the least bit of wood, as stomachs after too long fasting reject
+food, had now revived, and a beautiful red flame was to be seen. The
+negro, with his head on his hands, his eyes fixed as in a trance, looked
+like a little black silhouette against a scarlet background. His mouth
+opened in intense delight, and his eyes were perfectly round. He seemed
+to be drinking in the heat and the light with the greatest avidity,
+while outside the snow had begun to fall silently and slowly.
+
+Jack was very sad, for he fancied that Moronval had a wicked look,
+notwithstanding his honeyed words. And, then, in this strange house
+the poor child felt himself utterly lost and desolate, discarded by his
+mother, and rendered still more miserable by the vague idea that these
+colored pupils, from every corner of the globe, had brought with them an
+atmosphere of unhappiness and of restlessness. He remembered, too, the
+Jesuits' college, so fresh and sweet; the fine trees, the green-houses,
+the whole appearance of refinement, and the kind hand of the Superior
+laid for a moment upon his head.
+
+Ah! why had he not remained there? And as this occurred to him, he said
+to himself, that perhaps they would not have him here either. He looked
+toward the table. There by the big register the husband and wife were
+busy whispering with Madame Constant. They looked at him, and he caught
+a word now and then. The little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her
+say, as did the priest,--"Poor child!"
+
+She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him?
+Jack asked himself.
+
+This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little
+heart. He could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he
+attributed this disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume,
+his bare legs, or his long curls.
+
+But he thought of his mother's despair. Should he meet with another
+refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the
+principal some notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep
+him. He was delighted, poor child, for he little knew that the great
+misfortune of his life was now inaugurated there in that room.
+
+At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below,
+singing the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not
+recovered from the shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat,
+close-cut hair, and heavy beard, burst into the room.
+
+"Hallo!" he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, "a fire in the
+parlor? What a luxury!" and he drew a long breath. In fact, the
+new-comer was in the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each
+sentence, a habit he had acquired in singing; and these breaths were
+almost like the roaring of a wild beast. Catching sight of the strangers
+and the pile of money, he stopped short with the words on his lips.
+Delight and surprise succeeded each other on his countenance, whose
+muscles seemed habituated to all facial contortions.
+
+Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. "M. Labassandre, of
+the Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music." Labassandre
+bowed once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his
+self-possession, and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for
+all parties, administered a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at
+all astonished, but picked himself up and disappeared from the room.
+
+The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly--a
+mean face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and
+wearing an overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down the
+front too visible indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted man.
+This was Dr. Hirsch, Professor of Mathematics and of Natural Sciences.
+He exhaled a strong odor of alkalies, and, thanks to his chemical
+manipulations, his fingers were every color of the rainbow. The last
+comer was very different. Imagine a handsome man, dressed with the
+greatest care, scrupulously gloved and shod, his hair thrown back from a
+forehead already unnaturally high. He had a haughty, aggressive air;
+his heavy blonde moustache, much twisted at the ends, and a large, pale
+face, gave him the look of a sick soldier.
+
+Moronval presented him as "our great poet, Amaury d'Argenton, Professor
+of Literature."
+
+He, too, looked as astonished, when he caught sight of the gold pieces,
+as did Dr. Hirsch and the singer Labassandre. His cold eyes had a gleam
+of light, but it disappeared as he glanced from the child to his nurse.
+
+Then he approached the other professors standing in front of the fire,
+and, saluting them, listened in silence. Madame Constant thought
+this Argenton looked proud; but upon Jack the man made a very strong
+impression, and the child shrank from him with terror and repugnance.
+
+Jack felt that all these men might make him wretched, but this one more
+than all others. Instinctively, on seeing him enter, the child felt
+him to be his future enemy, and that cold, hard glance meeting his own,
+froze him to the core of his heart. How many times, in days to come, was
+he to encounter those pale, blue eyes, with half-shut, heavy lids, whose
+glances were cold as steel! The eyes have been called the windows of the
+soul, but D'Argenton's eyes were windows so closely barred and locked,
+that one had no reason to suppose that there was a soul behind them.
+
+The conversation finished between Moronval and Constant, the principal
+approached his new pupil, and giving him a little friendly tap on the
+cheek, he said, "Come, come, my young friend, you must look brighter
+than this."
+
+And in fact, Jack, as the moment drew near that he must say farewell to
+his mother's maid, felt his eyes swimming in tears. Not that he had any
+great affection for this woman, but she was a part of his home, she saw
+his mother daily, and the separation was final when she was gone.
+
+"Constant," he whispered, catching her dress, "you will tell mamma to
+come and see me."
+
+"Certainly. She will come, of course. But don't cry."
+
+The child was sorely tempted to burst into tears; but it seemed to him
+that all these strange eyes were fixed upon him, and that the Professor
+of Literature examined him with especial severity: and he controlled
+himself.
+
+The snow fell heavily. Moronval proposed to send for a carriage, but
+the maid said that Augustin and the coup� were waiting at the end of the
+lane.
+
+"A coup�!" said the principal to himself, in astonished admiration.
+
+"Speaking of Augustin," said she: "he charged me with a commission. Have
+you a pupil named Said?"
+
+"To be sure--certainly--a delightful person," said Moronval.
+
+"And a superb voice. You must hear him," interrupted Labassandre,
+opening the door and calling Said in a voice of thunder.
+
+A frightful howl was heard in reply, followed by the appearance of the
+delightful person.
+
+An awkward schoolboy appeared, whose tunic, like all tunics, and,
+indeed, like all the clothing of boys of a certain age, was too short
+and too tight for him; drawn in, in the fashion of a caftan, it told
+the story at once of an Egyptian in European clothing. His features
+were regular and delicate enough, but the yellow skin was stretched
+so tightly over the bones and muscles that the eyes seemed to close of
+themselves whenever the mouth opened, and _vice versa_.
+
+This miserable young man, whose skin was so scanty, inspired you with a
+strong desire to relieve his sufferings by cutting a slit somewhere. He
+at once remembered Augustin, who had been his parents' coachman, and who
+had given him all his cigar-stumps.
+
+"What shall I say to him from you?" asked Constant, in her most amiable
+tone.
+
+"Nothing," answered Said, promptly.
+
+"And your parents, how are they? Have you had any news from them
+lately?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have they returned to Egypt, as they thought of doing?"
+
+"Don't know: they never write."
+
+It was evident that this pupil of the Moronval Academy had not been
+educated in the art of conversation, and Jack listened with many
+misgivings.
+
+The indifferent fashion with which this youth spoke of his parents,
+added to what M. Moronval had previously said of the family influences
+of which most of his pupils had been deprived since infancy, impressed
+him unfavorably.
+
+It seemed to the child that he was to live among orphans or cast-off
+children, and would be himself as much cast off as if he had come from
+Timbuctoo or Otaheite.
+
+Again he caught the dress of his mother's servant. "Tell her to come and
+see me," he whispered; "O, tell her to come."
+
+And when the door closed behind her, he understood that one chapter
+in his life was finished; that his existence as a spoiled child, as a
+petted baby, had vanished into the past, and those dear and happy days
+would never again return.
+
+While he stood silently weeping, with his face pressed against a
+window that led into the garden, a hand was extended over his shoulder
+containing something black.
+
+It was Said, who, as a consolation, offered him the stump of a cigar.
+
+"Take this: I have a trunk full," said the interesting young man,
+shutting his eyes so as to be able to speak.
+
+Jack, smiling through his tears, made a sign that he did not dare to
+accept this singular gift; and Said, whose eloquence was very limited,
+stood silently planted by his side until M. Moronval returned.
+
+He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired
+with respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
+
+The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coup� was so well
+appointed, that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence of
+the equipage.
+
+"That is well," he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. "Play together;
+but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall permit
+the boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil."
+
+Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who
+questioned him without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit,
+and bare legs, he sat motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic
+gestipulations of these little boys of foreign birth, and among them
+all, looked much like an elegant little Parisian shut up in the great
+monkey cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from
+his silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be
+altogether amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the
+solemn little voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention,
+he hastened to the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically
+defending the money paid by Madame Constant against the demands of the
+professors, whose salaries were greatly in arrear.
+
+Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and litt�rateur, had been sent
+from Pointe-�-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe.
+At that time he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with
+considerable ability and cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted
+a dependent position which insured his expenses paid to Paris, that
+marvellous city, the heat of whose lurid flames extends so far over the
+world that it attracts even the moths from the colonies.
+
+On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few
+acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had
+obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into
+account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every
+effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time he spoke in
+public, the shouts of laughter that greeted him proved conclusively that
+he could never make a name, for himself in Paris as a public speaker. He
+then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to understand that
+it was far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-�-Petre than in Paris.
+Haughty and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes, he passed from
+journal to journal, without being retained for any length of time on the
+staff of any one. Then began those hard experiences of life which either
+crush a man to the earth or harden him to iron. He joined the army of
+the ten thousand men who live by their wits in Paris, who rise each
+morning dizzy with hunger and ambitious dreams, make their breakfast
+from off a penny-roll, black the seams of their coats with ink, whiten
+their shirt-collars with billiard-chalk, and warm themselves in the
+churches and libraries.
+
+He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,--to credit
+refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his garret at
+eleven o'clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to shoes
+in holes.
+
+He was one of those professors of--it matters not what, who write
+articles for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history
+of the Middle Ages in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume,
+compile catalogues, and copy plays for the theatres.
+
+He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for
+having struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.
+
+After three years of this miserable existence, when he had eaten an
+incalculable number of raw artichokes and radishes, when he had lost his
+illusions and ruined his stomach, chance sent him to give lessons in
+a young ladies' school kept by three sisters. The two eldest were over
+forty; the third was thirty,--small, sentimental, and pretentious. She
+saw little prospect of marriage, when Moronval offered himself and was
+accepted.
+
+Once married, they lived some time in the house with the elder sisters;
+both made themselves useful in giving lessons. But Moronval had retained
+many of his bachelor habits, which were far from agreeable in that
+peaceful and well-ordered boarding-school. Besides, the Creole treated
+his pupils too much as he might have done his slaves at work on the
+sugar-cane plantation.
+
+The elder sisters, who adored Madame Moronval, were nevertheless obliged
+to separate from her, and paid her as an indemnification a satisfactory
+sum. What should be done with this money? Moronval wished to start a
+journal, or a review; but to make money was his first wish. Finally, a
+brilliant idea came to him one day.
+
+He knew that children were sent from all parts of the world to finish
+their education in Paris. They came from Persia, from Japan, Hindostan,
+and Guinea, confided to the care of ship-captains, or to merchants. Such
+people being generally well provided with money, and having but little
+experience in getting rid of it, Moronval decided that there was an easy
+mine to work. Besides, the wonderful system of Madame Moronval could be
+applied in perfection to the correction of foreign accents, to defective
+pronunciation. The Professor immediately caused advertisements to be
+inserted in the colonial journals, where were soon to be seen the most
+amazing advertisements in several languages.
+
+During the first year, the nephew of the Iman of Zanzibar, and two
+superb blacks from the coast of Guinea, appeared upon the scene. It was
+not until they arrived that Moronval bestirred himself to find a local
+habitation and a name. Finally, in order to combine economy with the
+exigencies of his new position, he hired the buildings we have just
+visited in this hideous _Passage des Douze Maisons_, and displayed in
+the avenue the gorgeous sign we have mentioned.
+
+The owner of the property induced Moronval to believe that certain
+improvements would soon be made, in fact, that an appropriation was
+ordered for a new boulevard on one side of the building. This conviction
+induced Moronval to forget all the inconveniences, the dampness of
+the dormitory, the cold of certain rooms, the heat of others. This was
+nothing: the appropriation bill was ready for the signature, and things
+would be all right soon.
+
+But Moronval was forced to endure that long period of waiting, only too
+well known to Parisians in the last twenty years; and this wore heavily
+upon him, costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the
+improvement or welfare of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had
+been hugely duped, and this discovery had the worst effect on the
+passionate, weak nature of the Creole. His discouragement degenerated
+into absolute incapacity and indolence. The pupils had no supervision
+whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that they used the least
+possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into
+class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered with by every caprice
+of the principal, who sent the pupils hither and thither on his personal
+service.
+
+And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,--a physician
+without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer without
+an engagement,--all of whom were in a state of constant indignation
+against the world which refused to recognize their rare merits.
+
+Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem
+to herd together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual
+complaints? Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other,
+they pretend to an admiring sympathy.
+
+Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers,
+the greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their
+pipes, the smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither
+see nor hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence
+in a vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and literature were
+picked into fragments as precious stuffs might be under the application
+of violent acids.
+
+And the "children of the sun," what became of them amid all this? Madame
+Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former home and
+school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had undertaken,
+but the kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great establishment
+absorbed a great part of her time.
+
+As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept
+in order, for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the
+chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in
+certain armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling
+compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of
+surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new
+quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to
+smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins
+for the negro blood in his own veins.
+
+His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon
+he began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time
+there remained but eight.
+
+"Number of pupils limited," said the prospectus, and there was a certain
+amount of melancholy truth in the announcement. A dismal silence seemed
+to settle down on the great establishment, which was even threatened
+with a seizure of the furniture, when Jack appeared upon the scene. It
+of course was no very great sum, this quarter in advance, but Moronval
+understood certain prospective advantages, and even had a very clear
+perception of Ida's true nature, having cross-examined Constant with
+very good results. This day, therefore, witnessed a certain armed
+neutrality between masters and pupils. A good dinner in honor of the new
+arrival was served, all the professors were present, and "the children
+of the sun" even had a drop of wine, which startling event had not
+happened to them for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.~~M�DOU.
+
+If the Moronval Academy still exists, I desire to stigmatize it now and
+forever as the most unhealthy spot I ever knew. Its dampness makes it
+most objectionable for children.
+
+Imagine a long building all _rez-de-chauss�e_, without windows, and
+lighted only from above. About the room hung an indescribable odor of
+collodion and ether, as if it had once been used by a photographer. The
+garden was shut in by high walls covered with ivy which dripped with
+moisture. The dormitory stood against a superb hotel; and on one side
+was a stable, always noisy with the oaths of grooms, the trampling of
+horses' feet, and the rattling of pumps. From one end of the year to
+the other the place was always damp, the only difference being that,
+according to the different seasons of the year, the dampness was either
+very cold or very warm. In summer it was filled with moisture like a
+bathroom. In addition, a crowd of winged creatures, who lived among the
+old ivy on the walls, attracted by the brightness of the glass in the
+low roof, introduced themselves into the dormitory through the smallest
+crevice, and struck their wings against the glass, humming loudly, and
+finally falling on the beds in clouds.
+
+The winter's humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the dormitory
+through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two hours of
+shivering the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they drew their
+knees up to their chins and kept the bedclothes well over their heads.
+The paternal eye of Moronval saw at once the propriety of utilizing this
+otherwise unemployed building.
+
+"This shall be the dormitory," he said.
+
+"May it not be somewhat damp?" Madame Moronval ventured to ask.
+
+"What of that?" he answered, sternly.
+
+In reality there was but room for ten beds; but twenty were placed
+there, with a lavatory at the end, a wretched bit of carpet near the
+door, and all was in readiness.
+
+Why not? After all, a dormitory is only a place to sleep in, and
+children should be able to sleep anywhere, in spite of heat or cold, of
+bad air and of creeping things, in spite of the noise of pumps and of
+horses. They catch rheumatism, ophthalmia, and bronchitis, to be sure,
+but they sleep all the same the calm sweet sleep of children worn out by
+out-door exercise and play, and undisturbed by anxieties for the morrow.
+This is the popular belief in regard to children, but too many of us
+know that the truth is quite different. For example, the first night
+little Jack could not close his eyes. He had never slept in a strange
+house, and the change was great from his own little room at home, dimly
+lighted by a night-lamp, and littered with his favorite playthings, to
+the strange and comfortless place where he now found himself.
+
+As soon as the pupils were in bed, a black servant took away the light,
+and Jack remained wide awake.
+
+A pale moon, reflected from the snow that covered a portion of the
+skylight, filled the room with a bluish light. He looked at the beds,
+standing close together foot to foot the length of the room, most of
+them unoccupied, their coverings rolled up in a bundle at one end. Seven
+or eight were animated by an occasional snore, by a hollow cough, or a
+stifled exclamation.
+
+The new-comer had the best place, a little sheltered from the wind of
+the door. Nevertheless, he was far from warm, and the cold kept him from
+sleep as much as the novelty of his surroundings. He went over and over
+again in his memory every trifling detail of the day's events. He
+saw Moronval's bulky white cravat, the enormous spectacles of Dr.
+Hirsch--his soiled and spotted overcoat; but above all he recalled the
+cold and haughty eyes of "his enemy," as he already in his innermost
+heart called D'Argenton.
+
+This thought struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he looked
+to his mother for protection and defence.
+
+Where was she at that moment? A dozen different clocks at that instant
+struck eleven. She was probably at some ball or theatre. She would soon
+come in, all wrapped in furs and laces. When she came, it mattered not
+how late, she always opened Jack's door and bent over his bed to kiss
+him. Even in his sleep he was generally conscious of her presence, and
+smilingly opened his eyes to admire her toilette. And now he shuddered
+as he thought of the change; and yet it was not altogether painful,
+for the chevrons of his uniform delighted him, and he was happy in
+concealing his long legs in the skirt of his tunic. He had made two or
+three new acquaintances,--a thing very agreeable to most children; he
+had found his fellow-pupils odd enough, but their oddities interested
+him. They had snowballed each other in the garden, which, to a child who
+had been living in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very novel
+amusement.
+
+One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where
+was the little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so
+warmly? Was he in the Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk with
+him, and make him his friend. He repeated to himself the names of the
+"eight children of the sun," but there was no prince among them. Then he
+thought he would ask the boy Said.
+
+"Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?" he asked.
+
+The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished
+silence. Jack's question remained unanswered, and the child's thoughts
+ran on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music
+that rang through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the
+perpetual sound of the pumps in the stable.
+
+Moronval's guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and
+all was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the
+small black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
+
+He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept
+between the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his
+shoulders, and his teeth chattering.
+
+Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all
+the peculiarities of the black boy--the protruding mouth, the enormous
+ears, and retreating forehead.
+
+The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there
+warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though
+dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack's heart warmed toward him. As
+he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. "Ah! the snow I the
+snow!" he murmured sadly.
+
+His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who
+looked at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and
+said, half to himself, "Ah! the new pupil! Why don't you go to sleep,
+little boy?"
+
+"I cannot," said Jack, sighing.
+
+"It is good to sigh if you are sorry," said the negro, cententiously.
+"If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!"
+
+As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
+
+"Do you sleep there?" asked the child, astonished that a servant should
+occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. "But there are no sheets!"
+
+"Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black." The negro laughed
+gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half
+clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an
+ivory smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
+
+"What a funny medal!" cried Jack.
+
+"It is not a medal," answered the negro; "it is my _Gri-qri_."
+
+But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that
+it was an amulet--something to bring him good luck. His Aunt K�rika had
+given it to him when he left his native land,--the aunt who had brought
+him up, and to whom he hoped to return at some future day.
+
+"As I shall to my mamma," said little Barancy; and both children were
+silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
+
+Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. "And your country--is it a
+pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?"
+
+"Dahomey," answered the negro.
+
+Jack started up in bed.
+
+"What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, his royal Highness,--you know him,--the little king of Dahomey."
+
+"I am he," said the negro, quietly.
+
+The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had
+seen at work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on
+the table, and rinsing glasses!
+
+The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face grew
+very sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the past,
+or toward some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king that led
+Jack to examine this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed, his white
+shirt open, while on his dark breast shone the ivory amulet, with new
+interest?
+
+"How did all this happen?" asked the child, timidly.
+
+The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. "M. Moronval not
+like it if M�dou lets it burn." Then he pulled his couch close to that
+of Jack.
+
+"You are not sleepy," he said; "and I never wish to sleep if I can talk
+of Dahomey. Listen!"
+
+And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen,
+the little negro began his dismal tale.
+
+He was called M�dou,--the name of his father, an illustrious warrior,
+one of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to
+whom France, Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father
+had cannon, and soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war,
+musicians and priests, four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred wives.
+His palace was immense, and ornamented by spears on which hung human
+heads after a battle or a sacrifice. M�dou was born in this palace. His
+Aunt K�rika, general-in-chief of the Amazons, took him with her in all
+her expeditions. How beautiful she was, this K�rika! tall and large as a
+man,--in a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs loaded with bracelets
+and anklets; her bow slung over her shoulder, and the tail of a horse
+streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly locks, she
+wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black
+warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of Diana the white
+huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could
+cut off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible
+K�rika might have been on the battlefield, to her nephew M�dou she was
+always very gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of
+coral and of amber, and all the shells he desired,--shells being the
+money in that part of the world. She even gave him a small but gorgeous
+musket, presented to herself by the Queen of England, and which K�rika
+found too light for her own use. M�dou always carried it when he went to
+the forests to hunt with his aunt.
+
+There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that
+the sun never penetrated to these green temples. Then M�dou described
+with enthusiasm the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds
+with wonderful plumage, and Jack listened in delight and astonishment.
+There were serpents, too, but they were harmless; and black monkeys
+leaped from tree to tree; and large mysterious lakes, that had never
+reflected the skies in their brown depths, lay here and there in the
+forests.
+
+At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, "O, how beautiful it must be!"
+
+"Yes, very beautiful," said the black boy, who undoubtedly exaggerated
+a little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of absence, of
+childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern nature;
+but encouraged by his comrade's sympathy, M�dou continued his story.
+
+At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked
+in the jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were
+heard in the distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the
+bats, silent and black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered
+over and about it until daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic
+tree, motionless, and pressed against each other, looking like some
+singular leaves, dry and dead.
+
+In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,--could
+wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied
+to their mother's apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir
+to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a
+negro prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must
+also learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his
+son, "White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with."
+Of course some European might have been found in Dahomey who could
+instruct the prince,--for French and English flags floated over the
+ships in the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his father
+to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world; and he
+wished his son to receive a similar education.
+
+How unhappy the little prince was in leaving K�rika; he looked at his
+sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a
+clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold
+dust stolen from the poor negroes.
+
+M�dou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to
+command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of
+corn and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with
+treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them,
+and be capable of defending them when necessary,--and M�dou early
+learned that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures
+than the rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.
+
+His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to
+the fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown
+open for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered
+there, and at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners
+of war were executed on the shore, and the executioner threw their heads
+into a great copper basin.
+
+"Good gracious!" gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
+
+It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the
+actors in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval
+Academy rather than in that terrible land of Dahomey.
+
+M�dou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the
+ceremonies preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his
+arrival and life at Marseilles.
+
+He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the
+court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor,
+who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, "Not so much noise, if
+you please!" The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous
+scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all
+new and very trying to M�dou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but
+the walls were so high, the court-yard so narrow, that he could never
+find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He was never
+allowed to go out as were the other pupils, and for a very good reason.
+At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where
+he often saw merchandise from his own country, and sometimes went into
+ecstasies at some well-known mark.
+
+The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their
+sails, all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
+
+M�dou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,--one had brought
+him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed
+by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C's, for his eyes
+saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The
+result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and
+hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time,
+but escaped again, and the second time was not discovered until the ship
+was in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons. Any other child would have been
+kept on board; but when M�dou's name was known, the captain took his
+royal Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a reward.
+
+After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a very
+close prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more; and this
+time, on being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so gently, and
+with such a sad smile, that no one had the heart to punish him. At
+last the principal of the institution declined the responsibility of so
+determined a pupil. Should he send the little prince back to Dahomey? M.
+Bonfils dared not permit this, fearing thereby to lose the good graces
+of the king. In the midst of these perplexities Moronvol's advertisement
+appeared, and the prince was at once dispatched to 23 Avenue
+Montaigne,--"the most beautiful situation in Paris,"--where he was
+received, as you may well believe, with open arms. This heir of a
+far-off kingdom was a godsend to the academy. He was constantly on
+exhibition; M. Moronval showed him at theatres and concerts, and along
+the boulevards, reminding one of those perambulating advertisements that
+are to be seen in all large cities.
+
+He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval,
+who entered a room with all the gravity of F�n�lon conducting the Duke
+of Burgundy. The two were announced as "His Royal Highness the Prince of
+Dahomey, and M. Moronval, his tutor."
+
+For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of M�dou; an attach�
+of a London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and
+serious talk as to the course the young prince should pursue when called
+to the throne of his ancestors. The English journal published an account
+of the curious dialogue, and the vague replies certainly left much to be
+desired.
+
+At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this
+solitary pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented
+to him without a word of dispute. M�dou's education, however, made
+but little progress. He still continued among the A B C's, and Madame
+Moronval's charming method made no impression upon him. His defective
+pronunciation was still retained, and his half-childish way of speaking
+was not changed. But he was gay and happy. All the other children were
+compelled to yield to him a certain deference. At first this was a
+difficult matter, as his intense blackness seemed to indicate to these
+other children of the sun that he was a slave.
+
+And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in
+spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their
+instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what
+could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo king.
+It was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as M�dou was
+crowned, they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to develop
+the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a
+conservatory, and at the head of the Royal Chapel.
+
+Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp
+black heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon the
+inmates of which he could experiment without fear of any interference
+from the police. The first few weeks, therefore, of his sojourn at Paris
+seemed to M�dou very sweet. If only the sun would shine out brightly, if
+the fine rain would cease to fall, or the thick fog clear away; if, in
+short, the boy could once have been thoroughly warm, he would have been
+content; and if K�rika, with her gun and her bow, her arms covered with
+clanking bracelets, could occasionally have appeared in the _Passage des
+Douze Maison_, he would have been very happy.
+
+But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day,
+bringing most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken
+prisoner by the Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal
+troops and the regiment of Amazons had all been conquered and dispersed.
+K�rika alone was saved, and she dispatched M. Bonfils to M�dou to tell
+him to remain in France, and to take good care of his Gri-gri, for it
+was written in the great book that if M�dou did not lose that amulet, he
+would come into his kingdom. The poor little king was in great trouble.
+Moronval, who placed no faith in the _gri-gri_, presented his bill--and
+such a bill!--to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but informed the principal
+that in future, if he consented to keep M�dou, he must not rely upon any
+present compensation, but upon the gratitude of the king as soon as the
+fortunes and chances of war should restore him to his throne. Would
+the principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once signifying his intentions?
+Moronval promptly and nobly said, "I will keep the child." Observe that
+it was no longer "his Royal Highness." And the boy at once became
+like all the other scholars, and was scolded and punished as they
+were,--more, in fact, for the professors were out of temper with him,
+feeling apparently, that they had been deluded by false pretences. The
+child could understand little of this, and tried in vain all the gentle
+ways that had seemed to win so much affection before. It was worse still
+the next quarter, when Moronval, receiving no money, realized that M�dou
+was a burden to him. He dismissed the servant, and installed M�dou in
+his place, not without a scene with the young prince. The first time
+a broom was placed in his hands and its use explained to him, M�dou
+obstinately refused. But M. Moronval had an irresistible argument ready,
+and after a heavy caning the boy gave up. Besides, he preferred to sweep
+rather than to learn to read. The prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept
+with singular energy, and the salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously
+clean; but Moronval's heart was not softened. In vain did the little
+fellow work; in vain did he seek to obtain a kindly word from his
+master; in vain did he hover about him with all the touching humility of
+a submissive hound: he rarely obtained any other recompense than a blow.
+
+The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain
+seemed to fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
+
+O K�rika! Aunt K�rika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come and
+see what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated, how
+scantily he is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is! He
+has but one suit now, and that a livery--a red coat and striped vest!
+Now, when he goes out with his master, he does not walk at his side--he
+follows him.
+
+M�dou's honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of
+Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this
+last descendant of the powerful _Tocodonon_, the founder of the Dahomian
+dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of a huge
+basket, half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for nothing
+warms him now, neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the shame of
+having become a servant; nor even his hatred of "the father with a
+stick," as he called Moronval.
+
+And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and M�dou confided to Jack
+his projects of vengeance.
+
+"When M�dou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the
+father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will
+cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big
+drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,--Boum!
+boum! boum!"
+
+Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro's white eyes,
+and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the
+drum, and was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the
+sabres, and the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket
+over his head, and held his breath.
+
+M�dou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he
+thought his solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath,
+M�dou said gently, "Shall we talk some more, sir?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jack; "only don't let us say any more about that drum,
+nor the copper basin." The negro laughed silently. "Very well, sir;
+M�dou won't talk--you must talk now. What is your name?"
+
+"Jack, with a _k_. Mamma thinks a great deal about that--"
+
+"Is your mamma very rich?"
+
+"Rich! I guess she is," said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle M�dou
+in his turn. "We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the boulevard,
+horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma comes here,
+how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look at her, she
+has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live at Tours;
+it was a pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we bought nice
+cakes, and where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The gentlemen
+were all good to me. I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,--not real papas,
+you know, because my own father died when I was a little fellow. When
+we first went to Paris I did not like it; I missed the trees and the
+country; but mamma petted me so much, and was so good to me, that I was
+soon happy again. I was dressed like the little English boys, and my
+hair was curled, and every day we went to the Bois. At last my mamma's
+old friend said that I ought to learn something; so mamma took me to the
+Jesuit College--"
+
+Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive
+him, wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and
+innocence of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to
+his mother in this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital,
+on which he had so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only
+serious trouble of his life. Why had they not been willing to receive
+him? why did his mother weep? and why did the Superior pity him?
+
+"Say, then, little master," asked the negro suddenly, "what is a
+cocotte?"
+
+"A cocotte?" asked Jack in astonishment. "I don't know. Is it a
+chicken?"
+
+"I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your mother
+was a cocotte."
+
+"What an ideal. You misunderstood," and at the thought of his mother
+being a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh;
+and M�dou, without knowing why, followed his example.
+
+This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous
+conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided
+to each other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.~~THE REUNION.
+
+Children are like grown people,--the experiences of others are never of
+any use to them.
+
+Jack had been terrified by Madou's story, but he thought of it only as a
+frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first months
+were so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he forgot that
+M�dou for a time had been equally happy.
+
+At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared
+his dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit
+appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch,
+whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable
+condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by
+descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious diseases,
+and, in fact, kept his hearers _au courant_ with all the ailments of the
+day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of the
+plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would nod his head with delight,
+and say, "It will be here before long--before long!"
+
+As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first,
+his near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of
+dropping into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops
+from a vial in his pocket The contents of this vial were never the same,
+for the doctor made new scientific discoveries each week, but in general
+bicarbonate, alkalies, and arsenic (in infinitesimal doses fortunately)
+made the base of these medicaments. Jack submitted to these preventives,
+and did not venture to say that he thought they tasted very badly.
+Occasionally the other professors were invited, and everybody drank the
+health of the little De Barancy, every one was enthusiastic over his
+sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher, Labassandre, at the least
+joke made by the child, threw himself back in his chair with a loud
+laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes with a corner
+of his napkin.
+
+Even D'Argenton, the handsome D'Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile crossed
+his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with
+haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he
+wish to understand, the signs made to him by M�dou, as he waited upon
+the table, with a napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. M�dou
+knew better than any one else the real value of these exaggerated
+praises and the vanity of human greatness.
+
+He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master's wine,
+flavored by the powder from the doctor's bottle; and the tunic, with its
+silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had been
+made for M�dou? The story of the little negro should have been a warning
+to the small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the installation
+of both boys in the Moronval Academy had been precisely of the same
+character.
+
+The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into
+weeks. Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval,
+who snatched every opportunity of testing her method.
+
+As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new pupil.
+He had made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the Boulevard
+Hauss-mann, and had fully acquainted himself with the resources of the
+lady there. When, therefore, Madame de Barancy came to see Jack, which
+was very often, she met with a warm reception, and had an attentive
+audience for all the vain and foolish stories she saw fit to tell. At
+first Madame Moronval wished to preserve a certain dignified coolness
+toward such a person, but her husband soon changed that idea, and she
+saw herself obliged to lay aside her womanly scruples in favor of her
+interests.
+
+"Jack! Jack! here comes your mother," some one would cry as the door
+opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of
+cakes and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for every
+one; they all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy ungloved her
+hand, the one on which were the most rings, and condescended to take a
+portion. The poor creature was so generous, and money slipped so easily
+through her fingers, that she generally brought with her cakes all sorts
+of presents, playthings, &c., which she distributed as the fancy struck
+her. It is easy to imagine the enthusiastic praises lavished upon this
+inconsiderate, reckless generosity. Moronval alone had a smile of pity
+and of envy at seeing money so wasted, which should have gone to the
+assistance of some brave, generous soul like himself, for example.
+This was his fixed idea. And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing his
+finger-nails, he had an absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes
+to ask a loan, and has his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval's
+dream for some time had been to establish a Review consecrated to
+colonial interests, in this way hoping to satisfy his political
+aspirations by recalling himself regularly to his compatriots; and,
+finally, who knows he might be elected deputy. But, as a commencement,
+the journal seemed indispensable, and he had a vague notion that the
+mother of his new pupil might be induced to defray the expenses of this
+Review, but he did not wish to move too rapidly lest he should frighten
+the lady away; he intended to prepare the way gently. Unfortunately,
+Madame de Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of nature, was
+difficult to reach. She would continually change the conversation just
+at the important point, because she found it very uninteresting.
+
+"If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!" said Moronval
+to himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de
+S�vign� and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might
+as well have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was
+fluttering about his head.
+
+"I am not strong-minded nor literary," said Ida, with a half yawn, one
+day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
+
+Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be
+dazzled, not led.
+
+One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful
+tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she
+added the _de_ as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,--
+
+"M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not."
+
+"O, tell me, tell me!" said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish
+to oblige.
+
+The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the
+Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to
+act with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de
+Barancy to be present at one of their literary reunions on the following
+Saturday. Formerly these little f�tes took place every week, but since
+M�dou's fall they had been very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval
+had extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in vain had he
+dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the window-sill, and
+served it again the following week, the expense still was too great. But
+now he determined to hazard another attempt in that direction. Madame de
+Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea of making
+her appearance in the salon as a married woman of position was very
+attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on
+which she hoped to ascend from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.
+
+This was a most splendid f�te at which she assisted. In the memory
+of all beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored
+lanterns hung on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted,
+and at least thirty candles were burning in the salon, the floor of
+which M�dou had so waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it was as
+brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself;
+and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as
+to the part that the prince should take at the soir�e.
+
+Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one
+day only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting;
+but, then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could
+replace him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some one in
+Paris who might not be pleased with this system of education; and
+finally it was decided that the soir�e must be deprived of the presence
+and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight o'clock, "the children of
+the sun" took their seats on the benches, and among them the blonde head
+of little De Barancy glittered like a star on the dark background.
+
+Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary
+world--the one at least which he frequented--and the representatives of
+art, literature, and architecture appeared in large delegations.
+They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the depths of
+_Montparnasse_ on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and poor, unknown,
+but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the longing to be
+seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves that they
+were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure air, this glimpse of
+the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of glory and success, they
+returned to their squalid apartments, having gained a little strength
+to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there were
+painters longing for fame, but whose pictures looked as if an earthquake
+had shaken everything from its perpendicular; musicians--inventors
+of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains
+contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by
+reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if
+their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their
+offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to
+laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that
+had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have
+awakened profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.
+
+Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a
+taskmistress and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment..
+For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an
+agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.
+
+Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives.
+These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave,
+worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of
+men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they
+smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there
+were the habitu�s of the house, the three professors; Labassandre
+in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous
+inspirations; and D'Argenton, the handsome D'Argenton, curled and
+pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of
+authority, geniality, and condescension.
+
+Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one,
+shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later
+and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the
+countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de
+Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, "We will
+wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!"
+
+The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small
+green table, on which stood a glass of _eau-sucr�_ and a reading-lamp,
+was in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red
+and oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and M�dotu, shivering in
+the wind from the door,--all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile,
+as she came not, D'Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his
+assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in
+front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide forehead,
+the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called his poem.
+
+His friends were not sparing in their praises.
+
+"Magnificent!" said one. "Sublime!" exclaimed another; and the most
+amazing criticism came from yet another,--"Goethe with a heart?"
+
+Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to
+the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart
+was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat:
+now she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more his
+pale face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a
+love poem, and, believing in love as he did in God, he produced an
+extraordinary effect upon her.
+
+He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish
+sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such
+women.
+
+From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of
+her heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic
+signs to her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for
+Moronval, who bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that
+examined her from head to foot, as she stood before them in her black
+velvet dress and her little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses
+and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about her like a scarf.
+Years after she recalled the profound impression of that evening, and
+saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon, which
+seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The
+future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound
+her, crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but
+the recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be effaced.
+
+"You see, madame," said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile, "that
+we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte �maury d'Argenton
+was reciting his magnificent poem."
+
+"Vicomte!" He was noble, then!
+
+She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
+
+"Continue, sir, I beg of you," she said.
+
+But D'Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had
+injured the effect of his poem--destroyed its point; and such things are
+not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that
+he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more
+about her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had
+displeased him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all
+little Jack's tender caresses and outspoken joy--all his delight at the
+admiration expressed for her, the attentions of everybody, the idea that
+she was queen of the fete--to efface the sorrow she felt, and which she
+showed by a silence of at least five minutes, which silence for a nature
+like hers was something as extraordinary as restful. The disturbance of
+her entrance being at last over, every one seated himself to await the
+next recitation.
+
+Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat
+majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on
+the arm of his mother's chair, between her and M. Moronval, who smoothed
+the lad's hair in the most paternal way.
+
+The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took
+dignified possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and
+proceeded to read an ethnographic composition of her husband's on the
+Mongolian races. It was long and tedious--one of those lucubrations
+that are delivered before certain scientific societies, and succeed in
+lulling the members to sleep. Madame Moronval took this opportunity of
+demonstrating the peculiarities of her method, which had the merit--if
+merit it were--of holding the attention as in a vice, and the words and
+syllables seemed to reverberate through your own brain. To see Madame
+Moronval open her mouth to sound her o's, to hear the r's rattle in
+her throat, was more edifying than agreeable. The mouths of the eight
+children opposite mechanically followed each one of her gestures,
+producing a most extraordinary effect; one absolutely fascinating to
+Mademoiselle Constant.
+
+But the countess saw nothing of all this; she had eyes but for her poet
+leaning against the door of the drawing-room, with arms folded and eyes
+moodily cast down. In vain did Ida seek to attract his attention; he
+glanced occasionally about the salon, but her arm-chair might as well
+have been vacant; he did not appear to see her, and the poor woman was
+rendered so utterly miserable by this neglect and indifference, that she
+forgot to congratulate Moronval on the brilliant success of his essay,
+which concluded amid great applause and universal relief.
+
+Then followed another brief poem by Argenton, to which Ida listened
+breathlessly.
+
+"Ah, how beautiful!" she cried; "how beautiful!" and she turned to
+Moronval, who sat with a forced smile on his lips. "Present me to M.
+d'Argenton, if you please."
+
+She spoke to the poet in a low voice and with great courtesy. He,
+however, bowed very coldly, apparently careless of her implied
+admiration.
+
+"How happy you are," she said, "in the possession of such a talent!"
+
+Then she asked where she could obtain his poems.
+
+"They are not to be procured, madame," answered D'Argenton, gravely.
+
+Without knowing it, she had again wounded his sensitive pride, and he
+turned away without vouchsafing another syllable.
+
+But Moronval profited by this opening. "Think of it!" he said; "think
+that such verses as those cannot find a publisher! That such genius as
+that is buried in obscurity! If we only could publish a magazine!"
+
+"And why can you not?" asked Ida, quickly.
+
+"Because we have not the funds."
+
+"But they can easily be procured. Such talent should not be allowed to
+languish!"
+
+She spoke with great earnestness; and Moronval saw at once that he had
+played his cards well, and proceeded to take advantage of the lady's
+weakness by talking to her of D'Argenton, whom he painted in glowing
+colors.
+
+He spoke of him as Lara, or Manifred, a proud and independent nature,
+one which could not be conquered by the hardships of his lot.
+
+Here Ida interrupted him to ask if the poet was not of noble birth.
+
+"Most assuredly, madame. He is a viscount, and descended from one of the
+noblest families in Auvergne. His father was ruined by the dishonesty of
+an agent."
+
+This was his text, which he proceeded to enlarge upon, and illustrate by
+many romantic incidents. Ida drank in the whole story; and while these
+two were absorbed in earnest conversation, Jack grew jealous, and made
+various efforts to attract his mother's attention. "Jack, do be quiet!"
+and "Jack, you are insufferable!" finally sent him off, with tearful
+eyes and swollen lips, to sulk in the corner of the salon. Meanwhile
+the literary entertainments of the evening went on, and finally
+Labassandre, after numerous entreaties, was induced to sing. His voice
+was so powerful, and so pervaded the house, that M�dou, who was in the
+kitchen preparing tea, replied by a frightful war-cry. The poor fellow
+worshipped noise of all kinds and at all times.
+
+Moronval and the comtesse continued their conversation; and D'Argenton,
+who by this time understood that he was the subject, stood in front of
+them, apparently absorbed in conversation with one of the professors. He
+appeared to be out of temper--and with whom? With the whole world; for
+he was one of that very large class who are at war against society, and
+against the manners and customs of their day.
+
+At this very moment he was declaiming violently, "You have all the vices
+of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere name.
+Love is a farce. You have accomplished nothing intellectually."
+
+"Pardon me, sir," interrupted his hearer. But the other went on more
+vehemently and more aggressively. He wished, he said, that all France
+could hear what he thought. The nation was abased, crushed beyond all
+hope of recuperation. As for himself, he had determined to emigrate to
+America.
+
+All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that
+was bent upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that
+one has in the fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly rises
+behind you and compels you to turn toward its silent presence. The eyes
+of this woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in
+regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom
+settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D'Argenton
+wound up with a vigorous tirade against French women,--their lightness
+and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of their
+love.
+
+The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the chimney,
+and careless who heard either his voice or his words.
+
+Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that
+he was indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to
+herself.
+
+"He knows who I am," she said, and bowed her head in shame.
+
+Moronval said aloud, "What a genius!" and in a lower voice to himself,
+"What a boaster!" But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had
+Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities,
+been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this case of
+instantaneous combustion.
+
+An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two
+or three of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent
+wretchedness, stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns
+swung in the wind each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted,
+and not even a policeman enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the
+disputative little group that left the Moronval Academy cared little
+for the gloom, the cold, or the dampness.
+
+When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus
+had passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of
+life--in the same brave spirit.
+
+Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees,
+as well as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each
+borrow a little, and with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm serenity
+that may well be envied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.~~A DINNER WITH IDA.
+
+The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an invitation
+for the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a postscript,
+expressing the pleasure she should have in receiving also M. d'Argenton.
+
+"I shall not go," said the poet, dryly, when Moron-val handed him the
+coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw
+his plans frustrated. "Why would not D'Argenton accept the invitation?"
+
+"Because," was the answer, "I never visit such women."
+
+"You make a great mistake," said Moronval; "Madame de Barancy is not the
+kind of person you imagine. Besides, to serve a friend, you should
+lay aside your scruples. You see that I need the countess, that she is
+disposed to look favorably on my Colonial Review, and you should do all
+that lies in your power to favor my views. Come, now, think better of
+it."
+
+D'Argenton, after being properly entreated, finished by accepting the
+invitation.
+
+On the following Monday, therefore, Moronval and his wife left the
+academy under the supervision of Dr. Hirsch, and presented themselves in
+the Boulevard Haussmann, where the poet was to join them.
+
+Dinner was at seven; D'Argenton did not arrive until half an hour past
+the time. Ida was in a state of great anxiety. "Do you think he will
+come?" she asked; "perhaps he is ill. He looks very delicate."
+
+At last he appeared with the air of a conquering hero, making some
+indifferent excuse for his lack of punctuality. His manner, however, was
+less disdainful than usual, for the hotel had impressed him. Its luxury,
+the flowers, and thick carpets; the little boudoir with its bouquets of
+white lilacs; the commonplace salon, like a dentist's waiting-room, a
+blue ceiling and gilded mouldings, the ebony furniture, cushioned with
+gold color, and the balcony exposed to the dust of the boulevard,--all
+charmed the attach� of the Moronval Academy, and gave him a favorable
+impression of wealth and high life.
+
+The table equipage, the imposing effect produced by Augustin, in short,
+all the luxurious details of the house, appealed to his senses, and
+D'Argenton, without flattering the countess as openly as did Moronval;
+yet succeeded in doing so in a more subtile manner, by thawing under her
+influence to a very marked extent.
+
+He was an interminable talker, and submitted with a very bad grace to
+any interruption. He was arbitrary and egotistical, and rang the changes
+on the _I_ and the _my_ for a whole evening, without allowing any one
+else to speak.
+
+Unhappily, to be a good listener is a quality far above natures
+like that of the countess; and the dinner was characterized by some
+unfortunate incidents. D'Argenton was particularly fond of repeating the
+replies he had made to the various editors and theatrical managers who
+had declined his articles, and refused to print his prose or his verse.
+His mots on these occasions had been clever and caustic; but with Madame
+de Barancy he was never able to reach that point, preceded as it must
+necessarily be with lengthy explanations. At the critical moment Ida
+would invariably interrupt him,--always, to be sure, with some thought
+for his comfort.
+
+"A little more of this ice, M. d'Argenton, I beg of you."
+
+"Not any, madame," the poet would answer with a frown, and continue,
+"Then I said to him--"
+
+"I am afraid you do not like it," urged the lady.
+
+"It is excellent, madame,--and I said these cruel words--"
+
+Another interruption from Ida; who, later, when she saw her poet in a
+fit of the sulks, wondered what she had done to displease him. Two or
+three times during dinner she was quite ready to weep, but did her best
+to hide her feelings by urging all the delicacies of her table upon M.
+and Madame Moronval. Dinner over, and the guests established in the well
+warmed and lighted salon, the principal fancied he saw his way clear,
+and said suddenly, in a half indifferent tone, to the countess,--
+
+"I have thought much of our little matter of business. It will cost less
+than I fancied."
+
+"Indeed!" she answered absently,
+
+"If, madame, you would accord to me a few moments of your attention--"
+
+But madame was occupied in looking at her poet, who was walking up and
+down the salon silent and preoccupied.
+
+"Of what can he be thinking?" she said to herself.
+
+Of his digestion only, dear reader. Suffering somewhat from dyspepsia,
+and always anxious in regard to his health, he never failed, on leaving
+the table, to walk for half an hour, no matter where he might chance to
+be.
+
+Ida watched him silently. For the first time in her life she loved,
+really and passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat
+before. Foolish and ignorant, while at the same time credulous and
+romantic; very near that fatal age--thirty years--which is almost
+certain to create in woman a great transformation; she now, aided by the
+memory of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal
+who resembled D'Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in
+looking at him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that
+her passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any one.
+
+Moron val, who looked on, shrugged his shoulders, with a glance at his
+wife. "She is simply crazy," he said to himself.
+
+She certainly was crazed in a degree; and, after dinner, she tormented
+herself to find some way of returning to the good graces of D'Argenton,
+and, as he approached her in his walk, she said,--
+
+"If M. d'Argenton wished to be very amiable, he would recite to us that
+beautiful poem which created such a sensation the other evening. I
+have thought of it all the week. There is one verse that haunts me,
+especially the final line:
+
+     'And I believe in love,
+     As I believe in a good God above.'"
+
+"As I believe in God above," said the poet, making as horrible a grimace
+as if his finger had been caught in a vice.
+
+The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply
+that she had again incurred the displeasure of D'Argenton. The fact
+is that he had begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own
+control, and which, in its unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the
+timid worship offered by the Japanese to their hideous idols.
+
+Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than
+nature had made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility
+that rendered her so charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D'Argenton
+relented, and suspended his hygienic exercise for a moment.
+
+"I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but
+what?"
+
+Here Moronval interposed. "Recite the 'Credo,' my dear fellow," he said.
+
+"Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you."
+
+The poem commenced gently enough with the words,--
+
+    "Madame, your toilette is charming."
+
+Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in
+these terrific words:
+
+     "Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,
+     Who drains from my heart its life-blood."
+
+As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful
+recollections, D'Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another
+word the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague
+fears of the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her
+poet, so drained his heart that there was not a drop left for her.
+
+"You know, my dear fellow," said Moronval, as they strolled through
+the empty boulevards, arm-inarm, that night, little Madame Moronval
+pattering on in front of them,--"you know if I can succeed in the
+establishment of my Review, that I shall make you editor-in-chief!"
+
+Moronval threw the half of his cargo overboard in order to save his
+ship, for he saw that unless the poet was enlisted, the countess would
+take no interest in the scheme. D'Argenton made no reply, for he was
+absorbed in thoughts of Ida.
+
+No man can play the part of a lyric poet, a martyr to love, without
+being conscious of, and touched by, that silent adoration which appeals
+to his vanity, both as a man of letters and a man of the world. Since
+he had seen Ida in her luxurious home, about which there was the same
+suspicion of vulgarity that clung about herself, the rigidity of his
+principles had amazingly softened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.~~AMAURY D'ARGENTON.
+
+Amaury d'Argenton belonged to one of those ancient provincial families
+whose castles resembled great farms. Impoverished for the three last
+generations, they had finally sold their property, and come to Paris to
+seek their fortunes; with little change for the better, however; and for
+the last thirty years they had dropped the _De_, which Amaury ventured
+to resume on adopting his literary career. He meant to make it famous,
+and even was audacious enough to announce this intention aloud.
+
+The childhood of the poet had been one of gloom and privation;
+surrounded by anxieties and by tears, by sordid cares, and that constant
+lack of money which imbitters the lives of so many of us, he had never
+laughed nor played like other children. A scholarship that was obtained
+for him enabled him to complete his studies, and his only recreation was
+obtained through the kindness of an aunt who resided in the Marais, and
+who gave him gloves and other trifles, which the poet very early in life
+learned to regard as essentials.
+
+Such a childhood ripens early into bitter maturity. Infinite prosperity
+is needed to efface such early impressions, and we often see men who
+have attained to high honors, who are rich and powerful, and yet who
+have never conquered the timidity born of their early deprivations.
+D'Argenton's bitterness was not without reason: at twenty-five he had
+succeeded in nothing; he had published a volume at his own expense, and
+had lived on bread and water in consequence for at least six months.
+He was industrious as well as ambitious; but something more than these
+qualities are essential to a poet, whose imagination and genius must be
+endowed with wings. These D'Argenton had not; he felt merely that vague
+uneasiness which indicates a missing limb, but that was all, and he lost
+both time and trouble in ineffectual efforts; his aunt aided him by a
+small allowance, but his life bore not the shadow of a resemblance to
+the picture drawn by Ida. In fact, D'Argenton had never been entangled
+in any serious love affair; his nature was cold and prudent, and yet he
+had been beloved by more than one woman. To D'Argenton, however, their
+society had always seemed a waste of time. Ida de Barancy was the first
+who had made upon him any real impression. Of this fact Ida had no idea,
+and whenever she met the poet on her very frequent visits to Jack, it
+was always with the same deprecating air and timid voice. The poet,
+while adopting an air of utter indifference, cultivated the affection
+and society of little Jack, whom he induced to talk freely of his
+mother.
+
+Jack being extremely flattered, gladly gave every information in his
+power, and talked freely of the kind friend who was so good to mamma.
+The mention of this person cost the poet a strange pang. "He is so
+kind," babbled Jack, "he comes to see us every day; or, if he does not
+come, he sends us great baskets of fruit, and playthings for me."
+
+"And is your mother very fond of him, too?" continued D'Argenton, without
+looking up from his writing.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir," answered the little fellow, innocently.
+
+But are we quite sure that he spoke so innocently. The minds of children
+are not always so transparent as we believe; and it is difficult to say
+when they understand matters that go on about them, and when they do
+not. That mysterious growth that is constantly going on within them,
+has unexpected seasons of bursting into flower, and they suddenly mass
+together the disconnected fragments of information they have acquired
+and intuitively attain the result.
+
+Had Jack, therefore, no perception of the hidden rage that filled the
+heart of his professor when he questioned him in regard to their kind
+friend? Jack did not like D'Argenton; in addition to his first dislike,
+he was now actuated by strong jealousy. His mother was too much occupied
+by this man. When he passed the day with her, she in her turn plied him
+with questions, and asked if his teacher never spoke to him of her.
+
+"Never," said Jack, calmly. And yet that very day D'Argenton had desired
+him to present his compliments to the countess, with a copy of his
+poems; but Jack at first forgot the volume, and finally lost it, as much
+from cunning as from heedlessness.
+
+Thus, while these two dissimilar natures were attracted toward each
+other, the child stood between them suspicious and defiant, as if he
+already foresaw what the future would bring about.
+
+Every two weeks Jack dined with his mother, sometimes alone with her,
+sometimes with their friend. They went to the theatre in the evening, or
+to a concert, and Jack was sent back to school with his pockets full of
+dainties, in which the other children shared.
+
+One evening, as he entered his mother's house, he saw the dining-table
+laid for three, and a gorgeous display of flowers and crystal. His
+mother met him, exquisitely dressed, wearing in her hair sprays of white
+lilacs, like those that filled the vases. The blazing fire alone lighted
+the salon, into which she gayly drew the boy, as she said, "Guess who is
+here!"
+
+"O, I know very well!" exclaimed Jack in delight; "it is our good
+friend."
+
+But it was D'Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa,
+near the fire. The enemy was in Jack's own seat, and the child was so
+overwhelmed by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained his
+tears. There was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all three.
+Just then the door was thrown open, and dinner announced by Augustin.
+The dinner was long and tedious to little Jack. Have you ever felt so
+entirely out of place that you would have gladly disappeared from off
+the face of the globe, painfully conscious, withal, that had you
+so vanished, no one would have missed you? When Jack spoke, no one
+listened; his questions were unheard and his wants unheeded. The
+conversation between his mother and D'Argenton was incomprehensible to
+him, although he saw that his mother blushed more than once, and hastily
+raised her glass to her lips as if to conceal her rising color. Where
+were those gay little dinners when Jack sat close at his mother's side
+and reigned an absolute king at the table? This recollection came to
+the boy's mind just as Madame de Barancy offered a superb pear to
+D'Argenton.
+
+"That came from our friend at Tours," said Jack, maliciously.
+
+D'Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate
+with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her
+child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did
+not venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary
+continuation of the repast.
+
+Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone
+that indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of
+his early home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors
+where the wind raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles
+in the great city, the constant obstacles thrown in the way of the
+development of his genius, of his jealous rivals and literary enemies,
+and of the terrible epigrams which he had hurled upon them.
+
+"Then I uttered these stinging words." This time she did not interrupt
+him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that
+when he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be
+heard in the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of the
+leaves of the album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over. Suddenly
+she rose with a start.
+
+"Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is
+quite time."
+
+"O, mamma!" said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he
+generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his
+mother, nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene
+and laughing eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
+
+She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
+
+"Good night, my child!" said D'Argenton, and he drew the child toward
+him as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of repulsion,
+turned aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
+
+"I cannot! I cannot!" he murmured, throwing himself back in his
+arm-chair and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
+
+Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
+
+"Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant." And while Madame de Barancy
+sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to
+his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor
+installed in his mother's chimney-corner, said to himself, "He is very
+comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!"
+
+In D'Argenton's exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there was
+certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very
+jealous of the child, who represented to him Ida's past, not that the
+poet was profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary,
+loved himself in her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image which
+he saw reflected in her clear eyes. But D'Argenton would have preferred
+to be the first to disturb those depths.
+
+But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. "Why did I not
+know him earlier?" she said to herself over and over again.
+
+"She ought to understand by this time," said D'Argenton, sulkily, "that
+I do not wish to see that boy."
+
+But even for her poet's sake Ida could not keep her child away from her
+entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon
+Jack from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the
+smallest of the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
+
+As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she
+lived, she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D'Argenton.
+
+"You will see," she said, "how I can aid you. I can work, and, besides,
+I shall not be completely penniless."
+
+But D'Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent
+enthusiasm and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
+
+"No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and then--"
+
+He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose heir
+he would unquestionably be. "The good old lady was very old," he added.
+And the two, Ida and D'Argenton, made a great many plans for the days
+that were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far away
+from Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They would
+have a little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed this
+legend: _Parva domus, magna quies_. There he could work, write a
+book--a novel, and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in
+readiness, but that was all.
+
+Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps
+a member of the Academy--though, to be sure, that institution was
+mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
+
+"That is nothing!" said Ida; "you must be a member!" and she saw herself
+already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly dressed, as
+befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited, however,
+they regaled themselves on the pears sent by "the kind friend, who was
+certainly the best and least suspicious of men."
+
+D'Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious;
+but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many
+little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.
+
+Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their
+lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement
+between Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily
+expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected
+D'Argenton of influencing her against the project, and this belief he
+ended by expressing to the poet.
+
+One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the
+windows with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so
+blue, that he longed for liberty and out-door life.
+
+The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the
+garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.
+
+From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of
+singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days
+when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to
+drive away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length
+of the nights and the smoke of the fires.
+
+While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother
+entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great
+care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not
+bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval's permission first; but
+as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission
+was easily granted.
+
+"How jolly!" cried Jack; "how jolly!" and while his mother casually
+informed Moronval that M. d'Argenton had told her the evening previous
+that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy ran
+to change his dress. On his way he met M�dou, who, sad and lonely, was
+busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that
+the air was soft and the sunshipe warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright
+idea.
+
+"O, mamma, if we could take M�dou!"
+
+This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were
+the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame
+Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy's place.
+
+"M�dou! M�dou!" cried the child, rushing toward him. "Quick, dress
+yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to
+breakfast in the Bois!"
+
+There was a moment of confusion. M�dou stood still in amazement, while
+Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this
+emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited
+like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details
+in regard to the illness of D'Argenton's aunt.
+
+At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the
+victoria, and M�dou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly
+be regarded as a royal one, but M�dou was satisfied. The drive itself
+was charming, the Avenue de l'Imperatrice was filled with people
+driving, riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene.
+Babies, in their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet
+solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully dressed, with their
+tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight,
+kissed his mother, and pulled M�dou by the sleeve.
+
+"Are you happy, M�dou?"
+
+"Yes, sir, very happy," was the answer. They reached the Bois, in places
+quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of
+the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked
+like smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with
+snow half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose
+leaf-buds were only beginning to swell The carriage drew up at the
+restaurant, and while the breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in
+course of preparation, she and the children took a walk to the lake. At
+this early hour there were few of those superb equipages to be seen that
+appeared later in the day. The lake was lovely, with white swans dotting
+it here and there, and now and then a gentle ripple shook its surface,
+and miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old willows on one
+side.
+
+What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The
+children attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed
+incessantly from the beginning to the end of the repast.
+
+When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the _Jardin
+d'Acclimation_.
+
+"That is a splendid idea," said Jack, "for M�dou has never been there,
+and won't he be amused!"
+
+They drove through _La Grande All�e_ in the almost deserted garden,
+which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the
+animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive
+eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought
+from the restaurant.
+
+M�dou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify
+Jack, now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the
+blue ticket over the little inclosures to recognize certain animals from
+his own land. With mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the kangaroos,
+and seemed to suffer in seeing them in the limited space which they
+covered in three leaps.
+
+He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were
+inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and
+cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary
+exotic; but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even
+a green leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and M�dou thought of the
+Academy Moronval and of himself. The plumage of the birds was dull and
+torn; they told a tale of past battles, of dismal flutterings against
+the bars of their prison-house. Even the rose-colored flamingoes and the
+long-billed ibex, who seem associated with the Nile and the desert and
+the immovable sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly commonplace aspect among
+the white peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that paddled at ease in
+their miniature pond.
+
+By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly appeared
+at the end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle that M�dou
+stood still in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two elephants, who
+were slowly approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and bearing on
+their broad backs a crowd of women with light umbrellas, of children
+with straw hats and colored ribbons. Following the elephant came a
+giraffe carrying his small and haughty head very high. This singular
+caravan wound through the circuitous road, with many nervous laughs and
+terrified cries.
+
+Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief
+upon the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their
+trunks either toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the
+spectators, shaking their long ears when gently touched by some child,
+or by the umbrella of some laughing girl on their backs.
+
+"What is the matter, M�dou; you tremble. Are you ill?" asked Jack. M�dou
+was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he too
+could mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic in
+expression. Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his mother,
+whom he considered too grave for this f�te-day. He liked to walk close
+at her side, or linger behind her in the dust of her long silken skirts,
+which she disdained to lift. They seated themselves, and watched the
+little black boy climb on the back of the elephant. Once there, the
+child seemed in his native place. He was no longer an exile, nor the
+awkward schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated by his menial
+duties and by his master's tyranny. He seemed imbued with new life, and
+his eyes sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little king! Two
+or three times he went around the garden. "Again! again!" he cried,
+and over the little bridge, between the inclosures of the kangaroos
+and other animals, he went to and fro, excited almost to madness by the
+heavy long strides of the elephant. K�rika, Dahomey, war-like scenes,
+and the hunt, all returned to his memory. He spoke to the elephant in
+his native tongue, and as he heard the sweet African voice, the huge
+creature shut his eyes with delight and trumpeted his pleasure. The
+zebras neighed, and the antelopes started in terror, while from the
+great cage of tropical birds, where the sun shone most fully, came
+warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant screams, and an enraged
+chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small scale, of a primeval
+forest in the tropics.
+
+But it was growing late. M�dou must awaken from this beautiful dream.
+Besides, as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose
+keen and cold, as so often happens in the early spring. This wintry
+chill affected the spirits of the children, and they grew strangely
+quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She
+had something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty
+in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment.
+Then she took Jack's hand in hers. "Listen, child, I have some bad news
+to tell you!"
+
+He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he
+turned his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low,
+quick voice,--
+
+"I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you
+behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I
+shall not be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes,
+very soon, I promise you." And she threw out mysterious hints of a
+fortune to come, and money affairs, and other things that were not at
+all interesting to the child, who in reality paid little attention to
+her words, for he was weeping silently but chokingly. The gay streets
+seemed no longer the Paris of the morning, the sunshine was gone, the
+flowers on the corner-stands were faded, and all was very dreary, for
+he saw through eyes dim with tears, and the child was about to lose his
+mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.~~MADOU'S FLIGHT.
+
+Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D'Argenton.
+
+The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed
+the position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation
+as Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added
+that Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite
+time, and that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval's paternal
+care. In case of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be
+forwarded to the mother under cover to D'Argenton.
+
+"The paternal care of Moronval!" Had the poet laughed aloud as he penned
+these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child's fate at the
+academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left Paris, and
+that nothing more was to be expected from her?
+
+The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage,
+which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado
+might have done in the tropics.
+
+The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow,
+who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of
+her years--for she was by no means in her earliest youth--should be so
+heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
+
+But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, "Wait a while,
+young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you."
+
+But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished
+project, he was more indignant that D'Argenton and Ida should have made
+use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to
+the Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no
+nearer elucidation.
+
+Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that
+she had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to
+be given up, and the furniture sold.
+
+"Ah! sir," said Constant, mournfully, "it was an unfortunate day for us
+when we set foot in your old barracks!"
+
+The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of
+the next quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding,
+therefore, that the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined
+to put an end to all the indulgences with which he had been treated.
+Poor Jack after this day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as
+the butt for all the teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him.
+There were constant allusions made to D'Argenton: he was selfish and
+vain, a man totally without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more
+than doubtful; the ch�teau in the mountains, of which he discoursed so
+fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the
+man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented him
+from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly
+laughed at each one of Moronval's witticisms. The fact was, that Jack
+dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks
+invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning,
+but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly.
+Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly
+word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand. During his
+absence, she administered a reproof to her husband and his friends.
+
+"Pshaw!" said Labassandre, "he does not understand." Perhaps he did not
+fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.
+
+He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the
+same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one
+of the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage.
+The boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and
+Jack for the first time was severely flogged.
+
+From that day the charm was broken, and Jack's daily life did not
+greatly differ from that of M�dou, who was at this time very unhappy.
+The pleasant weather, and the day at the _Jardin d'Aclimation_, had
+given him a terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took
+the form of a sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all
+this was changed, the boy's eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about
+the house and the garden as if in a dream.
+
+One night the black boy was undressing, and Jack heard him singing to
+himself in a language that was strange.
+
+"What are you singing, M�dou?"
+
+"I am not singing, sir; I'm talking negro talk!" and M�dou confided to
+his friend his intention of running away from school. He had thought of
+it for some time, and was only waiting for pleasant weather; and now he
+meant to go to Dahomey, and find K�rika. If Jack would go with him,
+they would go to Marseilles on foot, and then go on board some vessel.
+Nothing could happen to them, for he had his amulet all safe. Jack made
+many objections. Dahomey had no charms for him. He thought of the copper
+basin, and the terrible heads, with an emotion of sick horror; and,
+besides, how could he go so far from his mother?
+
+"Good," said M�dou; "you can remain here, and I will go alone."
+
+"And when?"
+
+"To-morrow," answered the negro, resolutely closing his eyes as if he
+knew that he would need all the strength that sleep could give him.
+
+The next morning, when Jack passed through the large recitation-room,
+he saw M�dou busily scrubbing the floor, and concluded that he had
+relinquished his project.
+
+The classes were busy for an hour or two, when Moronval appeared. "Where
+is M�dou?" he asked abruptly. "He has gone to market," answered madame.
+Jack, however, said to himself that Madou would not return.
+
+In a little while Moronval came back and asked the same question.
+His wife answered, uneasily, that she could not understand the boy's
+prolonged absence.
+
+Dinner-time came, but no M�dou, no vegetables, and no meat.
+
+"Something must have happened," said Madame Moronval, more indulgent
+than her impatient husband, who paced up and down the corridor with his
+rod in his hand, while the hungry schoolboys were quite ready to devour
+each other. Finally, Madame Moronval sallied forth herself to buy some
+provisions; and on her return, burdened with packages, she was greeted
+by an enthusiastic shout from the children, who, when the fierceness
+of their hunger abated, ventured on surmises as to Madou's whereabouts.
+Moronval shrewdly suspected the truth. "How much money did he have?" he
+asked.
+
+"Fifteen francs," was his wife's timid answer.
+
+"Fifteen francs! Then it is certain he has run away!"
+
+"But where has he gone?" asked the doctor; "he could hardly reach
+Dahomey with that amount."
+
+Moronval scowled fiercely, and went to report to the police, for it was
+very essential to him that the child should be found, or, at all events,
+prevented from reaching Marseilles. Moronval was in wholesome fear of
+Monsieur Bonfils. "The world is so wicked, you know," he said to
+his wife; "the boy might make some complaints which would injure the
+school." Consequently, in making his report at the police office,
+he stated that M�dou had carried away a large sum. "But," he added,
+assuming an air of indifference, "the money part of the matter is of
+very little importance, compared to the dangers that the poor child
+runs--this dethroned king without country or people;" and Moronval
+dashed away a tear.
+
+"We will find him, my good sir," said the official; "have no anxiety."
+
+But Moronval was anxious, nevertheless, and so agitated, that, instead
+of awaiting quietly at home the result of the investigations, as he had
+been advised to do, he started out himself, with all the children to
+join in the search.
+
+They went to each one of the gates, interrogated the custom-house
+officers, and gave them a description of M�dou. Then the party repaired
+to the police court, for Moronval had the singular idea that in this
+way his pupils might learn something of Parisian life. The children,
+fortunately, were too young to understand all they saw, but they carried
+away with them a most sinister impression. Jack especially, who was
+the most intelligent of the boys, returned to the academy with a heavy
+heart, shocked at the glimpse he had caught of this under-current of
+life. Over and over again he said to himself, "Where can M�dou be?"
+
+Then the child consoled himself with the thought that the negro was far
+on the road to Marseilles; which road little Jack pictured to himself as
+running straight as an arrow, with the sea at its termination, and the
+vessel lying ready to sail. Only one thing disturbed him in regard
+to M�dou's journey: the weather, that had been so fine the day of
+his departure, had suddenly changed; and now the rain fell in
+torrents,--hail too, and even snow; and the wind blew around their frail
+dwelling, causing the poor little children of the sun to shiver in their
+sleep, and dream of a rocking ship and a heavy sea. Curled up under his
+blankets one night, listening to the howling of the fierce wind, Jack
+thought of his friend, imagined him half frozen lying under a tree, his
+thin clothing thoroughly wet. But the reality was worse than this.
+
+"He is found!" cried Moronval, rushing into the dining-room, one
+morning. "He is found; I have just been notified by the police. Give me
+my hat and my cane!"
+
+He was in a state of great excitement. As much from the desire to
+flatter the master, as from the love of noise that characterizes boys,
+the children hailed this news with a wild hurrah. Jack did not speak,
+but sighed as he said to himself, "Poor M�dou!"
+
+M�dou had been, in fact, at the station-house since the evening before.
+It was there, amid criminals of all grades, that the presumptive heir of
+the kingdom of Dahomey was found by his excellent tutor.
+
+"Ah, my unfortunate child! have I found you at last?"
+
+The worthy Moronval could say no more; and, on seeing him throw his long
+arms eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector of
+police could not help thinking: "At last I have seen one teacher who
+loves his pupils!" M�dou, however, displayed the utmost indifference.
+His face was positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of
+apprehension was visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to
+see nothing; his face was pale--and the pallor of a negro is something
+appalling. He was covered with mud from head to foot, and looked like
+some amphibious animal who, after swimming in the water, had rolled in
+the mud on the shore. No hat, and no shoes. What had happened to him? He
+alone could have told you, and he would not speak. The policeman said,
+that, making his rounds the evening before, he had found the boy hidden
+in a lime-kiln, that he was half-starved, and stupefied by the excessive
+heat. Why had he lingered in Paris?
+
+This question Moronval did not ask; nor, indeed, did he speak one word
+to M�dou during their long drive to the academy. The boy was so worn out
+and crushed that he sank into a corner, while Moronval glanced at him
+occasionally with an expression of rage that at any other time would
+have terrified him.
+
+Moronval's glance was like a keen rapier, with a flash like lightning,
+crossing a poor little broken blade, shivered and rusty.
+
+When Jack saw the pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could
+hardly recognize the little king. M�dou, as he passed, said good morning
+in so mournful a tone that Jack's eyes filled with tears. The children
+saw nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went on in their
+usual routine, and at intervals the sound of a lash was heard, and heavy
+groans from Moronval's private study. Madame Moronval turned pale, and
+the book she held trembled. Even when all was again silent, Jack fancied
+that he still heard the groans.
+
+At dinner the principal was radiant, though seemingly exhausted by
+fatigue. "The little wretch!" he said to Dr. Hirsch and his wife. "The
+little wretch! Just, see the state he has put me into!"
+
+That night Jack found the bed next to his occupied. Poor M�dou had put
+his master into such a state that he himself had not been able to go
+to bed without assistance. Madame Moronval and Dr. Hirsch were there
+watching the lad, whose sleep was broken by those heavy sighs and sobs
+common to children after a day of painful excitement.
+
+"Then, Dr. Hirsch, you don't think him ill?" asked Madame Moronval,
+anxiously.
+
+"Not in the least, madame; that race has a covering like a monitor!"
+
+When they were alone, Jack took M�dou's hand and found it as burning
+hot as a brick from the furnace. "Dear M�dou," he whispered. M�dou half
+opened his eyes and looked at his friend with an expression of utter
+discouragement.
+
+"It's all over with M�dou," he murmured; "M�dou has lost his Gri-gri,
+and will never see Dahomey again."
+
+This was the reason, then, that he had not left Paris. Two hours after
+he had run away from the academy, the fifteen francs of market-money
+and his medal had been stolen from him. Then, relinquishing all idea of
+Marseilles, of the ship and of the sea, knowing that without his Gri-gri
+Dahomey was unattainable, M�dou had spent eight days and nights in the
+lowest depths of Paris, looking for his amulet. Fearing that Moronval
+would discover his whereabouts, he hid during the day and ventured
+into the streets only after nightfall. He slept by the side of piles of
+bricks and mortar, which partly protected him from the wind; or crawled
+into an open doorway, or under the arches of a bridge.
+
+Favored by his size and by his color, M�dou glided about almost unseen;
+he had associated with criminals of all classes, and had escaped without
+contamination, for he thought only of finding his amulet. He had shared
+a crust of bread with assassins, and drank with robbers; but the little
+king escaped from these dangers as he had from others in Dahomey, where,
+when hunting with K�rika, he had been awakened by the trumpeting of
+elephants and the roaring of wild beasts, and saw, under some gigantic
+tree, the dim shadow of some strange animal passing between himself
+and the bivouac fires; or caught a glimpse of some great snake slowly
+winding through the underbrush. But the monsters to be found in Paris
+are more terrible even than those in the African forests; or they would
+have been, had he understood the dangers he incurred. But he could
+not find his Gri-gri. M�dou could not talk much, his exhaustion was so
+great; and Jack fell asleep with his curiosity but partially satisfied.
+
+In the middle of the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from
+M�dou, who was singing and talking in his own language with frightful
+volubility. Delirium had begun.
+
+In the morning, Dr. Hirsch announced that M�dou was very ill. "A
+brain-fever!" he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
+
+This Dr. Hirsch was a terrible man. His head was stuffed full of
+all sorts of Utopian ideas, of impracticable theories, and notions
+absolutely without method. His studies had been too desultory to amount
+to anything. He had mastered a few Latin phrases, and covered his real
+ignorance by a smattering of the science of medicine as practised among
+the Indians and the Chinese. He even had a strong leaning toward the
+magic arts, and when a human life was intrusted to his care he took that
+opportunity to try some experiments. Madame Moronval was inclined to
+call in another physician, but the principal, less compassionate, and
+unwilling to incur the additional expense, determined to leave the case
+solely in the hands of Dr. Hirsch. Wishing to have no interference,
+this singular physician pretended that the disease was contagious, and
+ordered Madou's bed to be placed at the end of the garden in an old
+hot-house. For a week he tried on his little victim every drug he had
+ever heard of, the child making no more resistance than a sick dog would
+have done. When the doctor, armed with his bottles and his powders,
+entered the hot-house, the "children of the sun," to whose minds a
+physician was always more or less of a magician, gathered about the door
+and listened, saying to each other in awed tones, "What is he going
+to do now to M�dou?" But the doctor locked the door, and peremptorily
+ordered the children from its vicinity, telling them that they would be
+ill too, that M�dou's illness was contagious; and this last idea added
+additional mystery to that corner of the garden.
+
+Jack, nevertheless, desired to see his friend so much that he alone of
+all the boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been too
+closely guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the doctor
+had gone in search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into the
+improvised infirmary.
+
+It was one of those half rustic buildings which are used as a shelter
+for rakes and hoes, or even to house some tender plants. Close by
+the side of M�dou's iron bed, in the corner, was a pile of earthen
+flowerpots; a broken trellis, some panes of glass, and a bundle of dried
+roots, completed the dismal picture; and in the chimney, as if for the
+protection of some fragile tropical plant, flickered a tiny fire.
+
+M�dou was not asleep. His poor little thin face had still the same
+expression of absolute indifference. His black hands, tightly clenched,
+lay on the outside of the bedclothes. There was a look of a sick animal
+in his whole attitude, and in the manner in which he turned his face
+toward the wall, as if an invisible road was open to his eyes through
+the white stones, and every chink in the wall had become a brilliant
+outlook toward a country known to him alone.
+
+Jack whispered, "It is I, M�dou,--little Jack."
+
+The child looked at him vacantly; he no longer understood the French
+language. In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct
+had effaced all that art had inculcated, and M�dou understood and
+spoke nothing save his savage dialect. At this moment, another of "the
+children of the sun," Said, encouraged by Jack's example, followed him
+into the sick-room, but, startled and disturbed by the strange scene,
+retreated to the doorway, and stood with affrighted eyes.
+
+M�dou drew one long, shivering sigh.
+
+"He is going to sleep, I think," whispered Said, shivering with terror;
+for, older than Jack, he intuitively felt the cold blast from the wings
+of Death, which already fanned the brow of the sick boy.
+
+"Let us go," said Jack, pale and troubled; and they hastily ran down the
+garden-walk, leaving their comrade alone in the twilight. Night came
+on. In that silent room, which the children had left, the fire crackled
+cheerfully, burning brightly, and illuminating every corner as if in
+search of something that was hidden. The light flickered on the ceiling
+and was reflected on every small window-pane, glanced over the little
+bed, and brought out the color of M�dou's red sleeve, until tired
+apparently of its fruitless search, discouraged and exhausted, and
+convinced that its heat was useless, for no one was there to warm. The
+fire gave one last expiring flicker, and then, like the poor little
+half-frozen king, who had so loved it, sank into eternal rest.
+
+Poor M�dou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for
+Moronval hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal
+prince or of a servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on
+the other, vanity and policy had a word to say. After much indecision,
+Moronval decided to strike a great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he
+had not profited much by the prince living, he might gain something
+from him dead. So a pompous funeral was arranged. All the daily papers
+published a biography of the little king of Dahomey. It was a short one,
+to be sure, but lengthened by a panegyric of the Moronval Institute, and
+of its principal. The discipline of the establishment was commended;
+its hygienic regulations, the peculiar skill of its medical
+adviser,--nothing had been forgotten, and the unanimity of the eulogiums
+was something quite touching.
+
+One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its innumerable
+occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one eye open to
+all that goes on,--Paris saw on its principal boulevards a singular
+procession. Four black boys walked by the side of a bier. Behind, a
+taller lad, a tone lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,--our friend
+Said,--carried on a velvet cushion an order or two, some royal insignia
+fantastic in character. Then came Moronval, with Jack and the other
+schoolboys. The professors followed with the habitu�s of the house, the
+literary men whom we met at the soiree. How shabby were these last!
+How many worn-out coats and worn-out hearts were there! How many
+disappointed hopes and unattainable ambitions! All these slowly
+marched on, embarrassed by the full light of day to which they were
+unaccustomed; and this melancholy escort precisely suited the little
+deposed king. Were not all of these persons pretendents, too, to some
+imaginary kingdom to which they would never succeed? Where but in Paris
+could such a funeral be seen? A king of Dahomey escorted to the grave by
+a procession of Bohemians!
+
+To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to fall,
+as if fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather, even to
+the very grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been lowered,
+Moronval pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it would
+not have warmed you, my poor M�dou! Moronval spoke of the virtues and
+estimable qualities of the defunct, of the model sovereign he would one
+day have made had he lived. To those who had been familiar with that
+pitiful little face, who had seen the child abased by servitude,
+Moronval's discourse was at once heart-breaking and absurd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK'S DEPARTURE.
+
+The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The
+death of his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and
+the lonely deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew too
+that now he must bear alone all Moronval's whims and caprices, for the
+other pupils all had some one who came occasionally to see them, and
+who would report any brutalities of which they were the victims. Jack's
+mother never wrote to him nowadays, and no one at the Institute knew
+even where she was. Ah! had he but been able to ascertain, how quickly
+would the child have gone to her, and told her all his sorrows. Jack
+thought of all this as they returned from the cemetery. Labassandre and
+Dr. Hirsch were in front of him, talking to each other.
+
+"She is in Paris," said Labassandre, "for I saw her yesterday."
+
+Jack listened eagerly.
+
+"And was he with her?"
+
+She--he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet Jack
+knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet
+not have hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was
+meditating his escape.
+
+Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head
+of the procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with a
+rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys,
+whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked. They would
+increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again.
+Jack contrived to linger more and more among the last.
+
+"Come!" cried Moronval.
+
+"Come, come!" repeated Said.
+
+At the entrance of the Champs Elys�es Sa�d turned for the last time,
+gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the
+Egyptian's arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!
+
+At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any
+look of haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he
+drew nearer the Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took possession
+of him, and his little feet, in spite of himself, went faster and
+faster. Would the house be closed? And if Labassandre were mistaken, and
+his mother not in Paris, what would become of him? The alternative of a
+return to the academy never occurred to him. Indeed, if he had thought
+of it, the remembrance of the heavy blows and heartfelt sobs that he had
+heard all one afternoon would have filled him with terror.
+
+"She is there," cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all
+the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when
+his mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should
+take her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule,
+he was struck by something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full
+of people all busily talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas
+and chairs, covered for a boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that
+in the broad light of day they looked faded. A mirror, framed in
+silver, and ornamented with cupids, was leaning against one of the stone
+pillars; a jardini�re without flowers, and curtains that bad been taken
+down and thrown over a chair, were near by. Several women richly dressed
+were talking together of the merits of a crystal chandelier.
+
+Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could
+hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The
+visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard,
+felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady,
+without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or
+two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she?
+He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same
+direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he
+heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that said,--
+
+"A child's bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!"
+
+And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough
+men. He wished to exclaim,
+
+"The bed is mine--my very own--I will not have it touched;" but a
+certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room
+looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
+
+"What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?"
+
+It was Constant, his mother's maid--Constant, in her Sunday dress,
+wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
+
+"Where is mamma?" asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so
+pitiful and troubled that the woman's heart was touched.
+
+"Your mother is not here, my poor child," she said.
+
+"But where is she? And what are all these people doing?"
+
+"They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen, Master
+Jack, we can talk better there."
+
+There was quite a party in the kitchen,--the old cook, Augustin, and
+several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne
+around the same table where Jack's future had been one evening decided.
+The child's arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them all,
+for the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother. As
+he was afraid that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack
+took good care not to say that he had run away, and merely spoke of an
+imaginary permission he had received to enable him to visit his mother.
+
+"She is not here, Master Jack," said Constant, "and I really do not know
+whether I ought--" Then, interrupting herself, Constant exclaimed, "O! it
+is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his mother!"
+
+Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.
+
+The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. "Is it far
+from here?" he asked.
+
+"Eight good leagues," answered Augustin.
+
+But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated
+discussion as to the route to be taken to reach _Etiolles_. Jack
+listened eagerly, for he had already decided to attempt the journey
+alone and on foot.
+
+"Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a wood,"
+said Constant.
+
+Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This
+and the name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The
+distance did not frighten him. "I can walk all night," he said to
+himself, "even if my legs are little." Then he spoke aloud. "I must go
+now," he said, "I must go back to school." One question, however, burned
+on his lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this powerful
+barrier between his mother and himself? He dared not ask Constant,
+however. Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet felt very
+keenly that this. Was not the best side of his mother's life, and he
+avoided all mention of it.
+
+The servants said "good-bye," the coachman shook hands with him, and
+then the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He
+did not linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest
+for him, but hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey that
+would end by placing him with his mother.
+
+Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned
+as the first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find,
+although it was a good distance off, but the fear of being caught by
+Moronval spurred him on. An inquisitive look from a policeman startled
+him, a shadow on the wall, or a hurried step behind, made his heart
+beat, and over and above the noise and confusion of the streets he
+seemed to hear the cry of "Stop him! Stop him!" At last he climbed over
+the bank and began to run on the narrow path by the water's edge. The
+day was coming to an end. The river was very high and yellow from recent
+rains, the water rolled heavily against the arches of the bridge, and
+the wind curled it in little waves, the tops of which were just touched
+by the level rays of the setting sun. Women passed him bearing baskets
+of wet linen, fishermen drew in their lines, and a whole river-side
+population, sailors and bargemen, with their rounded shoulders and
+woollen hoods, hurried past him. With these there was still another
+class, rough and ferocious of aspect, who were quite capable of pulling
+you out of the Seine for fifteen francs, and of throwing you in again
+for a hundred sous. Occasionally one of these men would turn to look at
+this slender schoolboy who seemed in such a hurry.
+
+The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place
+it was black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal.
+Farther on, similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor
+of fresh orchards was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a
+great harbor; steamboats were loading at the wharves; a few rods more,
+and a group of old trees bathed their distorted roots in a limpid
+stream, and one could easily fancy one's self twenty leagues from Paris,
+and in an earlier century.
+
+But night was close at hand.
+
+The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted,
+and illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very
+darkest body of water.
+
+But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long
+wharf, covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had
+reached Bercy, but it was night, and he was filled with terror lest
+he should be stopped at the gate; but the little fugitive was hardly
+noticed. He passed the barrier without hindrance, and soon found himself
+in a long, narrow street, solitary and dimly lighted. While the child
+was in the life and motion of the city, he was terrified only by one
+thought, and that was that Moronval would find him. Now he was still
+afraid, but his fear was of another character--born of silence and
+solitude.
+
+Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street
+was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled
+on, these buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably
+lower in height. Although barely eight o'clock, this road was almost
+deserted. Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp
+ground, while the dismal howling of a dog added to the cheerlessness
+of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step that he took led him further
+from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the last wineshop.
+A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the child the
+limits of the inhabited world.
+
+After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go
+into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated
+at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking
+and talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had
+hideous faces--such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day
+they were looking for M�dou. The woman, above all, was frightful.
+
+"What does he want?" said one of the men.
+
+The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of
+light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The
+darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until
+he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after
+field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the
+monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of
+reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith's forge. The child
+stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of
+doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now
+suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what
+he had undertaken.
+
+Had he strength enough to reach his mother?
+
+He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of
+the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the
+spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was
+stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow
+against the white stones.
+
+Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step
+forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and
+to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the
+wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally
+repulsive.
+
+The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful
+beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If
+he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that
+he should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this
+stupor. An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern,
+suddenly appeared.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," said the child, gently, breathless with
+emotion.
+
+The soldier who carried the lantern raised it in the direction of the
+voice.
+
+"This is a bad hour to travel, my boy," remarked the officer; "are you
+going far?"
+
+"O, no, sir; not very far," answered Jack, who did not care to tell the
+truth.
+
+"Ah, well! we can go on together as far as Charenton."
+
+What a delight it was to the child to walk for an hour at the side of
+these two honest soldiers, to regulate his steps by theirs, and to see
+the cheerful light from the lantern! From the soldier, too, he casually
+learned that he was on the right road.
+
+"Now we are at home," said the officer, halting suddenly. "Good night.
+And take my advice, my lad, and don't travel alone again at night--it
+is not safe." And with these parting words, the men turned up a narrow
+lane, swinging the lantern, leaving Jack alone at the entrance of the
+principal street in Charenton. The child wandered on until he found
+himself on the quay; he crossed a bridge which seemed to him to be
+thrown over an abyss, so profound were the depths below. He lingered for
+a moment, but rough voices singing and laughing so startled him that he
+took to his heels and ran until he was out of breath, and was again in
+the open fields. He turned and looked back; the red light of the great
+city was still reflected on the horizon. Afar off he heard the grinding
+of wheels. "Good!" said the child; "something is coming." But nothing
+appeared. And the invisible wagon, whose wheels moved apparently with
+difficulty, turned down some unseen lane.
+
+Jack toiled on slowly. Who was that man that stood waiting for him at
+the turning of the road? One man! Nay, there were two or three. But they
+were trees,--tall, slender poplars,--or a clump of elms--those lovely
+old elms which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was
+environed by the mysteries of nature,--nature in the springtime of the
+year, when one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and the
+earth crackle as the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint, vague
+noises bewildered little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme with
+which his mother formerly rocked him to sleep.
+
+It was pitiful to hear the child, alone in the darkness, encouraging
+himself by these reminiscences of his happy, petted infancy. Suddenly
+the little trembling voice stopped.
+
+Something was coming--something blacker than the darkness itself,
+sweeping down on the child as if to swallow him up. Cries were heard;
+human voices, and heavy blows. Then came a drove of enormous cattle,
+which pressed against little Jack on all sides; he feels the damp breath
+from their nostrils; their tails switch violently, and the heat of their
+bodies, and the odor of the stable, is almost stifling. Two boys and
+two dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs bark, and the uncouth
+peasants yell, until the noise is appalling.
+
+As they pass on, the child is absolutely stupefied by terror. These
+animals have gone, but will there not be others? It begins to rain, and
+Jack, in despair, fails on his knees, and wishes to die. The sound of a
+carriage, and the sight of two lamps like friendly eyes coming quickly
+toward him, revives him suddenly. He calls aloud.
+
+The carriage stops. A head, with a travelling cap drawn closely down
+over the ears, bends forward to ascertain the whereabouts of the shrill
+cry.
+
+"I am very tired," pleaded Jack; "would you be so kind as to let me come
+into your carriage?"
+
+The man hesitated, but a woman's voice came to the child's assistance.
+"Ah, what a little fellow I Let him come in here."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the traveller.
+
+The child hesitated. Like all fugitives, he wished to hide his
+destination. "To Villeneuve St George," he answered, nervously.
+
+"Come on, then," said the man, with gruff kindness.
+
+The child was soon curled up under a comfortable travelling rug, between
+a stout lady and gentleman, who both examined him curiously by the light
+of the little lamp.
+
+Where was he going so late, and all alone, too? Jack would have liked
+to tell the truth, but he was in too great fear of being carried back to
+the Institute. Then he invented a story to suit the occasion. His mother
+was very ill in the country, where she was visiting. He had been told of
+this the night before, and he had at once started off on foot, because
+he had not patience to wait for the next day's train.
+
+"I understand," said the lady. And the gentleman looked as if he
+understood also, but made many wise observations as to the imprudence of
+running about the country alone, there were so many dangers. Then he was
+asked in what house in Villeneuve his mother's friends resided.
+
+"At the end of the town," answered Jack, promptly,--"the last house on
+the right."
+
+It was lucky that his rising color was hidden by the darkness. His
+cross-examination, however, was by no means over. The husband and wife
+were great talkers, and, like all great talkers, extremely curious, and
+could not be content until they had learned the private affairs of all
+those persons with whom they came in contact. They kept a little store,
+and each Saturday went into the country to get rid of the dust of the
+week; but they were making money, and some day would live altogether at
+Soisy-sous-Etiolles.
+
+"Is that place far from Etiolles?" asked Jack, with a start.
+
+"O, no, close by," answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut with
+his whip to his beast.
+
+What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have
+gone on in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary
+legs, and had a comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman's shawl,
+who asked him, every little while, if he was warm enough.
+
+If he could but summon courage enough to say, "I have told you a
+falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;" but he was
+unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet,
+when they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could not
+restrain a sob.
+
+"Do not cry, my little friend," said the kind woman; "your mother,
+perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her
+well."
+
+At the last house the carriage stopped.
+
+"Yes, this is it," said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind
+good-bye. "How lucky you are to have finished your journey," said the
+woman; "we have four good leagues before us."
+
+Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the
+garden-gate. "Good night," said his new friends, "good night."
+
+He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward
+the right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it
+with all his speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened
+by inadequate repose, refused all service. At the end of a few rods he
+could go no further, but sank on the roadside with a burst of passionate
+tears, while the hospitable proprietors of the carriage rolled
+comfortably on, without an idea of the despair they had left behind
+them.
+
+He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to
+think or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little boy
+sleeps quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and sees
+something monstrous--a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes that
+send forth a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving behind
+him a train like a comet's tail. A grove of trees, quite unsuspected by
+Jack, suddenly flashed out clearly; each leaf could have been counted.
+Not until this apparition was far away, and nothing of it was visible
+save a small green light, did Jack know that it was the express train.
+
+What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill
+and stiff in every limb. He had dreamed of M�dou,--dreamed that they lay
+side by side in the cemetery; he saw M�dou's face, and shivered at the
+thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from
+this idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened
+in the cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so
+unnaturally heavy, that he fancied M�dou was at his side or behind him.
+
+The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two.
+Another village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy
+plods on, with swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop.
+Occasionally he meets a huge covered wagon, driver and horses sound
+asleep. He asks, in a timid, tired voice, "Is it far now to Etiolles?"
+No answer comes save a loud snore.
+
+Soon, however, another traveller joins the child--a traveller whose
+praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of
+the frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety
+of expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born
+day.
+
+Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the
+town where his mother was, the clouds divide--are torn apart suddenly,
+as it were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually
+broadens, with a waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light
+with a strength imparted by incipient delirium.
+
+Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting to
+welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and looked
+like a large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness. The road
+no longer dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth highway, without
+ditch or pavement, intended, it seemed, for the carriages of the
+wealthy. Superb residences, with grounds carefully kept, were on both
+sides of this road. Between the white houses and the vineyards were
+green lawns that led down to the river, whose surface reflected the
+tender blue and rosy tints of the sky above. O sun, hasten thy coming;
+warm and comfort the little child, who is so weary and so sad!
+
+"Am I far from Etiolles?" asked Jack of some laborers who were going to
+their work.
+
+"No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road
+straight on through the wood."
+
+The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and
+the rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of
+wild roses was repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old
+oak-trees; the branches shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged
+creatures; and while the last of the shadows faded away, and the
+night-birds with silent, heavy flight hurried to their mysterious
+shelters, a lark suddenly rises from the field with its wings
+wide-spread, and flies higher and higher until it is lost in the sky
+above. The child no longer walks, he crawls; an old woman meets him,
+leading a goat; mechanically he asks if it is far to Etiolles.
+
+The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a
+little stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles
+over the pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he
+sees a steeple and a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will
+reach them. But he is dizzy and falls; through his half-shut eyes he
+sees close at hand a little house covered with vines and roses. Over the
+door, between the wavering shadows of a lilac-tree already in flower, he
+saw an inscription in gold letters:--
+
+     PARVA  DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the
+blinds are still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are
+awake, for he hears a woman's voice singing,--singing, too, his own
+cradle-song, in a fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were
+thrown open, and a woman appeared in a white n�glig�e, with her hair
+lightly twisted in a simple knot.
+
+"Mamma, mamma!" cried Jack, in a weak voice.
+
+The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor
+little worn and travel-stained lad.
+
+She screamed "Jack!" and in a moment more was beside him, warming him in
+her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out the
+anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.~~PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+"No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go
+back to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I tell
+you that you shall never go there again, but shall always be with me. I
+will arrange a little room for you to-day, and you will see how nice it
+is to be in the country. We have cows and chickens, and that reminds me
+the poultry has not yet been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a while. I
+will wake you at dinner-time, but first drink this soup. It is good, is
+it not? And to think that while I was calmly sleeping, you were alone
+in the cold and dark night. I must go. My chickens are calling me;" and
+with a loving kiss Ida went off on tiptoe, happy and bright, browned
+somewhat by the sun, and dressed with rather a theatrical idea of the
+proprieties. Her country costume had a great deal of black velvet about
+it, and she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, trimmed with poppies and
+wheat.
+
+Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by M�re
+Archambauld, his mother's cook, had restored his strength to a very
+great degree, and he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm,
+satisfied eyes.
+
+There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large,
+furnished in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the
+least gilding. Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the
+pigeons on the roof, and his mother's voice talking to her chickens,
+lulled him to repose.
+
+One thing troubled him: D'Argenton's portrait hung at the foot of the
+bed, in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.
+
+The child said to himself, "Where is he? Why have I not seen
+him?" Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue
+him either with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his
+mother.
+
+She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and
+her dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high
+heels.
+
+M�re Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife
+of an employ� in the government forests, who attended to the culinary
+department at Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack's mother
+lived.
+
+"Heavens! how pretty your boy is!" said the old woman, delighted by
+Jack's appearance.
+
+"Is he not, M�re Archambauld? What did I tell you?"
+
+"But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa.
+Good day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?"
+
+At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.
+
+"Ah, well! if you can't sleep, let us go and look at the house," said
+his mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She shook down
+her skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which was
+situated a stone's throw from the village, and realized better than
+most poets' dreams those of D'Argenton. The house had been originally a
+shooting-box belonging to a distant ch�teau. A new tower had been added,
+and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense respectability
+to the place. They visited the stable and the orchard, and finished
+their examination by a visit to the tower.
+
+A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a
+large, round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular
+divan covered with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious
+old oaken chests, a Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high
+carved chair of the time of Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous
+table covered with papers, composed the furniture of the apartment. A
+charming landscape was visible from the windows, a valley and a river, a
+fresh green wood, and some fair meadow-land.
+
+"It is here that HE works," said his mother, in an awed tone.
+
+Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.
+
+In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at
+her son,--
+
+"At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I
+shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is
+very fond of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little
+severe sometimes. You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall be
+very unhappy."
+
+As she spoke she looked at D'Argenton's picture hung at the end of this
+room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact,
+a portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the
+entrance-hall, and it was a most significant fact that there was no
+other portrait than his in the whole house. "You promise me, Jack, that
+you will love him?"
+
+Jack answered with much effort, "I promise, dear mamma."
+
+This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in
+that quaint old drawing-room. They heard M�re Archambauld rattling her
+dishes in the kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack
+sat and admired his mother. She thought him much grown and very large
+for his age, and they laughed and kissed each other every few minutes.
+In the evening they had some visitors. P�re Archambauld came for his
+wife, as he always did, for they lived in the depths of the forest. He
+took a seat in the dining-room.
+
+"You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the health
+of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you sometimes
+into the forest?"
+
+And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of
+the poachers throughout the country, looked about the room with that
+restless glance acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and
+answered timidly,--
+
+"That I will, Madame d'Argenton."
+
+This name of D'Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little
+friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or
+dignities of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother's
+new title, and became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two dogs
+under the table. The old couple had just gone, when a carriage was heard
+at the door.
+
+"Is it you, doctor?" cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,
+
+"Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose
+arrival I have heard."
+
+Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy
+locks. The doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling walk,
+the result of twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.
+
+"Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through
+my servant, that he and you might require my services."
+
+What good people these all were, and bow thankful little Jack felt that
+he had forever left that detestable school!
+
+When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother
+and child went tranquilly to their bedroom.
+
+There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D'Argenton a long letter, telling
+him of her son's arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the
+little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her
+side. She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from her
+poet.
+
+Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness,
+and to the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less
+terrible than she had anticipated. In fact, D'Argenton concluded that
+it was well to be relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and
+while disapproving of the escapade, he thought it no great misfortune,
+as the Institution was rapidly running down. "Had he not left it?" As to
+the child's fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a week
+later, they would consult together as to what plan to adopt.
+
+Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of
+utter happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs
+and the goat, the forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his
+mother for many minutes at a time. He followed her wherever she went,
+laughed when she laughed without asking why, and was altogether content.
+
+Another letter. "He will come to-morrow!"
+
+Although D'Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and
+wished to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused
+to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She
+gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had
+each been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly
+mortifying.
+
+"You will remain at the end of the garden," she said, "and do not come
+until I call you."
+
+The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the
+grinding of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself
+behind the gooseberry bushes. He heard D'Argenton speak. His tone was
+harder, sterner than ever. He heard his mother's sweet voice answer
+gently, "Yes, my dear--no, my dear." Then a window in the tower opened.
+"Come, Jack, I want you, my child!"
+
+The boy's heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D'Argenton was
+leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the
+dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to
+the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate
+to a certain extent. "Jack," he said, in conclusion, "life is not a
+romance; you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your
+penitence; and if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we
+three may live together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a
+very busy man.--I am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every
+day to your education. If you will study faithfully, I can make of you,
+frivolous as you are by nature, a man like myself."
+
+"You hear, Jack," said his mother, alarmed at his silence, "and you
+understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you--"
+
+"Yes, mamma," stammered Jack.
+
+"Wait, Charlotte," interrupted D'Argenton; "he must decide for himself:
+I wish to force no one."
+
+Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to
+find words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying
+nothing. Seeing the child's embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him
+into the poet's arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.
+
+"Ah, dear, how good you are!" murmured the poor woman, while the child,
+dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.
+
+In reality Jack's installation in the house was a relief to the poet.
+He loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also
+because he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the
+name of Ida de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her
+a complete slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and D'Argenton
+had grown tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he
+would have some one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to
+bully; and it was in this spirit that he undertook Jack's education,
+for which he made all arrangements with that methodical solemnity
+characteristic of the man's smallest actions.
+
+The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to
+the wall, and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a
+carefully prepared arrangement for the routine of the day.
+
+"_Rise at six_. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight,
+recitation; from eight to nine," and so on.
+
+Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose
+shutters hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light
+to see with. Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but
+D'Argenton allowed no such laxity.
+
+D'Argenton's method of education was too severe for Jack, who was,
+however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in
+his studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to
+whom he had a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by
+the new life he was leading.
+
+Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the
+country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and charmed
+by Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside all books
+until the child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day, when he sat
+in the tower opposite his teacher, he was seized with a strong desire
+to leap out of the window, and rush into the fresh woods after the birds
+that had just flown away, or in search of the squirrel of which he had
+caught a glimpse. What a penance it was to write his copy, while the
+wild roses beckoned him to come and pluck them!
+
+"This child is an idiot," cried D'Argenton, when to all his questions
+Jack stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if
+he had that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily
+watching. At the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished
+the task, that it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no
+use to the boy, who neither could nor would learn anything. In
+reality, he was by no means unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had
+established, and which pressed with severity on himself as well as on
+the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She preferred
+to think her boy incapable of study rather than endure the daily scenes,
+and the incessant lectures and tears of this educational experiment.
+
+Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as
+her intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future,
+however brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of
+present tranquillity.
+
+Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard:
+"Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight," &c.
+The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that his
+presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself for
+the whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to children
+and loungers.
+
+He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the
+morning he started for Father Archambauld's, just as the old man's wife,
+before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers, served her
+husband's breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light green paper
+that represented the same hunting-scene over and over again.
+
+When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started
+out on a long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants'
+nests, with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the
+trees; the haunts of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the young
+kids. The hawthorn's white blossoms perfumed the air, and a variety of
+wild flowers enamelled the turf. The forester's duty was to protect the
+birds and their young broods from all injury, and to destroy the moles
+and snakes. He received a certain sum for the heads or tails of these
+vermin, and every six months carried to Corbiel a bag of dry and dusty
+relics. He would have been better pleased could he have taken also the
+heads of the poachers, with whom he was in constant conflict. He had
+also a great deal of trouble with the peasants who injured his trees.
+
+A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a
+tree, the growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched
+them so carefully that he knew all their maladies. One species of
+fir was attacked by tiny worms, which come in some mysterious way by
+thousands. They select the strongest and handsomest specimens, and take
+possession of them. The trees have only their resinous sap as a weapon
+of defence. This sap they pour over their enemies, and over their eggs
+deposited in the crevices of the bark. Jack watched this unequal contest
+with the greatest interest, and saw the slow dropping of these odorous
+tears. Sometimes the fir-tree won the victory, but too often it perished
+and withered slowly, until at last the giant of the forest; whose lofty
+top had been the haunt of singing-birds, where bees had made their home,
+and which had sheltered a thousand different lives, stood white and
+ghastly as if struck by lightning.
+
+During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion
+talked very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable
+sounds about them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it
+touched. Among the pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the
+birches and aspens, it rattled the leaves like castanets; while from the
+borders of the ponds, which were numerous in this part of the forest,
+came gentle rustlings from the long, slender, silken-coated reeds. Jack
+learned to distinguish all these sounds and to love them.
+
+The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the
+peasants, who saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had
+sworn eternal hatred. Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats
+respectfully enough to Jack when they met him with Father Archambauld,
+but when he was alone, they shook their fists at him with horrible
+oaths.
+
+There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very
+dreams of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with
+her fagots on her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her
+tongue; and sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few
+steps. Poor little Jack often reached his mother's side breathless and
+terrified, but, after all, this only added another interest to his life.
+Sometimes Jack found his mother in the kitchen talking in a low voice;
+no sound was to be heard in the house save the ticking of the great
+clock in the dining-room. "Hush, my dear," said his mother; "He is
+up-stairs. He is at work!"
+
+Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With
+the awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he
+ought not to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.
+
+"Hush, dear," exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother
+Archambauld, laying the table, moved on the points of her big
+feet--moved as lightly as possible, so as not to disturb "her master who
+was at work."
+
+He was heard up-stairs--pushing back his chair, or moving his table.
+He had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the
+title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that
+formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,--leisure,
+sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and
+country air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn
+his chair, and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky
+and water. All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river,
+came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the
+cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
+
+"Now to work!" cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his
+pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion
+of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful
+country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached
+by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around
+him every essential for poetry,--a charming woman named in memory of
+Goethe's heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white
+goat to follow him from place to place, and an antique clock to mark the
+hours and to connect the prosaic Present with the romance of the Past!
+All these were very imposing, but the brain was as sterile as when
+D'Argenton had given lessons all day and retired to his garret at night,
+worn out in body and mind.
+
+When Charlotte's step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression
+of profound absorption. "Come in," he said, in reply to her knock,
+timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to
+the elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face
+seemed to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an op�ra bouffe.
+
+"I have come to see my poet," she said, as she came in. She had a way
+of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. "How are you getting
+on?" she continued. "Are you pleased?"
+
+"Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible
+profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!"
+
+"That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know--"
+
+"To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his
+_Faust?_ And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was
+not condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude--mental solitude, I mean."
+
+The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened
+to similar complaints from D'Ar-genton, she had at last learned to
+understand the reproaches conveyed in his words.
+
+The poet's tone signified, "It is not you who can fill the blank around
+me." In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone
+with her.
+
+Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him
+in this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the
+luxury by which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to
+himself--transformed and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm
+in his eyes, and yet she was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to
+witness the air of business with which he opened each morning the three
+or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke the seals as if
+he expected to find in their columns something of absorbing personal
+interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a resume
+of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these journals
+without missing one word, and always found something to arouse his
+contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces were
+played; and what pieces they were! Their books were printed; and such
+books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he could write them
+down.
+
+"You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was produced;
+it was simply my _Pommes D'Atlante_."
+
+"But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur Angier,"
+said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.
+
+During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D'Argenton lashed
+himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the
+heavy frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him
+very clearly that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF B�LISAIRE.
+
+One afternoon, when D'Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack,
+who was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his
+usual excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.
+
+The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges;
+distant rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of
+expectation which often precedes a storm.
+
+Fatigued by the child's restlessness, the forester's wife looked out at
+the weather, and said to Jack,--
+
+"Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you
+to go and get me a little grass for my rabbits."
+
+The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off
+to search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.
+
+The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in
+clouds, when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, "Hats! Hats to sell!
+Nice Panamas!"
+
+Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on his
+shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if he
+were footsore and weary.
+
+Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman
+must be? He knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can
+obtain the shelter of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a
+pedler, or any stranger, indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with
+distrustful eyes.
+
+"Hats! Hats to sell!" For whose ears did he intend this repetition of
+his monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was it
+for the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm, had
+taken shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of stones,
+while Jack, on the other side of the road, examined him with much
+curiosity. His face was forbidding to a certain extent, but expressed so
+much suffering in the heavy features, that Jack's kind heart was filled
+with pity. At that moment a thunder-clap was heard; the man looked up
+at the skies anxiously, and then called to Jack to ask how far off the
+village was.
+
+"Half a mile exactly," answered the child.
+
+"And the shower will be here in a few moments," said the pedler,
+despairingly. "All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined."
+
+The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a
+kind act.
+
+"You can come to our house," he said, "and then your hats will not
+be injured." The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for his
+merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible; the
+man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.
+
+"Are you in pain?" asked the child.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are
+so big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I
+should ever be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!"
+
+They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold
+of hats, and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the
+dining-room, saying, "You must have a glass of wine and a bit of bread."
+
+Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big loaf
+and a pot of wine.
+
+"Now a slice of ham," said Jack, in a tone of command.
+
+"But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham," said the old
+woman, grumbling. In fact, D'Argenton was something of a glutton, and
+there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his especial
+enjoyment.
+
+"Never mind! bring it out!" said the child, delighted at playing the
+part of host.
+
+The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The ped-ler's appetite was of the
+most formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple
+story. His name was B�lisaire, and he was the eldest of a large
+family, and spent the summer wandering from town to town.--A violent
+thunder-clap shook the house, the rain fell in torrents, and the noise
+was terrific. At that moment some one knocked. Jack turned pale. "They
+have come!" he said with a gasp.
+
+It was D'Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not
+to have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they
+had given up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the
+poet was in a fearful rage with himself and every one else. "A fire in
+the parlor," he said, in a tone of command.
+
+But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D'Argenton
+perceived the formidable pile of hats.
+
+"What is that?" he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred feet
+under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The poet
+entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The child
+stammered a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.
+
+"Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it
+seems."
+
+"O, Jack! Jack!" cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.
+
+"Do not scold him, madame," stammered B�lisaire. "I only am in fault!"
+
+Here D'Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most
+imposing gesture. "Go at once," he said, violently; "how dare you come
+into this house?"
+
+B�lisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of
+remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress
+at the tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little
+Jack--who sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the
+Panamas,--and hurried down the garden walk. No sooner had the man
+reached the highway, than his melancholy voice resumed the cry, "Hats!
+Hats to sell!"
+
+In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a
+fire, and Charlotte was shaking the poet's coat, while he sulkily strode
+up and down the room.
+
+As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler's
+knife had made sad havoc. D'Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham
+was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. "What! the
+ham, too!" he exclaimed.
+
+Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically
+repeat his words.
+
+"I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was
+too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much
+yet, he is so young."
+
+Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only
+beg pardon in a troubled tone.
+
+"Pardon, indeed!" cried the poet, giving way, as it must be admitted
+he rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently, exclaimed,
+"What right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not yours. You
+know that nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the food
+you eat, you are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you?
+I know not even your name!" Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte
+stopped the torrent of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room,
+and listening with eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed
+up stairs, banging the door after him.
+
+Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her
+pretty hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done to
+merit such a hard fate.
+
+This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and,
+naturally, her question remained unanswered.
+
+To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D'Argenton
+was now taken with one of "his attacks," a form of bilious fever.
+
+Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The
+sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly
+nature, made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How
+tenderly she protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the table
+under the white one to soften the noise of the plates and the silver.
+She piled the Henry II. chair with cushions, and had her rolls of hot
+flannels and her tisanes in readiness at all hours of the day and night.
+
+Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by
+a fretful exclamation from the poet. "Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk
+too much!"
+
+This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more.
+Charlotte met him in the hall. "Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is
+suffering," she said, anxiously.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement."
+
+In fact, D'Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid
+tones, soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a
+new face, which made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a
+few moments later beheld him launched on some dazzling episode of his
+Parisian life. The doctor saw no reason to doubt the truth of these
+narrations told in such measured and careful phrases, and was always
+pleased with the appearance of the family,--the intellectual husband,
+the pretty gay wife, and the amusing child; and no intuition gave him a
+hint, as might have been the case with a more delicate organization,
+of the peculiarity and bitterness of the ties which bound the household
+together.
+
+Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor's horse
+was fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass
+carefully mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told
+of his wonderful adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears
+wide open.
+
+"Jack!" said D'Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the door.
+
+"Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am
+quite sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;" and
+the old man talked of his little C�cile, who was two years younger than
+Jack.
+
+"Bring her to see us, doctor," said Charlotte; "the two children would
+be so happy together."
+
+"Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She
+never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere
+since our great sorrow."
+
+This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his
+daughter and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some
+mystery surrounded this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld, who
+knew everything, contented herself with saying, "Yes, poor things! they
+have had a great deal of trouble."
+
+The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, "Keep him
+amused, madame; keep him amused!"
+
+How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little
+carriage; breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the
+forest; but he was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a t�te-�-t�te
+in the middle of the Seine was worse than one on shore; and the little
+boat soon lay moored at the landing, half full of water and dead leaves.
+
+Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an
+Italian terrace: but even this did not amuse him.
+
+One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of
+an AEolian harp. D'Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic
+scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack's
+life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like
+a soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child's great
+relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to
+the end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard.
+D'Argenton fiercely commanded that the instrument should be buried,
+which was done, and the earth heaped upon it as over some mad animal.
+All these various occupations failing to amuse her poet, Charlotte
+reluctantly decided to invite some of his old friends, but was repaid
+for her sacrifice by witnessing D'Argenton's joy on being told that Dr.
+Hirsch and Labassandre were soon to visit them.
+
+When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of
+his old professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the
+sounds recalled the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped quietly
+into the garden, there to await the dinner-bell.
+
+"Come, gentlemen," said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on the
+terrace,--her large white apron indicating that au a good housekeeper
+she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and
+take an active part.
+
+The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack
+as he took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large doors
+opened on the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.
+
+"You are a lucky fellow," said Labassandre. "Tomorrow I shall be in that
+hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner."
+
+"It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable dinner,"
+grumbled Dr. Hirsch.
+
+"Why not remain here for a time?" said D'Argen-ton, cordially. "There is
+a room for each of you; the cellar has some good wine in it--"
+
+"And we can make excursions," interrupted Charlotte, gayly.
+
+"But what would become of my rehearsals?" said Labassandre.
+
+"But you, Dr. Hirsch," continued Charlotte, "you are tied down to the
+opera-house!"
+
+"Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this
+season."
+
+The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no
+one laughed.
+
+"Well, decide!" cried the poet, "In the first place, you would be doing
+me a favor, and could prescribe for me."
+
+"To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution,
+while I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute
+and of Moron-val, and never wish to see either more." Thereupon the
+doctor launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported
+him. Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every
+one was giving him up; the affair of M�dou had done him great injury;
+and finally Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack on his
+energetic departure.
+
+At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was
+overjoyed at finding so gay and talkative a circle. "You see, madame, I
+was right: our invalid only needed a little excitement."
+
+"There I differ from you!" cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the
+battle from afar.
+
+Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. "Dr.
+Hirsch," said D'Argenton, "allow me to present you to Dr. Rivals."
+They bowed like two duellists on the field who salute each other
+before crossing their swords. The country physician concluded his
+new acquaintance to be some famous Parisian practitioner, full of
+eccentricities and hobbies. D'Argenton's illness was the occasion of a
+long discussion between the physicians.
+
+It was droll to see the poet's expression. He was inclined to take
+offence that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and
+again to be equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a
+hundred diseases, each one with a worse name than the others.
+
+Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.
+
+"But this is utter nonsense," cried Rivals, who had listened
+impatiently; "there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if
+there were, our friend has no such symptoms."
+
+This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They
+hurled at each other titles of books in every language, names of every
+drug known and unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable than
+terrific, and was very much like one from "Moli�re." Jack and his mother
+escaped to the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his voice.
+The winged inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the peacocks
+in the neighboring ch�teau answered by those alarmed cries with which
+they greet the approach of a thunder-shower; the neighboring peasants
+started from their sleep, and old Mother Archambauld wondered what was
+going on in the little house, where the moon shone so whitely on the
+legend in gold characters over the door:
+
+     PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.~~CECILE.
+
+"Where are you going so early?" asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he
+saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the
+stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of
+Lord Pembroke.
+
+"To church, my dear sir. Has not D'Argenton told you that I have an
+especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you
+not?"
+
+It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being
+asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats
+reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned
+with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on
+a rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the
+picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives
+in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in
+the Te Deum of this official f�te.
+
+Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one
+told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious
+festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse
+D'Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige
+of a married woman. This new r�le amused and interested her. She
+corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her
+rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.
+
+When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a
+halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother's ear
+a question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him;
+Charlotte hesitated, for "she knew so few persons in the church.
+Then the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals' grandchild--a little girl on the
+opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children walked
+slowly behind the majestic official, C�cile carrying a velvet bag much
+too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous wax
+candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers. They
+were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply dressed,
+with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and her face
+illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers mingled with
+the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. C�cile
+presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave.
+The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his
+own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the
+forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his best friend, and
+that, later, all that was most precious in life for him would come from
+her?
+
+"They would make a pretty pair," said an old woman, as the children
+passed her, and in a lower voice added, "Poor little soul, I hope she
+will be more fortunate than her mother!"
+
+Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence
+of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in
+store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame
+D'Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast.
+Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the boy's
+necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, "Be a good child!"
+
+From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old
+doctor's, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his
+neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a
+brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were
+black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that
+some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of
+that nature had been interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and
+the old people had never had the heart to go on with their improvements
+since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say, with a discouraged air,
+"What is the use?" The garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass
+grew over the walks, and weeds choked the fountain. The human beings in
+the house had much the same air. From Madame Rivals, who, eight years
+after her daughter's death, still wore the deepest of black, down
+to little C�cile, whose childish face had a precocious expression of
+sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter of a century had shared
+the griefs and sorrows of the family,--all seemed to live in an
+atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain
+intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was ever
+cheerful.
+
+To Madame Rivals, C�cile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the
+child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the
+doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her
+mother's place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would
+give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on
+meeting his wife's sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
+
+Little C�cile's life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden,
+or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the
+apartment that had once been her mother's, and which was full of the
+souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this
+room, but little C�cile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent.
+The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very
+bad for her; she needed the association of other children. "Let us ask
+little D'Argenton here," said her grandfather: "the boy is charming!"
+
+"Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?"
+answered his wife. "Who knows them?"
+
+"Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he is
+an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The woman
+is not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will answer for
+their respectability."
+
+Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
+husband's insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
+
+Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original
+idea.
+
+"The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
+could possibly happen?"
+
+The grandmother then consented, and Jack and C�cile became close
+companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw
+that he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and
+that he had no lesson-hours.
+
+"Do you not go to school, my dear?"
+
+"No, madame," was the answer; and then quickly added,--for a child's
+instinct is very delicate,--"Mamma teaches me."
+
+"I cannot understand," said Madame Rivals to her husband, "how they can
+let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till
+night."
+
+"The child is not very clever," answered the doctor, anxious to excuse
+his friends.
+
+"No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him."
+
+Jack's best friends were in the doctor's house. C�cile adored him. They
+played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy
+if it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
+apothecary's store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself.
+She had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable
+experience, and was often consulted in her husband's absence. The
+children found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles,
+and pasting on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy's awkwardness,
+while little C�cile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman
+grown.
+
+The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he went
+about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large, the
+children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably, and
+merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were warmly
+welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the children
+roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.
+
+Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is
+never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life.
+The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to
+pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the
+wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard day's
+toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn,
+while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for morning.
+Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have been very
+rich, had he not been so generous.
+
+His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for
+home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet
+occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees,
+with their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low
+white houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern
+scene. "It is like Nazareth," said little C�cile; and the two children
+told each other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.
+
+Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
+intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to
+himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an
+hour's instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of
+enjoying a siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by
+the old man, when I add that it was this precise time that he now freely
+gave to the little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied himself
+with his whole heart to his lessons. C�cile was almost always present,
+and was as pleased as Jack himself when her grandfather, examining the
+copy-book, said, "Well done!" To his mother, Jack said nothing of
+his labors; he determined to prove to her at some future day that the
+diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This concealment was rendered
+very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent to her
+child, and more completely absorbed in D'Argenton. The boy's comings and
+goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was often vacant,
+but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the board, for
+D'Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means generous in his
+hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him, timidly, "I am out of
+money, my friend," he would reply by a wry face and the word, "Already?"
+But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the pleasure of patronizing
+his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he had formerly lived, carried
+the day. They all knew that he had a pleasant home, that the air was
+good and the table better; consequently, one would say to another, "Who
+wants to go to Etiolles to-night?" They came in droves.
+
+Poor Charlotte was in despair. "Madame Archambauld, are there
+eggs?--is there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give
+them?"
+
+"Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved," said
+the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
+her master's friends.
+
+D'Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
+dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as
+happy and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh
+country, in the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed
+more rusty and more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy,
+and D'Argenton radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal "I
+think," and "I know." Was he not the master of the house, and had he not
+the key of the wine cellar?
+
+Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
+Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She
+was flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was
+pleased to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
+
+Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy mists
+of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the fierce
+winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and violets,
+gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing was changed
+there. D'Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms, dignified
+by Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as totally without
+salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as she had always
+been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having studied
+industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.
+
+"Send him to school now," said Doctor Rivals to his mother, "and I
+answer for his making a figure."
+
+"Ah, doctor, how good you are!" cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and
+feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
+stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
+
+D'Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that
+he had grave objections to a school, &c., and when alone with Charlotte,
+expressed his indignation at the doctor's interference, but from that
+time took more interest in the movements of the boy.
+
+"Come here, sir," said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed
+somewhat anxiously. "Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot
+of the garden?"
+
+"It was I, sir."
+
+C�cile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had
+manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.
+
+"Did you make it yourself, without any aid?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the child.
+
+"It is wonderful, very wonderful," continued the singer, turning to the
+others. "The child has a positive genius for mechanics."
+
+In the evening there was a grand discussion. "Yes, madame/," said
+Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; "the man of the future, the coming
+man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs,
+and now it is the workman's turn. You may to-day despise his horny
+hands, in twenty years he will lead the world."
+
+"He is right," interrupted D'Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded
+approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the
+conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion
+felt a keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
+
+Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village
+forge. "You know, my friends," he said, "whether I have been successful.
+You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals. You may
+believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part with
+all sooner than with this;" and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve and
+displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two blacksmith's
+hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an inscription was
+above these emblems in small letters: _Work and Liberty_. Labassandre
+proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the manager of the opera at
+Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let alone, he would by this time
+have been the proprietor of a large machine shop, with a provision laid
+up for his old age.
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, "but you were very strong, and I have heard you
+say that the life was a hard one."
+
+"Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in question
+is sufficiently robust."
+
+"I will answer for that," said Dr. Hirsch.
+
+Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more
+refined than others--"that certain aristocratic instincts--"
+
+Here D'Argenton interrupted her in a rage. "What nonsense! My friends
+occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
+absurdities."
+
+Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire
+to fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his
+pretty mother.
+
+Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in
+his mother's manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him
+with that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom we
+are about to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D'Argenton say
+to Dr. Rivals, with a satirical smile, "We are all busy, sir, in your
+pupil's interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will
+astonish you."
+
+The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, "You see, my dear, that
+I did well to make them open their eyes."
+
+"Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good
+to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with
+folded arms than trouble himself about you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.~~LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.
+
+One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had brought
+Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the garden
+busy with his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice came
+from the window of the poet's room. Something in its tone, or a certain
+instinct so marked in some persons, told the child that the crisis had
+come, and he tremblingly ascended the stairs. On the Henri Deux chair
+D'Argenton sat, throned as it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch
+stood on either side. Jack saw at once that there were the tribunal, the
+judge, and the witnesses, while his mother sat a little apart at an open
+window.
+
+"Come here!" said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
+dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself
+had spoken. "I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have
+seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn
+has now come to enter the arena. You are a man,"--the child was but
+twelve,--"you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For
+a year,--the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,--I have
+permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of
+observation, I have been able to decide on your path in life. I have
+watched the development of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and,
+with your mother's consent, have taken a step of importance." Jack was
+frightened, and turned to his mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat
+gazing from the window, shading her eyes from the sun. D'Argenton called
+on Labassandre to produce the letter he had received. The singer pulled
+out a large, ill-folded peasant's letter, and read it aloud:--
+
+     "FOUNDRY D'INDRET.
+
+     "My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to
+     the young man, your friend's son, and he is willing, in
+     spite of his youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may
+     live under our roof, and in four years I promise you that he
+     shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and
+     Z�na�de send messages.
+
+     "Rondic."
+
+"You hear, Jack," interrupted D'Argenton; "in four years you will hold a
+position second to none in the world,--you will be a good workman."
+
+The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen
+a noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o'clock in
+the _Passage des Douze Maisons_. The idea of wearing a blouse was
+the first that struck him. He remembered his mother's tone of
+contempt,--"Those are workmen, those men in blouses!"--he remembered the
+care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed.
+But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest,
+the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from
+the window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much
+and had found again after so much difficulty.
+
+Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand
+dashed away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading away
+of all her dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?
+
+"Then must I go away?" asked the child, faintly.
+
+The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.
+
+"In a week we will go, my boy," said Labassandre, cheeringly. But
+D'Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, "You can leave
+the room now, and be ready for your journey in a week."
+
+Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did
+not stop to take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who
+listened to his story with indignation.
+
+"It is preposterous!" he cried. "The very idea of making a mechanic of
+you is absurd. I will see your father at once."
+
+The persons who saw the two pass through the street--the doctor
+gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat--concluded that some one
+must be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr. Rivals
+heard loud talking and laughing as he entered the house, and Charlotte,
+as she descended the stairs, was singing a bar from the last opera.
+
+"I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir," said Mr. Rivals.
+
+"We are among friends," answered D'Argenton, "and have no secrets. You
+have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These gentlemen
+know all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar
+circumstances of the case."
+
+"But, my friend "--Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the explanation that
+was forthcoming.
+
+"Go on, doctor," interrupted the poet, sternly.
+
+"Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at
+Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part."
+
+"Not in the least, sir."
+
+"But you can have no conception of the child's nature, nor of his
+constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are
+trifling. I assure you, madame," he continued, turning toward Charlotte,
+"that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking now simply
+of his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally unfitted for
+it."
+
+"You are mistaken, doctor," interrupted D'Argen-ton; "I know the boy
+better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and now
+that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this
+way, of exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes
+complaints of me."
+
+Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and
+continued,--
+
+"He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I
+told him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to
+reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way."
+
+"I deny the degradation," shouted Labassandre. "Manual labor does not
+degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter."
+
+"That is true," murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once floated a
+vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some feast-day.
+
+"Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear ma-dame," cried the doctor,
+exasperated out of all patience. "To make your boy a mechanic is to
+separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the
+world, and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is
+too late; the day will come that you will blush for him, when he
+will appear before you, not as the loving, tender son, but humble and
+servile, as holding a social position far inferior to your own."
+
+Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of the
+future, started up from his seat in the corner.
+
+"I will not be a mechanic!" he said, in a firm voice.
+
+"O, Jack!" cried his mother, in consternation.
+
+But D'Argenton thundered out, "You will not be a mechanic, you say? But
+you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have
+had enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites." Then, suddenly
+cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the boy to
+retire to his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry discussion
+going on below, but the words were not to be understood. Suddenly the
+hall-door opened, and Mr. Rivals was heard to say,--
+
+"May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!"
+
+At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the
+first time she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had
+laid aside her r�le of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had
+shed had been those that age a mother's face, and leave ineffaceable
+marks upon it.
+
+"Listen to me, Jack," she said, tenderly. "You have made me very
+unhappy. You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends.
+I know, my child, that you will be happy in your new life. I acknowledge
+that at first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard what they said,
+did you not? � mechanic is very different nowadays from what it was
+once. And, besides, at your age you should rely on the judgment of those
+older than yourself, who have only your interests at heart."
+
+A sob from the child interrupted her.
+
+"Then you, too, send me away!"
+
+The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. "I
+send you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with
+me, you should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be
+reasonable, and think a little of the future, which is dreary enough for
+us." And then Charlotte hesitatingly continued, "You know, dear, you are
+very young, and there are many things you cannot understand. Some day,
+when you are older, I will tell you the secret of your birth. It is an
+absolute romance: some day you shall learn your father's name. But now
+all that is necessary for you to understand is, that we have not a penny
+in the world, and are absolutely dependent on--D'Argenton." This name
+the poor woman uttered with shame and hesitation, accompanied, at the
+same time, with a touching look of appeal to her son. "I cannot," she
+continued, "ask him to do anything more for us; he has already done so
+much. Besides, he is not rich. What am I to do between you both? Ah, if
+I could only go in your place to Indret and earn my bread! And yet
+you would refuse an opening that gives you a certainty of earning your
+livelihood, and of becoming your own master."
+
+By the sparkle in her boy's eyes the mother saw that these words had
+struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, "Do this for me,
+Jack; do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to
+look to you as my sole support." Did she really believe her own words?
+Was it a presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that
+illuminate the future's dark horizon? or had she simply talked for
+effect?
+
+At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this
+generous nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother
+some day would lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He
+looked her straight in the eyes. "Promise me that you will never be
+ashamed of me when my hands are black, and that you will always love
+me."
+
+She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and
+remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey to
+remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized contraction
+of the heart.
+
+But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and possibly
+from shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.
+
+"Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said the little fellow to D'Argenton, as he
+opened the door; "I was very wrong in refusing your kindness. I accept
+it with thanks."
+
+"I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now
+express your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are
+indebted."
+
+The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous
+paw of the artist.
+
+This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious
+than sad, and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little
+wrinkles on his childish brow. He was determined not to go away without
+seeing C�cile.
+
+"But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not
+be suitable," remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack's
+departure, D'Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans,
+consented that the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there
+in the evening. The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from
+the library--if library it could be called--a mere closet, crammed with
+books. The doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, "I
+was afraid they would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was
+partially my fault. I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me
+well. She has gone away, you know, with C�cile, to pass a month in the
+Pyrenees with my sister. The child was not well; I think I told her of
+your impending departure too abruptly. Ah, these children! we think they
+do not feel, but we are mistaken, and they feel quite as deeply as we
+ourselves." He spoke to Jack as one man to another. In fact, every one
+treated him in the same way at present. And yet the little fellow now
+burst into a violent passion of tears at the thought of his little
+friend having gone away without his seeing her.
+
+"Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?" asked the old man. "Well, I
+am selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in this way
+every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I do not
+think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do so, I
+am sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,"--the old man kissed
+the boy twice,--"for C�cile and myself," he said, kindly; and, as the
+door closed, the child heard him say, "Poor child, poor child!"
+
+The words were the same as at the Jesuits' College; but by this time
+Jack had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started,
+Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for
+an expedition across the Pampas,--high gaiters, a green velvet vest,
+a knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and
+happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty;
+happy, because this departure filled him with joy.
+
+Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. "You will take good
+care of him, M. Labassandre?"
+
+"As of my best note, madame."
+
+Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of
+working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end
+of the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his
+memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled
+through her tears.
+
+"Write often!" cried the mother.
+
+And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, "Remember, Jack, life is not
+a romance!"
+
+Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish
+egotist! He stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on
+Charlotte's shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself
+in a pose pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having
+won the day, that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to
+the child he had driven from the shelter of his roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.
+
+The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, "Is not the scene
+beautiful, Jack?"
+
+It was about four o'clock--a July evening; the waves glittered in the
+sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the
+golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they
+were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white
+salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the
+caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with
+grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream,
+arriving, perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years' voyage,
+and bearing with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands.
+� fresh breeze came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue of
+the ocean.
+
+"And Indret--where is it?" asked Jack.
+
+"There, that island opposite."
+
+Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly
+a row of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a
+thick black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on
+iron, and a continual whistling and puffing, as if the island itself had
+been an enormous steamer. As the boat slowly made her way to the wharf,
+the child saw long, low buildings on every side, and close at the
+river-side a row of enormous furnaces, which were filled from the water
+by coal barges.
+
+"There is Rondic!" cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous
+chest sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the
+clatter of machinery.
+
+The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled
+each other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His face
+was closely shaven, and he wore a sailor's hat that shaded a true Breton
+peasant face tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as steel.
+
+"And how are you all?" asked Labassandre.
+
+"Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new
+apprentice?--he looks very small and not over-strong."
+
+"Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in
+Paris!"
+
+"So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we
+must present ourselves to the Director at once."
+
+They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue
+terminated in a village street, with white houses on both sides,
+inhabited by the master and head-workmen. At this hour all was silent;
+life and movement were concentrated at the factory; and, but for the
+linen drying in the yards, an occasional cry of an infant, and a pot of
+flowers at the window, one would have supposed the place uninhabited.
+
+"Ah, the flag is lowered!" said the singer, as they reached the door.
+"Once that terrified me!" and he explained to Jack that when the flag
+was dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the
+factory were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were marked
+as absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now admitted by
+the porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the large halls
+which were crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of copper were piled
+between old cannons brought there to be recast. Rondic pointed out all
+the different branches of the establishment; he could not make himself
+understood save by gestures, for the noise was deafening.
+
+Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors
+being set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of
+arms and blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow,
+and then with a red light playing over their polished surface.
+
+Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an
+impalpable black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled
+like diamonds,--all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic
+of the place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of
+an enormous beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some
+subterranean dungeon.
+
+They had now reached an old ch�teau of the time of the League.
+
+"Here we are," said Rondic; and addressing his brother, "Will you go up
+with us?"
+
+"Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see 'the monkey'
+once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and something."
+
+He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and
+knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.
+
+They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were
+small and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In
+the inner room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a
+high window.
+
+"Ah, it is you, P�re Rondic!"
+
+"Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for--"
+
+"This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have
+an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very
+strong. Is he delicate?"
+
+"No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
+robust."
+
+"Remarkably," repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to
+the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the
+manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember," answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at
+the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
+"Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of
+him. Under you he must turn out well."
+
+The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat
+crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and
+then the two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with
+a different impression. Jack thought of the words "he does not look very
+strong," while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best
+might. "Has anything gone wrong?" he suddenly asked his brother,--"the
+Director seems even more surly now than in my day."
+
+"No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister's son, who is giving us
+a great deal of trouble."
+
+"In what way?" asked the artist.
+
+"Since his mother's death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted
+debts. He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends
+them before he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he breaks
+his promises as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for him
+several times, but I can never do it again. I have my own family, you
+see, and Z�na�de is growing up, and she must be established. Poor girl!
+Women have more sense than we. I wanted her to marry her cousin, but
+she would not consent. Now we are trying to separate him from his bad
+acquaintances here, and the Director has found a situation at Nantes;
+but I dare say the obstinate fellow will object. You will reason with
+him to-night, can't you? He will, perhaps, listen to you."
+
+"I will see what I can do," answered Labassandre, pompously.
+
+As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with
+all classes of people, some in mechanics' blouses, others wearing coats.
+Jack was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this to one
+in Paris, composed of similar classes.
+
+Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that
+he received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His
+theatrical costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone
+first on one side and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to
+first one and then another of his old friends.
+
+At the door of Rondic's house stood a young woman talking to a youth two
+or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man's daughter,
+and then remembered that he had married a second time. She was tall
+and slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white throat, and a
+graceful head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by its rich weight
+of hair. Unlike the Breton peasants, she wore no cap; her light dress
+and black apron were totally unlike the costume of a working woman.
+
+"Is she not pretty?" asked Rondic of his brother. "She has been giving a
+lecture to her nephew."
+
+Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. "I hope,"
+she said to the child, "that you will be happy with us."
+
+They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table,
+Labassandre said with a theatrical start, "And where is Z�na�de?"
+
+"We will not wait for her," answered Rondic; "she will be here
+presently. She is at work now at the ch�teau, for she has become a
+famous seamstress."
+
+"Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under
+control, if she can work at the Director's," said Labassandre, "for he
+is such an arrogant, haughty person--"
+
+"You are very much mistaken," interrupted Ron-die; "he is, on the
+contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master
+has to manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a
+disciplinarian. Is not that so, Clarisse?" and the old man turned to his
+wife, who, seemingly occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to him.
+� certain preoccupation was very evident.
+
+At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking
+at the door, came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who
+replied coldly to his greeting; thinking, possibly, of the remonstrances
+he had promised to lavish upon him. Z�na�de quickly followed: a plump
+little girl, red and out of breath; not pretty, and square in face and
+figure, she looked like her father. She wore a white cap, and her short
+skirts, and small shawl pinned over her shoulders, increased her general
+clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square chin indicated an unusual
+amount of firmness and decision, offering the strongest possible
+contrast to the gentle, irresolute expression of her stepmother's sweet
+face. Without a moment's delay, not waiting to detach the enormous
+shears that hung at her side, or to disembarrass herself of the needles
+and pins which glittered on her breast like a cuirass, the girl slipped
+into a seat next to Jack. The presence of the strangers did not
+abash her in the least. Whatever she had to say she said, simply and
+decidedly; but when she spoke to her cousin Chariot, it was in a vexed
+tone.
+
+He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left more
+than one scar.
+
+"And I wished them to marry each other," said Father Rondic, in a
+despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.
+
+"And I made no objection," said the young man with a laugh, as he looked
+at his cousin.
+
+"But I did, then," answered the girl abruptly, frowning and unabashed.
+"And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I should
+have drowned myself by this time!"
+
+These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the
+handsome cousin was silent and discomfited.
+
+Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid
+look of appeal.
+
+"Listen, Chariot," said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation: "to
+prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid
+place at Gu�rigny for you. You will have a better salary there than
+here, and "--here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face
+of the youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to
+finish his phrase.
+
+"And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!" answered
+Chariot, roughly. "But I do not agree with you. If the Director does not
+want me, let him say so,--and I will then look out for myself!"
+
+"He is right!" cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the table. A
+hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.
+
+Z�na�de did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her
+stepmother, who was busy about the table.
+
+"And you, mamma," said she at last, "is it not your opinion that Chariot
+should go to Gu�rigny?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," answered Madame Rondic, quickly, "I think he
+ought to accept the offer."
+
+Chariot rose quickly from his chair.
+
+"Very well," he said, moodily, "since every one wishes to get rid of
+me here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the
+meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it."
+
+The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and
+to each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked
+their pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly.
+
+Jack listened to them sadly. "Must I become like these?" he said to
+himself, with a thrill of horror.
+
+During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the
+workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw
+his future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white
+hands. Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls
+were cut, to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the
+air of distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated
+D'Argenton, was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his
+former home. Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken.
+
+"O," said Rondic, "it is only the fatigue of his journey and these
+clothes that give him that look;" and then turning to his wife, the good
+man said,
+
+"You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he
+is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o'clock!"
+
+The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories,
+the first floor divided into two rooms--one called the parlor, which had
+a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece.
+
+One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with
+damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Z�na�de's room the
+bed was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak
+filled one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over
+by rosaries of all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn,
+completed the simple arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen
+which concealed the ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice was
+to sleep.
+
+"This is my room," said Z�na�de, "and you, my boy, will be up there just
+over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you please,
+I sleep too soundly to be disturbed."
+
+A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft,
+which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in
+the roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared
+Jack for strange sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his
+miseries: here he had no M�dou, here he had nobody. The child looked
+about him. On the bed lay his costume for the next day; the large
+pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse looked as if some person had
+thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.
+
+Jack said half aloud, "It is I lying there!" and while he stood, sadly
+enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at the
+same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Z�na�de and
+her stepmother.
+
+The young girl's voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a man's;
+Madame Rondic's tones, on the contrary, were thin and flute-like, and
+seemed at times choked by tears.
+
+"And he is going!" she cried, with more passion than her ordinary
+appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.
+
+Then Z�na�de spoke--remonstrating, reasoning.
+
+Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these
+people, but the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her
+as he looked at the sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long,
+shivering sigh and a sob, and found that Madame Rondic was looking out
+into the night, and weeping like himself, at a window below.
+
+In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of wine
+and ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And there,
+could his foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she have taken
+her child from his laborious task, for which he was so totally unfitted
+by nature and education. The regulations for, lack of punctuality
+were very strict. The first offence was a fine, and the third absolute
+dismissal. Jack was generally at the door before the first sound of the
+bell; but one day, two or three months after his arrival on the island,
+he was delayed by the ill-nature of others. His hat had been blown away
+by a sudden gust of wind just as he reached the forge. "Stop it!" cried
+the child, running after it. Just as he reached it, an apprentice coming
+up the street gave the hat a kick and sent it on; another did the same,
+and then another. This was very amusing to all save Jack, who, out
+of breath and angry, felt a strong desire to weep, for he knew that a
+positive hatred toward him was hidden under all this apparent jesting.
+In the meantime the bell was sounding its last strokes, and the
+child was compelled to relinquish the useless pursuit. He was utterly
+wretched, for it was no small expense to buy a new cap; he must write to
+his mother for money, and D'Argenton would read the letter. This was
+bad enough; but the consciousness that he was disliked among his
+fellow-workmen troubled him still more.
+
+Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack
+was one of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in his
+new abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard
+quick breathing behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+turning, he saw a smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended the
+missing cap.
+
+Where had he seen that face? "I have it!" he cried at last; but at that
+moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler,
+to whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely
+shelter on that showery summer's day.
+
+The child's spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands
+were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts
+of the past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother's
+house; he heard the low rumbling of the doctor's gig, and felt the fresh
+breeze from the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of the
+machine-shop.
+
+That evening he searched for B�lisaire, but in vain; again the next day,
+but could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face that had
+revived so many beautiful memories, in the child's sick heart faded and
+died away, and he was again left alone.
+
+The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and
+played practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and
+relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals' books, Jack sought a quiet
+nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks,
+where he sat quite concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the
+rush, the magic, and the extent of the water before him. The distant
+church-bells rang out praises to the Lord, and all was rest and peace.
+Occasionally a vessel drifted past, and from afar came the laughter of
+children at play.
+
+He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift
+his eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the
+water on the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his
+mother and his little friend.
+
+At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at
+the Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Z�na�de in particular. The
+old man felt a certain contempt for Jack's physical delicacy, and said
+the boy stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but "he was a good
+little fellow all the same!" In reality, old Rondic felt a great
+respect for Jack's attainments, his own being of the most superficial
+description. He could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and
+since he had married the second Madame Rondic, he had become painfully
+conscious of his deficiencies. His wife was the daughter of a
+subordinate artillery officer, the belle and beauty of a small town.
+She was well brought up,--one of a numerous family, where each took
+her share of toil and economy. She accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the
+disparity of years and his lack of education, and entertained for her
+husband the greatest possible affection. He adored his wife, and would
+make any sacrifice for her happiness or her gratification. He thought
+her prettier than any of the wives of his friends,--who were all, in
+fact, stout Breton peasants, more occupied with their household cares
+than with anything else. Clarisse had a certain air about her, and
+dressed and arranged her hair in a way that offered the greatest
+contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of the country, who covered
+their hair with thick folds of linen, and concealed their figures with
+the clumsy fullness of their skirts.
+
+His house, too, was different from those about him. Behind the full
+white curtains stood a pot of flowers, sweet basil or gillyflowers,
+and the furniture was carefully waxed and polished; and Rondic was
+delighted, when he returned home at night, to find so carefully arranged
+a home, and a wife as neatly dressed as if it were Sunday. He never
+asked himself why Clarisse, after the house was in order for the day,
+took her seat at the window with folded hands, instead of occupying
+herself with needlework, like other women whose days were far too short
+for all their duties.
+
+He supposed, innocently enough, that his wife thought only of him while
+adorning herself; but the whole village of Indret could have told him
+that another occupied all her thoughts, and in this gossip the names of
+Madame Rondic and Chariot were never separated. They said that the two
+had known each other before Madame Rondic's marriage, and that if the
+nephew had wished he could have married the lady, instead of his uncle.
+
+But the young fellow had no such desire. He merely thought that Clarisse
+was charmingly pretty, and that it would be very nice to have her for
+his aunt. But later, when they were thrown so much together, while
+Father Rondic slept in the arm-chair and Z�na�de sewed at the ch�teau,
+these two natures were irresistibly attracted toward each other. But no
+one had a right to make any invidious remark; they had, besides, always
+watching over them a pair of frightfully suspicious eyes, those of
+Z�na�de. She had a way of interrupting their interviews, of appearing
+suddenly, when least expected; and, however fatigued she might be by her
+day's work, she took her seat in the chimney-corner with her knitting.
+Z�na�de, in fact, played the part of the jealous and suspicious husband.
+Picture to yourself, if you please, a husband with all the instincts and
+clearsightedness of a woman!
+
+The warfare between herself and Chariot was incessant, and the little
+outbursts served to conceal the real antipathy; but while Father Rondic
+smiled contentedly, Clarisse turned pale as if at distant thunder.
+
+Z�na�de had triumphed: she had so managed at the ch�teau that the
+Director had decided to send Chariot to Gu�rigny, to study a new model
+of a machine there. Months would be necessary for him to perfect his
+work. Clarisse understood very well that Z�na�de was at the bottom
+of this movement, but she was not altogether displeased at Chariot's
+departure; she flung herself on Z�na�de's stronger nature, and entreated
+her protection.
+
+Jack had understood for some time that between these two women there
+was a secret. He loved them both: Z�na�de won his respect and his
+admiration, while Madame Rondic, more elegant and more carefully
+dressed, seemed to be a remnant of the refinements of his former life.
+He fancied that she was like his mother; and yet Ida was lively, gay,
+and talkative, while Madame Rondic was always languid and silent. They
+had not a feature alike, nor was there any similarity in the color of
+their hair. Nevertheless, they did resemble each other, but it was
+a resemblance as vague and indefinite as would result from the same
+perfume among the clothing, or of something more subtile still, which
+only a skilful chemist of the human soul could have analyzed.
+
+Sometimes on Sunday, Jack read aloud to the two women and to Rondic.
+The parlor was the room in which they assembled on these occasions.
+The apartment was decorated with a highly colored view of Naples, some
+enormous shells, vitrified sponges, and all those foreign curiosities
+which their vicinity to the sea seemed naturally to bring to them.
+Handmade lace trimmed the curtains, and a sofa and an arm-chair of plush
+made up the furniture of the apartment. In the arm-chair Father Rondic
+took his seat to listen to the reading, while Clarisse sat in her usual
+place at the window, idly looking out. Z�na�de profited by her one day
+at home to mend the house-bold linen, disregarding the fact of the day
+being Sunday. Among the books given to Jack by Dr. Rivals was Dante's
+_Inferno_. The book fascinated the child, for it described a spectacle
+that he had constantly before his eyes. Those half naked human forms,
+those flames, those deep ditches of molten metal, all seemed to him one
+of the circles of which the poet wrote.
+
+One Sunday he was reading to his usual audience from his favorite book;
+Father Rondic was asleep, according to his ordinary custom, but the two
+women listened with fixed attention. It was the episode of Francesca da
+Rimini. Clarisse bowed her head and shuddered. Z�na�de frowned until her
+heavy eyebrows met, and drove her needle through her work with mad zeal.
+
+Those grand sonorous lines filled the humble roof with music. Tears
+stood in the eyes of Clarisse as she listened. Without noticing them,
+Zena�de spoke abruptly as the voice of the reader ceased.
+
+"What a wicked, impudent woman," she cried, "not only to relate her
+crime, but to boast of it!"
+
+"It is true that she was guilty," said Clarisse, "but she was also very
+unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy! Don't say that, mamma; one would think that you pitied this
+Francesca."
+
+"And why should I not, my child? She loved him before her marriage, and
+she was driven to espouse a man whom she did not love."
+
+"Love him or not makes but little difference. From the moment she
+married him she was bound to be faithful. The story says that he was
+old, and that seems to me an additional reason for respecting him more,
+and for preventing other people from laughing at him. The old man did
+right to kill them,--it was only what they deserved!"
+
+She spoke with great violence. Her affection as a daughter, her honor as
+a woman, influenced her words, and she judged and spoke with that cruel
+candor that belongs to youth, and which judges life from the ideal
+it has itself created, without comprehending in the least any of the
+terrible exigencies which may arise.
+
+Clarisse did not answer. She turned her face away, and was looking out
+of the window. Jack, with his eyes on his book, thought of what he had
+been reading. Here, amid these humble surroundings, this immortal legend
+of guilty love had echoed "through the corridors of time," and after
+four hundred years had awakened a response. Suddenly through the open
+casement came a cry, "Hats! hats to sell!" Jack started to his feet and
+ran into the street; but quick as he was, Clarisse had preceded him, and
+as he went out, she came in, crushing a letter into her pocket.
+
+The pedler was far down the street.
+
+"B�lisaire!" shouted Jack.
+
+The man turned. "I was sure it was you," continued Jack, breathlessly.
+"Do you come here often?"
+
+"Yes, very often;" and then B�lisaire added, after a moment, "How
+happens it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that pretty
+house?"
+
+The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,--
+
+"That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such a
+gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?"
+
+Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have
+lingered there at the corner of the street for an hour, but B�lisaire
+said he was in haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
+
+When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was
+very pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,--
+
+"What did you want of that man?"
+
+The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had
+been talking of his parents.
+
+She uttered a sigh of relief. But that whole evening she was even
+quieter than usual, and her head seemed bowed by more than the weight of
+her blonde braids.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.~~A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.
+
+"Chateau des Aulnettes.
+
+"I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his
+brother a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you
+have been at Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you,
+nevertheless, but does not seem to think you adapted for your present
+life. We are all grieved to hear this, and feel that you are not doing
+all that you might do. M. Rondic also says that the air of the workshops
+is not good for you, that you are pale and thin, and that at the least
+exertion the perspiration rolls down your face. I cannot understand
+this, and fear that you are imprudent, that you go out in the evening
+uncovered, that you sleep with your windows open, and that you forget to
+tie your scarf around your throat. This must not be; your health is of
+the first importance.
+
+"I admit that your present occupation is not as pleasant as running wild
+in the forest would be, but remember what M. D'Argenton told you, that
+'life is not a romance.' He knows this very well, poor man!--better,
+too, to-day, than ever before. You have no conception of the annoyances
+to which this great poet is exposed. The low conspiracies that have been
+formed against him are almost incredible. They are about to bring out
+a play at the Th��tre Fran�ais called '_La Fille de Faust_' It is not
+D'Argenton's play, because his is not written, but it is his idea, and
+his title! We do not know whom to suspect, for he is surrounded with
+faithful friends. Whoever the guilty party may be, our friend has
+been most painfully affected, and has been seriously ill. Dr. Hirsch
+fortunately was here, for Dr. Rivals still continues to sulk. That
+reminds me to tell you that we hear that you keep up your correspondence
+with the doctor, of which M. d'Argenton entirely disapproves. It is
+not wise, my child, to keep up any association with people above your
+station; it only leads to all sorts of chimerical aspirations. Your
+friendship for little C�cile M. d'Argenton regards also as a waste of
+time. You must, therefore, relinquish it, as we think that you
+would then enter with more interest into your present life. You will
+understand, my child, that I am now speaking entirely in your interest.
+You are now fifteen. You are safely launched in an enviable career.
+A future opens before you, and you can make of yourself just what you
+please.
+
+"Your loving mother,
+
+"Charlotte."
+
+"P. S. Ten o'clock at night.
+
+"Dearest,--I am alone, and hasten to add a good night to my letter, to
+say on paper what I would say to you were you here with me now. Do not
+be discouraged. You know just what he is. _He_ is very determined,
+and has resolved that you shall be a machinist, and you must be. Is he
+right? I cannot say. I beg of you to be careful of your health; it must
+be damp where you are; and if you need anything, write to me under cover
+to the Archambaulds. Have you any more chocolate? For this, and for any
+other little things you want, I lay aside from my personal expenses a
+little money every month. So you see that you are teaching me economy.
+Remember that some day I may have only you to rely upon.
+
+"If you knew how sad I am sometimes in thinking of the future! Life is
+not very gay here, and I am not always happy. But then, as you know, my
+sad moments do not last long. I laugh and cry at the same time without
+knowing why. I have no reason to complain, either. He is nervous like
+all artists, but I comprehend the real generosity and nobility of his
+nature. Farewell! I finish my letter for M�re Archambauld to mail as
+she goes home. We shall not keep the good woman long. M. d'Argenton
+distrusts her. He thinks she is paid by his enemies to steal his ideas
+and titles for books and plays! Good night, my dearest."
+
+Between the lines of this lengthy letter Jack saw two faces,--that of
+D'Argenton, dictatorial and stern,--and his mother's, gentle and tender.
+How under subjection she was! How crushed was her expansive nature! A
+child's imagination supplies his thoughts with illustrations. It seemed
+to Jack, as he read, that his Ida--she was always Ida to her boy--was
+shut up in a tower, making signals of distress to him.
+
+Yes, he would work hard, he would make money, and take his mother away
+from such tyranny; and as a first step he put away all his books.
+
+"You are right," said old Rondic; "your books distract your attention."
+
+In the workshop Jack heard constant allusions made to the Rondic
+household, and particularly to the relations existing between Clarisse
+and Chariot.
+
+Every one knew that the two met continually at a town half-way
+between Saint Nazarre and Indret. Here Clarisse went under pretence of
+purchasing provisions that could not be procured on the island. In the
+contemptuous glances of the men who met her, in their familiar nods, she
+read that her secret was known, and yet with blushes of shame dyeing the
+cheeks that all the fresh breezes from the Loire had no power to
+cool, she went on. Jack knew all this. No delicacy was observed in the
+discussion of such subjects before the child. Things were called by
+their right names, and they laughed as they talked. Jack did not laugh,
+however. He pitied the husband so deluded and deceived. He pitied also
+the woman whose weakness was shown in her very way of knotting her hair,
+in the way she sat, and whose pleading eyes always seemed to be asking
+pardon for some fault committed. He wanted to whisper to her, "Take
+care--you are watched." But to Char-lot he would have liked to say, "Go
+away, and let this woman alone!"
+
+He was also indignant in seeing his friend B�lisaire playing such a part
+in this mournful drama. The pedler carried all the letters that passed
+between the lovers. Many a time Jack had seen him drop one into Madame
+Rondic's apron while she changed some money, and, disgusted with his old
+ally, the child no longer lingered to speak when they met in the street.
+
+B�lisaire had no idea of the reason of this coolness. He suspected it
+so little, that one day, when he could not find Clarisse, he went to the
+machine-shop, and with an air of great mystery gave the letter to the
+apprentice. "It is for madame; give it to her secretly!"
+
+Jack recognized the writing of Chariot. "No," he said at once; "I will
+not touch this letter, and I think you would do better to sell your hats
+than to meddle with such matters."
+
+B�lisaire looked at him with amazement.
+
+"You know very well," said the boy, "what these letters are; and do you
+think that you are doing right to aid in deceiving that old man?"
+
+The pedler's face turned scarlet.
+
+"I never deceived any one; if papers are given to me to carry, I carry
+them, that is all. Be sure of one thing, and that is, if I were the sort
+of person you call me, I should be much better off than I am today!"
+
+Jack tried to make him see the thing as he saw it, but evidently the
+man, however honest, was without any delicacy of perception. "And I,
+too," thought Jack, suddenly, "am of the people now. What right have I
+to any such refinements?"
+
+That Father Rondic knew nothing of all that was going on, was not
+astonishing. But Z�na�de, where was she? Of what was she thinking?
+
+Z�na�de was on the spot,--more than usual, too, for she had not been at
+the ch�teau for a month. Her eyes were also widely open, and were more
+keen and vivacious than ever, for Z�na�de was about to be married to a
+handsome young soldier attached to the customhouse at Nantes, and the
+girl's dowry was seven thousand francs. P�re Rondic thought this too
+much, but the soldier was firm. The old man had made no provision for
+Clarisse. If he should die, what would become of her?
+
+But his wife said, "You are yet young--we will be economical. Let the
+soldier have Z�na�de and the seven thousand francs, for the girl loves
+him!"
+
+Z�na�de spent a great deal of time before her mirror. She did not
+deceive herself. "I am ugly, and M. Maugin will not marry me for my
+beauty, but let him marry me, and he shall love me later."
+
+And the girl gave a little nod, for she knew the unselfish devotion of
+which she was capable, the tenderness and patience with which she would
+watch over her husband. But all these new interests had so absorbed her
+that Z�na�de had partially forgotten her suspicions; they returned to
+her at intervals, while she was sewing on her wedding-dress, but she
+did not notice her mother's pallor nor uneasiness, nor did she feel the
+burning heat of those slender hands. She did not notice her long and
+frequent disappearances, and she heard nothing of what was rumored in
+the town. She saw and heard nothing but her own radiant happiness. The
+banns were published, the marriage-day fixed, and the little house was
+full of the joyous excitement that precedes a wedding. Z�na�de ran up
+and down stairs twenty times each day with the movements of a young
+hippopotamus. Her friends came and went, little gifts were pouring in,
+for the girl was a great favorite in spite of her occasional abruptness.
+Jack wished to make her a present; his mother had sent him a hundred
+francs.
+
+"This money is your own, my Jack," Charlotte wrote. "Buy with it a gift
+for M'lle Rondic, and some clothes for yourself. I wish you to make a
+good appearance at the wedding, and I am afraid that your wardrobe is in
+a pitiable condition. Say nothing about it in your letters, nor of me to
+the Rondics. They would thank me, which would be an annoyance, and bring
+me a reproof besides."
+
+For two days Jack carried this money with pride in his pocket. He would
+go to Nantes and buy a new suit. What a delight it would be! and how
+kind his mother was! One thing troubled him: What could he purchase
+for Z�na�de; he must first see what she had.
+
+So thinking one dark night, as he entered the house, he ran against some
+one who was coming down the steps.
+
+"Is that you, B�lisaire?"
+
+There was no reply, but as Jack pushed open the door, he saw that he was
+not mistaken, that B�lisaire had been there.
+
+Clarisse was in the corridor, shivering with the cold, and so absorbed
+by the letter she was reading in the gleam of light from the half open
+door of the parlor, that she did not even look up as Jack went in. The
+letter evidently contained some startling intelligence, and the boy
+suddenly remembered having that day heard that Chariot had lost a large
+sum of money in gambling with the crew of an English ship that had just
+arrived at Nantes from Calcutta.
+
+In the parlor Z�na�de and Maugin were alone.
+
+P�re Rondic had gone to Chateaubriand and would not return until the
+next day, which did not prevent her future husband from dining with
+them. He sat in the large arm-chair, his feet comfortably extended.
+While Z�na�de, carefully dressed, and her hair arranged by her
+stepmother, laid the table, this calm and reasonable lover entertained
+her by an estimate of the prices of the various grains, indigos,
+and oils that entered the port of Nantes. And such a wonderful
+prestidigitateur is love that Z�na�de was moved to the depths of her
+soul by these details, and listened to them as to music.
+
+Jack's entrance disturbed the lovers. "Ah, here is Jack I I had no idea
+it was so late!" cried the girl. "And mamma, where is she?"
+
+Clarisse came in, pale but calm.
+
+"Poor woman!" thought Jack, as he watched her trying to smile, to talk,
+and to eat, swallowing at intervals great draughts of water, as if to
+choke down some terrible emotion. Z�na�de was blind to all this. She
+had lost her own appetite, and watched her soldier's plate, seeming
+delighted at the rapidity with which the delicate morsels disappeared.
+
+Maugin talked well, and ate and drank with marvellous appetite; he
+weighed his words as carefully as he did the square bits into which
+he cut his bread; he held his wine-glass to the light, testing and
+scrutinizing it each time he drank. A dinner, with him, was evidently
+a matter of importance as well as of time. This evening it seemed as
+if Clarisse could not endure it; she rose from the table, went to the
+window, listened to the rattling of the hail on the glass, and then
+turning round, said,--
+
+"What a night it is, M. Maugin I I wish you were safely at home."
+
+"I don't, then!" cried Z�na�de, so earnestly that they all laughed. But
+the remark made by Clarisse bore its fruit, and the soldier rose to go.
+But it took him some time to get off. There was his lantern to light,
+his gloves to button; and the girl took all these duties on herself. At
+last the soldier was in readiness; his hood was pulled over his eyes, a
+scarf wound about his throat, then Z�na�de said good night, and watched
+her Esquimau-looking lover somewhat anxiously down the street. What
+perils might he not have to run in that thick darkness!
+
+Her stepmother called her impatiently. The nervous excitement of
+Clarisse had momentarily increased. Jack had noticed this, and also that
+she looked constantly at the clock.
+
+"How cold it must be to-night on the Loire," said Z�na�de.
+
+"Cold, indeed!" answered Clarisse, with a shiver.
+
+"Come," she said, as the clock struck ten, "let us go to bed."
+
+Then seeing that Jack was about to lock the outer door as usual, she
+stopped him, saying,--
+
+"I have done it myself. Let us go up stairs."
+
+But Z�na�de had not finished talking of M. Maugin. "Do you like his
+moustache, Jack?" she asked.
+
+"Will you go to bed?" asked Madame Rondic, pretending to laugh, but
+trembling nervously.
+
+At last the three are on the narrow staircase.
+
+"Good night," said Clarisse; "I am dying with sleep."
+
+But her eyes were very bright. Jack put his foot on his ladder, but
+Z�na�de's room was so crowded with her gifts and purchases, that it
+seemed to him a most auspicious occasion to pass them in review. Friends
+had had them under examination, and they were still displayed on the
+commode: some silver spoons, a prayer-book, gloves, and all about
+tumbled bits of paper and the colored ribbon that had fastened these
+gifts from the ch�teau; then came the more humble presents from the
+wives of the employ�s. Z�na�de showed them all with pride. The boy
+uttered exclamations of wonder. "But what shall I give her?" he said to
+himself over and over again.
+
+"And my trousseau, Jack, you have not seen it! Wait, and I will show it
+to you."
+
+With a quaint old key she opened the carved wardrobe that had been in
+the family for a hundred years; the two doors swung open, a delicious
+violet perfume filled the room, and Jack could see and admire the piles
+of sheets spun by the first Madame Rondic, and the ruffled and fluted
+linen piled in snowy masses.
+
+In fact, Jack had never seen such a display. His mother's wardrobe held
+laces and fine embroideries, not household articles. Then, lifting a
+heavy pile, she showed Jack a casket. "Guess what is in this," Z�na�de
+said, with a laugh; "it contains my dowry, my dear little dowry, that
+in a fortnight will belong to M. Maugin. Ah, when I think of it, I could
+sing and dance with joy!"
+
+And the girl held out her skirts with each hand, and executed an
+elephantine gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand.
+Suddenly she stopped; some one had rapped on the wall.
+
+"Let the boy go to bed," said her stepmother in an irritated tone; "you
+know he must be up early."
+
+A little ashamed, the future Madame Maugin shut her wardrobe, and said
+good night to Jack, who ascended his ladder; and five minutes later the
+little house, wrapped in snow and rocked by the wind, slept like its
+neighbors in the silence of the night.
+
+There is no light in the parlor of the Rondic mansion save that which
+comes from the fitful gleam of the dying fire in the chimney. A woman
+sat there, and at her feet knelt a man in vehement supplication.
+
+"I entreat you," he whispered, "if you love me--"
+
+If she loved him! Had she not at his command left the door open that he
+might enter? Had she not adorned herself in the dress and ornaments that
+he liked, to make herself beautiful in his eyes? What could it be that
+he was asking her now to grant to him? How was it that she, usually so
+weak, was now so strong in her denials? Let us listen for a moment.
+
+"No, no," she answered, indignantly, "it is impossible."
+
+"But I only ask it for two days, Clarisse. With these six thousand
+francs I will pay the five thousand I have lost, and with the other
+thousand I will conquer fortune."
+
+She looked at him with an expression of absolute terror.
+
+"No, no," she repeated, "it cannot be. You must find some other way."
+
+"But there is none."
+
+"Listen. I have a rich friend; I will write to her and ask her to lend
+me the money."
+
+"But I must have it to-morrow."
+
+"Well, then, find the Director; tell him the truth."
+
+"And he will dismiss me instantly. No; my plan is much the best. In two
+days I will restore the money."
+
+"You only say that."
+
+"I swear it." And, seeing that his words did not convince her, he added,
+"I had better have said nothing to you, but have gone at once to the
+wardrobe and taken what I needed."
+
+But she answered, trembling, for she feared that he would yet do this,
+"Do you not know that Z�na�de counts her money every day? This very
+night she showed the casket to the apprentice."
+
+Chariot started. "Is that so?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; the poor girl is very happy. It would kill her to lose it.
+Besides, the key is not in the wardrobe."
+
+Suddenly perceiving that she was weakening her own position, she was
+silent. The young man was no longer the supplicating lover, he was
+the spoiled child of the house, imploring his aunt to save him from
+dishonor.
+
+Through her tears she mechanically repeated the words, "It is
+impossible."
+
+Suddenly he rose to his feet.
+
+"You will not? Very good. Only one thing remains then. Farewell! I will
+not survive disgrace."
+
+He expected a cry. No; she came toward him.
+
+"You wish to die! Ah, well, so do I! I have had enough of life, of
+shame, of falsehood, and of love--love that must be concealed with such
+care that I am never sure of finding it. I am ready."
+
+He drew back. "What folly!" he said, sullenly. "This is too much," he
+added, vehemently, after a moment's silence, and hurried to the stairs.
+
+She followed him. "Where are you going?" she asked.
+
+"Leave me!" he said, roughly. She snatched his arm.
+
+"Take care!" she whispered with quivering lips. "If you take one more
+step in that direction, I will call for assistance!"
+
+"Call, then! Let the world know that your nephew is your lover, and your
+lover a thief."
+
+He hissed these words, in her ear, for they both spoke very low,
+impressed, in spite of themselves, by the silence and repose of the
+house. By the red light of the dying fire he appeared to her suddenly
+in his true colors, just what he really was, unmasked by one of those
+violent emotions which show the inner workings of the soul.
+
+She saw him with his keen eyes reddened by constant examination of
+the cards; she thought of all she had sacrificed for this man; she
+remembered the care with which she had adorned herself for this
+interview. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by profound disgust for herself
+and for him, and sank, half-fainting, on the couch; and while the thief
+crept up the familiar staircase, she buried her face in the pillows
+to stifle her cries and sobs, and to prevent herself from seeing and
+hearing anything.
+
+The streets of Indret were as dark as at midnight, for it was not yet
+six o'clock. Here and there a light from a baker's window or a wine-shop
+shone dimly through the thick fog. In one of these wineshops sat Chariot
+and Jack.
+
+"Another glass, my boy!"
+
+"No more, thank you. I fear it would make me very ill."
+
+Chariot laughed. "And you a Parisian! Waiter, bring more wine!"
+
+The boy dared make no farther objection. The attentions of which he
+was the object flattered him immensely. That this man, who for eighteen
+months had never vouchsafed him any notice, should, meeting him by
+chance that morning in the streets, have invited him to the cabaret and
+treated him, was a matter of surprise and congratulation to himself. At
+first Jack was somewhat distrustful of such courtesy, for the other had
+such a singular way of repeating his question, "Is there nothing new at
+the Rondics? Really, nothing new?"
+
+"I wonder," thought the apprentice, "if he wishes me to carry his
+letters, instead of B�lisaire!"
+
+But after a little while the boy became more at ease. Perhaps Chariot,
+he thought, may not be such a bad fellow. A good friend might induce him
+to relinquish play, and make him a better man.
+
+After Jack had taken his third glass of wine, he became very cordial,
+and offered to become this good friend. Chariot accepting the offer with
+enthusiasm, the boy thought himself justified in at once offering his
+advice.
+
+"Look here, M. Chariot, listen to me, and don't play any more."
+
+The blow struck home, for the young man's lips trembled nervously, and
+he swallowed a glass of brandy at one gulp.
+
+At that moment the factory-bell sounded.
+
+"I must go," cried Jack, starting to his feet. And, as his friend had
+paid for the first and second wine they had drank, he considered it
+essential that he should now pay in his turn; so he drew a louis from
+his pocket, and tossed it on the table.
+
+"Hallo! a yellow boy!" said the barkeeper, unaccustomed to seeing such
+in the possession of apprentices. Chariot started, but made no remark.
+
+"Had Jack been to the wardrobe also?" he said to himself. The boy was
+delighted at the sensation he had created. "And I have more of the
+same kind," he added, tapping his pocket. And then he whispered in his
+companion's ear, "It is for a present that I mean to buy Z�na�de."
+
+Chariot said, mechanically, "Is it?" and turned away with a smile.
+
+The innkeeper fingered the gold piece with some uneasiness.
+
+"Hurry," said Jack, "or I shall be late."
+
+"I wish, my boy," said Chariot, "that you could have remained with me
+until my boat left, which will not be for an hour."
+
+And he gently drew the lad toward the Loire. It was easily done, for,
+coming out from the cabaret into the cold air, the wine the child had
+drank made him giddy. It seemed to him that his head weighed a thousand
+pounds. This did not last long, however. "Hark!" he said; "the bell has
+stopped, I think." They turned back. Jack was terrified, for it was the
+first time that he had ever been late at the Works. But Chariot was in
+despair. "It is my fault," he reiterated. He declared that he would
+see the Director and explain matters, and was altogether so utterly
+miserable, that Jack was obliged to console him by saying that it was
+of no great consequence, after all; that he could afford to be marked
+'absent' for once. "I will go with you to the boat."
+
+The boy was so gratified by what he believed to be the good effect
+of his words on Chariot, that he enlarged on the noble nature of P�re
+Rondic and of Clarisse.
+
+"O, had you seen her this morning, you would have pitied her. She was so
+pale that she looked as if she were dead."
+
+Chariot started.
+
+"And she ate nothing. I am afraid she will be ill. And she never spoke."
+
+"Poor woman!" said Chariot, with a sigh of relief which Jack took for one
+of sorrow.
+
+They reached the wharf. The boat was not there. A thick fog covered the
+river from one shore to the other.
+
+"Let us go in here," said Chariot It was a little wooden shed, intended
+as a shelter for workmen while waiting in bad weather. Clarisse knew
+this shed very well, and the old woman who sold brandy and coffee in the
+corner had seen Madame Rondic many a time when she crossed the Loire.
+
+"Let us take a drop of brandy to keep out the cold," said Chariot.
+At that moment a shrill whistle was heard; it was the boat for Saint
+Nazarre. "Good-bye, Jack, and a thousand thanks for your good advice!"
+
+"Don't mention it," said the lad, heartily; "but pray give up gambling."
+
+"Of course I will," answered the other, hurrying on board to hide his
+amusement. When Jack was again alone he felt no desire to return to
+the Works; he was in a state of unusual excitement. Even the heavy fog
+hanging over the Loire interested him. Suddenly he said to himself, "Why
+do I not go to Nantes and buy Z�na�de's gift to-day?" A few moments saw
+him on the way; but as there was no train until noon, he must wait for
+some time, and was compelled to pass that time in a room where there
+were several of the old employ�s of the Works, who had been discharged
+for various misdemeanors. They received the lad civilly enough, and
+listened attentively when he took up some remark that was made, and
+uttered some platitudes, stolen from D'Ar-genton, on the rights of
+labor.
+
+"Listen!" they said to each other; "it is easy to see that the boy comes
+from Paris."
+
+Jack, excited by this applause and sympathy, talked fast and freely.
+Suddenly the room swam around--all grew dark. � fresh breeze restored
+him to consciousness. He was seated on the bank of the river, and a
+sailor was bathing his forehead.
+
+"Are you better?" said the man.
+
+"Yes, much better," answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
+
+"Then go on board."
+
+"Go where?" said the apprentice, in amazement.
+
+"Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for provisions?
+And here comes the man with them."
+
+Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any
+point; he embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left,
+with which he could buy some little souvenir for Z�na�de, so that his
+trip to Nantes would not be thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted
+with a poor enough appetite, and sat at the end of the boat, wrapped in
+thought. He dreamily recalled books that he had read--tales of strange
+adventures on the sea; but why did a certain old volume of Robinson
+Crusoe persistently come before him? He saw the rubbed and yellowed
+page, the vignette of Robinson in his hammock surrounded by drunken
+sailors, and above it the inscription, "And in a night of debauch I
+forgot all my good resolutions."
+
+He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and
+by a pair of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was
+annoyed by this gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
+
+"Drink with me, captain!" he said.
+
+The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, "Let
+him alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled things
+for him; he thought you had more money than you ought to have!"
+
+Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his
+money was his own, that it had been given him by------. Here he stopped,
+remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention her name.
+"But," he continued, "I can have more money when I wish it, and I am
+going to buy a wedding present for Z�na�de."
+
+He talked on, but no one listened, for a grand dispute between the two
+men was well under way as to the place where they should land.
+
+At last they entered the harbor of Nantes. Old houses, with carved
+fronts and stone balconies, met his eyes, crowded as it were among the
+shipping at the wharves. Large vessels lay at anchor in the harbor,
+looking to the boy like captives who panted for liberty, sunshine, and
+space. Then he thought of M�dou, of his flight and concealment among the
+cargo in the hold. But this thought was gone in a moment, and he found
+himself on shore between his two companions, whom he soon loses and
+finds again. They cross one bridge, and then another, and wander with
+neither end nor aim. They drink at intervals; night comes, and the
+boy accompanies the sailors to a low dance-house, still in the strange
+excitement in which he has been all day. Finally, he finds himself alone
+on a bench, in a public square, in a state of exhaustion that is far
+from sleep. The profound solitude terrifies him, when suddenly he hears
+the well-known cry,--
+
+"Hats! hats! Hats to sell!"
+
+"B�lisaire!" called the boy.
+
+It was B�lisaire. Jack made a futile effort at explanation. The man
+scolded the boy gently, lifted him up, and led him away.
+
+Where are they going? And who comes here? and what do they want of him?
+Rough men accost him; they shake him and put irons on his wrists, and he
+cannot resist, for he is still more than half asleep. He sleeps in the
+wagon into which he is thrust; in the boat, where he lies utterly inert;
+and how happy he is after being thus buffeted about to finally throw
+himself on a straw pallet, shut out from all further disturbance by huge
+locks and bolts.
+
+In the morning a frightful noise over his head awoke Jack suddenly. Ah,
+what a dismal awakening is that of drunkenness! The nervous trembling
+in every limb, the intense thirst and exhaustion, the shame and
+inexpressible anguish of the human being seeing himself reduced to the
+level of a beast, and so disgusted with his tarnished existence that he
+feels incapable of beginning life again.
+
+It was still too dark to distinguish objects, but he knew that he was
+not in his little attic. He caught a glimpse of the coming dawn in the
+white light from two high windows. Where was he? In the corner he began
+to see a confused mass of cords and pulleys. Suddenly he heard the same
+noise that had awakened him: it was a clock, and one that he well knew.
+He was at Indret, then, but where?
+
+Could it be that he was shut in the tower where refractory apprentices
+were occasionally put? And what had he done? He tried to recall the
+events of the day before, and, confused as his mind still was, he
+remembered enough to cover him with shame. He groaned heavily. The groan
+was answered by a sigh from the corner. He was not alone, then!
+
+"Who is there?" asked Jack, uneasily; "is it B�lisaire?" he added. But
+why should B�lisaire be there with him?
+
+"Yes, it is I," answered the man, in a tone of desperation.
+
+"In the name of heaven tell me why we are shut up here like two
+criminals?"
+
+"What other people have been doing I can't tell," muttered the old man;
+"I only speak for myself, and I have done no harm to any one. My
+hats are ruined,--and I, too, for that matter!" continued B�lisaire,
+dolefully.
+
+"But what have I done?" asked Jack, for he could not imagine that among
+the many follies of which he had been guilty there was one more grave
+than another.
+
+"They say--But why do you make me tell you? You know well enough what
+they say."
+
+"Indeed, I do not; pray, go on."
+
+"Well, they say that you have stolen Z�na�de's dowry."
+
+The boy uttered an exclamation of horror. "But you do not believe this,
+B�lisaire?"
+
+The old man did not answer. Every one at Indret thought Jack guilty.
+Every circumstance was against the boy. On the first report of the
+robbery, Jack was looked for, but was not to be found. Chariot had
+very well managed matters. All along the road there were traces of
+the robbery in the gold pieces displayed so liberally. Only one thing
+disturbed the belief of the boy's guilt in the minds of the villagers:
+what could he have done with the six thousand francs? Neither
+B�lisaire's pocket nor his own displayed any indication that such a sum
+of money had been in their possession.
+
+Soon after daybreak the superintendent sent for the prisoners. They were
+covered with mud, and were unwashed and unshorn; yet Jack had a certain
+grace and refinement in spite of all this; but B�lisaire's naturally
+ugly countenance was so distorted by grief and anxiety, that, as the two
+appeared, the spectators unanimously decided that this gentle-looking
+child was the mere instrument of the wretched being with whom he was
+unfortunately connected. As Jack looked about he saw several faces which
+seemed like those of some terrible nightmare, and his courage deserted
+him. He recognized the sailors, and the proprietors of several of the
+wineshops, with many others of those whom he had seen on that
+disastrous yesterday. The child begged for a private interview with the
+superintendent, and was admitted to the office, where he found Father
+Rondic, whom Jack went forward at once to greet with extended hand. The
+old man drew back sadly but resolutely.
+
+"Out of regard for your youth, Jack," said the Director, "and from
+respect to your parents, and in consideration of your hitherto good
+behavior, I have begged that, instead of being carried to Nantes and
+placed in prison, you shall remain here. I now tell you that it is for
+you to decide what will be done. Tell me the truth. Tell Father Rondic
+and myself what you have done with the money, give him back what is
+left, and--no, do not interrupt me," continued the Director, with a
+frown. "Return the money, and I will then send you to your parents."
+
+Here B�lisaire attempted to speak. "Be quiet, fellow!" said the
+superintendent; "I cannot understand how you can have the audacity to
+speak. We believe you to be in reality the guilty party, and that this
+child has simply been your tool."
+
+Jack wished to protest against this condemnation of his friend; but old
+Rondic gave him no time.
+
+"You are quite right, sir, it is bad company that has led the lad
+astray. Everybody loved him in my house; we had every confidence in him
+until he met this miserable wretch."
+
+B�lisaire looked so heart-broken at this wholesale condemnation that
+Jack rushed boldly forward in his defence. "I assure you, air, that I
+met B�lisaire late in the day."
+
+"Do you mean," said the superintendent, "that you committed this robbery
+all alone?"
+
+"I have done no wrong, sir."
+
+"Take care, my lad--you are going down hill with rapidity. Your guilt
+is very evident, and it is useless to deny it. You were alone with the
+Rondic women in their house all night. Z�na�de showed you the casket,
+and even showed you where it was kept. In the night she heard some one
+moving in your attic; she spoke; naturally you made no reply. She knew
+that it must be you, for there was no one else in the house. Then you
+must remember that we know how much money you threw away yesterday."
+
+Jack was about to say, "My mother sent it to me," when he remembered
+that she had forbidden him to mention this. So he hesitatingly murmured
+that he had been saving his money for some time.
+
+"What nonsense!" cried the Director. "Do you think you can make us
+believe that with your small wages you could have laid aside the amount
+you squandered yesterday? Tell the truth, my lad, and repair the evil
+you have done as well as possible."
+
+Then Father Rondic spoke. "Tell us, my boy, where this money is.
+Remember that it is Z�na�de's dowry, that I have toiled day and night to
+lay it aside for her, feeling that with it I might make her happy.
+You did not think of all this, I am sure, and were led away by the
+temptation of the moment. But now that you have had time to reflect, you
+will tell us the truth. Remember, Jack, that I am old, that time may not
+be given me to replace this money. Ah, my good lad, speak!"
+
+The poor man's lips trembled. It must have been a hardened criminal who
+could have resisted such a touching appeal. B�lisaire was so moved that
+he made ar series of the most extraordinary gestures. "Give him the
+money, Jack, I beg of you!" he whispered.
+
+Alas I if the child had had the money, how gladly he would have placed
+it in the hands of old Rondic, but he could only say,--
+
+"I have stolen nothing--I swear I have not!"
+
+The superintendent rose from his chair impatiently. "We have had enough
+of this. Your heart must be of adamant to resist such an appeal as has
+been made to you. I shall send you up-stairs again, and give you until
+to-night to reflect. If you do not then make a full confession, I shall
+hand you over to the proper tribunal."
+
+The boy was then left all the long day in solitude. He tried to sleep,
+but the knowledge that every one thought him guilty, that his own
+shameful conduct had given ample reason for such a judgment, overwhelmed
+him with sorrow. How could he prove his innocence? By showing his
+mother's letter. But if D'Argenton should know of it? No, he could not
+sacrifice his mother! What, then, should he do? And the boy lay on the
+straw bed, turning over in his bewildered brain the difficulties of his
+position. Around him went on the business of life; he heard the workmen
+come and go. It was evening, and he would be sent to prison. Suddenly he
+heard the stairs creak under a heavy tread, then the turning of the key,
+and Z�na�de entered hastily.
+
+"Good heavens," she cried, "how high up you are!"
+
+She said this with a careless air, but she had wept so much that her
+eyes were red and inflamed, her hair was roughened and carelessly put
+up. The poor girl smiled at Jack. "I am ugly, am I not? I have no figure
+nor complexion. I have a big nose and small eyes; but two days ago I had
+a handsome dowry, and I cared but little if some of the malicious young
+girls said, 'It is only for your money that Maugin wishes to marry you,'
+as if I did not know this! He wanted my money, but I loved him! And now,
+Jack, all is changed. To-night he will come and say farewell, and I
+shall not complain. Only, Jack, before he comes, I thought I would have
+a little talk with you."
+
+Jack had hidden his face, and was crying. Z�na�de felt a ray of hope at
+this.
+
+"You will give me back my money, Jack, will you not?" she added
+entreatingly.
+
+"But I have not got it, I assure you."
+
+"Do not say that. You are afraid of me, but I will not reproach you.
+If you have spent a little you are quite welcome, but tell me where the
+rest is!"
+
+"Listen to me, Z�na�de: this is horrible. Why should every one think me
+guilty?"
+
+She went on as if he had not spoken. "Do you understand that without
+this money I shall be miserable? In your mother's name I entreat you
+here on my knees!"
+
+She threw herself on the floor by the side of the bed where the boy sat,
+and gave way to tears and sobs. Jack, who was as unhappy as she, tried
+to take her hand. Suddenly she started up. "You will be punished. No one
+will ever love you because your heart is bad!" and she left the room.
+She ran hastily down the stairs to the superintendent's room, whom she
+found with her father. She could not speak, for her tears choked her.
+
+"Be comforted, my child!" said the Director. "Your father tells me that
+the mother of this boy is married to a very rich man. We will write to
+them. If they are good people, your dowry will be restored to you."
+
+He wrote the following letter:--
+
+"Madame: Your son has stolen a sum of money from the honest and
+hard-working man with whom he lived. This sum represents the savings of
+years. I have not yet handed him over to the authorities, hoping that he
+might be induced to restore at least a portion of this money. But I am
+afraid that it has all been squandered among drunken companions. If that
+is the case, you should indemnify the Rondics for their loss. The amount
+is six thousand francs. I await your decision before taking any further
+steps."
+
+And he signed his name.
+
+"Poor things--it is terrible news for them!" said P�re Rondic, who amid
+his own sorrows could still think of those of others.
+
+Z�na�de looked up indignantly. "Why do you pity these people? If the boy
+has taken my money, let them replace it."
+
+How pitiless is youth! The girl gave not one thought to the mother's
+despair when she should hear of her son's crime. Old Rondic, on the
+contrary, said to himself, "She will die of shame!"
+
+In due time this letter written by the superintendent reached its
+destination, as letters which contain bad news generally do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.~~CHARLOTTE'S JOURNEY.
+
+One gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines;
+the poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman
+reached Aulnettes.
+
+"Ah! a letter from Indret!" said D'Argenton, slowly opening his
+newspapers,--"and some verses by Hugo!"
+
+Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone that
+he does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else shall
+touch? Simply because Charlotte's eyes had kindled at the sight of it,
+and because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment he had
+become a secondary object in the mother's eyes.
+
+From the hour of Jack's departure, his mother's love for him had
+increased. She avoided speaking of him, however, lest she should
+irritate her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of
+the child increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained
+complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough.
+He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come.
+At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes
+flamed with malicious joy. "Ah! I knew it!" he cried, and he handed the
+sheet to Charlotte.
+
+What a terrible blow for her! Wounded in her maternal pride before the
+poet, wounded, too, by his evident satisfaction, the poor woman was
+still more overwhelmed by the reproaches of her own conscience. "It is
+my own fault!" she said to herself, "why did I abandon him?"
+
+Now he must be saved, and at all hazards. But where should she find the
+money? She had nothing. The sale of her furniture had brought in some
+millions of francs, but they had been quickly spent. The trifles of
+jewelry she had would not bring half the necessary sum. She never
+thought of appealing to D'Argenton. First, he hated the boy; and next,
+he was very miserly. Besides, he was far from rich. They lived with
+great economy in the winter, the better to keep up their hospitality
+during the summer.
+
+"I have always felt," said D'Argenton, after leaving her time to finish
+the letter, "that this boy was bad at heart!"
+
+She made no reply; indeed she hardly heard what he said. She was
+thinking that her child would go to prison if she could not obtain the
+money.
+
+He continued, "What a disgrace this is to me!" The mother was still
+saying to herself, "The money, where shall I get it?"
+
+He determined to prevent her asking him the question he saw on her lips.
+
+"We are not rich enough to do anything!"
+
+"Ah! if you could," she murmured.
+
+He became very angry. "If I could!" he cried. "I expected that! You
+know better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It is
+enough that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for
+the thefts he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find
+them?"
+
+"I did not think of you," she answered, slowly.
+
+"Of whom, then?" he questioned, sternly.
+
+With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered a
+name, expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.
+
+He was silent for a moment.
+
+"I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte," he said,
+pompously.
+
+"Thanks! thanks! How good you are!" she cried.
+
+And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the
+stairs.
+
+It was a most singular conversation--syllabic and disjointed--he
+affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. "It was impossible to
+trust to a letter," Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own audacity,
+she added, "Suppose I go to Tours myself."
+
+With the utmost tranquillity he answered, "Very well, we will go."
+
+"How good you are, dear!" she cried: "you will go with me there, and
+then to Indret with the money!" and the foolish creature kissed his
+hands with tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go to
+Tours without him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy.
+Suppose she should never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow,
+so inconsistent! The sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had
+relinquished--the influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside
+the heavy chains with which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by
+no means averse to this little journey, nor to playing his part in the
+drama at Indret.
+
+He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready
+to share her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced
+Charlotte that he loved her more than ever.
+
+At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, "We are obliged to go to Indret,
+the child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our absence."
+They left by the night express and reached Tours early in the morning.
+The old friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty ch�teaux
+overlooking the Loire. He was a widower without children, an excellent
+man, and a man of the world. In spite of her infidelity, he had none but
+the kindest recollection of the light-hearted woman who for a time had
+brightened his solitude. He consequently replied to a little note sent
+by Charlotte that he was ready to receive her.
+
+D'Argenton and she took a carriage from the hotel, and as they
+approached the ch�teau, Charlotte began to grow uneasy. "It cannot be,"
+she said to herself, "that he intends to go in with me!" She sat in the
+corner of the carriage, looking out at the fields where she had so often
+wandered with the boy, who was now wearing a workman's blouse.
+
+D'Argenton watched her from the corner of his eyes, gnawing his
+moustache with fury. She was very pretty that morning, a little pale
+from emotion and from a night of travel. D'Argenton was uneasy
+and restless; he began to regret having accompanied her, and felt
+embarrassed by the part he was playing.
+
+When he saw the ch�teau, with its grounds and fountains, its air of
+wealth, he reproached himself for his own imprudence. "She will never
+return to Aulnettes," he thought. At the end of the avenue he stopped
+the carriage. "I will wait here," he said, abruptly; and added, with a
+sad smile, "Do not be long."
+
+Ten minutes later he saw Charlotte on the terrace with a tall and
+elegant-looking man. Then began for him a terrible anguish. What were
+they saying? Should he ever see her again? And it was that detestable
+boy that had given him all this disturbance. The poet sat on the fallen
+trunk of a tree, watching feverishly the distant door. Before him was
+outspread a charming landscape--wooded hills, sloping vineyards, and
+meadows overhung with willows; on one side a ruin of the time of Louis
+IX., and on the other, one of those ch�teaux common enough on the shores
+of the Loire. Just below him a sort of canal was in process of building.
+He watched the workmen in a mechanical sort of way; they were clothed
+in uniform, and seemed an organized body. He rose and sauntered toward
+them. The laborers were only children, and their reddened eyes and pale
+faces told the story of their confinement to the poorer quarters of the
+town.
+
+"Who are these children?" questioned the poet.
+
+"They belong to the penitentiary," was the answer from the official who
+superintended them.
+
+D'Argenton asked question after question, saying that he was intimately
+connected with a family whose only son had just plunged them into deep
+affliction.
+
+"Send him to us," was the curt reply, "as soon as he leaves the prison."
+
+"But I doubt if he goes to prison," said D'Argen-ton, with a shade of
+regret in his voice; "the parents have paid the amount."
+
+"Well, then, we have another establishment--the _Maison Paternelle_.
+I have some of the circulars here in my pocket, and perhaps you would
+glance over them, sir."
+
+D'Argenton took the papers and turned back toward the house. The
+carriage was coming down the avenue, and soon Charlotte, her color
+heightened and her eyes bright with hope for her child, appeared.
+
+"I have succeeded," she cried, as the poet entered the carriage.
+
+"Ah!" he answered, dryly, relapsing into silence, turning over his
+circulars with an air of affected interest. Charlotte, too, was silent,
+supposing his pride wounded; and finally he was obliged to say, "You
+succeeded, then?"
+
+"Completely. It has always been his intention to give Jack, on his
+coming of age, a present of ten thousand francs. He has given it to me
+now. Six thousand will repay the money, and the other four thousand I am
+to employ as I think best for my child's advantage."
+
+"Employ it, then, in placing him in the _Maison Paternelle_, at Mertray,
+for two or three years. It is there only that one can learn to make an
+honest man from out of a thief."
+
+She started, for the harsh word recalled her to reality. We know that in
+that poor little brain impressions are very transitory.
+
+"I am ready to do whatever you choose," she said, "you have been so good
+and generous!"
+
+The poet was enchanted; he was still master, and he proceeded to read
+Charlotte a long lecture. Her maternal weakness was the cause of all
+that had happened. The master-hand of a man was absolutely essential.
+She did not answer, being occupied with joy at the thought of her child
+not being sent to prison.
+
+It was on Sunday morning that they reached Basse Indret. The poet went
+at once to the superintendent's, while Charlotte remained alone at the
+inn, for hotel there was none at the village. The rain beating against
+the windows, and the loud talking in the house, gave her the first clear
+impression she had received of the exile to which she had condemned her
+boy. However guilty he might be, he was still her child--her Jack. She
+remembered him as a little fellow, bright, intelligent, and sensitive,
+and the idea that he would presently appear before her as a thief and in
+a workman's blouse, seemed almost incredible. Ah! had she kept her child
+with her, or had she sent him with other boys of his age to school, he
+would have been kept from temptation. The old doctor was right, after
+all. And Jack had lived with these people for two years! All the
+prejudices of her superficial nature revolted against her surroundings.
+She was incapable of comprehending the grandeur of a task accomplished,
+of a life purchased by the fatigue of the body and the labor of the
+hands. To change the current of her thoughts, she took up the prospectus
+of which we have spoken--"_Maison Paternelle_." The system adopted was
+absolute isolation. The mother's heart swelled with anguish, and she
+closed the book and went to the window, where she stood with her eyes
+fixed on a small bit of the Loire that she saw at the foot of a street,
+where the water was as rough as the sea itself.
+
+D'Argenton, in the meantime, was accomplishing his mission. He would
+not have relinquished the duty for any amount of money. He was fond
+of attitudes and scenes. He prepared in advance the terms in which he
+should address the criminal.
+
+An old woman pointed out the house of the Rondics, but when he reached
+it he hesitated. Must he not have made a mistake? From the wide open
+windows came the sound of gay music, and heavy feet were heard keeping
+time to it. "No, this cannot be it," said D'Argenton, who naturally
+expected to find a desolate house.
+
+"Come, Z�na�de, it is your turn," called some one.
+
+"Zena�de"--why, that was Rondic's daughter! These people certainly did
+not take this affair much to heart. All at once a crowd of white-capped
+women passed the window, singing loudly.
+
+"Come, Brigadier I come, Jack!" said some one.
+
+Somewhat mystified, the poet pushed open the door, and amid the dust and
+crowd he saw Jack, radiant with happiness, dancing with a stout girl,
+who smiled with her whole heart at a good-looking fellow in uniform. In
+a corner sat a gray-haired man, much amused by all that was going on;
+with him was a tall, pale, young woman, who looked very sad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.~~CLARISSE.
+
+This was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack's
+mother, the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic
+entered, pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness with
+which she was received, her conduct having for a long time habituated
+her to the silent contempt of all who respected themselves, she refused
+to sit down, and, standing erect, said slowly, attempting to conceal her
+emotion,--
+
+"I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is
+not he who has stolen my stepdaughter's dowry."
+
+The Director started from his chair. "But, ma-dame, every proof is
+against him."
+
+"What proofs? The most important is that, my husband being away, Jack
+was alone with us in the house. It is just this proof that I have come
+to destroy, for there was another man there that night."
+
+"What man? Chariot?"
+
+She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
+
+"Then he took the money?"
+
+There was a moment's hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost
+inaudible reply was whispered, "No, it was not he who took it; I gave it
+to him!"
+
+"Unhappy woman!"
+
+"Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I
+bore for that time the sight of my husband's despair and of Z�na�de's
+tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned. Nothing came
+from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I heard
+nothing, I should denounce myself,--and here I am."
+
+"But what am I to do?"
+
+"Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are."
+
+"But your husband--it will kill him!"
+
+"And me, too," she replied, with haughty bitterness. "To die is a very
+simple matter; to live is far more difficult."
+
+She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.
+
+"If your death could repair your fault," returned the Director, gravely;
+"if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could understand why
+you should wish to die. But--"
+
+"What shall be done, then," she asked, plaintively; and all at once
+she became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination
+failed her.
+
+"First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some of
+it still."
+
+Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler
+played. She knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her,
+to procure this money, and that he would play until he had lost his last
+sou.
+
+The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:
+
+"Go at once to Saint Nazarre," said his chief; "say to Chariot that I
+require his presence here at once. You will wait for him."
+
+"Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame Rondic's; he
+cannot be far off."
+
+"That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however, that
+Madame Rondic is here."
+
+The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke. She
+stood leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the machinery,
+the wild whistling of the steam, made a fitting accompaniment to the
+tumult of her soul. The door opened.
+
+"You sent for me," said Chariot, in a gay voice.
+
+The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief,
+told the story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost
+its color, and he looked like an animal driven into a corner.
+
+"Not a word," said the Director; "we know all that you wish to say. This
+woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You promised to
+return her the money in two days. Where is it?"
+
+Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him;
+she had seen him too well that terrible night.
+
+"Where is the money?" repeated the superintendent.
+
+"Here--I have brought it."
+
+What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not
+finding her at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.
+
+His chief took up the bills. "Is it all here?"
+
+"All but eight hundred francs," the other answered, with some
+hesitation; "but I will return them."
+
+"Now sit down and write at my dictation," said the superintendent,
+sternly.
+
+Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death
+to her.
+
+"Write: 'It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six thousand
+francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.'"
+
+Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that
+Clarisse would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.
+
+The superintendent continued: "'I return the money; it burns me. Release
+the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle to
+forgive me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only when,
+through labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to shake an
+honest man's hand.' Now sign it."
+
+Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily,
+"Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter,
+and address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested."
+
+Chariot signed.
+
+"Now go," resumed the superintendent, "to Gu�rigny, if you will, and
+try to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the
+neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once."
+
+As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm
+was broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door
+closed tried to express her gratitude to the superintendent.
+
+"Do not thank me, madame," he said; "it is for your husband's sake that
+I have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most horrible torture
+that can overwhelm a man."
+
+"It is in my husband's name that I thank you. I am thinking of him, and
+of the sacrifice I must make for him."
+
+"What sacrifice?"
+
+"That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary."
+
+And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the
+superintendent feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately,
+"Keep up your courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves
+you."
+
+And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered
+a placard to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy's
+innocence. He was f�ted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and
+that was news of B�lisaire.
+
+When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack was
+greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily with
+Z�na�de and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when D'Argenton
+appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that they
+explained the finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and that a
+second letter had been sent narrating all these facts; in vain did these
+good people treat Jack with familiar kindness: D'Argenton's manner did
+not relax; he expressed in the choicest terms his regret that Jack had
+given so much trouble.
+
+"But it is I who owe him every apology," cried the old man.
+
+D'Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty,
+and of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was
+confused, for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in
+which Z�na�de's lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore
+listened with downcast eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer,
+who fairly talked Father Rondic to sleep.
+
+"You must be very thirsty after talking so long," said Z�na�de,
+innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the
+cake looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet--who was, as we
+know, something of an epicure--made a breach in it quite as large as
+that in the ham made by B�li-saire at Aulnettes.
+
+Jack had discovered one thing only from all D'Argenton's long words,--he
+had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him from
+disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great
+injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy,
+therefore, had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial reception
+of the Rondics, put the poet into the most amiable state of mind.
+You should have seen him with Jack as they trod the narrow streets of
+Indret!
+
+"Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?" said D'Argenton, unwilling
+to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character of hero and martyr;
+it was more than the selfish nature of the man could support. And yet,
+to deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing each other once
+more it was necessary to be provided with some reason; and this reason
+Jack himself soon furnished.
+
+The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability,
+acknowledged to M. d'Argenton that he did not like his present life;
+that he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from
+his mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better
+than manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy's lips, when he
+saw a change in his hearer.
+
+"You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be
+very unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten
+apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century
+was no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;" and on this text he
+wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the
+side of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in
+the inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to
+bring her the little criminal,--the boy whom she had not seen for two
+years, and whom she dearly loved. But D'Argenton had determined to keep
+them apart. It was wisest--Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would
+be reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the
+sacrifice for her child's interest.
+
+And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the
+river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across its
+waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.~~IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.
+
+How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such
+swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Z�na�de was married, and
+since Jack's terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and
+loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since
+Z�na�de's marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her
+accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never
+lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all
+alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former
+serenity.
+
+The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island,
+part of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled
+with fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some
+weeks in the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender
+and loving when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when
+the poet looked over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother was,
+that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals, who now
+came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at Aulnettes.
+
+Moronval, M�dou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who
+thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could
+see little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and
+the dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered.
+
+Thus were Dr. Rivals' words justified: "It is social distinctions that
+create final and absolute separations."
+
+Jack thought often of the old doctor and of C�cile, and on the first of
+January each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had
+remained unanswered.
+
+One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need
+him, and he must work hard for her sake.
+
+Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not
+to the ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction
+of his career. He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he
+received but three francs per day. With these three francs he must pay
+for his room, his food, and his dress; that is, he must replace his
+coarse clothing as it was worn out; and what should he do if his mother
+were to write and say, "I am coming to live with you "?
+
+"Look here," said P�re Rondic, "your parents made a great mistake in not
+listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you like to
+make a voyage? The chief engineer of the 'Cydnus' wants an assistant.
+You can have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed. Shall I
+write and say you will like the situation?"
+
+The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that M�dou's wild tales
+had awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly
+pleased at the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just
+four years after his arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became
+more fresh as the little steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack
+had never seen the sea. The fresh salt breeze inspired him with
+restless longing. Saint Nazarre lay before him,--the harbor crowded with
+shipping. They landed at the dock, and there learned that the Cydnus, of
+the _Compagnie Transatlantique_, would sail at three o'clock that day,
+and was already lying outside,--this being, in fact, the only way to
+have the crew all on board at the moment of departure.
+
+Jack and his companion--for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him on
+board his ship--had no time to see anything of the town, which had all
+the vivacity of a market-day.
+
+The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with
+fowls which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty.
+Near their merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for
+purchasers. They were in no hurry, and made no appeal to the passers-by.
+In contrast to these, there was a number of small peddlers, selling pins,
+cravats, and portemonnaies, who were loudly crying their wares. Sailors
+were hurrying to and fro, and Rondic learned from one of them that the
+chief engineer of the Cydnus was in a very bad humor because he had not
+his full number of stokers on board.
+
+"We must hasten," said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly
+threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic
+steamers lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large
+English ships just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all
+hard at work. They passed between these motionless masses, where the
+water was as dark as a canal running through the midst of a city under
+high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry
+little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed
+Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.
+
+His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures
+were eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
+
+"You have come, then, have you?" he shouted. "I was afraid you meant
+to leave me in the lurch."
+
+"It was my fault," said Rondic; "I wished to accompany the lad, and I
+could not get away yesterday."
+
+"On board with you, quick!" returned the engineer; "he must get into his
+place at once."
+
+They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who
+had never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size
+and the depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes
+accustomed to the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing. The
+heat was stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where the
+heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost insupportable.
+Great activity reigned in this room; a general examination was being
+made of the machinery, which glittered with cleanliness. Jack looked on
+curiously at the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon be his
+duty to watch it day and night.
+
+At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. "That is where the
+coal is kept," said the engineer, carelessly; "and on the other side the
+stokers sleep."
+
+Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the
+Rondics, were palaces in comparison.
+
+The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened
+by the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked,
+were stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
+
+"Here is your man," said Blanchet to the head workman.
+
+"All right, sir," said the other without turning round.
+
+"Farewell," said Rondic. "Take care of yourself, my boy!" and he was
+gone.
+
+Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the
+furnace to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very hard
+work: the baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change
+from the pure air above to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely
+suffocating. On the third trip Jack felt his legs giving way under him.
+He found it impossible to even lift his basket, and sank into a corner
+half fainting. One of the stokers, seeing his condition, brought him a
+large flask of brandy.
+
+"Thank you; I never drink anything," said Jack.
+
+The other laughed. "You will drink here," he answered.
+
+"Never," murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an effort
+of will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
+
+From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer
+ran to and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who
+came hurriedly on board. The passengers were representatives of all
+nations. Some were gay, and others were weeping, but in the faces of
+all was to be read an anxiety or a hope; for these displacements, these
+movings, are almost invariably the result of some great disturbance, and
+are, in general, the last quiver of the shock that throws you from one
+continent to the other.
+
+This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that
+strained at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty
+who had come, some of them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It
+animated the fishing-boats, whose sails were spread for a night of toil.
+
+Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the
+passengers,--those belonging to the cabins comfortably established,
+those of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they
+going? What wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality
+awaited them on their landing? One couple interested him especially:
+it was a mother and a child who recalled to him the memory of Ida and
+little Jack. The lady was young and in black, with a heavy wrap thrown
+about her, a Mexican sarape with wide stripes. She had a certain air of
+independence characteristic of the wives of military or naval officers,
+who, from the frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown on their
+own resources. The child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if
+he might have belonged to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they both
+turned aside, and the long silk skirts were lifted that they might not
+touch his blackened garments. It was an almost imperceptible movement,
+but Jack understood it. A rough oath and a slap on the shoulder
+interrupted his sad thoughts.
+
+"What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!" It
+was the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word,
+humiliated at the reproof.
+
+As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout the
+ship: she had started.
+
+"Stand there!" said the head stoker.
+
+Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty
+to fill it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not
+such an easy matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching
+of the vessel came near throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless
+toiled on courageously, but at the end of an hour he was blind and deaf,
+stifled by the blood that rushed to his head. He did as the others
+did, and ran to the outer air. Ah, how good it was! Almost immediately,
+however, an icy blast struck him between the shoulders.
+
+"Quick, give me the brandy!" he cried with a choked voice, to the man
+who had previously offered it to him.
+
+"Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before
+long."
+
+He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he was
+so cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable warmth
+spread over his whole system, and then began a burning sensation in his
+stomach. To extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within, and fire
+without,--flame upon flame,--was this the way that he was to live in
+future?
+
+Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three
+years:--three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room
+down in the bowels of that big ship.
+
+He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian,
+French, and Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the
+climes they visited, the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had
+emptied his cinders, broken his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept
+the sleep of exhaustion and intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he
+lives. In the darkness of his life there was but one bright spot, his
+mother. She was like the Madonna in a chapel where all the lights are
+extinguished save the one that burns before her shrine. Now that he had
+become a man, much of the mystery of her life had become clear to him.
+His respect for Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and he loved her
+as we love those for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing moments
+he remembered the end for which he toiled, and a mechanical instinct
+made him carefully preserve almost every sou of his wages.
+
+Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother and
+son. Jack's letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte were
+frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life, that
+he read them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a living
+tenderness.
+
+Letters from Etiolles told him of D'Argenton; later, some from Paris
+spoke of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the
+poet having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of
+friends. This would be a way of bringing his works prominently before
+the public, as well as to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a
+large package addressed to him. It was the first number of the magazine.
+The stoker mechanically turned its leaves, leaving on them the traces of
+his blackened fingers; and suddenly, as he saw the well-known names of
+D'Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the smooth pages, he was seized
+with wild rage and indignation, and he cried aloud, as he shook his fist
+impatiently in the air, "Wretches, wretches! what have you made of me?"
+
+This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and,
+strangely enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and
+better able to support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed hardly
+to recognize any difference between bis days when the ship tossed and
+groaned, and his nights when he slept a drunken sleep, disturbed only by
+an occasional nightmare.
+
+Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams?
+That rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,--was all that a
+dream? His comrades called him, shook him. "Jack, Jack!" they cried; he
+staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under water,
+the compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against each
+other in the darkness. "What is it?" they cried.
+
+An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow
+ladder; at the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his
+hand.
+
+"The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your
+furnaces! Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are
+obeyed." Each one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They
+charged the furnaces with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured
+out; while the water still ascending, in spite of the constant work at
+the pumps, was as cold as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces
+will not burn. The stokers are in water up to their shoulders before the
+voice of the chief engineer is heard: "Save yourselves, my men, if you
+can!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.~~D'ARGENTON'S MAGAZINE.
+
+In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging
+to the last century, D'Argen-ton had established himself as editor of
+the new magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor.
+Do not smile: this was really the case; his money had been used to
+establish it Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so employing
+these funds, which she wished to preserve intact for the boy on his
+attaining his majority; but she yielded to the poet's persuasions.
+
+"Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you' know. Can there be a
+better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad,
+at least Have I not placed my own funds in it?"
+
+Within six months D'Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and
+the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous. Besides
+the offices of the magazine, D'Argenton had hired in the same house a
+large apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the Seine,
+N�tre Dame, numberless spires and domes, were all spread before his
+eyes. He saw the carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats glide
+through the arches. "Here I can live and breathe," he said to himself.
+"It was impossible for me to accomplish anything in that dull little
+hole of Aulnettes! How could one work in such a lethargic atmosphere?"
+
+Charlotte was still young and gay; she managed the house and the
+kitchen, which was no small matter with the number of persons who daily
+assembled around her table. The poet, too, had recently acquired the
+habit of dictating instead of writing, and as Charlotte wrote a graceful
+English hand, he employed her as secretary. Every evening, when they
+were alone, he walked up and down the large room and dictated for an
+hour. In the silent old house, his solemn voice, and another sweeter and
+fresher, awakened singular echoes. "Our author is composing," said the
+concierge with respect.
+
+Let us look in upon the D'Argenton m�nage. We find them installed in a
+charming little room, filled with the aroma of green tea and of Havana
+cigars. Charlotte is preparing her writing-table, arranging her pens,
+and straightening the ream of thick paper. D'Argenton is in excellent
+vein; he is in the humor to dictate all night, and twists his moustache,
+where glitter many silvery hairs. He waits to be inspired. Charlotte,
+however, as is often the case in a household, is very differently
+disposed: a cloud is on her face, which is pale and anxious; but
+notwithstanding her evident fatigue, she dips her pen in the inkstand.
+
+"Let us see--we are at chapter first. Have you written that?"
+
+"Chapter first," repeated Charlotte, in a low, sad voice.
+
+The poet looked at her with annoyance; then, with an evident
+determination not to question her, he continued,--
+
+"In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore--"
+
+He repeated these words several times, then turning to Charlotte, he
+said, "Have you written this?"
+
+She made an effort to repeat the words, but stopped, her voice strangled
+with sobs. In vain did she try to restrain herself, her tears flowed in
+torrents.
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" said D'Argenton. "Is it this news of
+the Cydnus? It is a mere flying report, I am sure, and I attach no
+importance to it. Dr. Hirsch was to call at the office of the Company
+to-day, and he will be here directly."
+
+He spoke in a satirical tone, slightly disdainful, as the weak,
+children, fools, and invalids are often addressed. Was she not something
+of all these?
+
+"Where were we?" he continued, when she was calmer. "You have made me
+lose the thread. Read me all you have written."
+
+Charlotte wiped her tears away.
+
+"In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"It is all," she answered.
+
+The poet was very much surprised; it seemed to him that he had dictated
+much more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression bewildered
+him. All that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his brain, he
+fancied was already in form and on the page, and he was aghast at the
+disproportion between the dream and the reality. His delusion was like
+that of Don Quixote,--he believed himself in the Empyrean, and took the
+vapors from the kitchen for the breath of heaven, and, seated on his
+wooden horse, felt all the shock of an imaginary fall.. Had he been in
+such a state of mental exaltation merely to produce those two lines?
+Were these the only result of that frantic rubbing of his dishevelled
+hair, of that weary pacing to and fro?'
+
+He was furious, for he felt that he was ridiculous. "It is your fault,"
+he said to Charlotte. "How can a man work in the face of a crying woman?
+It is always the same thing--nothing is accomplished. Years pass away
+and the places are filled. Do you not know how small a thing disturbs
+literary composition? I ought to live in a tower a thousand feet above
+all the futilities of life, instead of being surrounded by caprices,
+disorder, and childishness." As he speaks he strikes a furious blow upon
+the table, and poor Charlotte, with the tears pouring from her eyes,
+gathers up the pens and papers that have flown about the room in wild
+confusion.
+
+The arrival of Dr. Hirsch ends this deplorable scene, and after a while
+tranquillity is restored. The doctor is not alone; Labassandre comes
+with him, and both are grave and mysterious in their manner.
+
+Charlotte turns hastily. "What-news, doctor?" she asks.
+
+"None, madame; no news whatever."
+
+But Charlotte detected a covert glance at D'Argenton, and knew that the
+physician's words were false.
+
+"And what do the officers of the Company say?" continued the mother,
+determined to learn the truth.
+
+Labassandre undertook to answer, and while he spoke, the doctor
+contrived to convey to D'Argenton that the Cydnus had gone to the
+bottom�,--"a collision at sea--every soul was lost."
+
+D'Argenton's face never changed, and it would have been difficult to
+form any idea of his feelings.
+
+"I have been at work," he said. "Excuse me, I need the fresh air."
+
+"You are right," said Charlotte; "go out for a walk;" and the poor
+woman, who usually detained her poet in the house lest the high-born
+ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain should entrap him, is this evening
+delighted to see him leave her, that she may weep in peace--that she may
+yield to all the wild terror and mournful presentiments that assail her.
+This is why even the presence of the servant annoys her, and she sends
+her to her attic.
+
+"Madame wishes to be alone! Is not madame afraid? The noise of the wind
+is very dismal on the balcony."
+
+"No, I am not afraid; leave me."
+
+At last she was alone. She could think at her ease, without the voice of
+her tyrant saying, "What are you thinking about?" Ever since she had
+read in the Journal the brief words, "There is no intelligence of the
+Cydnus," the image of her child had pursued her. Her nights had been
+sleepless, and she listened to the wind with singular terror. It seemed
+to blow from all quarters, rattling the windows and wailing through the
+chimneys. But whether it whispered or shrieked, it spoke to her, and
+said what it always says to the mothers and wives of sailors, who turn
+pale as they listen. The wind comes from afar, but it comes quickly and
+has met with many adventures. With one gust it has torn away the sails
+of a vessel, set fire to a quiet home, and carried death and destruction
+on its wings. This it is that gives to its voice such melancholy
+intonations.
+
+This night it was dreary enough: it rattles the windows and whistles
+under the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this
+poor mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking
+of the clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same
+plaintive tone and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well
+what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on the
+broad ocean, without sails or rudder--of a maddened crowd on the deck,
+of cries and shrieks, curses and prayers. Her hallucination is so strong
+that she even hears from the ship a beseeching cry of "Mamma!" She
+starts to her feet; she bears it again. To escape it, she walks about
+the room, opens the door and looks down the corridor. She sees nothing,
+but she hears a sigh, and, raising her lamp higher, discovers a dark
+shadow crouched in the corner.
+
+"Who is that?" she cried, half in terror, half in hope.
+
+"It is I, dear mother!" said a weak voice.
+
+She ran toward him. It is her boy--a tall, rough sailor--rising as she
+approached him, with the aid of a pair of crutches. And this is what
+she has made of her child! Not a word, not an exclamation, not a caress.
+They look at each other, and tears fill the eyes of both.
+
+A certain fatality attaches itself to some people, which renders them
+and all that they do absolutely ridiculous. When D'Argenton returned
+that night, he came with the determination to disclose the fatal news to
+Charlotte, and to have the whole affair concluded. The manner in which
+he turned the key in the lock announced this solemn determination.
+But what was his surprise to find the parlor a blaze of light!
+Charlotte--and on the table by the fire the remains of a meal. She came
+to him in a terrible state of agitation.
+
+"Hush! Pray make no noise--he is here and asleep."
+
+"Who is here?"
+
+"Jack, of course. He has been shipwrecked, and is severely injured. He
+has been saved as by a miracle. He has just come from Rio Janeiro, where
+he spent two months in a hospital."
+
+D'Argenton forced a smile, which Charlotte endeavored to believe was one
+of satisfaction. It must be acknowledged that he behaved very well, and
+said at once that Jack must stay there until he was entirely recovered.
+In fact, he could do no less for the actual proprietor of his Review.
+
+The first excitement over, the ordinary life of the poet and Charlotte
+was resumed, changed only by the presence of the poor lame fellow, whose
+legs were badly burned by the explosion of a boiler, and had not yet
+healed. He was clothed in a jacket of blue cloth. His light moustache,
+the color of ripe wheat, was struggling into sight through the thick
+coating of tan that darkened his face; his eyes were red and inflamed,
+for the lashes had been burned off; and in a state of apathy painful to
+witness, the son of Ida de Barancy dragged himself from chair to chair,
+to the irritation of D'Argenton and to the great shame of his mother.
+When some stranger entered the house and cast an astonished glance at
+this figure, which offered so strange a contrast to the quiet, luxurious
+surroundings, she hastened to say, "It is my son, he has been very ill,"
+in the same way that the mothers of deformed children quickly mention
+the relationship, lest they should surprise a smile or a compassionate
+look. But if she was pained in seeing her darling in this state, and
+blushed at the vulgarity of his manners or his awkwardness at the table,
+she was still more mortified at the tone of contempt with which her
+husband's friends spoke of her son.
+
+Jack saw little difference in the habitu�s of the house, save that they
+were older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they
+were the same. They had attained no higher social position, and were
+still without visible means of support.
+
+They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice
+each week they all dined at D'Argenton's table. Moronval generally
+brought with him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince
+of an indefinite age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed very
+small and slender. With his little cane and hat, he looked like a figure
+of yellow clay fallen from an �tag�re upon the Parisian sidewalk. The
+other, with narrow slits of eyes and a black beard, recalled certain
+vague remembrances to Jack, who at last recognized his old friend Said
+who had offered him cigar ends on their first interview.
+
+The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished,
+but his parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the
+manners and customs of fashionable society. All these persons treated
+Jack with a certain air of condescension. He remained Master Jack to but
+one person--that was that most amiable of women, Madame Moronval, who
+wore the same silk dress that he had seen her in years before. He cared
+little whether he was called "Master Jack," or "My boy,"--his two months
+in the hospital, his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the atmosphere
+of the engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion, had caused him
+such profound exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that he sat with his
+pipe between his teeth, silent and half asleep.
+
+"He is intoxicated," said D'Argent on sometimes.
+
+This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the
+society of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent.
+Then he drew his chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than
+talk himself. Her voice made a delicious murmur in his ears like that of
+the first bees on a warm spring day.
+
+Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, "When I
+was a child I went on a long voyage--did I not?"
+
+She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life
+that he had asked a question in regard to his history.
+
+"Why do you wish to know?"
+
+"Because, three years ago, the first day that I was on board a steamer,
+I had a singular sensation. It seemed to me that I had seen it all
+before; the cabins, and the narrow ladders, impressed me as familiar; it
+seemed to me that I had once played on those very stairs."
+
+She looked around to assure herself that they were entirely alone.
+
+"It was not a dream, Jack. You were three years old when we came from
+Algiers. Your father died suddenly, and we came back to Tours."
+
+"What was my father's name?"
+
+She hesitated, much agitated, for she was not prepared for this sudden
+curiosity; and yet she could not refuse to answer these questions.
+
+"He was called by one of the grandest names in France, my child--by
+a name that you and I would bear to-day if a sudden and terrible
+catastrophe had not prevented him from repairing his fault. Ah, we
+were very young when we met! I must tell you that at that time I had a
+perfect passion for the chase. I remember a little Arabian horse called
+Soliman--"
+
+She was gone, at full speed, mounted on this horse, and Jack made no
+effort to interrupt her--he knew that it was useless. But when she
+stopped to take breath, he profited by this brief halt to return to his
+fixed idea.
+
+"What was my father's name?" he repeated.
+
+How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of
+whom they had been speaking. She answered quickly,--"He was called
+the Marquis de l'Epau." Jack certainly had but little of his mother's
+respect for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he received
+with the greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his illustrious
+descent. What mattered it to him that his father was a marquis, and
+bore a distinguished name? This did not prevent his son from earning his
+bread as a stoker on the Cydnus.
+
+"Look here, Charlotte," said D'Argenton impatiently, one day, "something
+must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He cannot
+remain here forever without doing anything. He is quite well again; he
+eats like an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but Dr. Hirsch
+says that is nothing,--that he will always cough. He must decide on
+something. If the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too severe for
+him, let him try a railroad."
+
+Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, "If you could see how he loses his
+breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still
+feel that he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the
+office work?"
+
+"I will speak to Moronval," was the reply.
+
+The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the
+office except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack
+fulfilled these various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of
+Moronval with the same indifference that he opposed to D'Argenton's cold
+contempt. Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it was
+small, to be sure, but he added to it by supplementary labors, for which
+he was paid certain sums on account. The subscription books lay open on
+the desk, expenses went on, but no receipts came in. In fact, there was
+but one subscriber, Charlotte's friend at Tours, and but one proprietor,
+and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was at work in a corner. Neither
+Jack nor any one else realized this; but D'Argenton knew it and felt
+it hourly, and soon hated more strongly than ever the youth upon whose
+money he was living.
+
+At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the
+office.
+
+"But, my dear," said Charlotte, "he does all he can!"
+
+"And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit
+nor how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and
+since this great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown ten
+years older, my love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he drinks."
+
+Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but
+whose fault was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf?
+
+"I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change
+of air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing for
+him."
+
+She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go
+the next day to install her son at Aulnettes.
+
+They arrived there on one of those soft autumnal mornings which have all
+the beauty of summer without its excessive heat. There was not a breath
+in the air; the birds sang loudly, the fallen leaves rustled gently, and
+a perfume of rich maturity of ripened grain and fruit filled the air.
+The paths through the woods were still green and fresh; Jack recognized
+them all, and, seeing them, regained a portion of his lost youth. Nature
+herself seemed to welcome him with open arms, and he was soothed and
+comforted. Charlotte left her son early the next morning, and the little
+house, with its windows thrown wide open to the soft air and sunlight,
+had a peaceful aspect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.~~THE CONVALESCENT.
+
+"And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
+belief that my Jack was a thief!"
+
+"But, Dr. Rivals--"
+
+"And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
+Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!"
+
+It was, on feet, at the forester's cottage that Jack and his old friend
+had met.
+
+For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each
+day he had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons
+with whom he held any communication were the old forester and his wife,
+who had served Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched over
+his health, purchased his provisions, and often cooked his dinner over
+her own fire, while he sat and smoked at the door. These people never
+asked a question, but when they saw his thin figure and heard his
+constant cough, they shook their heads.
+
+The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing
+to both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor
+understood the truth, the awkwardness passed away.
+
+"And now," said the old gentleman, gayly, "I hope we shall see you
+often. You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse,
+but you need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great
+care,--particularly in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you
+understand. Our house is changed, for my poor wife died four years
+ago,--died of absolute grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her
+place; she keeps my books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she
+will be to see you! Now when will you come?"
+
+Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,--
+
+"C�cile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling
+of restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog
+is not good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now
+in with you quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall.
+If you do not appear I shall come for you."
+
+As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It
+seemed to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives
+with the doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room,
+while the poet was above in the tower.
+
+He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of dried
+grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very chilly. As of
+old, when he returned from his country excursions with the doctor, the
+remembrance of his kindness and affection rendered him impervious to the
+slights he received at home, so now did the prospect of seeing C�cile
+people his solitude with dear phantoms and happy visions, that remained
+with him even while he slept.
+
+The next day he knocked at the Rivals' door.
+
+"The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office," was the
+reply of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he
+had known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient to
+behold his former companion.
+
+"Come in, Jack," said a sweet voice.
+
+Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming
+apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde
+hair, was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had
+not the little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet
+recollections of their common child-hood!
+
+"Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me," she said. "I
+have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you, and
+often spoke of you."
+
+He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as
+she stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her
+head slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
+
+Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in C�cile
+there was something indefinable--an aroma of some divine spring-time,
+something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte's mannerisms and graces
+bore little resemblance.
+
+Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of
+his own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and
+the nails were broken and deformed,--irretrievably injured by contact
+with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even
+by putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of
+others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D'Argenton's, that
+was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this
+physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all the
+disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies, the
+hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection, and it
+seemed to him that C�cile knew them, too. The slight cloud that hung on
+her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all told him
+that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to run away and
+shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it again.
+
+Fortunately, some one came into the office, and C�cile, busy at her
+scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time
+to recover his equanimity.
+
+How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid
+and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with
+her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them
+gently for their mistakes.
+
+She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack's,--the
+very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was
+little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor,
+burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Sal� yet retained a
+little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been
+sick for months,--who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two
+or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked C�cile
+directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack
+felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he
+restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which C�cile
+listened.
+
+The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack
+going out, recognized him.
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, "the little Aulnettes boy come to life again?
+Ah, Mademoiselle C�cile, your uncle won't want you to marry him now, I
+fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the
+doctor desired;" and, chuckling, she left the room.
+
+Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so
+many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the
+only one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was
+scarlet with annoyance.
+
+"Come, Catherine, bring the soup." It was the doctor who spoke. "And you
+two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven years'
+absence?"
+
+At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of
+his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands--what could he
+do with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The
+whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. C�cile saw his
+discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it, hardly
+glanced again in his direction.
+
+Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot
+water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her
+grandmother's death had mixed the doctor's grog. And the good man
+had not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a
+melancholy tone, "diminished daily the quantity of alcohol."
+
+When she had served her grandfather, C�cile turned toward their guest.
+
+"Do you drink brandy?" she asked.
+
+"Does he drink brandy?" said the doctor, with a laugh, "and he in an
+engine-room for three years? Don't you know--ignorant little puss that
+you are--that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board
+a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
+draught. Make Jack's strong, my dear."
+
+She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
+
+"Will you have some?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle," he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
+withdrew his glass,--for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
+one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and
+which are only understood by those whom they address.
+
+"Upon my word, a conversion!" said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
+converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in
+God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work
+in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had
+every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking
+to himself, and gesticulating wildly. "Yes," he exclaimed,
+"M. d'Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with
+my equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them." It was a
+very long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New
+thoughts and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was C�cile's image.
+What a marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that
+had he been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to
+become his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road,
+he found himself face to face with Mother Sal�, who was dragging a fagot
+of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his
+present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so
+terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the
+wood.
+
+That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
+Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
+doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
+autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the last
+years of his life.
+
+No, C�cile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
+secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life
+that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among
+very scrupulous people. He had never heard his father's name mentioned,
+and therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the
+extent of his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of
+the senses he lacks.
+
+But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all
+others.
+
+He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told it;
+but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really a
+marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely to
+avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father were
+still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son? The
+poor fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman's heart is more
+moved by compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the world.
+
+"I will write to my mother," he thought. But the questions he wished
+to ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at
+once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the work
+of words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech. Unfortunately he
+had no money for his railroad fare. "Pshaw!" he said, "I can go on foot.
+I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it again." And he did
+try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less long and less lonely
+than it did before, it was far more sad.
+
+Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
+Saint-George's, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
+carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so
+terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth
+could suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more
+afraid of the Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.
+
+He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling;
+and pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the
+present time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening
+when his mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in
+glory, and chasing away the shades of night.
+
+Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses,
+Jack saw D'Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval,
+who was carrying a bundle of proofs.
+
+"Here is Jack!" said Moronval.
+
+The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with
+so much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet coat,
+much too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would have
+supposed that any tie could exist between them.
+
+Jack extended his hand to D'Argenton, who gave one finger in return, and
+asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
+
+"Rented?" said the other, not understanding.
+
+"To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
+occupied, and you were compelled to leave it."
+
+"No," said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; "no one has even called to look
+at the place."
+
+"What are you here for?"
+
+"To see my mother."
+
+"Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however,
+there are travelling expenses to be thought of."
+
+"I came on foot," said Jack, with simple dignity.
+
+"Indeed!" drawled D'Argenton, and then added, "I am glad to see that your
+legs are in better order than your arms."
+
+And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
+
+A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by Jack,
+but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His pride
+was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes without
+seeing his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most seriously.
+He entered the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches were being
+brought in, for a great f�te was in progress of arrangement, which
+was the reason that D'Argenton was so out of temper on seeing
+Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some of her
+preparations.
+
+"Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
+utterly,--that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going
+to Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments
+with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery."
+
+They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were
+going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
+
+"I wish to speak seriously," said Jack.
+
+"What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and
+to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations,
+it will be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary.
+I have arranged a veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not
+convenient?"
+
+She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
+with a sofa and jardini�re, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
+pattering on the zinc roof.
+
+Jack said to himself, "I had better have written," and did not know what
+to say first.
+
+"Well?" said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
+attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment,
+as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an �tag�re of trifles,
+for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head
+that leaned toward him.
+
+"I should like--I should like to talk to you of my father," he said,
+with some hesitation.
+
+On the end of her tongue she had the words, "What folly!" If she did
+not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
+amazement and fear, spoke for her.
+
+"It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as
+it is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you.
+Besides," she added, solemnly, "I have always intended, when you were
+twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth."
+
+It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three
+months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered
+no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an older
+narration. How well he knew her!
+
+"Is it true that my father was noble?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Indeed he was, my child."
+
+"� marquis?"
+
+"No, only a baron."
+
+"But I supposed--in fact, you told me--"
+
+"No, no--it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble."
+
+"He was connected then with the Bulac family?"
+
+"Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch."
+
+"And his name was--"
+
+"The Baron de Bulac--a lieutenant in the navy."
+
+Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, "How long since he died?"
+
+"O, years and years!" said Charlotte, hurriedly.
+
+That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
+falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a
+L'Epau?
+
+"You are looking ill, child," said Charlotte, interrupting herself in
+the midst of a long romance she was telling, "your hands are like ice."
+
+"Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise," answered Jack, with
+difficulty.
+
+"Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before
+it is late." She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his
+throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his
+silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a f�te in
+which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the
+waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
+
+"You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself."
+
+He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother
+all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this f�te from
+which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life
+from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who
+could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a
+family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from
+asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing
+that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it
+was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would
+impart the strength to cope with them.
+
+Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a
+spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere.
+It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
+overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets,
+going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one
+word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole
+refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on
+his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an
+exclamation of despair.
+
+"They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?" and entering
+one of those miserable drink-ing-shops, Jack called for a double measure
+of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
+and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,--
+
+"Do you drink brandy, Jack?"
+
+No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
+shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.
+
+How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks' duration after this long
+walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals,
+who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health,
+is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack
+seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor's
+office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky,
+the silent house, and the gentle footfall of C�cile.
+
+He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with
+watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple
+home. She sewed and kept her grandfather's accounts.
+
+"I am sure," she said, looking up from her book, "that the dear man
+forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?"
+
+"Mademoiselle!" he answered, with a start.
+
+He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all
+his eyes. If C�cile said, "My friend," it seemed to Jack that no
+other person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or
+good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again.
+Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected
+ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was
+more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have been.
+
+O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a
+large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a
+village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room
+was filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their
+flowering, and he drank it in with delight.
+
+In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in
+the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor
+of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
+
+With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old
+volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and
+which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all
+day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified
+many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living, it
+would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself, and
+then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.
+
+Meanwhile D'Argenton, informed of Jack's removal to the Rivals, saw fit
+to take great offence. "It is not at all proper," wrote Charlotte, "that
+you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give you the
+care you need? You place us in a false position."
+
+This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:--"I
+sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the
+science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two
+days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration
+of that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant
+disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us."
+
+As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with
+much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart
+from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least
+intimidated by her coldness, said at once, "I ought to tell you, madame,
+that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed
+through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions
+can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to
+which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk
+and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere,
+and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer,
+and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of
+renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch
+get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him
+forever."
+
+"Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an
+insult?" and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with
+a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her
+son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off
+some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He
+turned pale when he saw her.
+
+"You have come to take me away," he exclaimed.
+
+"Not at all," she answered, hastily. "The doctor wishes you to remain,
+and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
+tenderly?"
+
+For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother,
+and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly
+caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked
+tired and troubled.
+
+"We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
+reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese
+prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D'Argenton has
+translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese
+tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that
+literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent,
+and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is
+dead. Do you remember him?"
+
+At this moment C�cile came in and was received by Charlotte with the
+most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
+D'Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely,
+for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in
+C�cile's pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless
+babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame
+D'Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long,
+and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her
+delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet's
+frowning face.
+
+"Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your
+letter '_to be called for_,' for M. D'Argenton is much vexed with you
+just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next
+letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my
+sentences sometimes; but don't mind, dear, you will understand."
+
+She acknowledged her slavery with na�vet�, and Jack was consoled for the
+tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent
+spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her
+travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of
+life.
+
+Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the
+depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they
+expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling
+the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of
+these two young hearts. With C�cile, the divine flower had grown in a
+limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it.
+With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems
+reached the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and
+needed but little more to burst into flower.
+
+"If you wish," said M. Rivals, one evening, "we will go to-morrow to the
+vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go in
+that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner."
+
+They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright
+morning at the end of October. � soft haze hung over the landscape,
+retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the
+bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of
+the summer's brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of
+gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge
+trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young
+travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and
+holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the farmer's
+daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which are
+very numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of ripening
+fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
+
+They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a
+crowd at work. Jack and C�cile each snatched a wicker basket and joined
+the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen
+between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and
+picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white foam,
+and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh breeze
+that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
+
+This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not
+leave C�cile's side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a
+skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the
+grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the
+wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack
+raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same
+faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above
+her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and
+brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil,
+the gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had
+absolutely transformed M. Rivals' quiet housekeeper. She became a child
+once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder,
+watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which
+Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their
+heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two
+young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance
+of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.
+
+And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly
+on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal
+twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple
+homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and C�cile insisted on
+fastening around Jack's throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and
+softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was like a
+caress to the lover.
+
+He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was
+all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they
+heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal
+evenings has a charm that both C�cile and Jack felt as they entered the
+large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper innumerable
+dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound indifference
+to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully appreciated them, so
+fully that his granddaughter quietly left her seat, ordered the carriage
+to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing
+her in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving on the table his
+half-filled glass.
+
+The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country
+roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants,
+groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from
+the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed
+to follow with a golden shower.
+
+"Are you cold, Jack?" said the doctor, suddenly.
+
+How could he be cold? The fringe of C�cile's great shawl just touched
+him.
+
+Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew
+now that he loved C�cile, but he realized also that this love would be
+to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him,
+and although he had changed much since he had been so near her, although
+he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and appearance,
+he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had transformed
+him.
+
+The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was
+distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to
+grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in "the office." What would she
+think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he
+must go.
+
+One morning he entered M. Rivals' house to thank him for all his
+kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
+
+"You are right," said the old man; "you are well now bodily and
+mentally, and you can soon find some employment."
+
+There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular
+attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. "You have something to say
+to me," said the doctor, abruptly.
+
+Jack colored and hesitated.
+
+"I thought," continued the doctor, "that when a youth was in love with a
+girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper thing
+was to speak to him frankly."
+
+Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
+
+"Why are you so troubled, my boy?" continued his old friend.
+
+"I did not dare to speak to you," answered Jack; "I am poor and without
+any position."
+
+"You can remedy all this."
+
+"But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!"
+
+"Yes, I know--and so is she," said the doctor, calmly. "Now listen to a
+long story."
+
+They were in the doctor's library. Through the open window they saw a
+superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless
+trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated,
+and its crosses upheaved.
+
+"You have never been there," said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this
+melancholy spot. "Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which
+is the one word Madeleine.
+
+"There lies my daughter, C�cile's mother. She wished to be placed apart
+from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put upon
+her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her father
+and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing to merit
+this exile after death, and if any should have been punished, it was I,
+an old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon us.
+
+"One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry
+on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the For�t de
+S�nart. A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man on
+the state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with light
+hair and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the cold
+glitter of ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of the
+balls, and, the operation over, thanked me in excellent French, though
+with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved without danger, I
+continued to attend him at the forester's; I learned that he was a
+Russian of high rank,--'the Comte Nadine,' his companions called him.
+
+"Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
+constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was
+soon able to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took
+compassion on his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet home
+to my own house to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he spent
+the night with us. I must acknowledge to you that I adored the man.
+He had great stores of information, had been everywhere, and seen
+everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic recipes of his own land,
+to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine. We were positively
+enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face homeward on a
+rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find so congenial a
+person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the general enthusiasm,
+but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a certain distrust as a
+balance to my recklessness, I paid little attention. Meanwhile our
+invalid was quite well enough to return to Paris, but he did not go, and
+I did not ask either myself or him why he lingered.
+
+"One day my wife said, 'M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to
+the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.'
+
+"'What nonsense!' I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count
+lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks,
+idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the
+room, I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her
+embroidery all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind
+as those which will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when
+Madeleine acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went
+to find the comte to force an explanation.
+
+"He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
+wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way by
+his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for himself,
+and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount that I
+could give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
+
+"A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the
+very moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of
+lordly decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly
+attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future
+son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I
+realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but
+my daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, 'We must know more
+before we give up our daughter,' I laughed at her, I was so certain
+that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Vi�ville, one of the
+huntsmen.
+
+"'Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,' he said; 'he strikes me
+as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and that
+he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should wish
+to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the Russian
+embassy; they can tell you everything there.'
+
+"You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what I
+did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I have
+never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have never
+had any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half of
+what I have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of this
+additional information, I finished by lying, 'Yes, yes, I went there;
+everything is satisfactory.' Since then I remember the singular air of
+the comte each time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that time
+I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans that my children were making
+for their future happiness. They were to live with us three months in
+the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St. Petersburg, where
+Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor wife ended in sharing
+my joy and satisfaction.
+
+"The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count's papers were
+long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last
+the papers came--a package of hieroglyphics impossible to
+decipher,--certificates of birth, baptism, &c. That which particularly
+amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law,
+Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
+
+"'Have you really as many names as that?' said my poor child, laughing;
+'and I am only Madeleine Rivals.'
+
+"There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris
+with great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave
+the paternal authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at
+Etiolles, in the little church where to this very day are to be seen the
+records of an irreparable falsehood. How happy I was that morning as I
+entered the church with my daughter trembling on my arm, feeling that
+she owed all her happiness to me!
+
+"Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the
+bridal couple in a post-chaise--I can see them now as they drove away.
+
+"The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough.
+When we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our
+side was dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but
+the poor mother was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart
+was devoured by her regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their
+sorrows and their griefs come from within, and are interwoven with their
+daily lives and employments.
+
+"The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence, were
+radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the side
+of our own; we chose the furniture and the wall papers. 'They are
+here--they are there,' we said; and at last we expected the final
+letters we should receive before they returned.
+
+"One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped
+alone; when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my
+daughter appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had
+parted with a month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly dressed,
+and carried in her hand a little travelling-bag.
+
+"'It is I,' she whispered hoarsely; 'I have come.'
+
+"'Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?'
+
+"She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from
+head to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
+
+"'Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your husband?'
+
+"'I have none--I have never had one;' and suddenly, without looking at
+me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible history.
+
+"He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew
+by the name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga,
+married at St. Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by
+himself. His resources he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills
+on the Russian bank. At Turin he had been arrested on an order of
+extradition. Think of my little girl alone in this foreign town,
+separated violently from her husband, learning abruptly that he was a
+forger and a bigamist,--for he made a full confession of his crimes. She
+had but one thought, that of seeking refuge with us. Her brain was so
+bewildered, that, as she told us afterwards, when she was asked where
+she was going, she simply answered 'To mamma.' She left Turin hastily,
+without her luggage, and at last she was safe with us, and weeping for
+the first time since the catastrophe.
+
+"I said, 'Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!' but
+my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she
+did not reproach me. 'I knew,' she said, 'from the beginning that there
+was some misfortune in this marriage.' And, in fact, she had certain
+presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof.
+What is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and
+confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the
+neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known. 'Your travellers
+have returned,' they said. They asked few questions, for they readily
+saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was not with us,
+that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very soon I found
+myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to bear than
+anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a child would
+be born from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day after day,
+ornamenting the dainty garments, which are the joy and pride of mothers,
+with ribbons and lace; I fancied, however, that she looked at them with
+feelings of shame, for the least allusion to the man who had deceived
+her made her turn pale. But my wife, who saw things with clearer vision
+than my own, said, 'You are mistaken: she loves him still.'
+
+"Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love
+was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon after
+C�cile's birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all its
+folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written before
+their marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once
+pronouncing the name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
+
+"You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
+drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the
+crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance as
+it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am reminded
+of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at work in
+the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had not had
+little C�cile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her life from
+that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and self-reproach.
+
+"But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in
+ignorance of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of
+difficulty; it is true that we were relieved of her father, who died a
+few months after his condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew
+the whole story; and we wished to preserve C�cile from all the gossip
+she would hear if she associated with other children. You saw how
+solitary her life was. Thanks to this precaution, she to-day knows
+nothing of the tempest that surrounded her birth; for not one of the
+kind people about us would utter one word which would give her reason
+to suspect that there was any mystery. My wife, however, was always in
+dread of some childish questions from C�cile. But I had other fears:
+who could be certain that the child of my child did not inherit from her
+father some of his vices? I acknowledge to you, Jack, that for years
+I dreaded seeing her father's characteristics in C�cile; I dreaded the
+discovery of deceit and falsehood; but what joy it has been to me to
+find that the child is the perfected image of her mother! She has the
+same tender and half-sad smile, the same candid eyes, and lips that can
+say No.
+
+"Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn
+the truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
+
+"'She must never love any one,' said her grandmother.
+
+"If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
+protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her
+own. Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we
+knew no one. It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our
+minds that your mother came to this place. She was supposed to be
+the wife of D'Argenton, but the forester's wife told me the real
+circumstances. I said to myself instantly, 'This boy ought to be
+C�cile's husband;' and from that time I attended to your education.
+
+"I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to
+me and ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so
+indignant when D'Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself, however,
+Jack may emerge from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if he works
+with his head as well as his hands, he may still be worthy of the wife
+I wish to give him. The letters that we received from you were all
+that they should be, and I ventured to indulge the hope I have named.
+Suddenly came the intelligence of the robbery. Ah, my friend, how
+terrified I was! how I bemoaned the weakness of your mother, and the
+tyranny of the monster who had driven you to evil courses! I respected,
+nevertheless, the tender affection that existed toward you in the heart
+of my little girl, I had not the courage to undeceive her. We talked of
+you constantly until the day when I told her that I had seen you at the
+forester's. If you could have seen the light in her eyes, and how busy
+she was all day! a sign with her always of some excitement, as if her
+heart beating too quickly needed something, either a pen or a needle, to
+regulate its movements.
+
+"Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I
+am satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study
+medicine and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you
+here, but I concluded that it would take four years to complete your
+studies, and that your residence with us for that length of time would
+not be advisable. In Paris you can study in the evening, and work all
+day, and come to us on Sundays. I will examine your week's work and
+advise you, and C�cile will encourage you. Velpeau and others have done
+this, and you can do the same. Will you try? C�cile is the reward."
+
+Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of
+the old man. But perhaps C�cile's affection was only that of a sister:
+and four years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
+
+"Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions," said M. Rivals, gayly;
+"but I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. C�cile is up-stairs;
+go and speak to her."
+
+That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a
+trip-hammer, and a voice choked with emotion. C�cile was writing in the
+office.
+
+"C�cile," he said, as he entered the room, "I am going away." She rose
+from her seat, very pale. "I am going to work," he continued. "Your
+grandfather has given me permission to tell you that I love you, and
+that I hope to win you as my wife."
+
+He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than C�cile would have
+failed to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this
+room, lighted by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl stood
+listening to this declaration of love as to an echo of her own thoughts.
+She was perfectly unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile on her lips,
+and her eyes full of tears. She understood perfectly that their life
+would be no holiday, that they would be racked by separations and long
+years of waiting.
+
+"Jack," she said, after he had explained all his plans, "I will wait for
+you, not only four years, but forever."
+
+Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
+Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not
+too far removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and
+courage, impatient to begin his double work as mechanic and student. The
+crowd pushed against him, and he did not feel them; nor was he conscious
+of the cold of this December night; nor did he hear the young apprentice
+girls, as they passed him, say to each other, "What a handsome man!" The
+great Faubourg was alive and seemed to encourage him with its gayety.
+
+"What a pleasure it is to live!" said Jack; "and how hard I mean to
+work!" Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled with
+fur hats and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker's stall.
+Jack looked in and saw B�lisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner and
+better clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once; but
+B�lisaire was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of shoes
+that the cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were not for
+himself, but for a tiny child of four or five years of age, pale and
+thin, with a head much too large for his body. B�lisaire was talking to
+the child.
+
+"And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
+feet warm."
+
+Jack's appearance did not seem to surprise him.
+
+"Where did you come from?" he asked, as calmly as if he had seen him the
+night before.
+
+"How are you, B�lisaire? Is this your child?"
+
+"O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber," said the pedler, with a sigh; and
+when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted, B�lisaire
+drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out some silver
+pieces that he placed in the cobbler's hand with that air of importance
+assumed by working people when they pay away money.
+
+"Where are you going, comrade?" said the pedler to Jack, as they stood
+on the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you
+take this side, I shall go the other.
+
+Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, "I hardly
+know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck's, and I want to
+find a room not too far away."
+
+"At Eyssendeck's?" said the pedler. "It is not easy to get in there; one
+must bring the best of recommendations."
+
+The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. B�lisaire believed
+him guilty of the robbery,--so true it is that accusations, however
+unfounded and however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes.
+When B�lisaire saw the letters of the superintendent at Indret, and
+heard the whole story, his whole face lighted up with his old smile.
+"Listen, Jack, it is too late to seek a lodging to-night; come with me,
+for I have a room where you can sleep tonight, and perhaps can suggest
+something that will suit you. But we will talk about that as we sup.
+Come now."
+
+Behold the three--Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber's little one, whose
+new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously--were soon hurrying along
+the streets. B�lisaire informed Jack that his sister was now a widow,
+and that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in the full
+tide of 'his history, he stopped to shout his old cry of "Hats! hats!
+Hats to sell!" But before he reached his home, he was obliged to
+lift into his arms Madame Weber's little boy, who had begun to weep
+despairingly.
+
+"Poor little fellow!" said B�lisaire, "he is not in the habit of
+walking. He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out
+with me sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His
+mother is away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working
+woman, and has to leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we
+are!"
+
+They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like
+narrow slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which
+serve as ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their
+boxes. At this hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in
+at the doors, which stood wide open.
+
+"Good evening," said the pedler.
+
+"Good evening," said the friendly voices from within.
+
+In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light--a woman
+and children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the
+corner.
+
+The pedler's room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud
+of it. "I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must
+wait until I have taken this child to its mother." He looked under the
+door of a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it,
+went directly to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the
+evening meal. He lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high
+chair at the table, gave it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and
+then said, "Come away quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute,
+and I wish to hear what she will say when she sees the child's new
+shoes." He smiled as he opened his room--a long attic divided in two. A
+pile of hats told his business, and the bare walls his poverty.
+
+B�lisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of
+a fine salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two
+plates, bread and wine, and placed them on a little table. "Now," he
+said, with an air of triumph, "all is ready, though it is not much
+like that famous ham you gave me in the country." The potato salad was
+excellent, however, and Jack did justice to it. B�lisaire was delighted
+with the appetite of his guest, and did his duty as host with great
+delight, rising every two or three minutes to see if the water was
+boiling for the coffee.
+
+"You have a taste for housekeeping, B�lisaire," said Jack, "and have
+things nicely arranged."
+
+"Not yet," answered the pedler; "I need very many articles,--in fact,
+these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are waiting."
+
+"Waiting for what?" asked Jack.
+
+"Until we can be married!" answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to
+Jack's gay laugh. "Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her
+soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
+could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him,
+do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any
+more than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough
+for three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly
+and sober, and won't make too much trouble in the house."
+
+"How should I do, B�lisaire?"
+
+"Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour,
+but did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for
+you."
+
+"No, B�lisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very
+economical, for I, too, am thinking of marrying."
+
+"Really! But in that case we can't make our arrangements."
+
+Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four
+years later.
+
+"Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
+Hark! I hear Madame Weber."
+
+A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began
+a melancholy wail. "I am coming," cried the woman from the end of the
+corridor, to console the little one.
+
+"Listen," said B�lisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed by a
+laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her arm,
+entered B�lisaire's room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of about
+thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one's feet, but
+there was a tear in her eye as she said, "You are the person who has
+done this."
+
+"Now," said B�lisaire, with simplicity, "how could she guess so well?"
+
+Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack was
+presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that
+she received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the
+aspirant for this distinction, and learned that the two men had known
+each other for ten years, and that she had before her the hero of the
+story of the ham that she had heard so many times, her face lost its
+expression of distrust, and she held out her hand to Jack.
+
+"This time B�lisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
+comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very
+innocent, because he is so good."
+
+Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until the
+marriage he should share B�lisaire's room and buy himself a bed; they
+would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every
+Saturday. After the marriage, they would establish themselves more
+commodiously, and nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment
+recalled to him Indret on a smaller scale. Owing to lack of space, there
+were in the same room three rows, one above the other, of machines.
+Jack was on the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of the place
+ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he beheld
+a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous beat of
+machinery.
+
+The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less
+ventilation; but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life
+supported him through all the trials of the day. His companions saw
+intuitively that he lived apart from them, indifferent to their petty
+quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither their pleasures nor their
+hatreds. He never listened to their sullen complaints, nor the muttered
+thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a Ghetto in this
+magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic theories, the
+natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering so near
+the wealthier classes.
+
+I am not disposed to assert that Jack's companions liked him especially,
+but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen, they
+looked upon him much as a Prince Rodolphe,--for they had all read "The
+Mysteries of Paris,"--and admired his tall, slender figure and his
+careful dress. But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he passed
+their corner of the establishment with scarcely a glance. This corner
+was never without its excitement and drama, for most of the workwomen
+had a lover among the men, and this led to all sorts of jealousies and
+scenes.
+
+Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to
+reach his lodgings, to throw aside his workman's blouse, and to bury
+himself in his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he
+had used at school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was
+astonished to find with what facility he regained all that he thought
+he had forever lost. Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected
+difficulty, and it was touching to see the young man, whose hands were
+distorted and clumsy from handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside
+his pen in despair. At his side B�lisaire sat sewing the straw of
+his summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of a savage
+assistant at a magician's incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned,
+grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
+passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
+pedler's big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student's pen
+scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up
+and thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere;
+and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of other
+lamps, and other shadows courageously prolonging their labors into the
+middle of the night.
+
+After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
+brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It had
+been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to the
+poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he wrote,
+thought, "How happy they are." His own happiness came on Sundays. Never
+did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as did Jack on those
+days, for he was determined that nothing about him should remind C�cile
+of his daily toil; well might he have been taken for Prince Rodolphe had
+he been seen as he started off.
+
+Delicious day! without hours or minutes--a day of uninterrupted
+felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in
+the salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and C�cile and the doctor
+made him feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined,
+M. Rivals examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and
+explained all that had puzzled the youth.
+
+Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they
+often passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
+experiments. So black was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that
+one would have fancied that the man was burning all the drugs in the
+world. "Don't you smell the poison?" said M. Rivals, indignantly. But
+the young people passed the house in silence; they instinctively felt
+that there were no kindly sentiments within those walls toward them,
+and, in fact, feared that the fanatic Dr. Hirsch was sent there as
+a spy. But what had they to fear, after all? Was not all intercourse
+between D'Argenton and Charlotte's son forever ended? For three months
+they had not met. Since Jack had been engaged to C�cile, and under-stood
+the dignity and purity of love, he had hated D'Argenton, making him
+responsible for the fault of his weak mother, whose chains were riveted
+more closely by the violence and tyranny under which a nobler nature
+would have revolted. Charlotte, who feared scenes and explanations, had
+relinquished all hope of reconciliation between these two men. She never
+mentioned her son to D'Argenton, and saw him only in secret.
+
+She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled,
+and Jack's fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman
+elegant in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of
+gossip in regard to the mysterious visitor, which finally reached Jack's
+ears, who begged his mother not to expose herself to such remarks. They
+then saw each other in the gardens, or in some of the churches; for,
+like many other women of similar characteristics, she had become
+_d�vote_ as she grew old, as much from an overflow of idle
+sentimentality as from a passion for honors and ceremonies. In these
+rare and brief interviews Charlotte talked all the time, as was her
+habit, but with a worn, sad air. She said, however, that she was happy
+and at peace, and that she had every confidence in M. d'Argenton's
+brilliant future. But one day, as mother and son were leaving the
+church-door, she said to him, with some embarrassment, "Jack, can you
+let me have a little money for a few days? I have made some mistake in
+my accounts, and have not money enough to carry me to the end of the
+month, and I dare not ask D'Argenton for a penny."
+
+He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the
+whole amount in his mother's hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw
+what the obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a
+look of despair on the face that was generally so smiling and fresh.
+Intense compassion filled his heart. "You are unhappy," he said; "come
+to me, I shall-be so glad to have you."
+
+She started. "No, it is impossible," she said, in a low voice; "he has
+so many trials just now;" and she hurried away as if to escape some
+temptation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.~~THE WEDDING-PARTY.
+
+It was a summer morning. The pedler and his comrade were up before
+daybreak. One was sweeping and dusting, with as little noise as
+possible, careful not to disturb his companion, who was established at
+the open window. The sky was the cloudless one of June, pale blue with
+a faint tinge of rose still lingering in the east, that could be seen
+between the chimneys. In front of Jack was a zinc roof, which, when
+the sun was in mid-heaven, became a terrible mirror. At this moment it
+reflected faintly the tints of the sky, so that the tall chimneys looked
+like the masts of a vessel floating on a glittering sea. Below was
+heard the noise from the poultry owned by the various inhabitants of the
+Faubourg. Suddenly a cry was heard: "Madame Jacob! Madame Mathieu! Here
+is your bread."
+
+It was four o'clock. The labors of the day had begun. The woman whose
+daily business it was to supply that quarter with bread from the baker's
+had begun her rounds. Her basket was filled with loaves of all sizes,
+sweet-smelling and warm. She carries them all through the corridors,
+placing them at the corners of the various doors; her shrill voice
+aroused the sleepers; doors opened and shut; childish voices uttered
+cries of joy, and little bare feet pattered to meet the good woman, and
+returned hugging a loaf as big as themselves, with that peculiar gesture
+that you see in the poor people who come out of the bake-shops,
+and which shows the thoughtful observer what that hard-earned bread
+signifies to them.
+
+All the world is now astir; windows are thrown open, even those where
+the lamps have burned the greater part of the night. At one sits a
+sad-faced woman, at a sewing-machine, aided by a little girl, who hands
+her the several pieces of her work. At another a young girl, with hair
+already neatly braided, is carefully cutting a slice of bread for her
+slender breakfast, watching that no crumb shall fall on the floor she
+swept at daybreak. Further on is a window shaded by a large red curtain
+to keep off the reflection from the zinc roof. All these rooms open
+on the other side into a dark and ugly house of enormous size. But the
+student heeds nothing but his work. One sound only depresses him at
+times, and that is the voice of an old woman, who says every morning,
+before the noises of the street have begun, "How happy people ought to
+be who can go to the country on a day like this!" To whom does the poor
+woman utter these words, day after day? To the whole world, to herself,
+or only to the canary, whose cage, covered with fresh leaves, she hangs
+on the shutters? Perhaps she is talking to her flowers. Jack never knew,
+but he is much of her opinion, and would gladly echo her words; for his
+first waking thoughts turn toward a tranquil village street, toward a
+little green door, Jack has just reached this point in his reverie when
+a rustle of silk is heard, and the handle of his door rattles.
+
+"Turn to the right," said B�lisaire, who was making the coffee.
+
+The handle is still aimlessly rattled. B�lisaire, with the coffee-pot
+in his hand, impatiently throws it open, and Charlotte rushes in.
+B�lisaire, stupefied at this inundation of flounces, feathers, and
+laces, bows again and again, while Jack's mother, who does not recognize
+him, excuses herself, and retreats toward the door.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," she said; "I made a mistake."
+
+At the sound of her voice Jack rises from his chair in astonishment
+
+"Mother!" he cried.
+
+She ran to him and took refuge in his arms.
+
+"Save me, my child, save me! That man, for whom I have sacrificed
+everything,--my life and that of my child,--has beaten me cruelly. This
+morning, when he came in after two days' absence, I ventured to make
+some observation; I thought I had a right to speak. He flew into a
+frightful passion, and--"
+
+The end of her sentence was lost in a torrent of tears and in convulsive
+sobs. B�lisaire had retired at her first words, and discreetly closed
+the door after him. Jack looks at his mother, full of terror and pity.
+How pale and how changed she is! In the clear light of the young day the
+marks of time are clearly visible on her face, and the gray hairs,
+that she has not taken the trouble to conceal, shine like silver on her
+blue-veined temples. Without any attempt at controlling her emotion, she
+speaks without restraint, pouring forth all her wrongs.
+
+"How I have suffered, Jack! He passes his life now at the caf�s and in
+dissipation. Did you know that, when he went to Indret with that money,
+I was there in the village, and crazy to see you? He reproaches me with
+the bread you ate under his roof, and yet--yes, I will tell you what I
+never meant you to know--I had ten thousand francs of yours that were
+given to me for you exclusively. Well, D'Argenton put them into his
+Review; I know that he meant to pay you large interest, but the ten
+thousand francs have been swallowed up with all the others, and when I
+asked him if he did not intend to account to you for them, do you know
+what he did? He drew up a long bill of all that he has paid for you.
+Your board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen thousand francs. But he
+does not ask you to pay the difference; is not that very generous?" and
+Charlotte laughed sarcastically. "I tell you I have borne everything,"
+she continued,--"the rages he has fallen into on your account, and
+the mean way in which he has talked with his friends of the affair at
+Indret; as if your innocence had never been fully established!
+
+"And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his
+time with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,--for those women
+are all crazy about him,--and then to receive my reproaches with such
+disdain, and finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too
+much. I dressed, and put on my hat, and then I went to him. I said,
+'Look at me, M. d'Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that
+you will see me; I am going to my child.' And then I came away."
+
+Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and
+paler, and so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he
+could not look at her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently,
+and with much sweetness, but also with much solemnity, he said,--
+
+"I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
+lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take
+care! I shall never allow you to leave me."
+
+"Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together--we two. You know
+I told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
+now."
+
+Under her son's caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
+occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.
+
+"You see," she said, "how happy we may be. I owe you much care and
+tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare and
+small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself."
+
+This brief summary of the apartment regarded by B�lisaire as so
+magnificent, disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no
+time now for discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave,
+and he must decide at once on something definite. He must consult
+B�lisaire, whom he heard patiently pacing the corridor, and who
+would have waited until nightfall without once knocking to see if the
+interview was over.
+
+"B�lisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we manage?"
+
+B�lisaire started as he thought, "And now the marriage must be
+postponed, for Jack will not be one of our little m�nage!"
+
+But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest
+some plan that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It
+was decided finally that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his
+mother and find for himself a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock
+of hats and his furniture with Madame Weber.
+
+Jack presented his friend to B�lisaire, who remembered very well the
+fair lady at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the
+service of Ida de Barancy; for "Charlotte" was no more heard of. A bed
+must be purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took
+from the drawer where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces
+which he gave his mother.
+
+"You know," he said, "that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good
+Madame Weber will attend to the dinners."
+
+"Not at all; B�lisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do
+everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have
+ready for you when you come back to-night."
+
+She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready
+to begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her
+with his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind.
+With what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and
+hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some time, and marred
+his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation would D'Argenton
+compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now all was changed.
+Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would become worthy of her
+whom she would some day call "my daughter."
+
+It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished
+the distance between C�cile and himself, and he smiled to himself as
+he thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was
+seized by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what
+promptitude Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared
+lest she had felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken.
+But on the staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the
+house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on
+the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with
+B�lisaire's goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and dainty
+dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There were
+flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white cloth,
+on which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an
+embroidered skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her
+puffs, hardly looked like herself.
+
+"Well!" she said, running to meet him; "and what do you think of it!"
+
+"It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!"
+
+"Yes; B�lisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them
+to dine with us."
+
+"But what will you do for dishes?"
+
+"You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side
+have lent me some. They are very obliging also."
+
+Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant,
+opened his eyes wide.
+
+"But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell
+them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that
+I had to take a carriage to return."
+
+This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save
+fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be
+found.
+
+The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from
+the _Palais Royale_. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that
+something was wrong.
+
+"Have I spent too much?" she asked.
+
+"No, I think not,--for one occasion," he answered, with same hesitation.
+
+"But I have not been extravagant. Look here," she said, and she showed
+him a long green book; "in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show
+my entries to you after dinner."
+
+B�lisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was
+truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received
+them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at
+their ease.
+
+B�lisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must
+be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his "comrade." Ah, one may
+well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by
+children, which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same
+time feels all the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the
+light, while his companion descended toward the implacable reality. To
+begin with, the person called B�lisaire--who should in reality have been
+named Resignation, Devotion, or Patience--was now obliged to relinquish
+his pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor;
+not for worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.
+
+Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to
+see him bring out a pile of books.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"I am going to study." And he then told her of the double life he led;
+of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until
+then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform
+D'Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way
+his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to
+him alone, he could speak to her of C�cile and of his supreme joy. Jack
+talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not
+understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not
+the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him
+with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at
+the _Gymnase_, when the _Ingenue_ in a white dress, with rose-colored
+ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She
+was pleased with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two
+or three times, "How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and
+Virginia!"
+
+Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the
+echoes of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed,
+heard none of the commonplace comments of his mother.
+
+Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, B�lisaire
+came to meet him with a radiant face. "We are to be married at once!
+Madame Weber has found a 'comrade.'"
+
+Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend's
+disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did
+not last; for, on seeing "the comrade," he received a most unpleasant
+impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of
+his face was far from agreeable.
+
+The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is
+generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the
+church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they
+generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.
+
+B�lisaire's wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one
+of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to
+the municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing,
+Madame Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue
+of that bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors;
+a many-hued shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap,
+ornamented with ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant face.
+She walked by the side of B�lisaire's father, a little dried-up old man,
+with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough that
+his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back with
+considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat disturbed the
+dignity of the wedding procession.
+
+B�lisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as
+hooked as her father's. B�lisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led
+by one hand Madame Weber's little child. Then came a crowd of relatives
+and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do
+more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to
+take place at Vincennes.
+
+When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room
+engaged by B�lisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look
+at the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of
+merrymakers. They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man's-buff and
+innumerable other games; under the trees a girl was mending the flounces
+of a bride's dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy those girls
+let them drag over the lawn, imagining themselves for that one occasion
+women of fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the people seek in
+their hours of amusement: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of
+the envied and happy of this earth.
+
+B�lisaire's party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy
+the announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in
+one of those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and
+whose size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each
+end of the table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a
+centrepiece of pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which
+had officiated at many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months. They
+took their seats in solemn silence, though Madame do Barancy had not yet
+arrived.
+
+The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who
+disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per
+head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and
+envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment.
+The waiters were, however, filled with profound contempt, which they
+expressed by winks at each other, invisible however to the guests.
+
+Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him
+with holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife's chair, watched him
+so disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from
+the _carte_,--on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens,
+and beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and
+battles--Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. B�lisaire, like the others, was
+stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with
+the question, "Bisque, or Pur�e de Cr�cy?" Or two bottles: "Xeres, or
+Pacaset, sir?"
+
+They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where
+you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was
+of little consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless
+mixture. There was so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be
+very dull, and interminable as well, from the indecision of the guests
+as to the dishes they should accept. It was Madame Weber's clear head
+and decided hand that cut this Gordian knot. She turned to her child.
+"Eat everything," she said, "it costs us enough."
+
+These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after
+a little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open,
+and Ida de Barancy entered, smiling and charming.
+
+"A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept."
+
+She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity
+nowadays of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary effect.
+The way in which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her gloves in a
+wineglass, the manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to
+bring her the carte, overwhelmed the assembly with admiration. It was
+delightful to see her order about those imposing waiters. One of them
+she had recognized, the one who terrified B�lisaire so much. "You are
+here then, now!" she said carelessly; and shook her bracelets, and
+kissed her hand to her son, asked for a footstool, some ice, and
+eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew the resources of the establishment.
+
+"But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!" she cried suddenly.
+She rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. "I ask
+permission to change places with Madame B�lisaire; I am quite sure that
+her husband will not complain."
+
+This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber
+uttered a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair,
+and all this noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and
+restraint into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the
+table executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck
+so adroitly carved and served that each one had as much as he wanted.
+And the peas fell like hail on the plates; and the beans--prepared
+at one end of the table with salt, pepper, and butter; and such
+butter!--were mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he stirred the
+fell combination.
+
+At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person
+there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne
+signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They
+talked about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at
+dessert, a waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he proceeded
+to open. Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a sensation and
+assuming an attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears, but the cork
+came out like any other cork; the waiter, holding the bottle high, went
+around the table very quickly. The bottle was inexhaustible; each person
+had some froth and a few drops at the bottom of the glass, which he
+drank with respect, and even believed that there was still more in the
+bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word champagne had produced
+its effect, and there is so much French gayety in the least particle of
+its froth that an astonishing animation at once pervaded the assembly. A
+dance was proposed; but music costs so much!
+
+"Ah! if we only had a piano," said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the
+same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
+B�lisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a
+village musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his
+mother at first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued,
+but Ida finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk
+skirts and the jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the younger
+women with admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the
+little Weber was asleep wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack
+had made many signs to Ida, who pretended not to understand, carried
+away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about her. Jack was like
+an old father who is anxious to take his daughter home from a ball.
+
+"It is late," he said.
+
+"Wait, dear," was her answer. At length, however, he seized her cloak,
+and wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that
+hour, and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which
+they hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot
+through the Bois de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious
+after the heat of the restaurant; the child slept sweetly on B�lisaire's
+shoulder, and did not even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame
+B�lisaire threw aside her wedding-dress, assumed a plainer one, and at
+once entered on the duties of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.~~EFFECTS OF POETRY.
+
+The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great
+pleasure and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he knew
+her, nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared C�cile's calm judgment
+and intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes are in the
+young. The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The emphatic
+tone in which Ida addressed C�cile as "my daughter" was all well enough,
+but when under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de Barancy
+dropped her serious air and began some of her extravagant stories, Jack
+felt all his apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors on the _qui
+vive_. Some one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in the Pyrenees.
+
+"Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!" she sighed. "Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and all
+that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my family,
+the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at Biarritz in a
+most amusing way!"
+
+C�cile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,--
+
+"Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma!
+I was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who insisted
+on my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very angry, and
+opened the window, took me just at the waist, and held me above the
+water in the lightning and rain."
+
+Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to life
+again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain life
+and animation.
+
+The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his
+lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to C�cile to go down
+into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched
+them from the window; C�cile's slender figure and quiet movements were
+those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but
+loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For
+the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only breathed
+freely again when they were all together walking in the woods. But
+on this day his mother's presence disturbed the harmony. She had no
+comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous.
+But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for _les
+convenances_. She recalled the young people, bade them "not to wander
+away so far, but to keep in sight," and then she looked at the doctor in
+a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on
+the old doctor's nerves; but the forest was so lovely, C�cile so
+affectionate, and the few words they ex-changed were so mingled with the
+sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the poor
+boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation,
+so they stopped at the forester's. M�re �rchambauld was delighted to see
+her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked not a question in
+regard to D'Argenton, her keen personal sense telling her that she
+had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a long time so
+intimately connected with their life at Aul-nettes, was too much for
+Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by Mother
+Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if in
+answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through the
+forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
+
+The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the
+blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the
+tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke
+a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and
+inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms.
+
+"What is it, dear mother?" said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.
+
+"Ah!" she said, with rapidly falling tears, "you know I have so much
+buried here!"
+
+Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin
+inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for
+that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did C�cile, who had been told
+that Madame D'Argenton was separated from her husband, try with minor
+cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek
+to interest her in all his projects for the future.
+
+"You see, my child," she said, on her way home, "that it is not best for
+me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound is too
+recent."
+
+Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the
+humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved
+him.
+
+For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished
+what to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk,
+and the quiet talk with C�cile, that he might return to Paris in time to
+dine with his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from
+the tranquillity of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the
+Faubourg. The sidewalks were covered by little tables, where families
+sat drinking their coffee, and crowds were standing, with their noses in
+the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon that had just been released
+from its moorings.
+
+In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the
+courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with his
+neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher than
+they could obtain in their confined quarters within.
+
+Sometimes, in Jack's absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to
+a little reading-room kept by a certain Madame L�v�que. The shop was
+filled with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and
+illustrated papers, which she let for a sou a day.
+
+Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making
+a certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
+
+It seems that Madame L�v�que had known better days, and that under the
+first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. "I am the
+godchild of the Duc de Dantzic," she said to Ida, with emphasis. She was
+one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in the
+secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop, her
+gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered with
+stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had seen
+but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in which she
+pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of epaulettes and
+gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the ladies of the
+court! One especial tale Madame L�v�que was never tired of telling: it
+was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of the famous ball
+given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her subsequent years had
+been lighted by those flames, and by that light she saw a procession of
+gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low dresses, with heads dressed
+_� la Titus or � la Grecque_, and the emperor, in his green coat and
+white trousers, carrying in his arms across the garden the fainting
+Madame de Schwartzenberg.
+
+Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this
+half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark
+shop, with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their
+tongues, a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some
+woman, impatient for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come
+in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the
+two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and, if
+she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.
+
+Occasionally Madame L�v�que passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida
+had no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a
+pile of books taken at hazard from Madame L�v�que's shelves. These books
+were soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread upon
+them, showing that they had been read while eating. She sat reading by
+the window,--reading until her head swam. She read to escape thinking.
+Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil that she saw
+going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her son, exciting
+her to more strenuous exertions.
+
+The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other with
+her sing-song repetition of the words, "How happy people ought to be who
+can go to the country in such weather!" exasperated her almost beyond
+endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air, made
+all these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same way that
+the repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the twitter of
+the sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits. She thought
+of her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay parties in the
+country, and above all of the more recent years at Etiolles. She thought
+of D'Argenton reciting one of his poems on the porch in the moonlight.
+Where was he? What was he doing? Three months had passed since she left
+him, and he had not written one word. Then the book fell from her hands,
+and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of her son, whom she
+endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole story in
+the disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in
+readiness for dinner.
+
+"I have done nothing," she said, sadly. "The weather is so warm, and I
+am discouraged."
+
+"Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some
+little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day," he continued, with a
+tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out
+from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too
+coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as
+modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her
+no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her
+costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,--in the length of her
+skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the
+trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet
+or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
+conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been
+so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
+disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
+with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
+perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother's
+ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
+
+She had certain phrases caught from D'Argenton, a peremptory tone in
+discussion, a didactic "I think so; I believe; I know." She generally
+began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
+signified, "I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you." Thanks
+to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
+husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an
+occasional look of D'Argenton on his mother's face. On her lips was
+often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of
+his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D'Argenton.
+Never had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the
+pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.
+
+After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
+was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the old
+heights of Montfau�on. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and pine
+groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was something
+artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its resemblance
+to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of the alleys,
+admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name on the
+ruined wall, with the scores of others that were already there. When
+they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit of the
+hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them. Paris,
+softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The heights
+around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle,
+connected by Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other,
+with Montfau�on; nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the
+people. In the winding alleys and under the groups of trees young
+people were singing and dancing, while on the hillside, sitting amid
+the yellowed grass, and on the dried red earth, families were gathered
+together like flocks of sheep.
+
+Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude
+said, "How inexpressibly tiresome it is!" Jack felt helpless before this
+persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some
+one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his
+mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what he wanted.
+It was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in appearance,
+leading two little children, over whom he was bending with that
+wonderful patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.
+
+"I certainly know that man," said Jack to his mother; "it is--it must be
+M. Rondic."
+
+Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder
+that his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a
+miniature of Z�na�de, while the boy looked like Maugin.
+
+The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile
+was sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth
+dared not ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Z�na�de bore
+down upon them like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited
+skirt and ruffled cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked larger
+than ever. She had the arm of her husband, who was now attached to one
+of the custom-houses, and who was in uniform. Z�na�de adored M. Maugin
+and was absurdly proud of him, while he looked very happy in being so
+worshipped.
+
+Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they
+divided into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zena�de, "What has
+happened? Is it possible that Madame Clarisse--"
+
+"Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally."
+
+Then she added, "We say 'accidentally' on father's account; but you, who
+knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that she
+perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah, what
+wicked men there are in this world!"
+
+Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his
+companion.
+
+"Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock," resumed
+Z�na�de; "but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his
+position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together
+in the Eue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won't you,
+Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse him.
+Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking at us,
+and thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that."
+
+Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
+approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D'Argenton, as
+indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes, which,
+had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken long. They
+separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long afterward,
+called upon them with his mother.
+
+He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know so
+well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big wardrobe
+as an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and presented a
+perfect picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris. But he soon
+saw that his mother was bored by Z�na�de, who was too energetic and
+positive to suit her, and that there, as everywhere else, she was
+haunted by the same melancholy and the same disgust which she expressed
+in the brief phrase, "It smells of the work-shop."
+
+The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed
+impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the
+window, she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each
+breath of wind brought it to her. The people she saw--even her own Jack,
+when he returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil--exhaled the
+same baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself--the odor of
+toil--and filled her with immense sadness.
+
+One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary
+excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. "D'Argenton
+has written to me!" she cried, as he entered the room; "yes, my dear, he
+has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe
+a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and
+that, if I need him, he is at my disposal."
+
+"You do not need him, I think," said Jack, quietly, though he was in
+reality as much moved as his mother herself.
+
+"Of course I do not," she answered, hurriedly.
+
+"And what shall you say?"
+
+"Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not
+yet know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just
+finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious
+to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all in order.
+He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has
+been for two months at--what is the name of the place?" and she calmly
+drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. "Ah,
+yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense!
+Those mineral springs have always been bad for him."
+
+Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening
+she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation
+of her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself.
+Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.
+
+"You are full of courage, my boy," she said, kissing him.
+
+He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother's
+mind. "It is not I whom she kisses," he said, shrewdly; and his
+suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the
+past had taken possession of the poor woman's mind. She never ceased
+humming the words of a little song of D'Argenton's, which the poet was
+in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and
+over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack's mind
+only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would
+have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he loved
+her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect herself. He
+therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first warning of coming
+danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous foreboding of a man who
+was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of saying good-bye to him
+when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her smile of greeting on
+his return. He could not watch her himself, nor could he confide to any
+other person the distrust with which she inspired him. He knew how often
+a woman surrounds the man whom she deceives in an atmosphere of tender
+attentions,--the manifestations of hidden remorse. Once, on his way
+home, he thought he saw Hirsch and Labassandre turning a distant corner.
+
+"Has any one been here?" he said to the concierge; and by the way he was
+answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him.
+The Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so
+completely absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in.
+He would not have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not
+Ida made an attempt to conceal the book.
+
+"You startled me," she said, half pouting.
+
+"What are you reading?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing,--some nonsense. And how are our friends?" But as she spoke,
+a blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin.
+It was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at
+once prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze, she
+rose from her chair. "You wish to know what I am reading! Look, then."
+He saw once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read for
+the first time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was thinner
+and smaller. Jack would not have opened it if the following title on the
+outer page had not met his eyes:--
+
+        THE   PARTING.
+
+          A  POEM.
+
+ By the Vicomte Amacry d'Abgentoh.
+
+And commenced thus:--
+
+"TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.
+
+"What! with out one word of farewell, Without a turn of the head..."
+
+Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the
+name of Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine
+with a shrug of the shoulders. "And he dared to send you this?"
+
+"Yes; two or three days ago."
+
+Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After a
+while she stooped, carelessly.
+
+"You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply
+absurd."
+
+"But I do not think them so."
+
+"He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
+human heart."
+
+"Be more just, Jack,"--her voice trembled,--"heaven knows that I know
+M. D'Argenton better than any one, his faults and the defects of his
+nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as
+to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
+peculiarity of M. D'Argenton's genius is the sympathetic quality of his
+verses. Musset had it irksome degree; and I think that the beginning
+of this poem, 'The Parting,' is very touching: the young woman who goes
+away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of farewell."
+
+Jack could not restrain himself. "But the woman is yourself," he cried,
+"and you know under what circumstances you left."
+
+She answered, coldly,--
+
+"Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
+D'Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
+able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the
+poets of France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt
+to-day, will yet be proud of having known him and of having sat at his
+table!" And as she finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack
+took his seat at his desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt
+that "the enemy," as in his childish days he had called the vicomte,
+was gradually making his approaches. In fact Amaury d'Argenton was as
+unhappy apart from Charlotte as she was herself. Victim and executioner,
+indispensable to each other, he felt profoundly the emptiness of divided
+lives. From the first hour of their separation the poet had adopted
+a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken heart. He was seen in the
+restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of flatterers who talked
+of her; he wished to have every one know his misery and its details;
+he wished to have people think that he was drowning his sorrows in
+dissipation. When he said, "Waiter! bring me some pure absinthe," it was
+that some one at the next table might whisper, "He is killing himself by
+inches--all for a woman!"
+
+D'Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
+constitution. His "attacks" were more frequent, and Charlotte's absence
+was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured his
+perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes.
+He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another,
+sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
+environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
+contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would
+burn, and currents of air whistled under all the doors; and in the
+depths of his selfish nature D'Argenton sincerely regretted his
+companion, and became seriously unhappy. Then he decided to take a
+journey, but that did him no good, to judge from the melancholy tone of
+his letters to his friends.
+
+One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy
+away from him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, "Write a
+poem about it," and D'Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of
+being calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and
+the separation became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review
+appeared, Hirsch and Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to
+the Rue des Panoyeaux.
+
+This done, D'Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand _coup_.
+He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself at
+Charlotte's door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away. D'Argenton
+was very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of the
+greatest mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart,
+and that that heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved
+him, but he saw a certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed
+at the corner as for an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying
+his hatred of Jack. He pictured to himself the disappointment of the
+youth on his return to find that the bird had flown. He meant to appear
+suddenly before Charlotte, to throw himself at her feet, and, giving her
+no time to think, to carry her away with him at once. She must be very
+much changed since he last saw her if she could resist him. He entered
+her room without knocking, saying in a low voice, "It is I."
+
+There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on
+account of the occurrence of his mother's birthday, had a holiday, and
+was at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove. The
+two men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not the
+advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could
+he treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking fellow, in whose
+intelligent face appeared, as if still more to exasperate the lover,
+something of his mother's beauty.
+
+"Why do you come here?" asked Jack.
+
+The other stammered and colored. "I was told that your mother was here."
+
+"So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her."
+
+This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D'Argenton by
+the shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
+difficulty preserved his footing.
+
+"Jack," he said, endeavoring to be dignified,--"there has been a
+misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a man,
+all this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child."
+
+Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Of what use are these theatricals between
+us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!"
+
+"And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?"
+
+"Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
+hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
+bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what
+are you? Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you
+without anger, it has never been without a blush of shame."
+
+"It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been entirely
+false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance."
+
+But Jack cut short this discourse.
+
+"You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a
+very serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say
+that every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one
+of them in useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your
+slave. All that I suffered in this time my pride will never let you
+know. My mother now belongs to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you
+want of her? Her hair is gray, and your treatment of her has made great
+wrinkles on her forehead. She is no longer a pretty woman, but she is my
+mother!"
+
+They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that
+narrow, squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so
+humiliating.
+
+"You strangely mistake the sense of my words," said the poet, deadly
+pale. "I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come, as an
+old friend, to see if I can serve you in any way."
+
+"We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we require."
+
+"You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always."
+
+"That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
+forced to endure, has now become odious to me."
+
+The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his
+looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not
+add one word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was
+strangely out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned
+to his room: on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes
+swollen with tears and sleep.
+
+"I was there," she said in a low voice; "I heard everything, even that I
+was old and had wrinkles."
+
+He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her
+eyes.
+
+"He is not far away. Shall I call him?"
+
+She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one
+of those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly unworthy,
+exclaimed, "You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only your
+mother!"
+
+Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M.
+Rivals:--
+
+"My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened
+in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the
+blow. Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more
+dignified to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro
+lad who said, 'If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!' I
+never fully understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I
+do not write you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait
+until Sunday because I could not speak before C�cile. I told you of
+the explanation that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my
+mother was so very sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had gone
+through, that I resolved to change our residence. I understood that a
+battle was being fought, and that, if I wished her to be victorious,
+if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ all means and
+devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted something gayer
+and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas three rooms newly
+papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All the money I had
+saved--pardon me these details--I devoted to this purpose. B�lisaire
+aided me in moving, while Z�na�de was in the same street, and I counted
+on her in many ways. All these arrangements were made secretly, and
+I hoped a great surprise and pleasure was in store for my mother. The
+place was as quiet as a village street, the trees were well grown and
+green, and I fancied that she would, when established there, have less
+to regret in the country-life she had so much enjoyed.
+
+"Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell
+her that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take
+her to our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all the
+windows, and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made a
+little fire, for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the
+room. In the midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It was
+like an electric spark. 'She will not come.' In vain did I call
+myself an idiot, in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her
+footstool. I knew that she would never come. More than once in my life I
+have had these intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before striking
+her heaviest blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a warning.
+
+"She did not come, but B�lisaire brought a note from her. It was very
+brief, merely stating that M. D'Argenton was very ill, and that she
+regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well she
+would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself ill,
+too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the wretch!
+How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You remember
+those 'attacks' he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon disappeared
+after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has. But my mother
+was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be deceived. But
+to return to my story. Behold me alone in this little home, amid all
+the wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I could not remain
+there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to me as sad as a
+funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and the roses wither
+and fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle rustle. I took the
+rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with something of the same
+superstition with which one preserves for a long time the cage from
+which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother returns we will go
+there together. But if she does not I shall never inhabit the place.
+I have now told you all, but do not let C�cile see this letter. Ah,
+my friend, will she too desert me? The treachery of those we love is
+terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking; I have her word and her
+promise, and C�cile always tells the truth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.~~C�CILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
+
+Fob a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the
+morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he
+heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When
+he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see the
+windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of which,
+with the key, he had sent to her: "The house is ready. Come when you
+will." Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
+
+Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
+grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
+C�cile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use,
+and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
+resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one's best defence
+against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
+without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her indecision
+had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all ready to go out,
+with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide to remain at home.
+Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and regained his lost time.
+Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once more in love, and wiser.
+The doctor was delighted with the progress of his pupil; before a year
+was over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could take his degree.
+
+These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
+B�lisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
+happiness. Madame B�lisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
+and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased
+at Jack's progress with his books, he was discontented with the state of
+his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and his
+hands hot.
+
+"I do not like this," said the good man; "you work too hard; you must
+stop; you have plenty of time: C�cile does not mean to run away."
+
+Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel
+that she mast take his mother's place as well as her own; and it was
+precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions
+each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the
+Fakirs of India--urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain
+becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic,
+and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his
+writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being--a
+strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all
+his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great physical
+exhaustion.
+
+His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
+disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
+not received a painful shock. � telegram arrived:
+
+     "Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
+     Rivals."
+
+Jack received that despatch just as Madame B�lisaire had ironed his fine
+linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the brevity
+of the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his friend's
+well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a letter
+from C�cile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing came, and
+for a week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth was: neither
+C�cile nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals wished for time
+to prepare the youth for an unexpected blow--for a decision of C�cile's
+so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter would be induced to
+reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the house, he had found
+C�cile in a state of singular agitation; her lips were pale but firmly
+closed. He tried to make her smile at the dinner-table, but in vain; and
+suddenly, in reply to some remark of his in regard to Jack's coming,
+she said, "I do not wish him to come."
+
+He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a
+firm voice she repeated, "I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever
+again."
+
+"What is the matter, my child?"
+
+"Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack."
+
+"You frighten me, C�cile! Tell me what you mean."
+
+"I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
+mistaken."
+
+"Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
+misunderstanding."
+
+"No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister's friendship,
+nothing more. I cannot be his wife."
+
+The doctor was startled. "C�cile," he said, gravely, "do you love any
+other person?"
+
+She colored. "No; but I do not wish to marry;" and to all that M. Rivals
+said she would make no other reply.
+
+He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little
+world. "Remember," he said, "that to Jack this will be a frightful blow;
+his whole future will be sacrificed."
+
+C�cile's pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her
+hand.
+
+"My child," he said, "think well before you decide a question of such
+importance."
+
+"No," she answered; "the sooner he knows my decision the better for us
+both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer we delay
+the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows the
+truth; I am incapable of such treachery."
+
+"Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal," said the doctor, in a
+rage. "Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!"
+
+She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped
+short.
+
+"No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
+yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and
+shall always be one until the bitter end."
+
+Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen letters,
+destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that C�cile
+would have come to her senses before the week was over.
+
+The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, "He will
+come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?"
+
+"Irrevocable," she said, slowly.
+
+Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant said,
+"My master is waiting for you in the garden."
+
+Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor's face increased his
+fears, for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human
+suffering, was as troubled as Jack.
+
+"C�cile is here--is she not?" were the youth's first words.
+
+"No, my friend, I left her--at--where we have been, you know; and she
+will remain some time."
+
+"Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again?
+Is that it?"
+
+The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should
+fall. They were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright
+November morning; hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over the
+distant hills and reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage,
+and their first whisper of love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his
+shoulder. "Jack," he whispered, "do not be unhappy. She is very young
+and will perhaps change her mind. It is a mere caprice."
+
+"No, doctor, C�cile never has caprices. That would be horrible--to
+drive a knife into a man's heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
+reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew
+that her love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also
+perish. If she has done this, then it is because she knew well that it
+was her duty so to do. I ought to have expected it; I should have known
+that so great a happiness could not be for me."
+
+He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. "Forgive me, my
+brave boy; I hoped to make you both happy."
+
+"Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
+year," he continued, "I began the only happy season of my life. I was
+born on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to
+you and to C�cile;" and the youth hurried away.
+
+"But you will breakfast with me," said the doctor.
+
+"No; I should be too sad a guest."
+
+He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once
+looking back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the
+curtain of a window in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as
+his own. The girl extended her slender arms, and tears rained down her
+cheeks. The following days were sad enough. The little house that had
+for months been bright and gay, resumed its ancient mournful aspect. The
+doctor, much troubled, noticed that his granddaughter spent much of her
+time in her mother's former room. Where Madeleine had formerly wept, her
+child now shed in turn her tears. "Would she die as did her mother?"
+
+The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why
+was she so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old
+man was sure that there was some mystery, something that he ought to
+know; but at the least question, C�cile ran away as if in fear.
+
+One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband
+of old Sal�, who had met with an accident. These people lived near
+Aul-nettes, in a miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the
+corner lay the sick man. When Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly
+suffocated by the odor of burning herbs.
+
+"What have you been doing here, Mother Sal�?" he said. The old woman
+hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time, however.
+"So Hirsch is here again, is he?" he continued. "Open the doors and
+windows, you will be suffocated."
+
+While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. "Tell
+him, wife, tell him," he muttered.
+
+The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: "Tell him, I
+say, tell him."
+
+The doctor looked at Mother Sal�, who turned a deep scarlet. "I am sure
+I am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good
+young lady," she muttered.
+
+"What young lady? Of whom do you speak?" asked the doctor, turning
+hastily around.
+
+"Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
+francs to tell Mamselle C�cile the story of her father and mother."
+
+M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
+
+"And you dared to do that?" he cried, in a furious rage.
+
+"It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for the
+twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it until he
+told me, so that I could repeat it."
+
+"The wretch! But who could have told him?"
+
+A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the
+long night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste
+to Etiolles and went directly in search of C�cile. Her room was empty,
+and the bed had not been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to
+the office, still he found no one. But the door of Madeleine's old room
+stood open, and there among the relics of the dear dead, prostrate on
+the _Prie-Dieu_, was C�cile asleep, in an attitude that told of a night
+of prayer and tears. She opened her eyes as her grandfather touched her.
+
+"And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains
+to hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little
+darling, the sad tale we concealed."
+
+She hid her face on his shoulder. "I am so ashamed," she whispered.
+
+"And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me why?"
+
+"Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother's dishonor, and my
+conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was
+but one thing to do, and I did it."
+
+"But you love him?"
+
+"With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
+marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to
+such a sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father--who has
+no name, or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger."
+
+"But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
+with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if
+you had had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to
+us all."
+
+"And he was willing to marry me!"
+
+"Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
+father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference
+between you is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner."
+
+Then the doctor, who had told Jack C�cile's history, now related to her
+the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile from
+his mother's arms--of all that he had endured. "I understand it all now,"
+he cried; "it is she who has told Hirsch of your mother's marriage."
+
+While the doctor was talking, C�cile was overwhelmed with despair to
+think that she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless
+sorrow. "O, how he has suffered!" she sobbed. "Have you heard anything
+from him?"
+
+"No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to know,"
+answered her grandfather, with a smile.
+
+"But he may not wish to come."
+
+"Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
+him home with us."
+
+An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their
+way to Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He
+looked at the little door. "This is the place," he said, and he
+rang. The servant opened the door, but seeing before her one of those
+dangerous ped-lers that wander through the country, she attempted to
+close it again.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"The gentleman of the house."
+
+"He is not at home."
+
+"And the young lady?"
+
+"She is not at home, either."
+
+"When will they be back?"
+
+"I have no idea!" And she closed the door.
+
+"Good heavens!" said B�lisaire, in a choked voice; "and must he be
+permitted to die without any help?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.~~A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.
+
+That evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of
+the Review; a f�te had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte's return, at
+which it was proposed that D'Argenton should read his new poem.
+
+But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence
+of a person who was then present? And how could he describe the
+sufferings of a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be
+at the summit of bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object?
+Never had the apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were
+there in profusion. The toilet of Charlotte was in exquisite taste,
+white with clusters of violets, and all the surroundings breathed an
+atmosphere of riches. Yet nothing could have been more deceptive.
+The Review was in a dying condition; the numbers appearing at longer
+intervals, and growing small by degrees and beautifully less. D'Argenton
+had swallowed up in it the half of his fortune, and now wished to sell
+it. It was this unfortunate situation, added to an attack skilfully
+managed, that had induced the foolish Charlotte to return to him. He had
+only to assume before her the air of a great man crushed by unmerited
+misfortune, for her to reply that she would serve him always.
+
+D'Argenton was foolish and conceited, but he understood the nature of
+this woman in a most wonderful degree. She thought him handsomer and
+more fascinating than he was twelve years before, when she saw him for
+the first time, under the chandeliers of the Moronval salon. Many of the
+same persons were there also: Labassandre in bottle-green velvet, with
+the high boots of Faust; and Dr. Hirsch with his coat-sleeves spotted by
+various chemicals; and Moronval in a black coat very white in the seams,
+and a white cravat very black in the folds; several "children of the
+sun,"--the everlasting Japanese prince, and the Egyptian from the banks
+of the Nile. What a strange set of people they were! They might have
+been a band of pilgrims on the march toward some unknown Mecca, whose
+golden lamps retreat before them. During the twelve years that we have
+known them, many have fallen from the ranks, but others have risen to
+take their places; nothing discourages them, neither cold nor heat,
+nor even hunger. They hurry on, but they never arrive. Among them
+D'Argenton, better clothed and better fed, resembled a rich Hadji with
+his harem, his pipes, and his riches; on this evening he was especially
+radiant, for he had triumphed.
+
+During the reading of the poem Charlotte sat in an attitude of feigned
+indifference, blushing occasionally at veiled allusions to herself.
+Near her was Madame Moronval, who, small as she was, seemed quite tall
+because of the extraordinary height of her forehead and the length of
+her chin. The poem went on and on, the fire crackled on the hearth, and
+the wind rattled against the glass doors of the balcony, as it did on a
+certain night of which Charlotte apparently had but little remembrance.
+Suddenly, during a most pathetic passage, the door opened suddenly; the
+servant appeared, and with a terrified air summoned her mistress.
+
+"Madame, madame!" she cried.
+
+Charlotte went to her. "What is it?" she asked.
+
+"A man insists on seeing you. I told him that it was impossible; but he
+said he would wait for you, and he seated himself on the stairs."
+
+"I will see him," said Charlotte, much moved; for she guessed at the
+purport of the message.
+
+But D'Argenton objected, and turning toward Labassandre, he said, "Will
+you have the goodness to see who this intruder is?" and the poet turned
+back to the table to resume his reading. But the door opened again wide
+enough to admit the head and arm of Labassandre, who beckoned earnestly.
+
+"What is it?" said D'Argenton, impatiently, when he reached the
+ante-room.
+
+"Jack is very ill," said the tenor.
+
+"I don't believe it," answered the poet.
+
+"This man swears that it is so."
+
+D'Argenton looked at the man, whose face was not absolutely unknown to
+him.
+
+"Did you come from the gentleman,--that is to say, did he send you?"
+
+"No; he is too sick to send any one. It is three weeks since he has been
+in his bed, and very, very ill."
+
+"What is his disease?"
+
+"Something on the lungs, and the doctors say that he cannot live; so I
+thought I had better come and tell his mother."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"B�lisaire, sir; but the lady knows me."
+
+"Very well, then," said the poet, "you will say to the one who sent you,
+that the game is a good one, though rather old, and he had better try
+something else."
+
+"Sir?" said the pedler, interrogatively, for he did not comprehend these
+sarcastic words.
+
+But D'Argenton had left the room, and B�lisaire stood in silent
+amazement, having caught a glimpse of the lighted salon and its crowd of
+people.
+
+"It is nothing, only a mistake," said the poet on his entrance; and
+while he majestically resumed his reading, the pedler hurried home
+through the dark streets, through the sharp hail and fierce wind, eager
+to reach Jack, who lay in a high fever, on the narrow iron bed in the
+attic-room.
+
+He had been taken ill on his return from Etiolles; he lay there, almost
+without speaking, a victim to fever and a severe cold, so serious, that
+the physicians warned his friends that they had everything to fear.
+B�lisaire wished to summon M. Rivals, but to this Jack refused to
+consent. This was the only energy he had shown since his illness, and
+the only time he had spoken voluntarily, save when he told his friend to
+take his watch, and a ring he owned, and sell them.
+
+All Jack's savings had been absorbed in furnishing the rooms at
+Charonne, and the B�lisaire household was equally impoverished through
+their recent marriage. But it mattered very little; the pedler and his
+wife were capable of every sacrifice for their friend; they carried
+to the Mont de Pi�t� the greater part of their furniture, piece by
+piece--for medicines were so dear. They were advised to send Jack to the
+hospital. "He would be better off; and, besides, he would then cost you
+nothing," was the argument employed. The good people were now at the end
+of their resources, and decided to inform Charlotte of her son's danger.
+
+"Bring her back with you," said Madame B�lisaire to her husband. "To see
+his mother would be such a comfort to the lad. He never speaks of her
+because he is so proud."
+
+But B�lisaire did not bring her. He returned in a very unhappy frame
+of mind, from the reception he had received. His wife, with her child
+asleep on her lap, talked in � low voice to a neighbor, in front of a
+poor little fire--such a one as is called a widow's fire by the people.
+The two women listened to Jack's painful breathing, and to the horrible
+cough that choked him. One would never have recognized this unfurnished,
+dismal room as the bright attic where cheerful voices had resounded such
+a short time before. There was no sign of books or studies. A pot of
+tisane was simmering on the hearth, filling the air with that peculiar
+odor which tells of a sickroom. B�lisaire came in.
+
+"Alone?" said his wife.
+
+He told in a low voice that he had not been permitted to see Jack's
+mother.
+
+"But had you no blood in your veins? You should have entered by force
+and called aloud, 'Madame, your son is dying!' Ah, my poor B�lisaire,
+you will never be anything but a weak chicken!"
+
+"But, had I undertaken such a thing, I should simply have been
+arrested," said the poor man, in a distressed tone.
+
+"But what are we going to do?" resumed Madame B�lisaire. "This poor boy
+must have better care than we can give him."
+
+A neighbor spoke. "He must go to the hospital, as the physician said."
+
+"Hush, hush! not so loud!" said B�lisaire, pointing to the bed; "I'm
+afraid he heard you."
+
+"What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be
+better for you in every respect."
+
+"But he is my friend," answered B�lisaire, proudly; and in his tone was
+so much honest devotion that his wife's eyes filled with tears.
+
+The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their
+departure, the room looked less cold and less bare.
+
+Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept
+little, and lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open.
+If that blank surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very
+old woman, could have spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful
+eyes but one expression could have been seen, that of utter and
+overwhelming despair. He never complained, however; he even tried, at
+times, to smile at his stout nurse, when she brought him his
+tisanes. The long and solitary days passed away in this inaction and
+helplessness. Why was he not strong in health and body like the people
+about him, and yet for whom did he wish to labor? His mother had left
+him, C�cile had deserted him. The faces of these two women haunted him
+day and night. When Charlotte's gay and indifferent smile faded away,
+the delicate features of C�cile appeared before him, veiled in the
+mystery of her strange refusal; and the youth lay there incapable of a
+word or a gesture, while his pulses beat with accelerated force, and his
+hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
+
+The day after this conversation at Jack's bedside, Madame B�lisaire
+was much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt,
+sitting in front of the fire. "Why are you out of your bed?" she asked
+with severity.
+
+"I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to
+stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will."
+
+"But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are."
+
+"Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm."
+
+It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to
+Madame B�lisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of farewell
+at the humble home which had been illuminated by so many fair dreams and
+hopes. How long the walk was! They stopped occasionally, but dared not
+linger long, for the air was sharp. Under the lowering December skies
+the sick youth looked worse even than when he lay in his bed. His hair
+was wet with perspiration, the hurrying crowds made him dizzy and
+faint. Paris is like a huge battlefield where mere existence demands a
+struggle; and Jack seemed like a wounded soldier borne from the field by
+a comrade.
+
+It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was,
+however, they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An
+enormous stove made the air of the room almost intolerable, with its
+smell of hot iron. When Jack entered, assisted by B�lisaire/all eyes
+were turned upon him. They were awaiting the arrival of the physician,
+who would give, or refuse, a card of admittance. Each one was describing
+his symptoms to some indifferent hearer, and endeavoring to show that
+he was more ill than any one else. Jack listened to these dismal
+conversations, seated between a stout man who coughed violently, and a
+slender young girl whose thin shawl was so tightly drawn over her head
+that only her wild and affrighted eyes were to be seen. Then the door
+opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it was the physician. A profound
+silence followed all along the benches. The doctor warmed his hands at
+the stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance about the room. Then he
+began his rounds, followed by a boy carrying the cards of admission to
+the different hospitals. What joy for the poor wretches when they were
+pronounced sick enough to receive a ticket. What disappointment, what
+entreaties from those who were told that they must struggle on yet a
+little longer! The examination was brief, and if it seemed somewhat
+brutal at times, it must be remembered that the number of applicants was
+very large, and that the poor creatures loved to linger over the recital
+of their woes.
+
+Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. "And what is
+the matter with you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"My chest burns like fire," was the answer.
+
+"Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink too
+much brandy?"
+
+"Never, sir," answered the patient indignantly.
+
+"Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?"
+
+"I drink what I want of that, of course."
+
+"Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends." %
+
+"On pay-days I do, certainly."
+
+"That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue."
+
+When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his
+age and how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty,
+and while he spoke, B�lisaire stood behind him with a face full of
+anxiety.
+
+"Stand up, my man," and the doctor applied his ear to the damp clothing
+of the invalid. "Did you walk here?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state
+in which you are; but you must not try it again;" and he handed him a
+ticket and passed on to continue his inspection.
+
+Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives
+in the streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than
+the sight of one of those litters, sheltered from the sun's rays by
+a striped cover, and borne by two men, one behind and the other in
+front,--the form of a human being vaguely defined under the linen
+sheets? Women cross themselves when these litters pass them, as they do
+when a crow flies over their heads.
+
+Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the
+sick man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which
+the poor are subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the
+familiar tread of his faithful B�lisaire, who occasionally took his hand
+to prove to him that he was not completely deserted.
+
+The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered.
+It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden,
+on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove,
+were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five
+or six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos
+to inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if
+frightened.
+
+The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin,
+decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of
+the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which
+seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:
+
+"Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no
+bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are
+waiting, we will put him on a couch."
+
+This couch was placed close to the bed "that would soon be empty," from
+whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a
+thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they
+were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack
+was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard B�lisaire's "_au
+revoir_" nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor
+a whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue.
+Suddenly a woman's voice, calm and clear, said, "Let us pray."
+
+He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain
+did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The
+concluding sentence reached him, however.
+
+"Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and
+travellers, the sick and the dying."
+
+Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture
+of prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over
+endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like
+that of Etiolles; C�cile and his mother were before him refusing to wait
+until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of
+enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste,
+and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack
+determined to pass between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn
+and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took
+refuge in the Foret de S�nart, amid the freshness of which Jack became
+once more a child and was on his way to the forester's; but there at the
+cross-road stood mother Sal�; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with
+the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt
+her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her
+weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized
+the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He
+dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body,
+something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses
+ran, and lifted Something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the
+curtains round it closely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.~~DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
+
+"Come, wake up! Visitors are here."
+
+Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the
+curtains of the next bed,--they hung in such straight and motionless
+folds to the very ground.
+
+"Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in
+the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were
+terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you.
+But you are very weak."
+
+The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat
+and a white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the
+sick man's pulse and asks him some questions.
+
+"What is your trade?"
+
+"A machinist."
+
+"Do you drink?"
+
+"Not now; I did at one time."
+
+Then a long silence.
+
+"What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?"
+
+Jack saw in the physician's face the same sympathetic interest that he
+had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the
+doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were
+at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some
+curiosity to the words "inspiration," "expiration," "phthisis," &c., and
+at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,--so
+critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister
+approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in
+Paris, and if he could send to them.
+
+His family! Who were they? � man and a woman who were already there at
+the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no
+other friends than these, no other relatives.
+
+"And how are we to-day?" said B�lisaire, cheerily, though he kept his
+tears back with difficulty. Madame B�lisaire lays on the table two fine
+oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in
+silence.
+
+Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he
+thinking?
+
+"Jack," said the good woman, suddenly, "I am going to find your mother;"
+and she smiled encouragingly.
+
+Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he
+forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
+
+But B�lisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in
+utter contempt "the fine lady," as she calls Jack's mother, that she
+detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and
+perhaps--who knows but the police may be called in?
+
+"No," she said, "that is all nonsense;" but finally yielded to the
+persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
+
+"I will bring her this time, never fear!" he said, with an air of
+confidence.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of
+the staircase.
+
+"To M. D'Argenton's."
+
+"Are you the man who was here last night?"
+
+"Precisely," answered B�lisaire, innocently.
+
+"Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to
+the country, and will not return for some time."
+
+In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In
+vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady's son was very
+ill--dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and
+would not permit B�lisaire to go one step further.
+
+The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea
+struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had
+taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the
+fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had
+often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could
+only be induced to come to Jack's bedside, so that the poor boy could
+have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started
+for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!
+
+During all this time, his wife sat at their friend's side, and knew not
+what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation
+into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his
+mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that
+always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the
+doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother.
+The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the
+patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging
+them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were
+dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges
+filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by
+the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had
+not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
+
+With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the
+slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach
+itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into
+the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of
+Ida de Barancy.
+
+The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased
+surprise at their father's emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered
+exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar.
+But Jack's mother did not appear. Madame B�lisaire knows not what to
+say. She has hinted that M. D'Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is
+driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her
+knees and pares an orange.
+
+"She will not come!" said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that
+little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender
+care. But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its
+accents. "She will not come!" he repeated; and the poor boy closed
+his eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of C�cile. The sister heard his
+sighs, and said to Madame B�lisaire, whose large face was shining with
+tears,--
+
+"What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more."
+
+"It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled
+that she does not come."
+
+"But she must be sent for."
+
+"My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won't come to a
+hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts."
+
+Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
+
+"Don't cry, dear," said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her
+little child; "I am going for your mother."
+
+Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still
+continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, "She will not come!
+she will not come!"
+
+The sister tried to soothe him. "Calm yourself, my child."
+
+Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. "I tell you she will not come.
+You do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my
+miserable life has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the
+gashes she has cut in it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to
+him on wings, and would never again leave him; and I am dying, and she
+refuses to come to me. What a cruel mother! it is she who has killed me,
+and she does not wish to see me die!"
+
+Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow, and
+the sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter's day
+ended in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
+
+Charlotte and D'Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just
+returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in
+velvet and furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of spirits.
+Remember that she had just shown herself in public with her poet, and
+had shown herself, too, to be as pretty as she was ten years before. The
+complexion was heightened by the sharp wintry air, and the soft wraps
+in which she was enveloped added to her beauty as does the satin and
+quilted lining of a casket enhance the brilliancy of the gems within. �
+woman of the people stood on the sidewalk, and rushed forward on seeing
+her.
+
+"Madame, madame! come at once!"
+
+"Madame B�lisaire!" cried Charlotte, turning pale.
+
+"Your child is very ill; he asks for you!"
+
+"But this is a persecution," said D'Argenton. "Let us pass. If the
+gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician."
+
+"He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the hospital."
+
+"At the hospital!"
+
+"Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you
+wish to see him you must hurry."
+
+"Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap
+laid ready for you;" and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
+
+"Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can
+have a heart like this!"
+
+Charlotte turned toward her. "Show me where he is," she said; and the
+two women hurried through the streets, leaving D'Argenton in a state of
+rage, convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
+
+Just as Madame B�lisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in,--a
+young girl and an old man.
+
+A divine face bent over Jack. "It is I, my love, it is C�cile."
+
+It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by reason
+of her tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was the
+slender one that had already brought the youth such happiness, and yet
+did its part in bringing him where we now see him; for fate is often
+cruel enough to strike you through your dearest and best. The sick youth
+opens his weary eyes to see that he is not dreaming. C�cile is really
+there; she implores his pardon, and explains why she gave him such pain.
+Ah, if she had but known that their destinies were so similar!
+
+As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness
+and anger of the past weeks.
+
+"Then you love me?" he whispered.
+
+"Yes, Jack; I have always loved you."
+
+Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word
+love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had
+taken refuge there.
+
+"How good you are to come, C�cile! Now I shall not utter another murmur.
+I am ready to die, with you at my side."
+
+"Die! Who is talking of dying?" said the old doctor in his heartiest
+voice. "Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look
+like the same person you were when we came."
+
+This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed
+C�cile's hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of
+tenderness.
+
+"All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have
+been friend and sister, wife and mother."
+
+But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color
+to frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly
+visible. C�cile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full
+of shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more
+sombre, more mysterious than Night.
+
+Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: "I hear her," he whispered; "she is
+coming!"
+
+But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the
+corridors, the steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and
+the distant noises in the street. He listened a moment, said a few
+unintelligible words, then his head fell back and his eyes closed.
+But he was right. Two women were running up the stairs. They had been
+allowed to enter, though the hour for the admittance of visitors had
+long since passed. But it was one of those occasions where rules may be
+broken and set aside.
+
+When they arrived at the outer door, Charlotte stopped. "I cannot go
+on," she said, "I am frightened."
+
+"Come on," the other answered, roughly; "you must. Ah, to such women as
+you, God should never give children!"
+
+And she pushed Charlotte toward the staircase. The large room, the
+shaded lamps, the kneeling forms, the mother saw at one glance; and
+farther on, at the end of the apartment, were two men bending over a
+bed, and C�cile Rivals, pale as death, supporting a head on her breast.
+
+"Jack, my child!"
+
+M. Rivals turned. "Hush," he said, sternly.
+
+Then came a sigh--a long, shivering sigh.
+
+Charlotte crept nearer, with failing limbs and sinking heart. It was
+Jack indeed, with arms stiffly falling at his side, and eyes fixed on
+vacancy.
+
+The doctor bent over him. "Jack, my friend; it is your mother, she is
+here!"
+
+And she, unhappy woman, stretched out her arms toward him. "Jack, it is
+I! I am here!"
+
+Not a movement.
+
+The mother cried in a tone of horror, "Dead?"
+
+"No," said old Rivals; "no,--_Delivered_."
+
+
+      THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
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diff --git a/old/25302-8.zip b/old/25302-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jack
+       1877
+
+Author: Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25302]
+Last Updated: October 1, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      JACK
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Alphonse Daudet
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.
+    </h4>
+    <h5>
+      Estes And Lauriat, 1877
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>JACK</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II.~~THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE
+        MONTAIGNE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III.~~MÂDOU. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV.~~THE REUNION. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V.~~A DINNER WITH IDA. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI.~~AMAURY D&rsquo;ARGENTON. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII.~~MADOU&rsquo;S FLIGHT. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK&rsquo;S DEPARTURE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX.~~PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI.~~CECILE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII.~~LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV.~~A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV.~~CHARLOTTE&rsquo;S JOURNEY. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI.~~CLARISSE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII.~~IN THE ENGINE-ROOM. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII.~~D&rsquo;ARGENTON&rsquo;S MAGAZINE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX.~~THE CONVALESCENT. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX.~~THE WEDDING-PARTY. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI.~~EFFECTS OF POETRY. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII.~~CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII.~~A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV.~~DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      JACK
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a <i>k</i>, sir; with a <i>k</i>. The name is written and pronounced
+      as in English. The child&rsquo;s godfather was English. A major-general in the
+      Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
+      and of the highest connections. But&mdash;you understand&mdash;M. l&rsquo;Abbé!
+      How deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some
+      years since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of
+      his friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
+      country,&mdash;and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name?
+      Wait a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, madame,&rdquo; interrupted the abbé, smiling, in spite of himself,
+      at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas. &ldquo;After Jack,
+      what name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest
+      examined from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical
+      shrewdness, the young woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing at
+      her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the hour.
+      It was December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous folds of her
+      black costume, and the discreet originality of her hat, all told the story
+      of a woman who owns her carriage, and who steps from her carpets to her
+      coupé without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was small, which
+      always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the bloom of fresh
+      fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted by large, clear
+      eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even when her face was in
+      repose. The mobility of her countenance was extraordinary. Either this, or
+      the lips half parted as if about to speak, or the narrow brow,&mdash;something
+      there was, at all events, that indicated an absence of reflective powers,
+      a lack of culture, and possibly explained the blanks in the conversation
+      of this pretty woman; blanks that reminded one of those little Japanese
+      baskets fitting one into another, the last of which is always empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or eight,
+      who had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as English boys
+      are dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a <i>k</i>. His legs
+      were bare, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume was in
+      accordance with his years, but not with his long neck and slim figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he would
+      occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing expression,
+      as if he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole Indian army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding, and
+      with the transformation of a pretty woman&rsquo;s face to that of an intelligent
+      man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in meaning; the
+      same brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were firmly closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over the woman&rsquo;s face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
+      furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to
+      retain a certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the
+      contrary, one felt that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air would
+      have been almost painful, had it not been combined with a certain
+      caressing indolence of attitude that indicated a petted child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened to
+      her words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the priest
+      and at all the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had promised not to
+      cry, but a stifled sob shook him at times from head to foot. Then his
+      mother looked at him, and seemed to say, &ldquo;You know what you promised.&rdquo;
+       Then the child choked back his tears and sobs; but it was easy to see that
+      he was a prey to that first agony of exile and abandonment which the first
+      boarding-school inflicts on those children who have lived only in their
+      homes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or three
+      minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but Father O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,
+      who had been the director for twenty-five years of the aristocratic
+      institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the world, and knew
+      too well the best Parisian society, all its shades of manner and dialect,
+      not to understand that in the mother of his new pupil he beheld a
+      representative of an especial class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The self-possession with which she entered his office,&mdash;self-possession
+      too apparent not to be forced,&mdash;her way of seating herself, her
+      uneasy laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which
+      she sought to conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of
+      the priest a vague distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so mixed,
+      the community of pleasures and similarity of toilets have so narrowed the
+      line of demarcation between fashionable women of good and bad society,
+      that the most experienced may at times be deceived, and this is the reason
+      that the priest regarded this woman with so much attention. The principal
+      difficulty in arriving at a decision arose from the unconnected style of
+      her conversation; but the embarrassed air of the mother when he asked for
+      the other name of the child, settled the question in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She colored, hesitated. &ldquo;True,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;excuse me; I have not yet
+      presented myself. What could I have been thinking of?&rdquo; and drawing a
+      small, highly-perfumed case from her pocket, she took from it a card, on
+      which, in long letters, was to be read the insignificant name&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     <i>Ida de Barnacy</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Over the face of the priest flashed a singular smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the child&rsquo;s name?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question was almost an impertinence. The lady understood him, and
+      concealed her embarrassment under an assumption of great dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, sir, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the priest, gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was he now who found it difficult to express what he wished to say. He
+      rolled the card between his fingers with a little movement of the lips
+      natural to a man who measures the weight and effect of the words he is
+      about to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he arose from his chair, and approaching one of the large windows
+      that looked on a garden planted with fine trees, and reddened by the
+      wintry sun, tapped lightly on the glass. A black silhouette was drawn on
+      the window, and a young priest appeared immediately within the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duffieux,&rdquo; said the Superior, &ldquo;take this child out to walk with you. Show
+      him our church and our hot-houses; he is tired of us, poor little man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack supposed that he was sent out to walk so that he might be spared the
+      pain of saying good-bye to his mother, and his terrified, despairing
+      expression so touched the kind priest that he hastily added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be frightened, Jack. Your mother is not going away; you will find
+      her here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child still hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, my dear,&rdquo; said Madame de Barancy, with a queenly gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he went without another word, as if he were already conquered by
+      life, and prepared for all its evils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door closed behind him, there was a moment of silence. The steps
+      of the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel, and dying
+      away, left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the chirps of the
+      sparrows on the eaves, the distant pianos, and an indistinct murmur of
+      voices&mdash;the hum of a great boarding-school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This child seems to love you, madame,&rdquo; said the Superior, touched by
+      Jack&rsquo;s submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he not love me?&rdquo; answered Madame de Barancy, somewhat
+      melodramatically; &ldquo;the poor dear has but his mother in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you are a widow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! yes, sir. My husband died ten years ago, the very year of our
+      marriage, and under the most painful circumstances. Ah! Monsieur l&rsquo;Abbé,
+      romance-writers, who are at a loss to invent adventures for their
+      heroines, do not know that many an apparently quiet life contains enough
+      for ten novels. My own story is the best proof of that. The Comte de
+      Barancy belonged, as his name will tell you, to one of the oldest families
+      in Touraine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a fatal mistake here, for Father O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; was born
+      at Amboise, and knew the nobility of the entire province. So he at once
+      consigned the Comte de Barancy to the society of Major-General Pembroke
+      and the Rajah of Singapore. He did not let this appear, however, and
+      contented himself with replying gently to the <i>soi-disant</i> comtesse,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not think with me, madame, that there would be some cruelty in
+      sending away a child that seems so warmly attached to you? He is still
+      very young; and do you think his physical health good enough to support
+      the grief of such a separation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are mistaken, sir,&rdquo; she answered, promptly. &ldquo;Jack is a very
+      robust child; he has never been ill. He is a little pale, perhaps, but
+      that is owing to the air of Paris, to which he has never been accustomed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Annoyed to find that she was not disposed to comprehend him, the priest
+      continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides, just now our dormitories are full; the scholastic year is very
+      far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new pupils
+      until the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then, madame;
+      and even then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood him at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; she said, turning pale, &ldquo;you refuse to receive my son. Do you refuse
+      also to tell me why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; answered the priest, &ldquo;I would have given much if this
+      explanation could have been avoided. But since you force it upon me, I
+      must inform you that this institution, whose head I am, exacts from the
+      families who confide their children to us the most unexceptionable conduct
+      and the strictest morality. In Paris there are many laical institutions
+      where your little Jack will receive every care, but with us it would be
+      impossible. I beg of you,&rdquo; he added, with a gesture of indignant
+      protestation, &ldquo;do not make me explain further. I have no right to question
+      you, no right to reproach you. I regret the pain I am now giving, and
+      believe me when I say that my words are as painful to myself as to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the priest spoke, over the countenance of Madame de Barancy flitted
+      shadows of anger, grief, and confusion. At first she tried to brave it
+      out, throwing her head back disdainfully; but the kind words of the priest
+      falling on her childish soul made her burst suddenly into a passion of
+      sobs and tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was so unhappy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;no one could ever know all she had done
+      for that child! Yes, the poor little fellow had no name, no father, but
+      was that any reason why a crime should be made of his misfortune, and that
+      he should be made responsible for the faults of his parents? Ah! M.
+      l&rsquo;Abbé, I beg of you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke she took the priest&rsquo;s hand. The good father sought to
+      disengage it with some little embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be calm, dear madame,&rdquo; he cried, terrified by these tears and outcries,
+      for she wept, like the child that she was, with vehement sobs, and with
+      the abandonment in fact of a somewhat coarse nature. The poor man thought,
+      &ldquo;What could I do with her if this lady should be taken ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the words he used to calm her only excited her more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wished to justify herself, to explain things, to narrate the story of
+      her life, and, willing or not, the Superior found himself compelled to
+      follow her through an obscure recital, whose connecting thread she broke
+      at every step, without looking to see how she should ever get back again
+      to the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name of Barancy was not hers, but if she should tell him her name, he
+      would be astonished. The honor of one of the oldest families in France was
+      concerned, and she would rather die than speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Superior hastened to assure her that he had no intention of
+      questioning her, but she would not listen to him. She was started, and a
+      wind-mill under full sail would have been more easily arrested than her
+      torrent of words, of which probably not one was true, for she contradicted
+      herself perpetually throughout her incoherent discourse, yet withal there
+      was something sincere, something touching even in this love between mother
+      and child. They had always been together. He had been taught at home by
+      masters, and she wished now to separate from him only because of his
+      intelligence and his eyes that saw things that were not intended for his
+      vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best thing to do, it seems to me,&rdquo; said the priest, gravely, &ldquo;would
+      be to live such a life that you need fear neither the scrutiny of your
+      child nor of any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was my wish, sir,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;As Jack grew older, I wished to
+      make his home all that which it ought to be. Besides, before long, my
+      position will be assured. For some time I have been thinking of marrying,
+      but to do this it was necessary to send my boy away for a time that he
+      might obtain the education worthy of the name he ought to bear. I thought
+      that nowhere could he do as well as here, but at one blow you repulse him
+      and discourage his mother&rsquo;s good resolutions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the Superior arrested her with an exclamation of astonishment. He
+      hesitated a moment; then looking her straight in her eyes, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it, madame. I yield to your wishes. Little Jack pleases me very
+      much; I consent to receive him among our pupils.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But on two conditions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ready to accept all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first is, that until the day that your position is assured, the child
+      shall spend his vacations under this roof, and shall not return to yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he will die, my poor Jack, if he does not see his mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you can come here whenever you please; only&mdash;and this is my
+      second condition&mdash;you will not see him in the parlor, but always here
+      in my private room, where I shall take care that you are not interfered
+      with and that no one sees you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose in indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea that she could never enter the parlor, or be present on the
+      reception-days, when she could astonish the other guests with the beauty
+      of her child, with the richness of her toilette, that she could never say
+      to her friends, &ldquo;I met at the school, yesterday, Madame de C&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,
+      or Madame de V&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,&rdquo; that she must meet Jack in secret,
+      all this revolted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The astute priest had struck well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for which I
+      have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as woman and
+      mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my child think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the
+      child, with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a
+      sign from his mother, he entered quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his hand hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will go with me,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;we are not wanted here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was stupefied
+      by this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She hardly
+      acknowledged the respectful salute of the good father, who had also risen
+      hastily from his chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not too quick for
+      Jack to hear a gentle voice murmur, &ldquo;Poor child! poor child!&rdquo; in a tone of
+      compassion that went to his heart. He was pitied&mdash;and why? For a long
+      time he pondered over this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was not a
+      comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even Ida.
+      Whence came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated
+      existences have fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that
+      one never knows the last shape they assume. One might liken them to those
+      revolving lighthouses that have long intervals of shadow between their
+      gleams of fire. Of one thing only was there any certainty: she was not a
+      Parisian, but came from some provincial town whose accent she still
+      retained. It was said that at the Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons
+      merchants thought they recognized in her a certain Mélanie Favrot, who
+      formerly kept an establishment of &ldquo;gloves and perfumery;&rdquo; but these
+      merchants were mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight years
+      before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that resemblances
+      are often impertinences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment of
+      the fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve any
+      facts from the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and her life.
+      One day Ida was born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a charming
+      créole, of her plantation and her negroes. Another time she had passed her
+      childhood in a great chateau on the Loire. She seemed utterly indifferent
+      as to the manner in which her hearers would piece together these
+      dislocated bits of her existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As may be imagined, in these fantastic recitals, vanity reigned
+      triumphant, the vanity of a chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles
+      and riches, were the texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was. She
+      had a small hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and
+      carriages, gorgeous furniture in most questionable taste, three or four
+      servants, and led a most indolent existence, trifling away her life among
+      women like herself, less confident in her bearing, perhaps, than they,
+      from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain freshness, the
+      result of a childhood passed in the open air, all kept her somewhat out of
+      the current of Parisian life, where, too, being so newly arrived, she had
+      not yet found her place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once each week, a man of middle age, and of distinguished appearance, came
+      to see her. In speaking of him, Ida always said &ldquo;Monsieur&rdquo; with an air of
+      such respect that one would have supposed him to be at the court of France
+      in the days when the brother of the king was so denominated. The child
+      spoke of him simply as &ldquo;our friend.&rdquo; The servants announced him as &ldquo;M. le
+      Comte,&rdquo; but among themselves they called him &ldquo;the old gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman was very rich, for madame spared nothing, and there was
+      an enormous expenditure going on constantly in the house. This was managed
+      by Mademoiselle Constant, Ida&rsquo;s waiting-maid. It was this woman who gave
+      her mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her
+      inexperience through the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida&rsquo;s pet dream and
+      hope was to be taken for a woman of irreproachable character, and of the
+      highest fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it will be seen into what state of mind the reception of Father O&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      had thrown her, and in what a rage she left his presence. An elegant coupé
+      awaited her at the door of the Institution. She threw herself into it with
+      her child, retaining only sufficient self-command to say &ldquo;home,&rdquo; in so
+      loud a voice that she was heard by a group of priests who were talking
+      together, and who quickly dispersed before this whirlwind of furs and
+      curled hair. In fact, as soon as the carriage-door was closed, the unhappy
+      woman sank into a corner, not in her usual coquettish position, but
+      overwhelmed and in tears, stifling her sobs in the quilted cushions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a blow! The priest had refused to take her child, and at the first
+      glance had discovered the humiliating truth that she believed to have
+      thoroughly disguised under the luxurious surroundings of a woman of the
+      world and of an irreproachable mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her wounded pride recalled with renewed flushes of shame the keen eyes of
+      the good father. She recalled all her falsehood, all her folly, and
+      remembered his incredulous smile at almost her first words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack,
+      looking sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He vaguely
+      conceived himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and yet was
+      secretly glad that he had not been left at the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a fortnight he had heard of it night and day; his mother had extorted
+      a promise from him not to weep; his trunk was packed, and all was ready,
+      and the child&rsquo;s heart was full of trouble; and now at the last moment he
+      was reprieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If his mother had not been in so much trouble now, he would have thanked
+      her; how happy would he have been curled up at her side, under her furs,
+      in the little coupé in which they had had so many happy hours together&mdash;hours
+      which were now to be repeated. And Jack thought of the afternoons in the
+      Bois, of the long drives through the gay city of Paris&mdash;a city so new
+      to both of them, and full of excitement and interest. A monument, perhaps,
+      or even a mere street incident, delighted them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, Jack&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, mamma&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were two children together, and together they peered from the window,&mdash;the
+      child&rsquo;s head with its golden curls close to the mother&rsquo;s face tightly
+      veiled in black lace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A despairing cry from Madame de Barancy aroused the boy from all these
+      sweet recollections. &ldquo;<i>Mon dieu!</i>&rdquo; she cried, wringing her hands,
+      &ldquo;what have I done to be so wretched?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This exclamation naturally elicited no response, and little Jack, not
+      knowing what to say, or how to console her, timidly caressed her hand,
+      even at last kissing it with the fervor of a lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She started and looked wildly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! cruel, cruel child, what harm you have done me in this world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack turned pale. &ldquo;I? What have I done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He loved but one person on the face of the earth, his mother. He thought
+      her absolutely perfect; and without knowing it, he had injured her in some
+      mysterious way. The poor child was now overwhelmed with despair also, but
+      remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his mother had
+      shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on his own part.
+      He was seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother took him in her
+      arms. &ldquo;No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be sensible, dear. What!
+      must I rock my long-legged boy as if he were a baby? No, little Jack, you
+      never did me any harm. It is I who did wrong. Come, do not weep any more.
+      See, I am not crying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the strange creature, forgetful of her recent grief, laughed gayly,
+      that Jack too might laugh. It was one of the privileges of this
+      inconsequent nature never to retain impressions for any length of time.
+      Singularly enough, too, the tears she had just shed only seemed to add new
+      freshness and brilliancy to her youthful beauty, as a sudden shower upon a
+      dove&rsquo;s plumage seems to bring out new lustre without penetrating below the
+      surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are we now?&rdquo; said she, suddenly dropping the window that was
+      covered with mist. &ldquo;At the Madeleine. How quickly we have come! We must
+      stop somewhere; at the pastry-cook&rsquo;s, I think. Dry your eyes, little one,
+      we will buy some meringues.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They alighted at the fashionable confectioner&rsquo;s, where there was a great
+      crowd. Rich furs and rustling silks crushed each other; and women&rsquo;s faces
+      with veils half lifted were reflected in the surrounding mirrors which
+      were set in gilt frames and cream-colored panels; glittering glass, and a
+      variety of cakes and dainties delighted the spectators. Madame de Barancy
+      and her child were much looked at. This charmed her, and this small
+      success following upon the mortification of the previous hour, gave her an
+      appetite. She called for a quantity of meringues and nougat, and finished
+      by a glass of wine. Jack followed her example, but with more moderation,
+      his great grief having filled his eyes with unshed tears and his heart
+      with suppressed sighs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they left the shop the weather was so fine, although cold, and the
+      flower-market of the Madeleine so fragrant with the sweet perfume of
+      violets, that Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on foot.
+      Briskly, and yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated a woman
+      accustomed to admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack by the
+      hand. The fresh air, the gay streets and attractive shops, quite restored
+      Ida&rsquo;s good-humor. Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas I know not,
+      she remembered a masqued ball to which she was going that night, preceded
+      by a restaurant dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy! I had forgotten. Hurry! little Jack&mdash;quick!&rdquo; She wanted
+      flowers, a bouquet, a dozen forgotten trifles: and the child, whose life
+      had always been made up of just such trifles, and who felt as much as his
+      mother the subtile charm of these elegances, followed her in high glee,
+      delighted by the idea of the fête that he was not to see. The toilette of
+      his mother always interested him, and he fully appreciated the admiration
+      her beauty excited as they went through the streets and into the various
+      shops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exquisite! exquisite! Yes, you may send it to me&mdash;Boulevard
+      Haussmann.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Barancy tossed down her card, and went out, talking gayly to
+      Jack of the beauty of her purchases. Suddenly she assumed a graver air.
+      &ldquo;Remember, Jack, what I say. Do not tell our good friend that I went to
+      this ball; it is a great secret, It is five o&rsquo;clock. How Constant will
+      scold!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her maid, a tall, stout person of forty years, ugly and masculine, rushed
+      toward Ida as she entered the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The costume is here. There is no sense in being so late. Madame will not
+      be ready in season. No one could make her toilette in such a little
+      while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t scold, Constant. If you only knew what had happened. Look!&rdquo; and she
+      pointed to Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. &ldquo;What! Master Jack back
+      again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police will
+      have to come and take you to school; your mother is too good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, it was not he. The priest would not have him. Do you understand?
+      They insulted me!&rdquo; Whereupon she began to cry again, and to ask of heaven
+      why she was so unhappy. What with the meringues and the nougat, the wine
+      and the heat of the room, she soon felt very ill. She was carried to her
+      bed; salts and ether were hastily sought. Mademoiselle Constant acquitted
+      herself with the propriety of a woman who is no stranger to such scenes,
+      went in and out of the room, opened and shut wardrobes, with a certain
+      self-possession that seemed to say, &ldquo;This will soon pass off.&rdquo; But she did
+      not perform her duties in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What folly it was to take this child to the Fathers! As if it was a place
+      for him in his position! It would not have been done certainly, had I been
+      consulted. I would engage to find a place for this boy at very short
+      notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, terrified at seeing his mother so ill, had seated himself on the
+      edge of the bed; where, looking at her anxiously, he in silence asked her
+      pardon for the sorrow he had caused her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! get away, Master Jack. Your mother is all right. I must help her
+      dress now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! You do not mean, Constant, that I must go to this ball. I have no
+      heart to amuse myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! I know you, madame. You have but five minutes. Just look at this
+      pretty costume, these rose-colored stockings, and your little cap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook out the skirts, displayed the trimming, and jingled the little
+      bells which adorned it, and Ida ceased to resist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While his mother was dressing, Jack went into the boudoir, and remained
+      alone in the dark. The little room, perfumed and coquettish, was, it is
+      true, partially illuminated by the gas lamps on the boulevard. Sadly
+      enough the child leaned against the windows and thought of the day that
+      was just over. By degrees, without knowing how, he felt himself to be &ldquo;the
+      poor child&rdquo; of whom the priest had spoken in such compassionate tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is so singular to hear one&rsquo;s self pitied when one believes one&rsquo;s self
+      to be happy. There are sorrows, in fact, so well concealed, that those who
+      have caused them, and even sometimes their victims, do not divine them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened&mdash;his mother was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Master Jack, and see if this is not lovely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! what a charming Folly! Silver and pink, lustrous satin and delicate
+      lace. What a lovely rustling of spangles when she moved!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked on in admiration, while the mother, light and airy,
+      waving her Momus staff, smiled at Jack, and smiled at herself in the
+      Psyche, without at that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then
+      Constant threw over her shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to the
+      carriage, while Jack, leaning over the railing, watched from stair to
+      stair, moving almost as if she were dancing the little pink slippers
+      embroidered with silver, that bore his mother to balls where children
+      could not go. As the last sound of the silver bells died away, he turned
+      towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the first time by the
+      solitude in which he ordinarily passed his evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame de Barancy dined out, Master Jack was confided to the tender
+      mercies of Constant. &ldquo;She will dine with you,&rdquo; said Ida.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two places were laid in the dining-room that seemed so huge on such days.
+      But very often Constant, finding her dinner anything but cheerful, took
+      the child and joined her companions below, where they feasted gayly. The
+      table-cloth was soiled, and the conversation was not of the purest; and
+      very often the conduct of the mistress of the house was commented upon, in
+      words to be sure that were slightly veiled, so as not to frighten the
+      child. This evening there was a grand discussion as to the refusal of the
+      Fathers to receive the boy. The coachman declared that it was all for the
+      best,&mdash;that the priests would have made of the child &ldquo;a hypocrite and
+      a Jesuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Constant protested against these words. She was not a professor of
+      religion, she said, but she would not hear it spoken ill of. Then the
+      discussion changed to the great disappointment of Jack, who listened with
+      all his little ears, hoping to hear why this priest, who appeared so good,
+      was not willing to receive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the moment Jack was of little consequence; each was absorbed in
+      narrating his or her religious convictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coachman, who had been drinking, said that his God was the sun; in
+      fact, he, like the elephants, adored the sun! Suddenly some one asked how
+      he knew that elephants adored the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw it once in a photograph,&rdquo; said he, sternly. Upon which Mademoiselle
+      Constant vehemently accused him of impiety and atheism; while the cook, a
+      stout Picardian with true peasant shrewdness, told them to be quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;you should never quarrel over your religions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Jack&mdash;what was he doing all this time?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the table, stupefied by the heat and the interminable
+      discussions of these brutes, he slept, with his head on his arms, and his
+      fair curls spread over his velvet sleeves. In his unrestful slumber he
+      heard the hum of the servants&rsquo; voices, and at last he fancied that they
+      were talking of him; but the voices seemed to reach from afar off&mdash;through
+      a fog, as it were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is he, then?&rdquo; asked the cook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; answered Constant; &ldquo;but one thing is certain, he can&rsquo;t
+      remain here, and she wishes me to find a school for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Between a yawn and a hiccough, the coachman spoke,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know a capital school, and one that will, just answer your purpose. It
+      is called the Moronval College&mdash;no, not college&mdash;but the
+      Moronval Academy. But what of that? it is a college all the same. I put my
+      child there once, when I was ordered off with the Egyptian army. The
+      grocer gave me the prospectus, and I think I have it still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked in his portfolio, and from among the tumbled and soiled papers
+      he extracted one, dirtier even than the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here it is!&rdquo; he cried, with an air of triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He unfolded the prospectus and began to read, or rather to spell with
+      difficulty:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gymnase Moronval&mdash;in the&mdash;in the&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said Mademoiselle Constant; and taking it from him, she
+      read it at one glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moronval Academy&mdash;situated in the finest quarter of Paris&mdash;a
+      family school&mdash;large garden&mdash;the number of pupils limited&mdash;course
+      of instruction&mdash;particular attention paid to the correction of the
+      accent of foreigners&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle Constant interrupted herself here to breathe, and to exclaim,
+      &ldquo;This seems all right enough!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; said the cook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reading of the prospectus was resumed, but Jack was soundly asleep,
+      and heard no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was dreaming. Yes, while his future was thus under discussion around
+      this kitchen-table, while his mother was dancing as Folly in her
+      rose-colored skirts and silver bells, he was dreaming of the kind priest,
+      and of the tender voice that had murmured&mdash;&ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.~~THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;23 Avenue Montaigne, in the best quarter of Paris,&rdquo; said the prospectus.
+      And no one can deny that the Avenue Montaigne is well situated in the
+      Champs Elysées, but it has an incongruous unfinished aspect, as of a road
+      merely sketched and not completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the side of the fine hotels with their plate-glass windows hung with
+      silken draperies, stand the houses of workmen, whence issue the noise of
+      hammers and grating of saws. One part of the Faubourg seems also to be
+      relinquished to gardens after the style of Mabille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of which I speak, and possibly now? from the avenue ran two or
+      three narrow lanes whose sordid aspect offered a strange contrast to the
+      superb buildings near them. One of these lanes opened at the number 23,
+      and announced on a gilded sign swinging in the passage, that the Moronval
+      Academy was there situated. This sign, however, once passed, it seemed to
+      you that you were taken back forty years, and to the other end of Paris.
+      The black mud, the stream in the centre of the lane, the reverberations
+      from the high walls, the drinking-shops built from old planks, all seemed
+      to belong to the past. From every nook and cranny, from stairs and
+      balconies, whence fluttered linen hung to dry, streamed forth a crowd of
+      children escorted by an army of lean and hungry cats. It was amazing to
+      see that so small a spot could accommodate such a number of persons.
+      English grooms in shabby liveries, worn-out jockeys, and dilapidated
+      body-servants, seemed there to congregate. To these must be added the
+      horde of workpeople who returned at sunset; those who let chairs, or tiny
+      carriages drawn by goats; dog-fanciers, beggars of all sorts, dwarfs from
+      the hippodrome and their microscopic ponies. Picture all these to
+      yourself, and you will have some idea of this singular spot&mdash;so near
+      to the Champs Elysées that the tops of the green trees were to be seen,
+      and the roar of carriages was but faintly subdued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in this place that the Moronval Academy was situated. Two or three
+      times during the day a tall, thin mulatto made his appearance in the
+      street. He wore on his head a broad-brimmed Quaker hat placed so far back
+      that it resembled a halo; long hair swept over his shoulders, and he
+      crossed the street with a timid, terrified air, followed by a troop of
+      boys of every shade of complexion varying from a coffee tint to bright
+      copper, and thence to profound black. These lads wore the coarse uniform
+      of the school, and had an unfed and uncared-for aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal of the Moronval Academy himself took his pupils&mdash;his
+      children of the sun, as he called them&mdash;out for their daily walks;
+      and the comings and goings of this singular party gave the finishing touch
+      of oddity to the appearance of the <i>Passage des Douze Maisons</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most assuredly, had Madame de Barancy herself brought her child to the
+      Academy, the sight of the place would have terrified her, and she would
+      never have consented to leave her darling there. But her visit to the
+      Jesuits had been so unfortunate, her reception so different from that
+      which she had anticipated, that the poor creature, timid at heart and
+      easily disconcerted, feared some new humiliation, and delegated to Madame
+      Constant, her maid, the task of placing Jack at the school chosen for him
+      by her servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one cold, gray morning that Ida&rsquo;s carriage drew up in front of the
+      gilt sign of the Moronval Academy. The lane was deserted, but the walls
+      and the signs all had a damp and greenish look, as if a recent inundation
+      had there left its traces. Constant stepped forward bravely, leading the
+      child by one hand, and carrying an umbrella in the other. At the twelfth
+      house she halted. It was at the end of the lane just where it closes, save
+      for a narrow passage into La Rue Marbouf, between two high walls on which
+      grated the dry branches of old shrubbery and ancient trees. A certain
+      cleanliness indicated the vicinity of the aristocratic institution; and
+      the oyster-shells, old sardine-boxes, and empty bottles were carefully
+      swept away from the green door, that was as solid and distrustful in
+      aspect as if it led to a prison or a convent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The profound silence that reigned was suddenly broken by a vigorous
+      assault of the bell by Madame Constant. Jack felt chilled to the heart by
+      the sound of this bell, and the sparrows on the one tree in the garden
+      fluttered away in sudden fright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one opened the door, but a panel was pushed away, and behind the heavy
+      grating appeared a black face, with protuberant lips and astonished eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the Moronval Academy?&rdquo; said Madame de Barancy&rsquo;s imposing maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woolly head now gave place to one of a different type,&mdash;a Tartar,
+      possibly,&mdash;with eyes like slits, high cheekbones, and narrow, pointed
+      head. Then a Creole, with a pale yellow skin, was also inspired by
+      curiosity and peered out. But the door still remained closed, and Madame
+      Constant was losing her temper, when a sharp voice cried from a distance,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well do you never mean to open that door, idiots?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they all began to whisper; keys were turned, bolts were pushed back,
+      oaths were muttered, kicks were administered, and after many ineffectual
+      struggles the door was finally opened; but Jack saw only the retreating
+      forms of the schoolboys, who ran off in as much fright as did the sparrows
+      just before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the doorway stood a tall, colored man, whose large white cravat made
+      his face look still more black. M. Moronval begged Madame Constant to walk
+      in, offered her his arm, and conducted her through a garden, large enough,
+      but dismal with the dried leaves and débris of winter storms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several scattered buildings occupied the place of former flower-beds. The
+      academy, it seemed, consisted of several old buildings altered by Moronval
+      to suit his own needs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one of the alleys they met a small negro with a broom and a pail. He
+      respectfully stood aside as they passed, and when M. Moronval said, in a
+      low voice, &ldquo;A fire in the drawing-room,&rdquo; the boy looked as much startled
+      as if he had been told that the drawing-room itself was burning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order was by no means an unnecessary one. Nothing could have been
+      colder than this great room, whose waxed floor looked like a frozen,
+      slippery lake. The furniture itself had the same polar aspect, enveloped
+      in coverings not made for it. But Madame Constant cared little for the
+      naked walls and the discomforts of the apartment; she was occupied with
+      the impression she was making, and the part she was playing, that of a
+      lady of importance. She was quite condescending, and felt sure that
+      children must be well off in this place, the rooms were so spacious,&mdash;just
+      as well, in fact, as if in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely,&rdquo; said Moronval, hesitatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black boy kindled the fire, and M. Moronval looked for a chair for his
+      distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned, made
+      her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long, pale face
+      all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great erectness, as if
+      reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to disguise a
+      trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind and womanly
+      expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his long curls and
+      his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, his eyes are like his mother&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said Moronval, coolly, examining
+      Madame Constant as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no attempt to disclaim the honor; but Jack cried out in
+      indignation, &ldquo;She is not my mamma! She is my nurse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon which Madame Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more
+      reserved. Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and
+      concluded that a servant trusted to the extent of placing her master&rsquo;s
+      children at school, must be a person of some importance in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Constant soon convinced him of the correctness of this conclusion.
+      She spoke loudly and decidedly&mdash;stated that the choice of a school
+      had been left entirely to her own discretion, and each time that she
+      pronounced the name of her mistress, it was with a patronizing air that
+      drove poor Jack to the verge of despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The terms of the school were spoken of: three thousand francs per annum
+      was named as the amount asked; and then Moronval launched forth on the
+      superior advantages of his institution; it combined everything needed for
+      the development of both soul and body. The pupils accompanied their
+      masters to the theatre and into the world. Instead of making of the boys
+      intrusted to his charge mere machines of Greek and Latin, he sought to
+      develop in them every good quality, to prepare them for their duties in
+      every position in life, and to surround them with those family influences
+      of which they had too many of them been totally deprived. But their mental
+      instruction was by no means neglected; quite the contrary. The most
+      eminent men, savans and artists, did not shrink from the philanthropic
+      duty of instructing the young in this remarkable institution, and were
+      employed as professors of sciences, history, music, and literature. The
+      French language was made a matter of especial importance, and the
+      pronunciation was taught by a new and infallible method of which Madame
+      Moronval was the author. Besides all this, every week there was a public
+      lecture, to which friends and relatives of the pupils were invited, and
+      where they could thoroughly convince themselves of the excellence of the
+      system pursued at the Moronval Academy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This long tirade of the principal, who needed, possibly, more than any one
+      else the advantages of lessons in pronunciation from his wife, was
+      achieved more quickly for the reason that, in Creole fashion, he swallowed
+      half his words, and left out many of his consonants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It mattered not, however, for Madame Constant was positively dazzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question of terms, of course, was nothing to her, she said; but it was
+      necessary that the child should receive an aristocratic and finished
+      education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unquestionably,&rdquo; said Madame Moronval, growing still more erect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here her husband added that he only received into his establishment
+      strangers of great distinction, scions of great families, nobles, princes,
+      and the like. At that very time he had under his roof a child of royal
+      birth,&mdash;a son of the king of Dahomey. At this the enthusiasm of
+      Madame Constant burst all boundaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A king&rsquo;s son! You hear, Master Jack&mdash;you will be educated with the
+      son of a king!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; resumed the instructor, gravely; &ldquo;I have been intrusted by his
+      Dahomian Majesty with the education of his royal Highness, and I believe
+      that I shall be able to make of him a most remarkable man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the matter with the black boy, who was still at work at the fire,
+      that he shook so convulsively, and made such a hideous noise with the
+      shovel and tongs?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Moronval continued. &ldquo;I hope, and Madame Moronval hopes, that the young
+      king, when on the throne of his ancestors, will remember the good advice
+      and the noble examples afforded him by his teachers in Paris, the happy
+      years spent with them, their indefatigable cares and assiduous efforts on
+      his behalf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Jack was surprised to see the black boy kneeling before the chimney,
+      turn toward him, and shake his woolly head violently, while his mouth
+      opened wide in silent but furious denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did he wish to say that his royal Highness would never remember the good
+      lessons received at the academy, or did he mean that he would never forget
+      them? But what could this poor black boy know about it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Constant announced, in pompous terms, that she was willing to pay a
+      quarter in advance. Moronval waved his hand condescendingly, as if to say,
+      &ldquo;There is no need of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old house told a far different tale,&mdash;the shabby furniture,
+      the dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of
+      Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little woman with the
+      long chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that which proved the fact more than anything else was the eagerness
+      with which the pair went to find in another room the superb register in
+      which they inscribed the ages of the pupils, their names, and the date of
+      their entrance into the academy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these important facts were being written, the black boy remained
+      crouched in front of the fire, which seemed quite useless while he
+      absorbed all its heat. The chimney, which at first had refused to consume
+      the least bit of wood, as stomachs after too long fasting reject food, had
+      now revived, and a beautiful red flame was to be seen. The negro, with his
+      head on his hands, his eyes fixed as in a trance, looked like a little
+      black silhouette against a scarlet background. His mouth opened in intense
+      delight, and his eyes were perfectly round. He seemed to be drinking in
+      the heat and the light with the greatest avidity, while outside the snow
+      had begun to fall silently and slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was very sad, for he fancied that Moronval had a wicked look,
+      notwithstanding his honeyed words. And, then, in this strange house the
+      poor child felt himself utterly lost and desolate, discarded by his
+      mother, and rendered still more miserable by the vague idea that these
+      colored pupils, from every corner of the globe, had brought with them an
+      atmosphere of unhappiness and of restlessness. He remembered, too, the
+      Jesuits&rsquo; college, so fresh and sweet; the fine trees, the green-houses,
+      the whole appearance of refinement, and the kind hand of the Superior laid
+      for a moment upon his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! why had he not remained there? And as this occurred to him, he said to
+      himself, that perhaps they would not have him here either. He looked
+      toward the table. There by the big register the husband and wife were busy
+      whispering with Madame Constant. They looked at him, and he caught a word
+      now and then. The little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her say, as
+      did the priest,&mdash;&ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him?
+      Jack asked himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little
+      heart. He could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he
+      attributed this disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume, his
+      bare legs, or his long curls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he thought of his mother&rsquo;s despair. Should he meet with another
+      refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the principal
+      some notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep him. He was
+      delighted, poor child, for he little knew that the great misfortune of his
+      life was now inaugurated there in that room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below,
+      singing the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not
+      recovered from the shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat,
+      close-cut hair, and heavy beard, burst into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hallo!&rdquo; he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, &ldquo;a fire in the parlor?
+      What a luxury!&rdquo; and he drew a long breath. In fact, the new-comer was in
+      the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each sentence, a habit he
+      had acquired in singing; and these breaths were almost like the roaring of
+      a wild beast. Catching sight of the strangers and the pile of money, he
+      stopped short with the words on his lips. Delight and surprise succeeded
+      each other on his countenance, whose muscles seemed habituated to all
+      facial contortions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. &ldquo;M. Labassandre, of the
+      Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music.&rdquo; Labassandre bowed
+      once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his
+      self-possession, and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for all
+      parties, administered a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at all
+      astonished, but picked himself up and disappeared from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly&mdash;a
+      mean face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and
+      wearing an overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down the
+      front too visible indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted man.
+      This was Dr. Hirsch, Professor of Mathematics and of Natural Sciences. He
+      exhaled a strong odor of alkalies, and, thanks to his chemical
+      manipulations, his fingers were every color of the rainbow. The last comer
+      was very different. Imagine a handsome man, dressed with the greatest
+      care, scrupulously gloved and shod, his hair thrown back from a forehead
+      already unnaturally high. He had a haughty, aggressive air; his heavy
+      blonde moustache, much twisted at the ends, and a large, pale face, gave
+      him the look of a sick soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval presented him as &ldquo;our great poet, Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton, Professor of
+      Literature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, looked as astonished, when he caught sight of the gold pieces, as
+      did Dr. Hirsch and the singer Labassandre. His cold eyes had a gleam of
+      light, but it disappeared as he glanced from the child to his nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he approached the other professors standing in front of the fire,
+      and, saluting them, listened in silence. Madame Constant thought this
+      Argenton looked proud; but upon Jack the man made a very strong
+      impression, and the child shrank from him with terror and repugnance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack felt that all these men might make him wretched, but this one more
+      than all others. Instinctively, on seeing him enter, the child felt him to
+      be his future enemy, and that cold, hard glance meeting his own, froze him
+      to the core of his heart. How many times, in days to come, was he to
+      encounter those pale, blue eyes, with half-shut, heavy lids, whose glances
+      were cold as steel! The eyes have been called the windows of the soul, but
+      D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s eyes were windows so closely barred and locked, that one had
+      no reason to suppose that there was a soul behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation finished between Moronval and Constant, the principal
+      approached his new pupil, and giving him a little friendly tap on the
+      cheek, he said, &ldquo;Come, come, my young friend, you must look brighter than
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in fact, Jack, as the moment drew near that he must say farewell to
+      his mother&rsquo;s maid, felt his eyes swimming in tears. Not that he had any
+      great affection for this woman, but she was a part of his home, she saw
+      his mother daily, and the separation was final when she was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Constant,&rdquo; he whispered, catching her dress, &ldquo;you will tell mamma to come
+      and see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. She will come, of course. But don&rsquo;t cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child was sorely tempted to burst into tears; but it seemed to him
+      that all these strange eyes were fixed upon him, and that the Professor of
+      Literature examined him with especial severity: and he controlled himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The snow fell heavily. Moronval proposed to send for a carriage, but the
+      maid said that Augustin and the coupé were waiting at the end of the lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A coupé!&rdquo; said the principal to himself, in astonished admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speaking of Augustin,&rdquo; said she: &ldquo;he charged me with a commission. Have
+      you a pupil named Said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure&mdash;certainly&mdash;a delightful person,&rdquo; said Moronval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a superb voice. You must hear him,&rdquo; interrupted Labassandre, opening
+      the door and calling Said in a voice of thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A frightful howl was heard in reply, followed by the appearance of the
+      delightful person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An awkward schoolboy appeared, whose tunic, like all tunics, and, indeed,
+      like all the clothing of boys of a certain age, was too short and too
+      tight for him; drawn in, in the fashion of a caftan, it told the story at
+      once of an Egyptian in European clothing. His features were regular and
+      delicate enough, but the yellow skin was stretched so tightly over the
+      bones and muscles that the eyes seemed to close of themselves whenever the
+      mouth opened, and <i>vice versa</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This miserable young man, whose skin was so scanty, inspired you with a
+      strong desire to relieve his sufferings by cutting a slit somewhere. He at
+      once remembered Augustin, who had been his parents&rsquo; coachman, and who had
+      given him all his cigar-stumps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I say to him from you?&rdquo; asked Constant, in her most amiable
+      tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; answered Said, promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your parents, how are they? Have you had any news from them lately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they returned to Egypt, as they thought of doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know: they never write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that this pupil of the Moronval Academy had not been
+      educated in the art of conversation, and Jack listened with many
+      misgivings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The indifferent fashion with which this youth spoke of his parents, added
+      to what M. Moronval had previously said of the family influences of which
+      most of his pupils had been deprived since infancy, impressed him
+      unfavorably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to the child that he was to live among orphans or cast-off
+      children, and would be himself as much cast off as if he had come from
+      Timbuctoo or Otaheite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he caught the dress of his mother&rsquo;s servant. &ldquo;Tell her to come and
+      see me,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;O, tell her to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the door closed behind her, he understood that one chapter in his
+      life was finished; that his existence as a spoiled child, as a petted
+      baby, had vanished into the past, and those dear and happy days would
+      never again return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he stood silently weeping, with his face pressed against a window
+      that led into the garden, a hand was extended over his shoulder containing
+      something black.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Said, who, as a consolation, offered him the stump of a cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this: I have a trunk full,&rdquo; said the interesting young man, shutting
+      his eyes so as to be able to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, smiling through his tears, made a sign that he did not dare to
+      accept this singular gift; and Said, whose eloquence was very limited,
+      stood silently planted by his side until M. Moronval returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired
+      with respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coupé was so well
+      appointed, that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence of
+      the equipage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is well,&rdquo; he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. &ldquo;Play together;
+      but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall permit the
+      boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who
+      questioned him without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit, and
+      bare legs, he sat motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic
+      gestipulations of these little boys of foreign birth, and among them all,
+      looked much like an elegant little Parisian shut up in the great monkey
+      cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from his
+      silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be altogether
+      amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the solemn little
+      voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention, he hastened to
+      the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically defending the money
+      paid by Madame Constant against the demands of the professors, whose
+      salaries were greatly in arrear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and littérateur, had been sent from
+      Pointe-à-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe. At that
+      time he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with considerable
+      ability and cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted a dependent
+      position which insured his expenses paid to Paris, that marvellous city,
+      the heat of whose lurid flames extends so far over the world that it
+      attracts even the moths from the colonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few
+      acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had
+      obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into
+      account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every
+      effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time he spoke in
+      public, the shouts of laughter that greeted him proved conclusively that
+      he could never make a name, for himself in Paris as a public speaker. He
+      then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to understand that it was
+      far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-à-Petre than in Paris. Haughty
+      and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes, he passed from journal to
+      journal, without being retained for any length of time on the staff of any
+      one. Then began those hard experiences of life which either crush a man to
+      the earth or harden him to iron. He joined the army of the ten thousand
+      men who live by their wits in Paris, who rise each morning dizzy with
+      hunger and ambitious dreams, make their breakfast from off a penny-roll,
+      black the seams of their coats with ink, whiten their shirt-collars with
+      billiard-chalk, and warm themselves in the churches and libraries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,&mdash;to
+      credit refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his
+      garret at eleven o&rsquo;clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to
+      shoes in holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was one of those professors of&mdash;it matters not what, who write
+      articles for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history of the
+      Middle Ages in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume, compile
+      catalogues, and copy plays for the theatres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for having
+      struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After three years of this miserable existence, when he had eaten an
+      incalculable number of raw artichokes and radishes, when he had lost his
+      illusions and ruined his stomach, chance sent him to give lessons in a
+      young ladies&rsquo; school kept by three sisters. The two eldest were over
+      forty; the third was thirty,&mdash;small, sentimental, and pretentious.
+      She saw little prospect of marriage, when Moronval offered himself and was
+      accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once married, they lived some time in the house with the elder sisters;
+      both made themselves useful in giving lessons. But Moronval had retained
+      many of his bachelor habits, which were far from agreeable in that
+      peaceful and well-ordered boarding-school. Besides, the Creole treated his
+      pupils too much as he might have done his slaves at work on the sugar-cane
+      plantation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder sisters, who adored Madame Moronval, were nevertheless obliged
+      to separate from her, and paid her as an indemnification a satisfactory
+      sum. What should be done with this money? Moronval wished to start a
+      journal, or a review; but to make money was his first wish. Finally, a
+      brilliant idea came to him one day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew that children were sent from all parts of the world to finish
+      their education in Paris. They came from Persia, from Japan, Hindostan,
+      and Guinea, confided to the care of ship-captains, or to merchants. Such
+      people being generally well provided with money, and having but little
+      experience in getting rid of it, Moronval decided that there was an easy
+      mine to work. Besides, the wonderful system of Madame Moronval could be
+      applied in perfection to the correction of foreign accents, to defective
+      pronunciation. The Professor immediately caused advertisements to be
+      inserted in the colonial journals, where were soon to be seen the most
+      amazing advertisements in several languages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first year, the nephew of the Iman of Zanzibar, and two superb
+      blacks from the coast of Guinea, appeared upon the scene. It was not until
+      they arrived that Moronval bestirred himself to find a local habitation
+      and a name. Finally, in order to combine economy with the exigencies of
+      his new position, he hired the buildings we have just visited in this
+      hideous <i>Passage des Douze Maisons</i>, and displayed in the avenue the
+      gorgeous sign we have mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The owner of the property induced Moronval to believe that certain
+      improvements would soon be made, in fact, that an appropriation was
+      ordered for a new boulevard on one side of the building. This conviction
+      induced Moronval to forget all the inconveniences, the dampness of the
+      dormitory, the cold of certain rooms, the heat of others. This was
+      nothing: the appropriation bill was ready for the signature, and things
+      would be all right soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Moronval was forced to endure that long period of waiting, only too
+      well known to Parisians in the last twenty years; and this wore heavily
+      upon him, costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the
+      improvement or welfare of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had been
+      hugely duped, and this discovery had the worst effect on the passionate,
+      weak nature of the Creole. His discouragement degenerated into absolute
+      incapacity and indolence. The pupils had no supervision whatever. Provided
+      they went to bed early, so that they used the least possible fire and
+      light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into class hours, to be
+      sure, but these were interfered with by every caprice of the principal,
+      who sent the pupils hither and thither on his personal service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,&mdash;a
+      physician without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer
+      without an engagement,&mdash;all of whom were in a state of constant
+      indignation against the world which refused to recognize their rare
+      merits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem to
+      herd together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual
+      complaints? Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other, they
+      pretend to an admiring sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers, the
+      greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their pipes, the
+      smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither see nor
+      hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence in a
+      vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and literature were picked
+      into fragments as precious stuffs might be under the application of
+      violent acids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the &ldquo;children of the sun,&rdquo; what became of them amid all this? Madame
+      Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former home and
+      school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had undertaken, but
+      the kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great establishment absorbed
+      a great part of her time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept in
+      order, for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the
+      chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in certain
+      armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling
+      compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of
+      surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new
+      quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to
+      smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins
+      for the negro blood in his own veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon he
+      began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time there
+      remained but eight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Number of pupils limited,&rdquo; said the prospectus, and there was a certain
+      amount of melancholy truth in the announcement. A dismal silence seemed to
+      settle down on the great establishment, which was even threatened with a
+      seizure of the furniture, when Jack appeared upon the scene. It of course
+      was no very great sum, this quarter in advance, but Moronval understood
+      certain prospective advantages, and even had a very clear perception of
+      Ida&rsquo;s true nature, having cross-examined Constant with very good results.
+      This day, therefore, witnessed a certain armed neutrality between masters
+      and pupils. A good dinner in honor of the new arrival was served, all the
+      professors were present, and &ldquo;the children of the sun&rdquo; even had a drop of
+      wine, which startling event had not happened to them for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.~~MÂDOU.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If the Moronval Academy still exists, I desire to stigmatize it now and
+      forever as the most unhealthy spot I ever knew. Its dampness makes it most
+      objectionable for children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Imagine a long building all <i>rez-de-chaussée</i>, without windows, and
+      lighted only from above. About the room hung an indescribable odor of
+      collodion and ether, as if it had once been used by a photographer. The
+      garden was shut in by high walls covered with ivy which dripped with
+      moisture. The dormitory stood against a superb hotel; and on one side was
+      a stable, always noisy with the oaths of grooms, the trampling of horses&rsquo; 
+      feet, and the rattling of pumps. From one end of the year to the other the
+      place was always damp, the only difference being that, according to the
+      different seasons of the year, the dampness was either very cold or very
+      warm. In summer it was filled with moisture like a bathroom. In addition,
+      a crowd of winged creatures, who lived among the old ivy on the walls,
+      attracted by the brightness of the glass in the low roof, introduced
+      themselves into the dormitory through the smallest crevice, and struck
+      their wings against the glass, humming loudly, and finally falling on the
+      beds in clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The winter&rsquo;s humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the dormitory
+      through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two hours of
+      shivering the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they drew their
+      knees up to their chins and kept the bedclothes well over their heads. The
+      paternal eye of Moronval saw at once the propriety of utilizing this
+      otherwise unemployed building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This shall be the dormitory,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May it not be somewhat damp?&rdquo; Madame Moronval ventured to ask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of that?&rdquo; he answered, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reality there was but room for ten beds; but twenty were placed there,
+      with a lavatory at the end, a wretched bit of carpet near the door, and
+      all was in readiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why not? After all, a dormitory is only a place to sleep in, and children
+      should be able to sleep anywhere, in spite of heat or cold, of bad air and
+      of creeping things, in spite of the noise of pumps and of horses. They
+      catch rheumatism, ophthalmia, and bronchitis, to be sure, but they sleep
+      all the same the calm sweet sleep of children worn out by out-door
+      exercise and play, and undisturbed by anxieties for the morrow. This is
+      the popular belief in regard to children, but too many of us know that the
+      truth is quite different. For example, the first night little Jack could
+      not close his eyes. He had never slept in a strange house, and the change
+      was great from his own little room at home, dimly lighted by a night-lamp,
+      and littered with his favorite playthings, to the strange and comfortless
+      place where he now found himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the pupils were in bed, a black servant took away the light,
+      and Jack remained wide awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pale moon, reflected from the snow that covered a portion of the
+      skylight, filled the room with a bluish light. He looked at the beds,
+      standing close together foot to foot the length of the room, most of them
+      unoccupied, their coverings rolled up in a bundle at one end. Seven or
+      eight were animated by an occasional snore, by a hollow cough, or a
+      stifled exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new-comer had the best place, a little sheltered from the wind of the
+      door. Nevertheless, he was far from warm, and the cold kept him from sleep
+      as much as the novelty of his surroundings. He went over and over again in
+      his memory every trifling detail of the day&rsquo;s events. He saw Moronval&rsquo;s
+      bulky white cravat, the enormous spectacles of Dr. Hirsch&mdash;his soiled
+      and spotted overcoat; but above all he recalled the cold and haughty eyes
+      of &ldquo;his enemy,&rdquo; as he already in his innermost heart called D&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This thought struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he looked
+      to his mother for protection and defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where was she at that moment? A dozen different clocks at that instant
+      struck eleven. She was probably at some ball or theatre. She would soon
+      come in, all wrapped in furs and laces. When she came, it mattered not how
+      late, she always opened Jack&rsquo;s door and bent over his bed to kiss him.
+      Even in his sleep he was generally conscious of her presence, and
+      smilingly opened his eyes to admire her toilette. And now he shuddered as
+      he thought of the change; and yet it was not altogether painful, for the
+      chevrons of his uniform delighted him, and he was happy in concealing his
+      long legs in the skirt of his tunic. He had made two or three new
+      acquaintances,&mdash;a thing very agreeable to most children; he had found
+      his fellow-pupils odd enough, but their oddities interested him. They had
+      snowballed each other in the garden, which, to a child who had been living
+      in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very novel amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where was
+      the little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so warmly? Was
+      he in the Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk with him, and make
+      him his friend. He repeated to himself the names of the &ldquo;eight children of
+      the sun,&rdquo; but there was no prince among them. Then he thought he would ask
+      the boy Said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished silence.
+      Jack&rsquo;s question remained unanswered, and the child&rsquo;s thoughts ran on as he
+      lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music that rang through
+      the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the perpetual sound of the
+      pumps in the stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval&rsquo;s guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and all
+      was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the small
+      black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept between
+      the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his shoulders, and
+      his teeth chattering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all
+      the peculiarities of the black boy&mdash;the protruding mouth, the
+      enormous ears, and retreating forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there
+      warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though
+      dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack&rsquo;s heart warmed toward him. As
+      he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. &ldquo;Ah! the snow I the
+      snow!&rdquo; he murmured sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who looked
+      at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and said,
+      half to himself, &ldquo;Ah! the new pupil! Why don&rsquo;t you go to sleep, little
+      boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; said Jack, sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good to sigh if you are sorry,&rdquo; said the negro, cententiously. &ldquo;If
+      the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you sleep there?&rdquo; asked the child, astonished that a servant should
+      occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. &ldquo;But there are no sheets!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black.&rdquo; The negro laughed
+      gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half
+      clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an ivory
+      smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a funny medal!&rdquo; cried Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not a medal,&rdquo; answered the negro; &ldquo;it is my <i>Gri-qri</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that it
+      was an amulet&mdash;something to bring him good luck. His Aunt Kérika had
+      given it to him when he left his native land,&mdash;the aunt who had
+      brought him up, and to whom he hoped to return at some future day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I shall to my mamma,&rdquo; said little Barancy; and both children were
+      silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. &ldquo;And your country&mdash;is
+      it a pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahomey,&rdquo; answered the negro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack started up in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, his royal Highness,&mdash;you know him,&mdash;the little king of
+      Dahomey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am he,&rdquo; said the negro, quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had
+      seen at work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on the
+      table, and rinsing glasses!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face grew
+      very sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the past, or
+      toward some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king that led Jack
+      to examine this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed, his white shirt
+      open, while on his dark breast shone the ivory amulet, with new interest?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did all this happen?&rdquo; asked the child, timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. &ldquo;M. Moronval not
+      like it if Mâdou lets it burn.&rdquo; Then he pulled his couch close to that of
+      Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not sleepy,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I never wish to sleep if I can talk of
+      Dahomey. Listen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen, the
+      little negro began his dismal tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was called Mâdou,&mdash;the name of his father, an illustrious warrior,
+      one of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to whom
+      France, Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father had
+      cannon, and soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war,
+      musicians and priests, four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred wives.
+      His palace was immense, and ornamented by spears on which hung human heads
+      after a battle or a sacrifice. Mâdou was born in this palace. His Aunt
+      Kérika, general-in-chief of the Amazons, took him with her in all her
+      expeditions. How beautiful she was, this Kérika! tall and large as a man,&mdash;in
+      a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs loaded with bracelets and anklets;
+      her bow slung over her shoulder, and the tail of a horse streaming below
+      her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly locks, she wore two small antelope
+      horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black warriors had preserved
+      among themselves the tradition of Diana the white huntress! And what an
+      eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could cut off the head of an
+      Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible Kérika might have been on
+      the battlefield, to her nephew Mâdou she was always very gentle, bestowing
+      on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of coral and of amber, and all the
+      shells he desired,&mdash;shells being the money in that part of the world.
+      She even gave him a small but gorgeous musket, presented to herself by the
+      Queen of England, and which Kérika found too light for her own use. Mâdou
+      always carried it when he went to the forests to hunt with his aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that the
+      sun never penetrated to these green temples. Then Mâdou described with
+      enthusiasm the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds with
+      wonderful plumage, and Jack listened in delight and astonishment. There
+      were serpents, too, but they were harmless; and black monkeys leaped from
+      tree to tree; and large mysterious lakes, that had never reflected the
+      skies in their brown depths, lay here and there in the forests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, &ldquo;O, how beautiful it must be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very beautiful,&rdquo; said the black boy, who undoubtedly exaggerated a
+      little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of absence, of
+      childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern nature;
+      but encouraged by his comrade&rsquo;s sympathy, Mâdou continued his story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked in
+      the jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were heard
+      in the distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the bats,
+      silent and black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered over and
+      about it until daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic tree,
+      motionless, and pressed against each other, looking like some singular
+      leaves, dry and dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,&mdash;could
+      wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied to
+      their mother&rsquo;s apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir to
+      his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a negro
+      prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must also
+      learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his son,
+      &ldquo;White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with.&rdquo; Of
+      course some European might have been found in Dahomey who could instruct
+      the prince,&mdash;for French and English flags floated over the ships in
+      the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his father to a town
+      called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world; and he wished his son
+      to receive a similar education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kérika; he looked at his
+      sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a
+      clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold
+      dust stolen from the poor negroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to
+      command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of corn
+      and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with
+      treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them, and
+      be capable of defending them when necessary,&mdash;and Mâdou early learned
+      that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures than the
+      rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to the
+      fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown open
+      for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered there, and
+      at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners of war were
+      executed on the shore, and the executioner threw their heads into a great
+      copper basin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the actors
+      in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval Academy rather
+      than in that terrible land of Dahomey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the ceremonies
+      preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his arrival and life at
+      Marseilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the
+      court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor, who
+      sternly said, if a whisper was heard, &ldquo;Not so much noise, if you please!&rdquo;
+       The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous scratching of pens,
+      the lessons repeated over and over again, were all new and very trying to
+      Mâdou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but the walls were so high,
+      the court-yard so narrow, that he could never find enough to bask in.
+      Nothing amused or interested him. He was never allowed to go out as were
+      the other pupils, and for a very good reason. At first he had induced M.
+      Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where he often saw merchandise from
+      his own country, and sometimes went into ecstasies at some well-known
+      mark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their sails,
+      all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,&mdash;one had
+      brought him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And
+      possessed by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C&rsquo;s, for his
+      eyes saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above.
+      The result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and
+      hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time, but
+      escaped again, and the second time was not discovered until the ship was
+      in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons. Any other child would have been kept
+      on board; but when Mâdou&rsquo;s name was known, the captain took his royal
+      Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a very
+      close prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more; and this
+      time, on being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so gently, and
+      with such a sad smile, that no one had the heart to punish him. At last
+      the principal of the institution declined the responsibility of so
+      determined a pupil. Should he send the little prince back to Dahomey? M.
+      Bonfils dared not permit this, fearing thereby to lose the good graces of
+      the king. In the midst of these perplexities Moronvol&rsquo;s advertisement
+      appeared, and the prince was at once dispatched to 23 Avenue Montaigne,&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      most beautiful situation in Paris,&rdquo;&mdash;where he was received, as you
+      may well believe, with open arms. This heir of a far-off kingdom was a
+      godsend to the academy. He was constantly on exhibition; M. Moronval
+      showed him at theatres and concerts, and along the boulevards, reminding
+      one of those perambulating advertisements that are to be seen in all large
+      cities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval, who
+      entered a room with all the gravity of Fénélon conducting the Duke of
+      Burgundy. The two were announced as &ldquo;His Royal Highness the Prince of
+      Dahomey, and M. Moronval, his tutor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of Mâdou; an attaché of
+      a London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and serious
+      talk as to the course the young prince should pursue when called to the
+      throne of his ancestors. The English journal published an account of the
+      curious dialogue, and the vague replies certainly left much to be desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this solitary
+      pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented to him without
+      a word of dispute. Mâdou&rsquo;s education, however, made but little progress.
+      He still continued among the A B C&rsquo;s, and Madame Moronval&rsquo;s charming
+      method made no impression upon him. His defective pronunciation was still
+      retained, and his half-childish way of speaking was not changed. But he
+      was gay and happy. All the other children were compelled to yield to him a
+      certain deference. At first this was a difficult matter, as his intense
+      blackness seemed to indicate to these other children of the sun that he
+      was a slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in
+      spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their
+      instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what
+      could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo king. It
+      was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as Mâdou was crowned,
+      they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to develop the musical
+      taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a conservatory, and at
+      the head of the Royal Chapel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp
+      black heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon the
+      inmates of which he could experiment without fear of any interference from
+      the police. The first few weeks, therefore, of his sojourn at Paris seemed
+      to Mâdou very sweet. If only the sun would shine out brightly, if the fine
+      rain would cease to fall, or the thick fog clear away; if, in short, the
+      boy could once have been thoroughly warm, he would have been content; and
+      if Kérika, with her gun and her bow, her arms covered with clanking
+      bracelets, could occasionally have appeared in the <i>Passage des Douze
+      Maison</i>, he would have been very happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day,
+      bringing most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken
+      prisoner by the Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal
+      troops and the regiment of Amazons had all been conquered and dispersed.
+      Kérika alone was saved, and she dispatched M. Bonfils to Mâdou to tell him
+      to remain in France, and to take good care of his Gri-gri, for it was
+      written in the great book that if Mâdou did not lose that amulet, he would
+      come into his kingdom. The poor little king was in great trouble.
+      Moronval, who placed no faith in the <i>gri-gri</i>, presented his bill&mdash;and
+      such a bill!&mdash;to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but informed the principal
+      that in future, if he consented to keep Mâdou, he must not rely upon any
+      present compensation, but upon the gratitude of the king as soon as the
+      fortunes and chances of war should restore him to his throne. Would the
+      principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once signifying his intentions? Moronval
+      promptly and nobly said, &ldquo;I will keep the child.&rdquo; Observe that it was no
+      longer &ldquo;his Royal Highness.&rdquo; And the boy at once became like all the other
+      scholars, and was scolded and punished as they were,&mdash;more, in fact,
+      for the professors were out of temper with him, feeling apparently, that
+      they had been deluded by false pretences. The child could understand
+      little of this, and tried in vain all the gentle ways that had seemed to
+      win so much affection before. It was worse still the next quarter, when
+      Moronval, receiving no money, realized that Mâdou was a burden to him. He
+      dismissed the servant, and installed Mâdou in his place, not without a
+      scene with the young prince. The first time a broom was placed in his
+      hands and its use explained to him, Mâdou obstinately refused. But M.
+      Moronval had an irresistible argument ready, and after a heavy caning the
+      boy gave up. Besides, he preferred to sweep rather than to learn to read.
+      The prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept with singular energy, and the
+      salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously clean; but Moronval&rsquo;s heart was
+      not softened. In vain did the little fellow work; in vain did he seek to
+      obtain a kindly word from his master; in vain did he hover about him with
+      all the touching humility of a submissive hound: he rarely obtained any
+      other recompense than a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain seemed
+      to fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Kérika! Aunt Kérika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come and
+      see what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated, how
+      scantily he is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is! He has
+      but one suit now, and that a livery&mdash;a red coat and striped vest!
+      Now, when he goes out with his master, he does not walk at his side&mdash;he
+      follows him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou&rsquo;s honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of
+      Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this last
+      descendant of the powerful <i>Tocodonon</i>, the founder of the Dahomian
+      dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of a huge
+      basket, half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for nothing
+      warms him now, neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the shame of
+      having become a servant; nor even his hatred of &ldquo;the father with a stick,&rdquo;
+       as he called Moronval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Mâdou confided to Jack
+      his projects of vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When Mâdou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the
+      father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will
+      cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big
+      drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,&mdash;Boum!
+      boum! boum!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro&rsquo;s white eyes, and
+      heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the drum, and
+      was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the sabres, and
+      the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket over his head,
+      and held his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he thought
+      his solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath, Mâdou said
+      gently, &ldquo;Shall we talk some more, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Jack; &ldquo;only don&rsquo;t let us say any more about that drum, nor
+      the copper basin.&rdquo; The negro laughed silently. &ldquo;Very well, sir; Mâdou
+      won&rsquo;t talk&mdash;you must talk now. What is your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack, with a <i>k</i>. Mamma thinks a great deal about that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is your mamma very rich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rich! I guess she is,&rdquo; said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle Mâdou
+      in his turn. &ldquo;We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the boulevard,
+      horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma comes here,
+      how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look at her, she
+      has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live at Tours; it
+      was a pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we bought nice
+      cakes, and where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The gentlemen were
+      all good to me. I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,&mdash;not real papas,
+      you know, because my own father died when I was a little fellow. When we
+      first went to Paris I did not like it; I missed the trees and the country;
+      but mamma petted me so much, and was so good to me, that I was soon happy
+      again. I was dressed like the little English boys, and my hair was curled,
+      and every day we went to the Bois. At last my mamma&rsquo;s old friend said that
+      I ought to learn something; so mamma took me to the Jesuit College&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive him,
+      wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and innocence
+      of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to his mother in
+      this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital, on which he had
+      so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only serious trouble of his
+      life. Why had they not been willing to receive him? why did his mother
+      weep? and why did the Superior pity him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, then, little master,&rdquo; asked the negro suddenly, &ldquo;what is a cocotte?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cocotte?&rdquo; asked Jack in astonishment. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Is it a chicken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your mother
+      was a cocotte.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an ideal. You misunderstood,&rdquo; and at the thought of his mother being
+      a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh; and Mâdou,
+      without knowing why, followed his example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous
+      conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided to
+      each other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.~~THE REUNION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Children are like grown people,&mdash;the experiences of others are never
+      of any use to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had been terrified by Madou&rsquo;s story, but he thought of it only as a
+      frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first months
+      were so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he forgot that
+      Mâdou for a time had been equally happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared his
+      dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit
+      appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch,
+      whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable
+      condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by
+      descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious diseases,
+      and, in fact, kept his hearers <i>au courant</i> with all the ailments of
+      the day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of
+      the plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would nod his head with
+      delight, and say, &ldquo;It will be here before long&mdash;before long!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first, his
+      near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of
+      dropping into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops from
+      a vial in his pocket The contents of this vial were never the same, for
+      the doctor made new scientific discoveries each week, but in general
+      bicarbonate, alkalies, and arsenic (in infinitesimal doses fortunately)
+      made the base of these medicaments. Jack submitted to these preventives,
+      and did not venture to say that he thought they tasted very badly.
+      Occasionally the other professors were invited, and everybody drank the
+      health of the little De Barancy, every one was enthusiastic over his
+      sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher, Labassandre, at the least
+      joke made by the child, threw himself back in his chair with a loud laugh,
+      pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes with a corner of his
+      napkin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even D&rsquo;Argenton, the handsome D&rsquo;Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile crossed
+      his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with
+      haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he
+      wish to understand, the signs made to him by Mâdou, as he waited upon the
+      table, with a napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. Mâdou knew
+      better than any one else the real value of these exaggerated praises and
+      the vanity of human greatness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master&rsquo;s wine,
+      flavored by the powder from the doctor&rsquo;s bottle; and the tunic, with its
+      silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had been
+      made for Mâdou? The story of the little negro should have been a warning
+      to the small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the installation of
+      both boys in the Moronval Academy had been precisely of the same
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into
+      weeks. Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval, who
+      snatched every opportunity of testing her method.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new pupil.
+      He had made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the Boulevard
+      Hauss-mann, and had fully acquainted himself with the resources of the
+      lady there. When, therefore, Madame de Barancy came to see Jack, which was
+      very often, she met with a warm reception, and had an attentive audience
+      for all the vain and foolish stories she saw fit to tell. At first Madame
+      Moronval wished to preserve a certain dignified coolness toward such a
+      person, but her husband soon changed that idea, and she saw herself
+      obliged to lay aside her womanly scruples in favor of her interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack! Jack! here comes your mother,&rdquo; some one would cry as the door
+      opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of cakes
+      and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for every one;
+      they all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy ungloved her hand,
+      the one on which were the most rings, and condescended to take a portion.
+      The poor creature was so generous, and money slipped so easily through her
+      fingers, that she generally brought with her cakes all sorts of presents,
+      playthings, &amp;c., which she distributed as the fancy struck her. It is
+      easy to imagine the enthusiastic praises lavished upon this inconsiderate,
+      reckless generosity. Moronval alone had a smile of pity and of envy at
+      seeing money so wasted, which should have gone to the assistance of some
+      brave, generous soul like himself, for example. This was his fixed idea.
+      And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing his finger-nails, he had an
+      absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes to ask a loan, and has
+      his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval&rsquo;s dream for some time had
+      been to establish a Review consecrated to colonial interests, in this way
+      hoping to satisfy his political aspirations by recalling himself regularly
+      to his compatriots; and, finally, who knows he might be elected deputy.
+      But, as a commencement, the journal seemed indispensable, and he had a
+      vague notion that the mother of his new pupil might be induced to defray
+      the expenses of this Review, but he did not wish to move too rapidly lest
+      he should frighten the lady away; he intended to prepare the way gently.
+      Unfortunately, Madame de Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of
+      nature, was difficult to reach. She would continually change the
+      conversation just at the important point, because she found it very
+      uninteresting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!&rdquo; said Moronval to
+      himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de Sévigné
+      and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might as well
+      have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was fluttering
+      about his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not strong-minded nor literary,&rdquo; said Ida, with a half yawn, one day
+      when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be
+      dazzled, not led.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful
+      tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she added
+      the <i>de</i> as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, tell me, tell me!&rdquo; said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish to
+      oblige.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the
+      Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to act
+      with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de Barancy
+      to be present at one of their literary reunions on the following Saturday.
+      Formerly these little fêtes took place every week, but since Mâdou&rsquo;s fall
+      they had been very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval had
+      extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in vain had he dried the
+      tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the window-sill, and served it
+      again the following week, the expense still was too great. But now he
+      determined to hazard another attempt in that direction. Madame de Barancy
+      accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea of making her appearance
+      in the salon as a married woman of position was very attractive to her,
+      for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on which she hoped to ascend
+      from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a most splendid fête at which she assisted. In the memory of all
+      beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored lanterns hung
+      on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted, and at least
+      thirty candles were burning in the salon, the floor of which Mâdou had so
+      waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it was as brilliant and as
+      dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself; and here let me say
+      that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as to the part that the
+      prince should take at the soirée.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one day
+      only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting; but,
+      then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could replace
+      him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some one in Paris who
+      might not be pleased with this system of education; and finally it was
+      decided that the soirée must be deprived of the presence and prestige of
+      his royal Highness. At eight o&rsquo;clock, &ldquo;the children of the sun&rdquo; took their
+      seats on the benches, and among them the blonde head of little De Barancy
+      glittered like a star on the dark background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary
+      world&mdash;the one at least which he frequented&mdash;and the
+      representatives of art, literature, and architecture appeared in large
+      delegations. They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the
+      depths of <i>Montparnasse</i> on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and
+      poor, unknown, but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the
+      longing to be seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves
+      that they were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure air, this
+      glimpse of the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of glory and
+      success, they returned to their squalid apartments, having gained a little
+      strength to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there
+      were painters longing for fame, but whose pictures looked as if an
+      earthquake had shaken everything from its perpendicular; musicians&mdash;inventors
+      of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains
+      contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by
+      reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if their
+      insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their offensive
+      pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to laugh,
+      their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that had wept over
+      so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have awakened
+      profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a taskmistress
+      and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment.. For example, a
+      lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an agent for a wine
+      merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives.
+      These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave, worn
+      faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of men of
+      genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they smiled
+      upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there were the
+      habitués of the house, the three professors; Labassandre in gala costume,
+      exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous inspirations; and
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, the handsome D&rsquo;Argenton, curled and pomaded, wearing light
+      gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of authority, geniality, and
+      condescension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one, shaking
+      hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later and the
+      countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the countess under
+      that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de Moronval went
+      from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, &ldquo;We will wait a few
+      moments, the countess has not yet arrived!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small green
+      table, on which stood a glass of <i>eau-sucré</i> and a reading-lamp, was
+      in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red and
+      oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and Mâdotu, shivering in the
+      wind from the door,&mdash;all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile, as
+      she came not, D&rsquo;Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his
+      assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in
+      front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide forehead,
+      the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called his poem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friends were not sparing in their praises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Magnificent!&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;Sublime!&rdquo; exclaimed another; and the most
+      amazing criticism came from yet another,&mdash;&ldquo;Goethe with a heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to
+      the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart
+      was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat: now
+      she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more his pale
+      face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a love poem, and,
+      believing in love as he did in God, he produced an extraordinary effect
+      upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish
+      sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of her
+      heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic signs to
+      her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for Moronval, who
+      bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that examined her from
+      head to foot, as she stood before them in her black velvet dress and her
+      little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses and ornamented with tulle
+      strings which wrapped about her like a scarf. Years after she recalled the
+      profound impression of that evening, and saw as in a dream her poet as she
+      saw him first in that salon, which seemed to her, seen through the vista
+      of years, immense and superb. The future might heap misery upon her; her
+      past could humiliate and wound her, crush her life, and something more
+      precious than life itself; but the recollection of that brief moment of
+      ecstasy could never be effaced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, madame,&rdquo; said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile, &ldquo;that
+      we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte Àmaury d&rsquo;Argenton
+      was reciting his magnificent poem.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vicomte!&rdquo; He was noble, then!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Continue, sir, I beg of you,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But D&rsquo;Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had
+      injured the effect of his poem&mdash;destroyed its point; and such things
+      are not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that
+      he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more about
+      her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had displeased
+      him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all little Jack&rsquo;s
+      tender caresses and outspoken joy&mdash;all his delight at the admiration
+      expressed for her, the attentions of everybody, the idea that she was
+      queen of the fete&mdash;to efface the sorrow she felt, and which she
+      showed by a silence of at least five minutes, which silence for a nature
+      like hers was something as extraordinary as restful. The disturbance of
+      her entrance being at last over, every one seated himself to await the
+      next recitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat
+      majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on the
+      arm of his mother&rsquo;s chair, between her and M. Moronval, who smoothed the
+      lad&rsquo;s hair in the most paternal way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took
+      dignified possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and
+      proceeded to read an ethnographic composition of her husband&rsquo;s on the
+      Mongolian races. It was long and tedious&mdash;one of those lucubrations
+      that are delivered before certain scientific societies, and succeed in
+      lulling the members to sleep. Madame Moronval took this opportunity of
+      demonstrating the peculiarities of her method, which had the merit&mdash;if
+      merit it were&mdash;of holding the attention as in a vice, and the words
+      and syllables seemed to reverberate through your own brain. To see Madame
+      Moronval open her mouth to sound her o&rsquo;s, to hear the r&rsquo;s rattle in her
+      throat, was more edifying than agreeable. The mouths of the eight children
+      opposite mechanically followed each one of her gestures, producing a most
+      extraordinary effect; one absolutely fascinating to Mademoiselle Constant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the countess saw nothing of all this; she had eyes but for her poet
+      leaning against the door of the drawing-room, with arms folded and eyes
+      moodily cast down. In vain did Ida seek to attract his attention; he
+      glanced occasionally about the salon, but her arm-chair might as well have
+      been vacant; he did not appear to see her, and the poor woman was rendered
+      so utterly miserable by this neglect and indifference, that she forgot to
+      congratulate Moronval on the brilliant success of his essay, which
+      concluded amid great applause and universal relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then followed another brief poem by Argenton, to which Ida listened
+      breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, how beautiful!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;how beautiful!&rdquo; and she turned to
+      Moronval, who sat with a forced smile on his lips. &ldquo;Present me to M.
+      d&rsquo;Argenton, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke to the poet in a low voice and with great courtesy. He, however,
+      bowed very coldly, apparently careless of her implied admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How happy you are,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;in the possession of such a talent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she asked where she could obtain his poems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not to be procured, madame,&rdquo; answered D&rsquo;Argenton, gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without knowing it, she had again wounded his sensitive pride, and he
+      turned away without vouchsafing another syllable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Moronval profited by this opening. &ldquo;Think of it!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;think that
+      such verses as those cannot find a publisher! That such genius as that is
+      buried in obscurity! If we only could publish a magazine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why can you not?&rdquo; asked Ida, quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because we have not the funds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they can easily be procured. Such talent should not be allowed to
+      languish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke with great earnestness; and Moronval saw at once that he had
+      played his cards well, and proceeded to take advantage of the lady&rsquo;s
+      weakness by talking to her of D&rsquo;Argenton, whom he painted in glowing
+      colors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke of him as Lara, or Manifred, a proud and independent nature, one
+      which could not be conquered by the hardships of his lot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Ida interrupted him to ask if the poet was not of noble birth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most assuredly, madame. He is a viscount, and descended from one of the
+      noblest families in Auvergne. His father was ruined by the dishonesty of
+      an agent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was his text, which he proceeded to enlarge upon, and illustrate by
+      many romantic incidents. Ida drank in the whole story; and while these two
+      were absorbed in earnest conversation, Jack grew jealous, and made various
+      efforts to attract his mother&rsquo;s attention. &ldquo;Jack, do be quiet!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Jack,
+      you are insufferable!&rdquo; finally sent him off, with tearful eyes and swollen
+      lips, to sulk in the corner of the salon. Meanwhile the literary
+      entertainments of the evening went on, and finally Labassandre, after
+      numerous entreaties, was induced to sing. His voice was so powerful, and
+      so pervaded the house, that Mâdou, who was in the kitchen preparing tea,
+      replied by a frightful war-cry. The poor fellow worshipped noise of all
+      kinds and at all times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval and the comtesse continued their conversation; and D&rsquo;Argenton,
+      who by this time understood that he was the subject, stood in front of
+      them, apparently absorbed in conversation with one of the professors. He
+      appeared to be out of temper&mdash;and with whom? With the whole world;
+      for he was one of that very large class who are at war against society,
+      and against the manners and customs of their day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this very moment he was declaiming violently, &ldquo;You have all the vices
+      of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere name. Love
+      is a farce. You have accomplished nothing intellectually.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, sir,&rdquo; interrupted his hearer. But the other went on more
+      vehemently and more aggressively. He wished, he said, that all France
+      could hear what he thought. The nation was abased, crushed beyond all hope
+      of recuperation. As for himself, he had determined to emigrate to America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that was
+      bent upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that one has
+      in the fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly rises behind
+      you and compels you to turn toward its silent presence. The eyes of this
+      woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in regard to
+      leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom settled over
+      the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D&rsquo;Argenton wound up with a
+      vigorous tirade against French women,&mdash;their lightness and coquetry,
+      the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of their love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the chimney,
+      and careless who heard either his voice or his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that he
+      was indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows who I am,&rdquo; she said, and bowed her head in shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval said aloud, &ldquo;What a genius!&rdquo; and in a lower voice to himself,
+      &ldquo;What a boaster!&rdquo; But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had Dr.
+      Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities, been
+      then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this case of
+      instantaneous combustion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two or
+      three of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent
+      wretchedness, stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns
+      swung in the wind each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted,
+      and not even a policeman enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the disputative
+      little group that left the Moronval Academy cared little for the gloom,
+      the cold, or the dampness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus had
+      passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of life&mdash;in
+      the same brave spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees, as
+      well as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each borrow a
+      little, and with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm serenity that may
+      well be envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.~~A DINNER WITH IDA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an invitation
+      for the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a postscript,
+      expressing the pleasure she should have in receiving also M. d&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; said the poet, dryly, when Moron-val handed him the
+      coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw
+      his plans frustrated. &ldquo;Why would not D&rsquo;Argenton accept the invitation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;I never visit such women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make a great mistake,&rdquo; said Moronval; &ldquo;Madame de Barancy is not the
+      kind of person you imagine. Besides, to serve a friend, you should lay
+      aside your scruples. You see that I need the countess, that she is
+      disposed to look favorably on my Colonial Review, and you should do all
+      that lies in your power to favor my views. Come, now, think better of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, after being properly entreated, finished by accepting the
+      invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following Monday, therefore, Moronval and his wife left the academy
+      under the supervision of Dr. Hirsch, and presented themselves in the
+      Boulevard Haussmann, where the poet was to join them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner was at seven; D&rsquo;Argenton did not arrive until half an hour past the
+      time. Ida was in a state of great anxiety. &ldquo;Do you think he will come?&rdquo;
+       she asked; &ldquo;perhaps he is ill. He looks very delicate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he appeared with the air of a conquering hero, making some
+      indifferent excuse for his lack of punctuality. His manner, however, was
+      less disdainful than usual, for the hotel had impressed him. Its luxury,
+      the flowers, and thick carpets; the little boudoir with its bouquets of
+      white lilacs; the commonplace salon, like a dentist&rsquo;s waiting-room, a blue
+      ceiling and gilded mouldings, the ebony furniture, cushioned with gold
+      color, and the balcony exposed to the dust of the boulevard,&mdash;all
+      charmed the attaché of the Moronval Academy, and gave him a favorable
+      impression of wealth and high life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The table equipage, the imposing effect produced by Augustin, in short,
+      all the luxurious details of the house, appealed to his senses, and
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, without flattering the countess as openly as did Moronval; yet
+      succeeded in doing so in a more subtile manner, by thawing under her
+      influence to a very marked extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was an interminable talker, and submitted with a very bad grace to any
+      interruption. He was arbitrary and egotistical, and rang the changes on
+      the <i>I</i> and the <i>my</i> for a whole evening, without allowing any
+      one else to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unhappily, to be a good listener is a quality far above natures like that
+      of the countess; and the dinner was characterized by some unfortunate
+      incidents. D&rsquo;Argenton was particularly fond of repeating the replies he
+      had made to the various editors and theatrical managers who had declined
+      his articles, and refused to print his prose or his verse. His mots on
+      these occasions had been clever and caustic; but with Madame de Barancy he
+      was never able to reach that point, preceded as it must necessarily be
+      with lengthy explanations. At the critical moment Ida would invariably
+      interrupt him,&mdash;always, to be sure, with some thought for his
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little more of this ice, M. d&rsquo;Argenton, I beg of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not any, madame,&rdquo; the poet would answer with a frown, and continue, &ldquo;Then
+      I said to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid you do not like it,&rdquo; urged the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is excellent, madame,&mdash;and I said these cruel words&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another interruption from Ida; who, later, when she saw her poet in a fit
+      of the sulks, wondered what she had done to displease him. Two or three
+      times during dinner she was quite ready to weep, but did her best to hide
+      her feelings by urging all the delicacies of her table upon M. and Madame
+      Moronval. Dinner over, and the guests established in the well warmed and
+      lighted salon, the principal fancied he saw his way clear, and said
+      suddenly, in a half indifferent tone, to the countess,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thought much of our little matter of business. It will cost less
+      than I fancied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she answered absently,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, madame, you would accord to me a few moments of your attention&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But madame was occupied in looking at her poet, who was walking up and
+      down the salon silent and preoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what can he be thinking?&rdquo; she said to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of his digestion only, dear reader. Suffering somewhat from dyspepsia, and
+      always anxious in regard to his health, he never failed, on leaving the
+      table, to walk for half an hour, no matter where he might chance to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida watched him silently. For the first time in her life she loved, really
+      and passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat before.
+      Foolish and ignorant, while at the same time credulous and romantic; very
+      near that fatal age&mdash;thirty years&mdash;which is almost certain to
+      create in woman a great transformation; she now, aided by the memory of
+      every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal who
+      resembled D&rsquo;Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in looking at
+      him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that her passion
+      soon ceased to be a mystery to any one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moron val, who looked on, shrugged his shoulders, with a glance at his
+      wife. &ldquo;She is simply crazy,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She certainly was crazed in a degree; and, after dinner, she tormented
+      herself to find some way of returning to the good graces of D&rsquo;Argenton,
+      and, as he approached her in his walk, she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If M. d&rsquo;Argenton wished to be very amiable, he would recite to us that
+      beautiful poem which created such a sensation the other evening. I have
+      thought of it all the week. There is one verse that haunts me, especially
+      the final line:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &lsquo;And I believe in love,
+     As I believe in a good God above.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I believe in God above,&rdquo; said the poet, making as horrible a grimace
+      as if his finger had been caught in a vice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply that
+      she had again incurred the displeasure of D&rsquo;Argenton. The fact is that he
+      had begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own control, and
+      which, in its unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the timid worship
+      offered by the Japanese to their hideous idols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than
+      nature had made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility that
+      rendered her so charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D&rsquo;Argenton relented,
+      and suspended his hygienic exercise for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but
+      what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Moronval interposed. &ldquo;Recite the &lsquo;Credo,&rsquo; my dear fellow,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poem commenced gently enough with the words,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    &ldquo;Madame, your toilette is charming.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in
+      these terrific words:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,
+     Who drains from my heart its life-blood.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful
+      recollections, D&rsquo;Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another word
+      the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague fears of
+      the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her poet, so
+      drained his heart that there was not a drop left for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said Moronval, as they strolled through the
+      empty boulevards, arm-inarm, that night, little Madame Moronval pattering
+      on in front of them,&mdash;&ldquo;you know if I can succeed in the establishment
+      of my Review, that I shall make you editor-in-chief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval threw the half of his cargo overboard in order to save his ship,
+      for he saw that unless the poet was enlisted, the countess would take no
+      interest in the scheme. D&rsquo;Argenton made no reply, for he was absorbed in
+      thoughts of Ida.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No man can play the part of a lyric poet, a martyr to love, without being
+      conscious of, and touched by, that silent adoration which appeals to his
+      vanity, both as a man of letters and a man of the world. Since he had seen
+      Ida in her luxurious home, about which there was the same suspicion of
+      vulgarity that clung about herself, the rigidity of his principles had
+      amazingly softened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.~~AMAURY D&rsquo;ARGENTON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton belonged to one of those ancient provincial families
+      whose castles resembled great farms. Impoverished for the three last
+      generations, they had finally sold their property, and come to Paris to
+      seek their fortunes; with little change for the better, however; and for
+      the last thirty years they had dropped the <i>De</i>, which Amaury
+      ventured to resume on adopting his literary career. He meant to make it
+      famous, and even was audacious enough to announce this intention aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The childhood of the poet had been one of gloom and privation; surrounded
+      by anxieties and by tears, by sordid cares, and that constant lack of
+      money which imbitters the lives of so many of us, he had never laughed nor
+      played like other children. A scholarship that was obtained for him
+      enabled him to complete his studies, and his only recreation was obtained
+      through the kindness of an aunt who resided in the Marais, and who gave
+      him gloves and other trifles, which the poet very early in life learned to
+      regard as essentials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a childhood ripens early into bitter maturity. Infinite prosperity is
+      needed to efface such early impressions, and we often see men who have
+      attained to high honors, who are rich and powerful, and yet who have never
+      conquered the timidity born of their early deprivations. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s
+      bitterness was not without reason: at twenty-five he had succeeded in
+      nothing; he had published a volume at his own expense, and had lived on
+      bread and water in consequence for at least six months. He was industrious
+      as well as ambitious; but something more than these qualities are
+      essential to a poet, whose imagination and genius must be endowed with
+      wings. These D&rsquo;Argenton had not; he felt merely that vague uneasiness
+      which indicates a missing limb, but that was all, and he lost both time
+      and trouble in ineffectual efforts; his aunt aided him by a small
+      allowance, but his life bore not the shadow of a resemblance to the
+      picture drawn by Ida. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton had never been entangled in any
+      serious love affair; his nature was cold and prudent, and yet he had been
+      beloved by more than one woman. To D&rsquo;Argenton, however, their society had
+      always seemed a waste of time. Ida de Barancy was the first who had made
+      upon him any real impression. Of this fact Ida had no idea, and whenever
+      she met the poet on her very frequent visits to Jack, it was always with
+      the same deprecating air and timid voice. The poet, while adopting an air
+      of utter indifference, cultivated the affection and society of little
+      Jack, whom he induced to talk freely of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack being extremely flattered, gladly gave every information in his
+      power, and talked freely of the kind friend who was so good to mamma. The
+      mention of this person cost the poet a strange pang. &ldquo;He is so kind,&rdquo;
+       babbled Jack, &ldquo;he comes to see us every day; or, if he does not come, he
+      sends us great baskets of fruit, and playthings for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is your mother very fond of him, too?&rdquo; continued D&rsquo;Argenton, without
+      looking up from his writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, sir,&rdquo; answered the little fellow, innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But are we quite sure that he spoke so innocently. The minds of children
+      are not always so transparent as we believe; and it is difficult to say
+      when they understand matters that go on about them, and when they do not.
+      That mysterious growth that is constantly going on within them, has
+      unexpected seasons of bursting into flower, and they suddenly mass
+      together the disconnected fragments of information they have acquired and
+      intuitively attain the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Jack, therefore, no perception of the hidden rage that filled the
+      heart of his professor when he questioned him in regard to their kind
+      friend? Jack did not like D&rsquo;Argenton; in addition to his first dislike, he
+      was now actuated by strong jealousy. His mother was too much occupied by
+      this man. When he passed the day with her, she in her turn plied him with
+      questions, and asked if his teacher never spoke to him of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said Jack, calmly. And yet that very day D&rsquo;Argenton had desired
+      him to present his compliments to the countess, with a copy of his poems;
+      but Jack at first forgot the volume, and finally lost it, as much from
+      cunning as from heedlessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, while these two dissimilar natures were attracted toward each other,
+      the child stood between them suspicious and defiant, as if he already
+      foresaw what the future would bring about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every two weeks Jack dined with his mother, sometimes alone with her,
+      sometimes with their friend. They went to the theatre in the evening, or
+      to a concert, and Jack was sent back to school with his pockets full of
+      dainties, in which the other children shared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, as he entered his mother&rsquo;s house, he saw the dining-table
+      laid for three, and a gorgeous display of flowers and crystal. His mother
+      met him, exquisitely dressed, wearing in her hair sprays of white lilacs,
+      like those that filled the vases. The blazing fire alone lighted the
+      salon, into which she gayly drew the boy, as she said, &ldquo;Guess who is
+      here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I know very well!&rdquo; exclaimed Jack in delight; &ldquo;it is our good friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was D&rsquo;Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa, near the
+      fire. The enemy was in Jack&rsquo;s own seat, and the child was so overwhelmed
+      by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained his tears. There
+      was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all three. Just then the
+      door was thrown open, and dinner announced by Augustin. The dinner was
+      long and tedious to little Jack. Have you ever felt so entirely out of
+      place that you would have gladly disappeared from off the face of the
+      globe, painfully conscious, withal, that had you so vanished, no one would
+      have missed you? When Jack spoke, no one listened; his questions were
+      unheard and his wants unheeded. The conversation between his mother and
+      D&rsquo;Argenton was incomprehensible to him, although he saw that his mother
+      blushed more than once, and hastily raised her glass to her lips as if to
+      conceal her rising color. Where were those gay little dinners when Jack
+      sat close at his mother&rsquo;s side and reigned an absolute king at the table?
+      This recollection came to the boy&rsquo;s mind just as Madame de Barancy offered
+      a superb pear to D&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That came from our friend at Tours,&rdquo; said Jack, maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate
+      with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her
+      child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did not
+      venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary
+      continuation of the repast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone that
+      indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of his
+      early home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors where
+      the wind raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles in the
+      great city, the constant obstacles thrown in the way of the development of
+      his genius, of his jealous rivals and literary enemies, and of the
+      terrible epigrams which he had hurled upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I uttered these stinging words.&rdquo; This time she did not interrupt
+      him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that when
+      he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be heard in
+      the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of the leaves of
+      the album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over. Suddenly she rose with
+      a start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is
+      quite time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, mamma!&rdquo; said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he generally
+      remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his mother, nor
+      to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene and laughing
+      eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, my child!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, and he drew the child toward him
+      as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of repulsion, turned
+      aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot! I cannot!&rdquo; he murmured, throwing himself back in his arm-chair
+      and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant.&rdquo; And while Madame de Barancy
+      sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to
+      his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor
+      installed in his mother&rsquo;s chimney-corner, said to himself, &ldquo;He is very
+      comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there was
+      certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very
+      jealous of the child, who represented to him Ida&rsquo;s past, not that the poet
+      was profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary, loved
+      himself in her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image which he saw
+      reflected in her clear eyes. But D&rsquo;Argenton would have preferred to be the
+      first to disturb those depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. &ldquo;Why did I not
+      know him earlier?&rdquo; she said to herself over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She ought to understand by this time,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, sulkily, &ldquo;that I
+      do not wish to see that boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But even for her poet&rsquo;s sake Ida could not keep her child away from her
+      entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon
+      Jack from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the
+      smallest of the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she
+      lived, she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how I can aid you. I can work, and, besides, I
+      shall not be completely penniless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But D&rsquo;Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent enthusiasm
+      and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose heir
+      he would unquestionably be. &ldquo;The good old lady was very old,&rdquo; he added.
+      And the two, Ida and D&rsquo;Argenton, made a great many plans for the days that
+      were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far away from
+      Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They would have a
+      little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed this legend: <i>Parva
+      domus, magna quies</i>. There he could work, write a book&mdash;a novel,
+      and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in readiness, but
+      that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps a
+      member of the Academy&mdash;though, to be sure, that institution was
+      mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is nothing!&rdquo; said Ida; &ldquo;you must be a member!&rdquo; and she saw herself
+      already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly dressed, as
+      befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited, however, they
+      regaled themselves on the pears sent by &ldquo;the kind friend, who was
+      certainly the best and least suspicious of men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious; but
+      he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many
+      little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their
+      lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement
+      between Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily
+      expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected
+      D&rsquo;Argenton of influencing her against the project, and this belief he
+      ended by expressing to the poet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the windows
+      with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so blue,
+      that he longed for liberty and out-door life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the
+      garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of
+      singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days
+      when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to drive
+      away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length of the
+      nights and the smoke of the fires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother
+      entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great
+      care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not
+      bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval&rsquo;s permission first; but
+      as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission was
+      easily granted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How jolly!&rdquo; cried Jack; &ldquo;how jolly!&rdquo; and while his mother casually
+      informed Moronval that M. d&rsquo;Argenton had told her the evening previous
+      that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy ran
+      to change his dress. On his way he met Mâdou, who, sad and lonely, was
+      busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that the
+      air was soft and the sunshipe warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, mamma, if we could take Mâdou!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were
+      the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame
+      Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy&rsquo;s place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mâdou! Mâdou!&rdquo; cried the child, rushing toward him. &ldquo;Quick, dress
+      yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to breakfast
+      in the Bois!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment of confusion. Mâdou stood still in amazement, while
+      Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this
+      emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited
+      like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details
+      in regard to the illness of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the
+      victoria, and Mâdou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly be
+      regarded as a royal one, but Mâdou was satisfied. The drive itself was
+      charming, the Avenue de l&rsquo;Imperatrice was filled with people driving,
+      riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene. Babies, in
+      their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet solemnity of infancy,
+      and older children fancifully dressed, with their tutors or nurses,
+      crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, kissed his mother,
+      and pulled Mâdou by the sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you happy, Mâdou?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, very happy,&rdquo; was the answer. They reached the Bois, in places
+      quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of the
+      trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked like
+      smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with snow
+      half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose leaf-buds
+      were only beginning to swell The carriage drew up at the restaurant, and
+      while the breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in course of
+      preparation, she and the children took a walk to the lake. At this early
+      hour there were few of those superb equipages to be seen that appeared
+      later in the day. The lake was lovely, with white swans dotting it here
+      and there, and now and then a gentle ripple shook its surface, and
+      miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old willows on one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The children
+      attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed incessantly from
+      the beginning to the end of the repast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the <i>Jardin
+      d&rsquo;Acclimation</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a splendid idea,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;for Mâdou has never been there, and
+      won&rsquo;t he be amused!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They drove through <i>La Grande Allée</i> in the almost deserted garden,
+      which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the
+      animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive
+      eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought
+      from the restaurant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify Jack,
+      now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the blue
+      ticket over the little inclosures to recognize certain animals from his
+      own land. With mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the kangaroos, and
+      seemed to suffer in seeing them in the limited space which they covered in
+      three leaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were
+      inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and
+      cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary exotic;
+      but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even a green
+      leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and Mâdou thought of the Academy
+      Moronval and of himself. The plumage of the birds was dull and torn; they
+      told a tale of past battles, of dismal flutterings against the bars of
+      their prison-house. Even the rose-colored flamingoes and the long-billed
+      ibex, who seem associated with the Nile and the desert and the immovable
+      sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly commonplace aspect among the white
+      peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that paddled at ease in their
+      miniature pond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly appeared
+      at the end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle that Mâdou
+      stood still in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two elephants, who were
+      slowly approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and bearing on their broad
+      backs a crowd of women with light umbrellas, of children with straw hats
+      and colored ribbons. Following the elephant came a giraffe carrying his
+      small and haughty head very high. This singular caravan wound through the
+      circuitous road, with many nervous laughs and terrified cries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief
+      upon the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their trunks
+      either toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the spectators,
+      shaking their long ears when gently touched by some child, or by the
+      umbrella of some laughing girl on their backs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, Mâdou; you tremble. Are you ill?&rdquo; asked Jack. Mâdou
+      was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he too could
+      mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic in
+      expression. Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his mother,
+      whom he considered too grave for this fête-day. He liked to walk close at
+      her side, or linger behind her in the dust of her long silken skirts,
+      which she disdained to lift. They seated themselves, and watched the
+      little black boy climb on the back of the elephant. Once there, the child
+      seemed in his native place. He was no longer an exile, nor the awkward
+      schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated by his menial duties and by
+      his master&rsquo;s tyranny. He seemed imbued with new life, and his eyes
+      sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little king! Two or three
+      times he went around the garden. &ldquo;Again! again!&rdquo; he cried, and over the
+      little bridge, between the inclosures of the kangaroos and other animals,
+      he went to and fro, excited almost to madness by the heavy long strides of
+      the elephant. Kérika, Dahomey, war-like scenes, and the hunt, all returned
+      to his memory. He spoke to the elephant in his native tongue, and as he
+      heard the sweet African voice, the huge creature shut his eyes with
+      delight and trumpeted his pleasure. The zebras neighed, and the antelopes
+      started in terror, while from the great cage of tropical birds, where the
+      sun shone most fully, came warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant
+      screams, and an enraged chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small
+      scale, of a primeval forest in the tropics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was growing late. Mâdou must awaken from this beautiful dream.
+      Besides, as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose keen
+      and cold, as so often happens in the early spring. This wintry chill
+      affected the spirits of the children, and they grew strangely quiet and
+      sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She had
+      something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty in
+      selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment. Then
+      she took Jack&rsquo;s hand in hers. &ldquo;Listen, child, I have some bad news to tell
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he
+      turned his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low,
+      quick voice,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you
+      behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I
+      shall not be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes, very
+      soon, I promise you.&rdquo; And she threw out mysterious hints of a fortune to
+      come, and money affairs, and other things that were not at all interesting
+      to the child, who in reality paid little attention to her words, for he
+      was weeping silently but chokingly. The gay streets seemed no longer the
+      Paris of the morning, the sunshine was gone, the flowers on the
+      corner-stands were faded, and all was very dreary, for he saw through eyes
+      dim with tears, and the child was about to lose his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.~~MADOU&rsquo;S FLIGHT.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed the
+      position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation as
+      Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added that
+      Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite time, and
+      that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval&rsquo;s paternal care. In case
+      of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be forwarded to the
+      mother under cover to D&rsquo;Argenton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The paternal care of Moronval!&rdquo; Had the poet laughed aloud as he penned
+      these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child&rsquo;s fate at the
+      academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left Paris, and
+      that nothing more was to be expected from her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage,
+      which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado might
+      have done in the tropics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow,
+      who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of
+      her years&mdash;for she was by no means in her earliest youth&mdash;should
+      be so heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, &ldquo;Wait a while,
+      young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished
+      project, he was more indignant that D&rsquo;Argenton and Ida should have made
+      use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to the
+      Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no nearer
+      elucidation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that she
+      had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to be
+      given up, and the furniture sold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! sir,&rdquo; said Constant, mournfully, &ldquo;it was an unfortunate day for us
+      when we set foot in your old barracks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of the next
+      quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding, therefore, that
+      the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined to put an end to
+      all the indulgences with which he had been treated. Poor Jack after this
+      day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as the butt for all the
+      teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him. There were constant
+      allusions made to D&rsquo;Argenton: he was selfish and vain, a man totally
+      without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more than doubtful; the
+      château in the mountains, of which he discoursed so fluently, existed only
+      in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the man whom he detested,
+      amused the child; but something prevented him from joining in the servile
+      applause of the other children, who eagerly laughed at each one of
+      Moronval&rsquo;s witticisms. The fact was, that Jack dreaded the veiled
+      allusions to his mother with which these remarks invariably terminated.
+      He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning, but he saw by the
+      contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly. Madame Moronval
+      would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly word to Jack, or
+      by sending him on some trifling errand. During his absence, she
+      administered a reproof to her husband and his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; said Labassandre, &ldquo;he does not understand.&rdquo; Perhaps he did not
+      fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the
+      same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one of
+      the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage. The
+      boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and Jack
+      for the first time was severely flogged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day the charm was broken, and Jack&rsquo;s daily life did not greatly
+      differ from that of Mâdou, who was at this time very unhappy. The pleasant
+      weather, and the day at the <i>Jardin d&rsquo;Aclimation</i>, had given him a
+      terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took the form of a
+      sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all this was changed,
+      the boy&rsquo;s eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about the house and the
+      garden as if in a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night the black boy was undressing, and Jack heard him singing to
+      himself in a language that was strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you singing, Mâdou?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not singing, sir; I&rsquo;m talking negro talk!&rdquo; and Mâdou confided to his
+      friend his intention of running away from school. He had thought of it for
+      some time, and was only waiting for pleasant weather; and now he meant to
+      go to Dahomey, and find Kérika. If Jack would go with him, they would go
+      to Marseilles on foot, and then go on board some vessel. Nothing could
+      happen to them, for he had his amulet all safe. Jack made many objections.
+      Dahomey had no charms for him. He thought of the copper basin, and the
+      terrible heads, with an emotion of sick horror; and, besides, how could he
+      go so far from his mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said Mâdou; &ldquo;you can remain here, and I will go alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; answered the negro, resolutely closing his eyes as if he knew
+      that he would need all the strength that sleep could give him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, when Jack passed through the large recitation-room, he
+      saw Mâdou busily scrubbing the floor, and concluded that he had
+      relinquished his project.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The classes were busy for an hour or two, when Moronval appeared. &ldquo;Where
+      is Mâdou?&rdquo; he asked abruptly. &ldquo;He has gone to market,&rdquo; answered madame.
+      Jack, however, said to himself that Madou would not return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a little while Moronval came back and asked the same question. His wife
+      answered, uneasily, that she could not understand the boy&rsquo;s prolonged
+      absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner-time came, but no Mâdou, no vegetables, and no meat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something must have happened,&rdquo; said Madame Moronval, more indulgent than
+      her impatient husband, who paced up and down the corridor with his rod in
+      his hand, while the hungry schoolboys were quite ready to devour each
+      other. Finally, Madame Moronval sallied forth herself to buy some
+      provisions; and on her return, burdened with packages, she was greeted by
+      an enthusiastic shout from the children, who, when the fierceness of their
+      hunger abated, ventured on surmises as to Madou&rsquo;s whereabouts. Moronval
+      shrewdly suspected the truth. &ldquo;How much money did he have?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen francs,&rdquo; was his wife&rsquo;s timid answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen francs! Then it is certain he has run away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where has he gone?&rdquo; asked the doctor; &ldquo;he could hardly reach Dahomey
+      with that amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval scowled fiercely, and went to report to the police, for it was
+      very essential to him that the child should be found, or, at all events,
+      prevented from reaching Marseilles. Moronval was in wholesome fear of
+      Monsieur Bonfils. &ldquo;The world is so wicked, you know,&rdquo; he said to his wife;
+      &ldquo;the boy might make some complaints which would injure the school.&rdquo;
+       Consequently, in making his report at the police office, he stated that
+      Mâdou had carried away a large sum. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, assuming an air of
+      indifference, &ldquo;the money part of the matter is of very little importance,
+      compared to the dangers that the poor child runs&mdash;this dethroned king
+      without country or people;&rdquo; and Moronval dashed away a tear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will find him, my good sir,&rdquo; said the official; &ldquo;have no anxiety.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Moronval was anxious, nevertheless, and so agitated, that, instead of
+      awaiting quietly at home the result of the investigations, as he had been
+      advised to do, he started out himself, with all the children to join in
+      the search.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went to each one of the gates, interrogated the custom-house
+      officers, and gave them a description of Mâdou. Then the party repaired to
+      the police court, for Moronval had the singular idea that in this way his
+      pupils might learn something of Parisian life. The children, fortunately,
+      were too young to understand all they saw, but they carried away with them
+      a most sinister impression. Jack especially, who was the most intelligent
+      of the boys, returned to the academy with a heavy heart, shocked at the
+      glimpse he had caught of this under-current of life. Over and over again
+      he said to himself, &ldquo;Where can Mâdou be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the child consoled himself with the thought that the negro was far on
+      the road to Marseilles; which road little Jack pictured to himself as
+      running straight as an arrow, with the sea at its termination, and the
+      vessel lying ready to sail. Only one thing disturbed him in regard to
+      Mâdou&rsquo;s journey: the weather, that had been so fine the day of his
+      departure, had suddenly changed; and now the rain fell in torrents,&mdash;hail
+      too, and even snow; and the wind blew around their frail dwelling, causing
+      the poor little children of the sun to shiver in their sleep, and dream of
+      a rocking ship and a heavy sea. Curled up under his blankets one night,
+      listening to the howling of the fierce wind, Jack thought of his friend,
+      imagined him half frozen lying under a tree, his thin clothing thoroughly
+      wet. But the reality was worse than this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is found!&rdquo; cried Moronval, rushing into the dining-room, one morning.
+      &ldquo;He is found; I have just been notified by the police. Give me my hat and
+      my cane!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in a state of great excitement. As much from the desire to flatter
+      the master, as from the love of noise that characterizes boys, the
+      children hailed this news with a wild hurrah. Jack did not speak, but
+      sighed as he said to himself, &ldquo;Poor Mâdou!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou had been, in fact, at the station-house since the evening before. It
+      was there, amid criminals of all grades, that the presumptive heir of the
+      kingdom of Dahomey was found by his excellent tutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my unfortunate child! have I found you at last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The worthy Moronval could say no more; and, on seeing him throw his long
+      arms eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector of
+      police could not help thinking: &ldquo;At last I have seen one teacher who loves
+      his pupils!&rdquo; Mâdou, however, displayed the utmost indifference. His face
+      was positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of apprehension
+      was visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to see nothing; his
+      face was pale&mdash;and the pallor of a negro is something appalling. He
+      was covered with mud from head to foot, and looked like some amphibious
+      animal who, after swimming in the water, had rolled in the mud on the
+      shore. No hat, and no shoes. What had happened to him? He alone could have
+      told you, and he would not speak. The policeman said, that, making his
+      rounds the evening before, he had found the boy hidden in a lime-kiln,
+      that he was half-starved, and stupefied by the excessive heat. Why had he
+      lingered in Paris?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This question Moronval did not ask; nor, indeed, did he speak one word to
+      Mâdou during their long drive to the academy. The boy was so worn out and
+      crushed that he sank into a corner, while Moronval glanced at him
+      occasionally with an expression of rage that at any other time would have
+      terrified him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval&rsquo;s glance was like a keen rapier, with a flash like lightning,
+      crossing a poor little broken blade, shivered and rusty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jack saw the pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could
+      hardly recognize the little king. Mâdou, as he passed, said good morning
+      in so mournful a tone that Jack&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears. The children saw
+      nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went on in their usual
+      routine, and at intervals the sound of a lash was heard, and heavy groans
+      from Moronval&rsquo;s private study. Madame Moronval turned pale, and the book
+      she held trembled. Even when all was again silent, Jack fancied that he
+      still heard the groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At dinner the principal was radiant, though seemingly exhausted by
+      fatigue. &ldquo;The little wretch!&rdquo; he said to Dr. Hirsch and his wife. &ldquo;The
+      little wretch! Just, see the state he has put me into!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That night Jack found the bed next to his occupied. Poor Mâdou had put his
+      master into such a state that he himself had not been able to go to bed
+      without assistance. Madame Moronval and Dr. Hirsch were there watching the
+      lad, whose sleep was broken by those heavy sighs and sobs common to
+      children after a day of painful excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, Dr. Hirsch, you don&rsquo;t think him ill?&rdquo; asked Madame Moronval,
+      anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least, madame; that race has a covering like a monitor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they were alone, Jack took Mâdou&rsquo;s hand and found it as burning hot
+      as a brick from the furnace. &ldquo;Dear Mâdou,&rdquo; he whispered. Mâdou half opened
+      his eyes and looked at his friend with an expression of utter
+      discouragement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all over with Mâdou,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;Mâdou has lost his Gri-gri, and
+      will never see Dahomey again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the reason, then, that he had not left Paris. Two hours after he
+      had run away from the academy, the fifteen francs of market-money and his
+      medal had been stolen from him. Then, relinquishing all idea of
+      Marseilles, of the ship and of the sea, knowing that without his Gri-gri
+      Dahomey was unattainable, Mâdou had spent eight days and nights in the
+      lowest depths of Paris, looking for his amulet. Fearing that Moronval
+      would discover his whereabouts, he hid during the day and ventured into
+      the streets only after nightfall. He slept by the side of piles of bricks
+      and mortar, which partly protected him from the wind; or crawled into an
+      open doorway, or under the arches of a bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Favored by his size and by his color, Mâdou glided about almost unseen; he
+      had associated with criminals of all classes, and had escaped without
+      contamination, for he thought only of finding his amulet. He had shared a
+      crust of bread with assassins, and drank with robbers; but the little king
+      escaped from these dangers as he had from others in Dahomey, where, when
+      hunting with Kérika, he had been awakened by the trumpeting of elephants
+      and the roaring of wild beasts, and saw, under some gigantic tree, the dim
+      shadow of some strange animal passing between himself and the bivouac
+      fires; or caught a glimpse of some great snake slowly winding through the
+      underbrush. But the monsters to be found in Paris are more terrible even
+      than those in the African forests; or they would have been, had he
+      understood the dangers he incurred. But he could not find his Gri-gri.
+      Mâdou could not talk much, his exhaustion was so great; and Jack fell
+      asleep with his curiosity but partially satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from Mâdou,
+      who was singing and talking in his own language with frightful volubility.
+      Delirium had begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning, Dr. Hirsch announced that Mâdou was very ill. &ldquo;A
+      brain-fever!&rdquo; he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Dr. Hirsch was a terrible man. His head was stuffed full of all sorts
+      of Utopian ideas, of impracticable theories, and notions absolutely
+      without method. His studies had been too desultory to amount to anything.
+      He had mastered a few Latin phrases, and covered his real ignorance by a
+      smattering of the science of medicine as practised among the Indians and
+      the Chinese. He even had a strong leaning toward the magic arts, and when
+      a human life was intrusted to his care he took that opportunity to try
+      some experiments. Madame Moronval was inclined to call in another
+      physician, but the principal, less compassionate, and unwilling to incur
+      the additional expense, determined to leave the case solely in the hands
+      of Dr. Hirsch. Wishing to have no interference, this singular physician
+      pretended that the disease was contagious, and ordered Madou&rsquo;s bed to be
+      placed at the end of the garden in an old hot-house. For a week he tried
+      on his little victim every drug he had ever heard of, the child making no
+      more resistance than a sick dog would have done. When the doctor, armed
+      with his bottles and his powders, entered the hot-house, the &ldquo;children of
+      the sun,&rdquo; to whose minds a physician was always more or less of a
+      magician, gathered about the door and listened, saying to each other in
+      awed tones, &ldquo;What is he going to do now to Mâdou?&rdquo; But the doctor locked
+      the door, and peremptorily ordered the children from its vicinity, telling
+      them that they would be ill too, that Mâdou&rsquo;s illness was contagious; and
+      this last idea added additional mystery to that corner of the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, nevertheless, desired to see his friend so much that he alone of all
+      the boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been too
+      closely guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the doctor
+      had gone in search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into the
+      improvised infirmary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those half rustic buildings which are used as a shelter for
+      rakes and hoes, or even to house some tender plants. Close by the side of
+      Mâdou&rsquo;s iron bed, in the corner, was a pile of earthen flowerpots; a
+      broken trellis, some panes of glass, and a bundle of dried roots,
+      completed the dismal picture; and in the chimney, as if for the protection
+      of some fragile tropical plant, flickered a tiny fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou was not asleep. His poor little thin face had still the same
+      expression of absolute indifference. His black hands, tightly clenched,
+      lay on the outside of the bedclothes. There was a look of a sick animal in
+      his whole attitude, and in the manner in which he turned his face toward
+      the wall, as if an invisible road was open to his eyes through the white
+      stones, and every chink in the wall had become a brilliant outlook toward
+      a country known to him alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack whispered, &ldquo;It is I, Mâdou,&mdash;little Jack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked at him vacantly; he no longer understood the French
+      language. In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct had
+      effaced all that art had inculcated, and Mâdou understood and spoke
+      nothing save his savage dialect. At this moment, another of &ldquo;the children
+      of the sun,&rdquo; Said, encouraged by Jack&rsquo;s example, followed him into the
+      sick-room, but, startled and disturbed by the strange scene, retreated to
+      the doorway, and stood with affrighted eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mâdou drew one long, shivering sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is going to sleep, I think,&rdquo; whispered Said, shivering with terror;
+      for, older than Jack, he intuitively felt the cold blast from the wings of
+      Death, which already fanned the brow of the sick boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go,&rdquo; said Jack, pale and troubled; and they hastily ran down the
+      garden-walk, leaving their comrade alone in the twilight. Night came on.
+      In that silent room, which the children had left, the fire crackled
+      cheerfully, burning brightly, and illuminating every corner as if in
+      search of something that was hidden. The light flickered on the ceiling
+      and was reflected on every small window-pane, glanced over the little bed,
+      and brought out the color of Mâdou&rsquo;s red sleeve, until tired apparently of
+      its fruitless search, discouraged and exhausted, and convinced that its
+      heat was useless, for no one was there to warm. The fire gave one last
+      expiring flicker, and then, like the poor little half-frozen king, who had
+      so loved it, sank into eternal rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mâdou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for
+      Moronval hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal prince
+      or of a servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on the other,
+      vanity and policy had a word to say. After much indecision, Moronval
+      decided to strike a great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he had not
+      profited much by the prince living, he might gain something from him dead.
+      So a pompous funeral was arranged. All the daily papers published a
+      biography of the little king of Dahomey. It was a short one, to be sure,
+      but lengthened by a panegyric of the Moronval Institute, and of its
+      principal. The discipline of the establishment was commended; its hygienic
+      regulations, the peculiar skill of its medical adviser,&mdash;nothing had
+      been forgotten, and the unanimity of the eulogiums was something quite
+      touching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its innumerable
+      occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one eye open to all
+      that goes on,&mdash;Paris saw on its principal boulevards a singular
+      procession. Four black boys walked by the side of a bier. Behind, a taller
+      lad, a tone lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,&mdash;our friend Said,&mdash;carried
+      on a velvet cushion an order or two, some royal insignia fantastic in
+      character. Then came Moronval, with Jack and the other schoolboys. The
+      professors followed with the habitués of the house, the literary men whom
+      we met at the soiree. How shabby were these last! How many worn-out coats
+      and worn-out hearts were there! How many disappointed hopes and
+      unattainable ambitions! All these slowly marched on, embarrassed by the
+      full light of day to which they were unaccustomed; and this melancholy
+      escort precisely suited the little deposed king. Were not all of these
+      persons pretendents, too, to some imaginary kingdom to which they would
+      never succeed? Where but in Paris could such a funeral be seen? A king of
+      Dahomey escorted to the grave by a procession of Bohemians!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to fall,
+      as if fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather, even to
+      the very grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been lowered,
+      Moronval pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it would not
+      have warmed you, my poor Mâdou! Moronval spoke of the virtues and
+      estimable qualities of the defunct, of the model sovereign he would one
+      day have made had he lived. To those who had been familiar with that
+      pitiful little face, who had seen the child abased by servitude,
+      Moronval&rsquo;s discourse was at once heart-breaking and absurd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK&rsquo;S DEPARTURE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The
+      death of his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and the
+      lonely deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew too that
+      now he must bear alone all Moronval&rsquo;s whims and caprices, for the other
+      pupils all had some one who came occasionally to see them, and who would
+      report any brutalities of which they were the victims. Jack&rsquo;s mother never
+      wrote to him nowadays, and no one at the Institute knew even where she
+      was. Ah! had he but been able to ascertain, how quickly would the child
+      have gone to her, and told her all his sorrows. Jack thought of all this
+      as they returned from the cemetery. Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch were in
+      front of him, talking to each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in Paris,&rdquo; said Labassandre, &ldquo;for I saw her yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack listened eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And was he with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She&mdash;he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet
+      Jack knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet
+      not have hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was
+      meditating his escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head of
+      the procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with a
+      rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys,
+      whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked. They would
+      increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again.
+      Jack contrived to linger more and more among the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; cried Moronval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come!&rdquo; repeated Said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the entrance of the Champs Elysées Saïd turned for the last time,
+      gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the
+      Egyptian&rsquo;s arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any look
+      of haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he drew
+      nearer the Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took possession of
+      him, and his little feet, in spite of himself, went faster and faster.
+      Would the house be closed? And if Labassandre were mistaken, and his
+      mother not in Paris, what would become of him? The alternative of a return
+      to the academy never occurred to him. Indeed, if he had thought of it, the
+      remembrance of the heavy blows and heartfelt sobs that he had heard all
+      one afternoon would have filled him with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is there,&rdquo; cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all the
+      windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when his
+      mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should take
+      her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule, he was
+      struck by something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full of people
+      all busily talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas and chairs,
+      covered for a boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that in the broad
+      light of day they looked faded. A mirror, framed in silver, and ornamented
+      with cupids, was leaning against one of the stone pillars; a jardinière
+      without flowers, and curtains that bad been taken down and thrown over a
+      chair, were near by. Several women richly dressed were talking together of
+      the merits of a crystal chandelier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could
+      hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The
+      visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard,
+      felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady,
+      without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or
+      two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He
+      went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same
+      direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he
+      heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A child&rsquo;s bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough
+      men. He wished to exclaim,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bed is mine&mdash;my very own&mdash;I will not have it touched;&rdquo; but
+      a certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room
+      looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Constant, his mother&rsquo;s maid&mdash;Constant, in her Sunday dress,
+      wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is mamma?&rdquo; asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so
+      pitiful and troubled that the woman&rsquo;s heart was touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother is not here, my poor child,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where is she? And what are all these people doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen, Master
+      Jack, we can talk better there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was quite a party in the kitchen,&mdash;the old cook, Augustin, and
+      several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne around
+      the same table where Jack&rsquo;s future had been one evening decided. The
+      child&rsquo;s arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them all, for
+      the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother. As he was
+      afraid that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack took good care
+      not to say that he had run away, and merely spoke of an imaginary
+      permission he had received to enable him to visit his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is not here, Master Jack,&rdquo; said Constant, &ldquo;and I really do not know
+      whether I ought&mdash;&rdquo; Then, interrupting herself, Constant exclaimed,
+      &ldquo;O! it is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. &ldquo;Is it far
+      from here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight good leagues,&rdquo; answered Augustin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated discussion
+      as to the route to be taken to reach <i>Etiolles</i>. Jack listened
+      eagerly, for he had already decided to attempt the journey alone and on
+      foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a wood,&rdquo; said
+      Constant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This
+      and the name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The
+      distance did not frighten him. &ldquo;I can walk all night,&rdquo; he said to himself,
+      &ldquo;even if my legs are little.&rdquo; Then he spoke aloud. &ldquo;I must go now,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;I must go back to school.&rdquo; One question, however, burned on his
+      lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this powerful barrier
+      between his mother and himself? He dared not ask Constant, however.
+      Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet felt very keenly that
+      this. Was not the best side of his mother&rsquo;s life, and he avoided all
+      mention of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servants said &ldquo;good-bye,&rdquo; the coachman shook hands with him, and then
+      the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He did not
+      linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest for him,
+      but hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey that would end
+      by placing him with his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned as
+      the first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find, although
+      it was a good distance off, but the fear of being caught by Moronval
+      spurred him on. An inquisitive look from a policeman startled him, a
+      shadow on the wall, or a hurried step behind, made his heart beat, and
+      over and above the noise and confusion of the streets he seemed to hear
+      the cry of &ldquo;Stop him! Stop him!&rdquo; At last he climbed over the bank and
+      began to run on the narrow path by the water&rsquo;s edge. The day was coming to
+      an end. The river was very high and yellow from recent rains, the water
+      rolled heavily against the arches of the bridge, and the wind curled it in
+      little waves, the tops of which were just touched by the level rays of the
+      setting sun. Women passed him bearing baskets of wet linen, fishermen drew
+      in their lines, and a whole river-side population, sailors and bargemen,
+      with their rounded shoulders and woollen hoods, hurried past him. With
+      these there was still another class, rough and ferocious of aspect, who
+      were quite capable of pulling you out of the Seine for fifteen francs, and
+      of throwing you in again for a hundred sous. Occasionally one of these men
+      would turn to look at this slender schoolboy who seemed in such a hurry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place it was
+      black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal. Farther on,
+      similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor of fresh
+      orchards was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a great
+      harbor; steamboats were loading at the wharves; a few rods more, and a
+      group of old trees bathed their distorted roots in a limpid stream, and
+      one could easily fancy one&rsquo;s self twenty leagues from Paris, and in an
+      earlier century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But night was close at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted, and
+      illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very
+      darkest body of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long wharf,
+      covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had reached Bercy,
+      but it was night, and he was filled with terror lest he should be stopped
+      at the gate; but the little fugitive was hardly noticed. He passed the
+      barrier without hindrance, and soon found himself in a long, narrow
+      street, solitary and dimly lighted. While the child was in the life and
+      motion of the city, he was terrified only by one thought, and that was
+      that Moronval would find him. Now he was still afraid, but his fear was of
+      another character&mdash;born of silence and solitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street
+      was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled on,
+      these buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably lower
+      in height. Although barely eight o&rsquo;clock, this road was almost deserted.
+      Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp ground, while the
+      dismal howling of a dog added to the cheerlessness of the scene. Jack was
+      troubled. Each step that he took led him further from Paris, its light and
+      its noise. He reached the last wineshop. A broad circle of light barred
+      the road, and seemed to the child the limits of the inhabited world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go
+      into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated at
+      his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking and
+      talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had hideous
+      faces&mdash;such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day they
+      were looking for Mâdou. The woman, above all, was frightful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he want?&rdquo; said one of the men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of light
+      from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The darkness now
+      seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until he found himself
+      in the open country. Before him stretched field after field; a few small,
+      scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the monotony of the scene.
+      Below was Paris, known by its long line of reddish vapor, like the
+      reflection of a blacksmith&rsquo;s forge. The child stood still. It was the
+      first time that he had ever been alone out of doors at night. He had
+      neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now suffering from intense
+      thirst. He was also beginning to understand what he had undertaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he strength enough to reach his mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of the
+      road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the spot he
+      had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was stretched
+      out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow against the
+      white stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step
+      forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and to
+      talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the
+      wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally
+      repulsive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful
+      beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If
+      he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that he
+      should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this stupor.
+      An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern, suddenly
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, gentlemen,&rdquo; said the child, gently, breathless with
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier who carried the lantern raised it in the direction of the
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a bad hour to travel, my boy,&rdquo; remarked the officer; &ldquo;are you
+      going far?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, no, sir; not very far,&rdquo; answered Jack, who did not care to tell the
+      truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well! we can go on together as far as Charenton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What a delight it was to the child to walk for an hour at the side of
+      these two honest soldiers, to regulate his steps by theirs, and to see the
+      cheerful light from the lantern! From the soldier, too, he casually
+      learned that he was on the right road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we are at home,&rdquo; said the officer, halting suddenly. &ldquo;Good night. And
+      take my advice, my lad, and don&rsquo;t travel alone again at night&mdash;it is
+      not safe.&rdquo; And with these parting words, the men turned up a narrow lane,
+      swinging the lantern, leaving Jack alone at the entrance of the principal
+      street in Charenton. The child wandered on until he found himself on the
+      quay; he crossed a bridge which seemed to him to be thrown over an abyss,
+      so profound were the depths below. He lingered for a moment, but rough
+      voices singing and laughing so startled him that he took to his heels and
+      ran until he was out of breath, and was again in the open fields. He
+      turned and looked back; the red light of the great city was still
+      reflected on the horizon. Afar off he heard the grinding of wheels.
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; said the child; &ldquo;something is coming.&rdquo; But nothing appeared. And
+      the invisible wagon, whose wheels moved apparently with difficulty, turned
+      down some unseen lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack toiled on slowly. Who was that man that stood waiting for him at the
+      turning of the road? One man! Nay, there were two or three. But they were
+      trees,&mdash;tall, slender poplars,&mdash;or a clump of elms&mdash;those
+      lovely old elms which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was
+      environed by the mysteries of nature,&mdash;nature in the springtime of
+      the year, when one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and
+      the earth crackle as the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint,
+      vague noises bewildered little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme
+      with which his mother formerly rocked him to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitiful to hear the child, alone in the darkness, encouraging
+      himself by these reminiscences of his happy, petted infancy. Suddenly the
+      little trembling voice stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something was coming&mdash;something blacker than the darkness itself,
+      sweeping down on the child as if to swallow him up. Cries were heard;
+      human voices, and heavy blows. Then came a drove of enormous cattle, which
+      pressed against little Jack on all sides; he feels the damp breath from
+      their nostrils; their tails switch violently, and the heat of their
+      bodies, and the odor of the stable, is almost stifling. Two boys and two
+      dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs bark, and the uncouth
+      peasants yell, until the noise is appalling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they pass on, the child is absolutely stupefied by terror. These
+      animals have gone, but will there not be others? It begins to rain, and
+      Jack, in despair, fails on his knees, and wishes to die. The sound of a
+      carriage, and the sight of two lamps like friendly eyes coming quickly
+      toward him, revives him suddenly. He calls aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The carriage stops. A head, with a travelling cap drawn closely down over
+      the ears, bends forward to ascertain the whereabouts of the shrill cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very tired,&rdquo; pleaded Jack; &ldquo;would you be so kind as to let me come
+      into your carriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man hesitated, but a woman&rsquo;s voice came to the child&rsquo;s assistance.
+      &ldquo;Ah, what a little fellow I Let him come in here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; asked the traveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child hesitated. Like all fugitives, he wished to hide his
+      destination. &ldquo;To Villeneuve St George,&rdquo; he answered, nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; said the man, with gruff kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child was soon curled up under a comfortable travelling rug, between a
+      stout lady and gentleman, who both examined him curiously by the light of
+      the little lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where was he going so late, and all alone, too? Jack would have liked to
+      tell the truth, but he was in too great fear of being carried back to the
+      Institute. Then he invented a story to suit the occasion. His mother was
+      very ill in the country, where she was visiting. He had been told of this
+      the night before, and he had at once started off on foot, because he had
+      not patience to wait for the next day&rsquo;s train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said the lady. And the gentleman looked as if he
+      understood also, but made many wise observations as to the imprudence of
+      running about the country alone, there were so many dangers. Then he was
+      asked in what house in Villeneuve his mother&rsquo;s friends resided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of the town,&rdquo; answered Jack, promptly,&mdash;&ldquo;the last house
+      on the right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was lucky that his rising color was hidden by the darkness. His
+      cross-examination, however, was by no means over. The husband and wife
+      were great talkers, and, like all great talkers, extremely curious, and
+      could not be content until they had learned the private affairs of all
+      those persons with whom they came in contact. They kept a little store,
+      and each Saturday went into the country to get rid of the dust of the
+      week; but they were making money, and some day would live altogether at
+      Soisy-sous-Etiolles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that place far from Etiolles?&rdquo; asked Jack, with a start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, no, close by,&rdquo; answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut with his
+      whip to his beast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have
+      gone on in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary
+      legs, and had a comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman&rsquo;s shawl, who
+      asked him, every little while, if he was warm enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If he could but summon courage enough to say, &ldquo;I have told you a
+      falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;&rdquo; but he was
+      unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet,
+      when they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could not
+      restrain a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not cry, my little friend,&rdquo; said the kind woman; &ldquo;your mother,
+      perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her
+      well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the last house the carriage stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, this is it,&rdquo; said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind good-bye.
+      &ldquo;How lucky you are to have finished your journey,&rdquo; said the woman; &ldquo;we
+      have four good leagues before us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the
+      garden-gate. &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; said his new friends, &ldquo;good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward the
+      right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it with
+      all his speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened by
+      inadequate repose, refused all service. At the end of a few rods he could
+      go no further, but sank on the roadside with a burst of passionate tears,
+      while the hospitable proprietors of the carriage rolled comfortably on,
+      without an idea of the despair they had left behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to
+      think or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little boy
+      sleeps quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and sees
+      something monstrous&mdash;a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes
+      that send forth a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving
+      behind him a train like a comet&rsquo;s tail. A grove of trees, quite
+      unsuspected by Jack, suddenly flashed out clearly; each leaf could have
+      been counted. Not until this apparition was far away, and nothing of it
+      was visible save a small green light, did Jack know that it was the
+      express train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill and
+      stiff in every limb. He had dreamed of Mâdou,&mdash;dreamed that they lay
+      side by side in the cemetery; he saw Mâdou&rsquo;s face, and shivered at the
+      thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from this
+      idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened in the
+      cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so unnaturally
+      heavy, that he fancied Mâdou was at his side or behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two.
+      Another village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy plods
+      on, with swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop. Occasionally
+      he meets a huge covered wagon, driver and horses sound asleep. He asks, in
+      a timid, tired voice, &ldquo;Is it far now to Etiolles?&rdquo; No answer comes save a
+      loud snore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon, however, another traveller joins the child&mdash;a traveller whose
+      praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of
+      the frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety of
+      expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the town
+      where his mother was, the clouds divide&mdash;are torn apart suddenly, as
+      it were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually broadens,
+      with a waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light with a
+      strength imparted by incipient delirium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting to
+      welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and looked
+      like a large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness. The road no
+      longer dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth highway, without ditch
+      or pavement, intended, it seemed, for the carriages of the wealthy. Superb
+      residences, with grounds carefully kept, were on both sides of this road.
+      Between the white houses and the vineyards were green lawns that led down
+      to the river, whose surface reflected the tender blue and rosy tints of
+      the sky above. O sun, hasten thy coming; warm and comfort the little
+      child, who is so weary and so sad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I far from Etiolles?&rdquo; asked Jack of some laborers who were going to
+      their work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road straight
+      on through the wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and the
+      rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of wild roses
+      was repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old oak-trees; the
+      branches shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged creatures; and
+      while the last of the shadows faded away, and the night-birds with silent,
+      heavy flight hurried to their mysterious shelters, a lark suddenly rises
+      from the field with its wings wide-spread, and flies higher and higher
+      until it is lost in the sky above. The child no longer walks, he crawls;
+      an old woman meets him, leading a goat; mechanically he asks if it is far
+      to Etiolles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a little
+      stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles over the
+      pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he sees a
+      steeple and a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will reach them.
+      But he is dizzy and falls; through his half-shut eyes he sees close at
+      hand a little house covered with vines and roses. Over the door, between
+      the wavering shadows of a lilac-tree already in flower, he saw an
+      inscription in gold letters:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     PARVA  DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the
+      blinds are still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are awake,
+      for he hears a woman&rsquo;s voice singing,&mdash;singing, too, his own
+      cradle-song, in a fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were
+      thrown open, and a woman appeared in a white négligée, with her hair
+      lightly twisted in a simple knot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma, mamma!&rdquo; cried Jack, in a weak voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor
+      little worn and travel-stained lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She screamed &ldquo;Jack!&rdquo; and in a moment more was beside him, warming him in
+      her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out the
+      anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.~~PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go back
+      to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I tell you
+      that you shall never go there again, but shall always be with me. I will
+      arrange a little room for you to-day, and you will see how nice it is to
+      be in the country. We have cows and chickens, and that reminds me the
+      poultry has not yet been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a while. I will
+      wake you at dinner-time, but first drink this soup. It is good, is it not?
+      And to think that while I was calmly sleeping, you were alone in the cold
+      and dark night. I must go. My chickens are calling me;&rdquo; and with a loving
+      kiss Ida went off on tiptoe, happy and bright, browned somewhat by the
+      sun, and dressed with rather a theatrical idea of the proprieties. Her
+      country costume had a great deal of black velvet about it, and she wore a
+      wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, trimmed with poppies and wheat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by Mère
+      Archambauld, his mother&rsquo;s cook, had restored his strength to a very great
+      degree, and he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm, satisfied
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large,
+      furnished in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the
+      least gilding. Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the
+      pigeons on the roof, and his mother&rsquo;s voice talking to her chickens,
+      lulled him to repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing troubled him: D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s portrait hung at the foot of the bed,
+      in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child said to himself, &ldquo;Where is he? Why have I not seen him?&rdquo;
+       Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue him
+      either with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and
+      her dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high
+      heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mère Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife of an
+      employé in the government forests, who attended to the culinary department
+      at Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack&rsquo;s mother lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! how pretty your boy is!&rdquo; said the old woman, delighted by Jack&rsquo;s
+      appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he not, Mère Archambauld? What did I tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa. Good
+      day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well! if you can&rsquo;t sleep, let us go and look at the house,&rdquo; said his
+      mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She shook down her
+      skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which was
+      situated a stone&rsquo;s throw from the village, and realized better than most
+      poets&rsquo; dreams those of D&rsquo;Argenton. The house had been originally a
+      shooting-box belonging to a distant château. A new tower had been added,
+      and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense respectability to
+      the place. They visited the stable and the orchard, and finished their
+      examination by a visit to the tower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a
+      large, round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular
+      divan covered with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious old
+      oaken chests, a Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high carved
+      chair of the time of Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous table
+      covered with papers, composed the furniture of the apartment. A charming
+      landscape was visible from the windows, a valley and a river, a fresh
+      green wood, and some fair meadow-land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is here that HE works,&rdquo; said his mother, in an awed tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at
+      her son,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I
+      shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is very
+      fond of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little severe
+      sometimes. You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall be very
+      unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke she looked at D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s picture hung at the end of this
+      room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact, a
+      portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the
+      entrance-hall, and it was a most significant fact that there was no other
+      portrait than his in the whole house. &ldquo;You promise me, Jack, that you will
+      love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack answered with much effort, &ldquo;I promise, dear mamma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in
+      that quaint old drawing-room. They heard Mère Archambauld rattling her
+      dishes in the kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack
+      sat and admired his mother. She thought him much grown and very large for
+      his age, and they laughed and kissed each other every few minutes. In the
+      evening they had some visitors. Père Archambauld came for his wife, as he
+      always did, for they lived in the depths of the forest. He took a seat in
+      the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the health
+      of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you sometimes
+      into the forest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of the
+      poachers throughout the country, looked about the room with that restless
+      glance acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and answered
+      timidly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I will, Madame d&rsquo;Argenton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This name of D&rsquo;Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little
+      friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or
+      dignities of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother&rsquo;s new
+      title, and became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two dogs under
+      the table. The old couple had just gone, when a carriage was heard at the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it you, doctor?&rdquo; cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose
+      arrival I have heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy
+      locks. The doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling walk,
+      the result of twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through my
+      servant, that he and you might require my services.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What good people these all were, and bow thankful little Jack felt that he
+      had forever left that detestable school!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother and
+      child went tranquilly to their bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D&rsquo;Argenton a long letter, telling
+      him of her son&rsquo;s arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the
+      little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her
+      side. She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from her
+      poet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness, and
+      to the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less terrible
+      than she had anticipated. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton concluded that it was well
+      to be relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and while
+      disapproving of the escapade, he thought it no great misfortune, as the
+      Institution was rapidly running down. &ldquo;Had he not left it?&rdquo; As to the
+      child&rsquo;s fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a week later,
+      they would consult together as to what plan to adopt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of
+      utter happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs and the
+      goat, the forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his mother for
+      many minutes at a time. He followed her wherever she went, laughed when
+      she laughed without asking why, and was altogether content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another letter. &ldquo;He will come to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Although D&rsquo;Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and wished
+      to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused to permit
+      him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She gave him
+      several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each been guilty
+      of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly mortifying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will remain at the end of the garden,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and do not come
+      until I call you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the grinding
+      of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself behind the
+      gooseberry bushes. He heard D&rsquo;Argenton speak. His tone was harder, sterner
+      than ever. He heard his mother&rsquo;s sweet voice answer gently, &ldquo;Yes, my dear&mdash;no,
+      my dear.&rdquo; Then a window in the tower opened. &ldquo;Come, Jack, I want you, my
+      child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy&rsquo;s heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D&rsquo;Argenton was
+      leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the
+      dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to
+      the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate to a
+      certain extent. &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he said, in conclusion, &ldquo;life is not a romance;
+      you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your penitence; and
+      if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we three may live
+      together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a very busy man.&mdash;I
+      am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every day to your education.
+      If you will study faithfully, I can make of you, frivolous as you are by
+      nature, a man like myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear, Jack,&rdquo; said his mother, alarmed at his silence, &ldquo;and you
+      understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mamma,&rdquo; stammered Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, Charlotte,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton; &ldquo;he must decide for himself: I
+      wish to force no one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to find
+      words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying nothing.
+      Seeing the child&rsquo;s embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him into the
+      poet&rsquo;s arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, dear, how good you are!&rdquo; murmured the poor woman, while the child,
+      dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reality Jack&rsquo;s installation in the house was a relief to the poet. He
+      loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also because
+      he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the name of Ida
+      de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her a complete
+      slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and D&rsquo;Argenton had grown
+      tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he would have some
+      one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to bully; and it was in
+      this spirit that he undertook Jack&rsquo;s education, for which he made all
+      arrangements with that methodical solemnity characteristic of the man&rsquo;s
+      smallest actions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to the
+      wall, and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a
+      carefully prepared arrangement for the routine of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Rise at six</i>. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight,
+      recitation; from eight to nine,&rdquo; and so on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose
+      shutters hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light to
+      see with. Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but D&rsquo;Argenton
+      allowed no such laxity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s method of education was too severe for Jack, who was,
+      however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in his
+      studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to whom he
+      had a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by the new
+      life he was leading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the
+      country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and charmed
+      by Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside all books
+      until the child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day, when he sat
+      in the tower opposite his teacher, he was seized with a strong desire to
+      leap out of the window, and rush into the fresh woods after the birds that
+      had just flown away, or in search of the squirrel of which he had caught a
+      glimpse. What a penance it was to write his copy, while the wild roses
+      beckoned him to come and pluck them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This child is an idiot,&rdquo; cried D&rsquo;Argenton, when to all his questions Jack
+      stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if he had
+      that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily watching. At
+      the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished the task, that
+      it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no use to the boy,
+      who neither could nor would learn anything. In reality, he was by no means
+      unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had established, and which pressed
+      with severity on himself as well as on the child. Ida, or rather
+      Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She preferred to think her boy incapable
+      of study rather than endure the daily scenes, and the incessant lectures
+      and tears of this educational experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as her
+      intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future, however
+      brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of present
+      tranquillity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard:
+      &ldquo;Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight,&rdquo; &amp;c.
+      The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that his
+      presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself for the
+      whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to children and
+      loungers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the
+      morning he started for Father Archambauld&rsquo;s, just as the old man&rsquo;s wife,
+      before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers, served her
+      husband&rsquo;s breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light green paper
+      that represented the same hunting-scene over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started out on
+      a long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants&rsquo; nests,
+      with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the trees; the
+      haunts of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the young kids. The
+      hawthorn&rsquo;s white blossoms perfumed the air, and a variety of wild flowers
+      enamelled the turf. The forester&rsquo;s duty was to protect the birds and their
+      young broods from all injury, and to destroy the moles and snakes. He
+      received a certain sum for the heads or tails of these vermin, and every
+      six months carried to Corbiel a bag of dry and dusty relics. He would have
+      been better pleased could he have taken also the heads of the poachers,
+      with whom he was in constant conflict. He had also a great deal of trouble
+      with the peasants who injured his trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a tree,
+      the growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched them so
+      carefully that he knew all their maladies. One species of fir was attacked
+      by tiny worms, which come in some mysterious way by thousands. They select
+      the strongest and handsomest specimens, and take possession of them. The
+      trees have only their resinous sap as a weapon of defence. This sap they
+      pour over their enemies, and over their eggs deposited in the crevices of
+      the bark. Jack watched this unequal contest with the greatest interest,
+      and saw the slow dropping of these odorous tears. Sometimes the fir-tree
+      won the victory, but too often it perished and withered slowly, until at
+      last the giant of the forest; whose lofty top had been the haunt of
+      singing-birds, where bees had made their home, and which had sheltered a
+      thousand different lives, stood white and ghastly as if struck by
+      lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion
+      talked very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable
+      sounds about them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it
+      touched. Among the pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the
+      birches and aspens, it rattled the leaves like castanets; while from the
+      borders of the ponds, which were numerous in this part of the forest, came
+      gentle rustlings from the long, slender, silken-coated reeds. Jack learned
+      to distinguish all these sounds and to love them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the peasants,
+      who saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had sworn eternal
+      hatred. Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats respectfully enough to
+      Jack when they met him with Father Archambauld, but when he was alone,
+      they shook their fists at him with horrible oaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very
+      dreams of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with her
+      fagots on her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her
+      tongue; and sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few
+      steps. Poor little Jack often reached his mother&rsquo;s side breathless and
+      terrified, but, after all, this only added another interest to his life.
+      Sometimes Jack found his mother in the kitchen talking in a low voice; no
+      sound was to be heard in the house save the ticking of the great clock in
+      the dining-room. &ldquo;Hush, my dear,&rdquo; said his mother; &ldquo;He is up-stairs. He is
+      at work!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With the
+      awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he ought
+      not to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, dear,&rdquo; exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother Archambauld,
+      laying the table, moved on the points of her big feet&mdash;moved as
+      lightly as possible, so as not to disturb &ldquo;her master who was at work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was heard up-stairs&mdash;pushing back his chair, or moving his table.
+      He had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the
+      title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that
+      formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,&mdash;leisure,
+      sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and country
+      air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn his chair,
+      and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky and water.
+      All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river, came directly
+      to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the cooing and
+      fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now to work!&rdquo; cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his
+      pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion
+      of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful
+      country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached
+      by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around him
+      every essential for poetry,&mdash;a charming woman named in memory of
+      Goethe&rsquo;s heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white goat
+      to follow him from place to place, and an antique clock to mark the hours
+      and to connect the prosaic Present with the romance of the Past! All these
+      were very imposing, but the brain was as sterile as when D&rsquo;Argenton had
+      given lessons all day and retired to his garret at night, worn out in body
+      and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Charlotte&rsquo;s step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression of
+      profound absorption. &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; he said, in reply to her knock, timidly
+      repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to the
+      elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face seemed
+      to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an opéra bouffe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to see my poet,&rdquo; she said, as she came in. She had a way of
+      drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. &ldquo;How are you getting on?&rdquo;
+       she continued. &ldquo;Are you pleased?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible
+      profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his <i>Faust?</i>
+      And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was not
+      condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude&mdash;mental solitude, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened to
+      similar complaints from D&rsquo;Ar-genton, she had at last learned to understand
+      the reproaches conveyed in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet&rsquo;s tone signified, &ldquo;It is not you who can fill the blank around
+      me.&rdquo; In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him in
+      this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the luxury by
+      which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to himself&mdash;transformed
+      and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm in his eyes, and yet she
+      was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to witness the air of business
+      with which he opened each morning the three or four journals to which he
+      subscribed. He broke the seals as if he expected to find in their columns
+      something of absorbing personal interest; as, for example, a critique of
+      his unwritten poem, or a resume of the book that he meant some day to
+      write. He read these journals without missing one word, and always found
+      something to arouse his contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate:
+      their pieces were played; and what pieces they were! Their books were
+      printed; and such books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he
+      could write them down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was produced;
+      it was simply my <i>Pommes D&rsquo;Atlante</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur Angier,&rdquo;
+       said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D&rsquo;Argenton lashed
+      himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the heavy
+      frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him very
+      clearly that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth on the
+      smallest provocation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BÉLISAIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One afternoon, when D&rsquo;Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack, who
+      was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his usual
+      excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges;
+      distant rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of
+      expectation which often precedes a storm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fatigued by the child&rsquo;s restlessness, the forester&rsquo;s wife looked out at
+      the weather, and said to Jack,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you to
+      go and get me a little grass for my rabbits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off to
+      search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in
+      clouds, when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, &ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell! Nice
+      Panamas!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on his
+      shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if he
+      were footsore and weary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman must
+      be? He knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can obtain
+      the shelter of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a pedler, or
+      any stranger, indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with distrustful
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo; For whose ears did he intend this repetition of his
+      monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was it for
+      the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm, had taken
+      shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of stones, while Jack,
+      on the other side of the road, examined him with much curiosity. His face
+      was forbidding to a certain extent, but expressed so much suffering in the
+      heavy features, that Jack&rsquo;s kind heart was filled with pity. At that
+      moment a thunder-clap was heard; the man looked up at the skies anxiously,
+      and then called to Jack to ask how far off the village was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half a mile exactly,&rdquo; answered the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the shower will be here in a few moments,&rdquo; said the pedler,
+      despairingly. &ldquo;All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a kind
+      act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can come to our house,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and then your hats will not be
+      injured.&rdquo; The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for his
+      merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible; the
+      man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in pain?&rdquo; asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are so
+      big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I should
+      ever be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold of
+      hats, and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the
+      dining-room, saying, &ldquo;You must have a glass of wine and a bit of bread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big loaf
+      and a pot of wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now a slice of ham,&rdquo; said Jack, in a tone of command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham,&rdquo; said the old
+      woman, grumbling. In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton was something of a glutton, and
+      there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his especial
+      enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind! bring it out!&rdquo; said the child, delighted at playing the part
+      of host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The ped-ler&rsquo;s appetite was of the most
+      formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple story. His
+      name was Bélisaire, and he was the eldest of a large family, and spent the
+      summer wandering from town to town.&mdash;A violent thunder-clap shook the
+      house, the rain fell in torrents, and the noise was terrific. At that
+      moment some one knocked. Jack turned pale. &ldquo;They have come!&rdquo; he said with
+      a gasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was D&rsquo;Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not to
+      have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they had
+      given up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the poet was
+      in a fearful rage with himself and every one else. &ldquo;A fire in the parlor,&rdquo;
+       he said, in a tone of command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D&rsquo;Argenton
+      perceived the formidable pile of hats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred feet
+      under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The poet
+      entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The child
+      stammered a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it seems.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Jack! Jack!&rdquo; cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not scold him, madame,&rdquo; stammered Bélisaire. &ldquo;I only am in fault!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here D&rsquo;Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most
+      imposing gesture. &ldquo;Go at once,&rdquo; he said, violently; &ldquo;how dare you come
+      into this house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of
+      remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress at the
+      tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little Jack&mdash;who
+      sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the Panamas,&mdash;and
+      hurried down the garden walk. No sooner had the man reached the highway,
+      than his melancholy voice resumed the cry, &ldquo;Hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a
+      fire, and Charlotte was shaking the poet&rsquo;s coat, while he sulkily strode
+      up and down the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler&rsquo;s
+      knife had made sad havoc. D&rsquo;Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham
+      was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. &ldquo;What! the ham,
+      too!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically
+      repeat his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was
+      too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much
+      yet, he is so young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only
+      beg pardon in a troubled tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, indeed!&rdquo; cried the poet, giving way, as it must be admitted he
+      rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently, exclaimed, &ldquo;What
+      right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not yours. You know that
+      nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the food you eat, you
+      are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you? I know not even
+      your name!&rdquo; Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte stopped the torrent
+      of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room, and listening with
+      eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed up stairs, banging
+      the door after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her
+      pretty hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done to
+      merit such a hard fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and,
+      naturally, her question remained unanswered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D&rsquo;Argenton was
+      now taken with one of &ldquo;his attacks,&rdquo; a form of bilious fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The
+      sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly nature,
+      made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How tenderly she
+      protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the table under the
+      white one to soften the noise of the plates and the silver. She piled the
+      Henry II. chair with cushions, and had her rolls of hot flannels and her
+      tisanes in readiness at all hours of the day and night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by a
+      fretful exclamation from the poet. &ldquo;Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk too
+      much!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more.
+      Charlotte met him in the hall. &ldquo;Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is
+      suffering,&rdquo; she said, anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, D&rsquo;Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid tones,
+      soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a new face,
+      which made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a few moments
+      later beheld him launched on some dazzling episode of his Parisian life.
+      The doctor saw no reason to doubt the truth of these narrations told in
+      such measured and careful phrases, and was always pleased with the
+      appearance of the family,&mdash;the intellectual husband, the pretty gay
+      wife, and the amusing child; and no intuition gave him a hint, as might
+      have been the case with a more delicate organization, of the peculiarity
+      and bitterness of the ties which bound the household together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor&rsquo;s horse was
+      fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass
+      carefully mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told of
+      his wonderful adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears wide
+      open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am quite
+      sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;&rdquo; and the old
+      man talked of his little Cécile, who was two years younger than Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring her to see us, doctor,&rdquo; said Charlotte; &ldquo;the two children would be
+      so happy together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She
+      never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere
+      since our great sorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his
+      daughter and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some
+      mystery surrounded this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld, who
+      knew everything, contented herself with saying, &ldquo;Yes, poor things! they
+      have had a great deal of trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, &ldquo;Keep him
+      amused, madame; keep him amused!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little
+      carriage; breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the
+      forest; but he was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a tête-à-tête
+      in the middle of the Seine was worse than one on shore; and the little
+      boat soon lay moored at the landing, half full of water and dead leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an Italian
+      terrace: but even this did not amuse him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of an
+      AEolian harp. D&rsquo;Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic scale,
+      and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack&rsquo;s life was a
+      burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a soul in
+      purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child&rsquo;s great relief, the
+      poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the end of the
+      garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard. D&rsquo;Argenton fiercely
+      commanded that the instrument should be buried, which was done, and the
+      earth heaped upon it as over some mad animal. All these various
+      occupations failing to amuse her poet, Charlotte reluctantly decided to
+      invite some of his old friends, but was repaid for her sacrifice by
+      witnessing D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s joy on being told that Dr. Hirsch and Labassandre
+      were soon to visit them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of his
+      old professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the sounds
+      recalled the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped quietly into the
+      garden, there to await the dinner-bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, gentlemen,&rdquo; said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on the
+      terrace,&mdash;her large white apron indicating that au a good housekeeper
+      she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and
+      take an active part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack as
+      he took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large doors
+      opened on the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a lucky fellow,&rdquo; said Labassandre. &ldquo;Tomorrow I shall be in that
+      hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable dinner,&rdquo;
+       grumbled Dr. Hirsch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not remain here for a time?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argen-ton, cordially. &ldquo;There is a
+      room for each of you; the cellar has some good wine in it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we can make excursions,&rdquo; interrupted Charlotte, gayly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what would become of my rehearsals?&rdquo; said Labassandre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you, Dr. Hirsch,&rdquo; continued Charlotte, &ldquo;you are tied down to the
+      opera-house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this
+      season.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no one
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, decide!&rdquo; cried the poet, &ldquo;In the first place, you would be doing me
+      a favor, and could prescribe for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution, while
+      I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute and of
+      Moron-val, and never wish to see either more.&rdquo; Thereupon the doctor
+      launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported him.
+      Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every one was
+      giving him up; the affair of Mâdou had done him great injury; and finally
+      Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack on his energetic departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was overjoyed
+      at finding so gay and talkative a circle. &ldquo;You see, madame, I was right:
+      our invalid only needed a little excitement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There I differ from you!&rdquo; cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the battle
+      from afar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. &ldquo;Dr. Hirsch,&rdquo;
+       said D&rsquo;Argenton, &ldquo;allow me to present you to Dr. Rivals.&rdquo; They bowed like
+      two duellists on the field who salute each other before crossing their
+      swords. The country physician concluded his new acquaintance to be some
+      famous Parisian practitioner, full of eccentricities and hobbies.
+      D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s illness was the occasion of a long discussion between the
+      physicians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was droll to see the poet&rsquo;s expression. He was inclined to take offence
+      that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and again to be
+      equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a hundred
+      diseases, each one with a worse name than the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is utter nonsense,&rdquo; cried Rivals, who had listened impatiently;
+      &ldquo;there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if there were, our
+      friend has no such symptoms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They
+      hurled at each other titles of books in every language, names of every
+      drug known and unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable than
+      terrific, and was very much like one from &ldquo;Molière.&rdquo; Jack and his mother
+      escaped to the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his voice. The
+      winged inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the peacocks in the
+      neighboring château answered by those alarmed cries with which they greet
+      the approach of a thunder-shower; the neighboring peasants started from
+      their sleep, and old Mother Archambauld wondered what was going on in the
+      little house, where the moon shone so whitely on the legend in gold
+      characters over the door:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.~~CECILE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going so early?&rdquo; asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw
+      Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the
+      stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of
+      Lord Pembroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To church, my dear sir. Has not D&rsquo;Argenton told you that I have an
+      especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being
+      asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats
+      reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned
+      with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a
+      rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the picture,
+      all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives in their
+      belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in the Te Deum
+      of this official fête.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one told
+      her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious festival
+      in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse D&rsquo;Argenton, and that
+      she would have all the consideration and prestige of a married woman. This
+      new rôle amused and interested her. She corrected Jack, turned the pages
+      of her prayer-book, and shook out her rustling silk skirts in the most
+      edifying fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a halberd,
+      came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother&rsquo;s ear a question as
+      to what little girl should be chosen to assist him; Charlotte hesitated,
+      for &ldquo;she knew so few persons in the church. Then the Swiss suggested Dr.
+      Rivals&rsquo; grandchild&mdash;a little girl on the opposite side sitting next
+      an old lady in black. The two children walked slowly behind the majestic
+      official, Cécile carrying a velvet bag much too large for her little
+      fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous wax candle ornamented with floating
+      ribbons and artificial flowers. They were both charming: he in his Scotch
+      costume, and she simply dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on
+      her childish brow, and her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath
+      of fresh flowers mingled with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds
+      throughout the church. Cécile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring
+      smile. Jack was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread
+      glove, which he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once
+      taken from its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would
+      be his best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life
+      for him would come from her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They would make a pretty pair,&rdquo; said an old woman, as the children passed
+      her, and in a lower voice added, &ldquo;Poor little soul, I hope she will be
+      more fortunate than her mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence
+      of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in store
+      for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame
+      D&rsquo;Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast.
+      Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the boy&rsquo;s necktie,
+      and, kissing him, whispered, &ldquo;Be a good child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old doctor&rsquo;s,
+      who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his neighbors, and
+      only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a brass plate
+      above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were black with
+      age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that some
+      attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of that
+      nature had been interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and the old
+      people had never had the heart to go on with their improvements since; an
+      unfinished summer-house seemed to say, with a discouraged air, &ldquo;What is
+      the use?&rdquo; The garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass grew over
+      the walks, and weeds choked the fountain. The human beings in the house
+      had much the same air. From Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her
+      daughter&rsquo;s death, still wore the deepest of black, down to little Cécile,
+      whose childish face had a precocious expression of sorrow, and the old
+      servant who for a quarter of a century had shared the griefs and sorrows
+      of the family,&mdash;all seemed to live in an atmosphere of eternal
+      regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain intercourse with the outer
+      world, was the only one who was ever cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Madame Rivals, Cécile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the
+      child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the
+      doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her
+      mother&rsquo;s place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would give
+      way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on meeting
+      his wife&rsquo;s sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Cécile&rsquo;s life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden,
+      or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the
+      apartment that had once been her mother&rsquo;s, and which was full of the
+      souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this room,
+      but little Cécile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent. The child
+      had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very bad for her;
+      she needed the association of other children. &ldquo;Let us ask little
+      D&rsquo;Argenton here,&rdquo; said her grandfather: &ldquo;the boy is charming!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?&rdquo;
+       answered his wife. &ldquo;Who knows them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he is
+      an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The woman is
+      not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will answer for their
+      respectability.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
+      husband&rsquo;s insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original
+      idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
+      could possibly happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cécile became close
+      companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw that
+      he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and that he
+      had no lesson-hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not go to school, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, madame,&rdquo; was the answer; and then quickly added,&mdash;for a child&rsquo;s
+      instinct is very delicate,&mdash;&ldquo;Mamma teaches me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot understand,&rdquo; said Madame Rivals to her husband, &ldquo;how they can
+      let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till
+      night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The child is not very clever,&rdquo; answered the doctor, anxious to excuse his
+      friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack&rsquo;s best friends were in the doctor&rsquo;s house. Cécile adored him. They
+      played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy if
+      it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
+      apothecary&rsquo;s store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself. She
+      had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable
+      experience, and was often consulted in her husband&rsquo;s absence. The children
+      found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles, and pasting
+      on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy&rsquo;s awkwardness, while little
+      Cécile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman grown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he went
+      about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large, the
+      children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably, and
+      merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were warmly
+      welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the children
+      roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is
+      never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life. The
+      animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to pasture in
+      the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the wife has no
+      time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard day&rsquo;s toil she
+      throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn, while her good
+      man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for morning. Every one
+      worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have been very rich, had he
+      not been so generous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for
+      home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet
+      occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees, with
+      their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low white
+      houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern scene. &ldquo;It
+      is like Nazareth,&rdquo; said little Cécile; and the two children told each
+      other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
+      intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to
+      himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an hour&rsquo;s
+      instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of enjoying a
+      siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by the old man,
+      when I add that it was this precise time that he now freely gave to the
+      little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied himself with his whole
+      heart to his lessons. Cécile was almost always present, and was as pleased
+      as Jack himself when her grandfather, examining the copy-book, said, &ldquo;Well
+      done!&rdquo; To his mother, Jack said nothing of his labors; he determined to
+      prove to her at some future day that the diagnosis of the poet had been
+      incorrect. This concealment was rendered very easy, as the mother grew
+      hourly more and more indifferent to her child, and more completely
+      absorbed in D&rsquo;Argenton. The boy&rsquo;s comings and goings were almost
+      unnoticed. His seat at the table was often vacant, but no one asked where
+      he had been. New guests filled the board, for D&rsquo;Argenton kept open house;
+      yet the poet was by no means generous in his hospitality, and when
+      Charlotte would say to him, timidly, &ldquo;I am out of money, my friend,&rdquo; he
+      would reply by a wry face and the word, &ldquo;Already?&rdquo; But vanity was stronger
+      than avarice, and the pleasure of patronizing his old friends, the
+      Bohemians, with whom he had formerly lived, carried the day. They all knew
+      that he had a pleasant home, that the air was good and the table better;
+      consequently, one would say to another, &ldquo;Who wants to go to Etiolles
+      to-night?&rdquo; They came in droves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Charlotte was in despair. &ldquo;Madame Archambauld, are there eggs?&mdash;is
+      there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved,&rdquo; said
+      the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
+      her master&rsquo;s friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
+      dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as happy
+      and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh country, in
+      the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed more rusty and
+      more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy, and D&rsquo;Argenton
+      radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; and &ldquo;I know.&rdquo;
+       Was he not the master of the house, and had he not the key of the wine
+      cellar?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
+      Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She was
+      flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was pleased
+      to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy mists
+      of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the fierce
+      winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and violets,
+      gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing was changed
+      there. D&rsquo;Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms, dignified by
+      Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as totally without
+      salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as she had always
+      been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having studied
+      industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send him to school now,&rdquo; said Doctor Rivals to his mother, &ldquo;and I answer
+      for his making a figure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, doctor, how good you are!&rdquo; cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and
+      feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
+      stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that he
+      had grave objections to a school, &amp;c., and when alone with Charlotte,
+      expressed his indignation at the doctor&rsquo;s interference, but from that time
+      took more interest in the movements of the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, sir,&rdquo; said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed
+      somewhat anxiously. &ldquo;Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot of
+      the garden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was I, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cécile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had
+      manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you make it yourself, without any aid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; answered the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is wonderful, very wonderful,&rdquo; continued the singer, turning to the
+      others. &ldquo;The child has a positive genius for mechanics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening there was a grand discussion. &ldquo;Yes, madame/,&rdquo; said
+      Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; &ldquo;the man of the future, the coming man,
+      is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs, and now
+      it is the workman&rsquo;s turn. You may to-day despise his horny hands, in
+      twenty years he will lead the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is right,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded
+      approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the conversation
+      going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion felt a keen
+      interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village
+      forge. &ldquo;You know, my friends,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;whether I have been successful.
+      You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals. You may
+      believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part with all
+      sooner than with this;&rdquo; and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve and
+      displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two blacksmith&rsquo;s
+      hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an inscription was
+      above these emblems in small letters: <i>Work and Liberty</i>. Labassandre
+      proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the manager of the opera at
+      Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let alone, he would by this time
+      have been the proprietor of a large machine shop, with a provision laid up
+      for his old age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Charlotte, &ldquo;but you were very strong, and I have heard you say
+      that the life was a hard one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in question
+      is sufficiently robust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will answer for that,&rdquo; said Dr. Hirsch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more
+      refined than others&mdash;&ldquo;that certain aristocratic instincts&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here D&rsquo;Argenton interrupted her in a rage. &ldquo;What nonsense! My friends
+      occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
+      absurdities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire to
+      fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his pretty
+      mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in his
+      mother&rsquo;s manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him with that
+      lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom we are about
+      to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D&rsquo;Argenton say to Dr.
+      Rivals, with a satirical smile, &ldquo;We are all busy, sir, in your pupil&rsquo;s
+      interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will astonish you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, &ldquo;You see, my dear, that I
+      did well to make them open their eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good to
+      the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with folded
+      arms than trouble himself about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.~~LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had brought
+      Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the garden busy
+      with his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice came from the
+      window of the poet&rsquo;s room. Something in its tone, or a certain instinct so
+      marked in some persons, told the child that the crisis had come, and he
+      tremblingly ascended the stairs. On the Henri Deux chair D&rsquo;Argenton sat,
+      throned as it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch stood on either side.
+      Jack saw at once that there were the tribunal, the judge, and the
+      witnesses, while his mother sat a little apart at an open window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here!&rdquo; said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
+      dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself
+      had spoken. &ldquo;I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have
+      seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn has now
+      come to enter the arena. You are a man,&rdquo;&mdash;the child was but twelve,&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For a year,&mdash;the
+      year that I have been supposed to neglect you,&mdash;I have permitted you
+      to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of observation, I have
+      been able to decide on your path in life. I have watched the development
+      of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and, with your mother&rsquo;s consent,
+      have taken a step of importance.&rdquo; Jack was frightened, and turned to his
+      mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat gazing from the window, shading
+      her eyes from the sun. D&rsquo;Argenton called on Labassandre to produce the
+      letter he had received. The singer pulled out a large, ill-folded
+      peasant&rsquo;s letter, and read it aloud:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;FOUNDRY D&rsquo;INDRET.
+
+     &ldquo;My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to
+     the young man, your friend&rsquo;s son, and he is willing, in
+     spite of his youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may
+     live under our roof, and in four years I promise you that he
+     shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and
+     Zénaïde send messages.
+
+     &ldquo;Rondic.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear, Jack,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argenton; &ldquo;in four years you will hold a
+      position second to none in the world,&mdash;you will be a good workman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen a
+      noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o&rsquo;clock in the
+      <i>Passage des Douze Maisons</i>. The idea of wearing a blouse was the
+      first that struck him. He remembered his mother&rsquo;s tone of contempt,&mdash;&ldquo;Those
+      are workmen, those men in blouses!&rdquo;&mdash;he remembered the care with
+      which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed. But he was
+      more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest, the summits of
+      whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from the window, the
+      Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much and had found
+      again after so much difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand
+      dashed away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading away
+      of all her dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then must I go away?&rdquo; asked the child, faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a week we will go, my boy,&rdquo; said Labassandre, cheeringly. But
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, &ldquo;You can leave the
+      room now, and be ready for your journey in a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did not
+      stop to take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who listened
+      to his story with indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is preposterous!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;The very idea of making a mechanic of you
+      is absurd. I will see your father at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The persons who saw the two pass through the street&mdash;the doctor
+      gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat&mdash;concluded that some one
+      must be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr. Rivals
+      heard loud talking and laughing as he entered the house, and Charlotte, as
+      she descended the stairs, was singing a bar from the last opera.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Rivals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are among friends,&rdquo; answered D&rsquo;Argenton, &ldquo;and have no secrets. You
+      have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These gentlemen know
+      all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar circumstances
+      of the case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my friend &ldquo;&mdash;Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the explanation
+      that was forthcoming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, doctor,&rdquo; interrupted the poet, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at
+      Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can have no conception of the child&rsquo;s nature, nor of his
+      constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are
+      trifling. I assure you, madame,&rdquo; he continued, turning toward Charlotte,
+      &ldquo;that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking now simply of
+      his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally unfitted for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken, doctor,&rdquo; interrupted D&rsquo;Argen-ton; &ldquo;I know the boy
+      better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and now
+      that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this way,
+      of exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes
+      complaints of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and
+      continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I told
+      him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to
+      reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I deny the degradation,&rdquo; shouted Labassandre. &ldquo;Manual labor does not
+      degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once floated a
+      vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some feast-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear ma-dame,&rdquo; cried the doctor,
+      exasperated out of all patience. &ldquo;To make your boy a mechanic is to
+      separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the
+      world, and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is
+      too late; the day will come that you will blush for him, when he will
+      appear before you, not as the loving, tender son, but humble and servile,
+      as holding a social position far inferior to your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of the
+      future, started up from his seat in the corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not be a mechanic!&rdquo; he said, in a firm voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Jack!&rdquo; cried his mother, in consternation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But D&rsquo;Argenton thundered out, &ldquo;You will not be a mechanic, you say? But
+      you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have had
+      enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites.&rdquo; Then, suddenly
+      cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the boy to
+      retire to his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry discussion
+      going on below, but the words were not to be understood. Suddenly the
+      hall-door opened, and Mr. Rivals was heard to say,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the first
+      time she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had laid aside
+      her rôle of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had shed had been
+      those that age a mother&rsquo;s face, and leave ineffaceable marks upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to me, Jack,&rdquo; she said, tenderly. &ldquo;You have made me very unhappy.
+      You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends. I know, my
+      child, that you will be happy in your new life. I acknowledge that at
+      first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard what they said, did you
+      not? À mechanic is very different nowadays from what it was once. And,
+      besides, at your age you should rely on the judgment of those older than
+      yourself, who have only your interests at heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sob from the child interrupted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you, too, send me away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. &ldquo;I send
+      you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with me, you
+      should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be reasonable,
+      and think a little of the future, which is dreary enough for us.&rdquo; And then
+      Charlotte hesitatingly continued, &ldquo;You know, dear, you are very young, and
+      there are many things you cannot understand. Some day, when you are older,
+      I will tell you the secret of your birth. It is an absolute romance: some
+      day you shall learn your father&rsquo;s name. But now all that is necessary for
+      you to understand is, that we have not a penny in the world, and are
+      absolutely dependent on&mdash;D&rsquo;Argenton.&rdquo; This name the poor woman
+      uttered with shame and hesitation, accompanied, at the same time, with a
+      touching look of appeal to her son. &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;ask him to
+      do anything more for us; he has already done so much. Besides, he is not
+      rich. What am I to do between you both? Ah, if I could only go in your
+      place to Indret and earn my bread! And yet you would refuse an opening
+      that gives you a certainty of earning your livelihood, and of becoming
+      your own master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By the sparkle in her boy&rsquo;s eyes the mother saw that these words had
+      struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, &ldquo;Do this for me, Jack;
+      do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to look to
+      you as my sole support.&rdquo; Did she really believe her own words? Was it a
+      presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that illuminate the
+      future&rsquo;s dark horizon? or had she simply talked for effect?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this generous
+      nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother some day
+      would lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He looked her
+      straight in the eyes. &ldquo;Promise me that you will never be ashamed of me
+      when my hands are black, and that you will always love me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and
+      remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey to
+      remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized contraction of
+      the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and possibly
+      from shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; said the little fellow to D&rsquo;Argenton, as he
+      opened the door; &ldquo;I was very wrong in refusing your kindness. I accept it
+      with thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now express
+      your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are indebted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous
+      paw of the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious than
+      sad, and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little
+      wrinkles on his childish brow. He was determined not to go away without
+      seeing Cécile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not be
+      suitable,&rdquo; remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack&rsquo;s departure,
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans, consented that
+      the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there in the evening.
+      The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from the library&mdash;if
+      library it could be called&mdash;a mere closet, crammed with books. The
+      doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, &ldquo;I was afraid they
+      would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was partially my fault.
+      I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me well. She has gone
+      away, you know, with Cécile, to pass a month in the Pyrenees with my
+      sister. The child was not well; I think I told her of your impending
+      departure too abruptly. Ah, these children! we think they do not feel, but
+      we are mistaken, and they feel quite as deeply as we ourselves.&rdquo; He spoke
+      to Jack as one man to another. In fact, every one treated him in the same
+      way at present. And yet the little fellow now burst into a violent passion
+      of tears at the thought of his little friend having gone away without his
+      seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?&rdquo; asked the old man. &ldquo;Well, I am
+      selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in this way
+      every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I do not
+      think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do so, I am
+      sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,&rdquo;&mdash;the old man kissed
+      the boy twice,&mdash;&ldquo;for Cécile and myself,&rdquo; he said, kindly; and, as the
+      door closed, the child heard him say, &ldquo;Poor child, poor child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were the same as at the Jesuits&rsquo; College; but by this time Jack
+      had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started,
+      Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for an
+      expedition across the Pampas,&mdash;high gaiters, a green velvet vest, a
+      knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and
+      happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty;
+      happy, because this departure filled him with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. &ldquo;You will take good care
+      of him, M. Labassandre?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As of my best note, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of
+      working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end of
+      the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his
+      memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled
+      through her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write often!&rdquo; cried the mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, &ldquo;Remember, Jack, life is not a
+      romance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish egotist! He
+      stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on Charlotte&rsquo;s
+      shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself in a pose
+      pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having won the day,
+      that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to the child he had
+      driven from the shelter of his roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, &ldquo;Is not the scene
+      beautiful, Jack?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about four o&rsquo;clock&mdash;a July evening; the waves glittered in the
+      sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the
+      golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they
+      were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white
+      salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the caps
+      of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with grain.
+      Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream, arriving,
+      perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years&rsquo; voyage, and bearing
+      with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands. À fresh breeze
+      came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue of the ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Indret&mdash;where is it?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, that island opposite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly a row
+      of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a thick
+      black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on iron, and
+      a continual whistling and puffing, as if the island itself had been an
+      enormous steamer. As the boat slowly made her way to the wharf, the child
+      saw long, low buildings on every side, and close at the river-side a row
+      of enormous furnaces, which were filled from the water by coal barges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is Rondic!&rdquo; cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous chest
+      sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the clatter
+      of machinery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled
+      each other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His face
+      was closely shaven, and he wore a sailor&rsquo;s hat that shaded a true Breton
+      peasant face tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how are you all?&rdquo; asked Labassandre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new apprentice?&mdash;he
+      looks very small and not over-strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in Paris!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we
+      must present ourselves to the Director at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue terminated
+      in a village street, with white houses on both sides, inhabited by the
+      master and head-workmen. At this hour all was silent; life and movement
+      were concentrated at the factory; and, but for the linen drying in the
+      yards, an occasional cry of an infant, and a pot of flowers at the window,
+      one would have supposed the place uninhabited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, the flag is lowered!&rdquo; said the singer, as they reached the door.
+      &ldquo;Once that terrified me!&rdquo; and he explained to Jack that when the flag was
+      dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the factory
+      were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were marked as
+      absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now admitted by the
+      porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the large halls which were
+      crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of copper were piled between old
+      cannons brought there to be recast. Rondic pointed out all the different
+      branches of the establishment; he could not make himself understood save
+      by gestures, for the noise was deafening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors
+      being set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of
+      arms and blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow, and
+      then with a red light playing over their polished surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an impalpable
+      black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled like
+      diamonds,&mdash;all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic of the
+      place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of an enormous
+      beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some subterranean dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had now reached an old château of the time of the League.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are,&rdquo; said Rondic; and addressing his brother, &ldquo;Will you go up
+      with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see &lsquo;the monkey&rsquo; 
+      once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and
+      knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were small
+      and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In the inner
+      room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a high window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, it is you, Père Rondic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have an
+      absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very strong.
+      Is he delicate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
+      robust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remarkably,&rdquo; repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to the
+      astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the
+      manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, I remember,&rdquo; answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at the
+      same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end. &ldquo;Take
+      away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of him.
+      Under you he must turn out well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat
+      crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and then
+      the two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with a
+      different impression. Jack thought of the words &ldquo;he does not look very
+      strong,&rdquo; while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best
+      might. &ldquo;Has anything gone wrong?&rdquo; he suddenly asked his brother,&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      Director seems even more surly now than in my day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister&rsquo;s son, who is giving us a
+      great deal of trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo; asked the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since his mother&rsquo;s death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted debts.
+      He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends them before
+      he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he breaks his promises
+      as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for him several times, but
+      I can never do it again. I have my own family, you see, and Zénaïde is
+      growing up, and she must be established. Poor girl! Women have more sense
+      than we. I wanted her to marry her cousin, but she would not consent. Now
+      we are trying to separate him from his bad acquaintances here, and the
+      Director has found a situation at Nantes; but I dare say the obstinate
+      fellow will object. You will reason with him to-night, can&rsquo;t you? He will,
+      perhaps, listen to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will see what I can do,&rdquo; answered Labassandre, pompously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with all
+      classes of people, some in mechanics&rsquo; blouses, others wearing coats. Jack
+      was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this to one in
+      Paris, composed of similar classes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that he
+      received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His
+      theatrical costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone
+      first on one side and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to
+      first one and then another of his old friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of Rondic&rsquo;s house stood a young woman talking to a youth two
+      or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man&rsquo;s daughter, and
+      then remembered that he had married a second time. She was tall and
+      slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white throat, and a
+      graceful head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by its rich weight
+      of hair. Unlike the Breton peasants, she wore no cap; her light dress and
+      black apron were totally unlike the costume of a working woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she not pretty?&rdquo; asked Rondic of his brother. &ldquo;She has been giving a
+      lecture to her nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo;
+       she said to the child, &ldquo;that you will be happy with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table,
+      Labassandre said with a theatrical start, &ldquo;And where is Zénaïde?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will not wait for her,&rdquo; answered Rondic; &ldquo;she will be here presently.
+      She is at work now at the château, for she has become a famous
+      seamstress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under
+      control, if she can work at the Director&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said Labassandre, &ldquo;for he is
+      such an arrogant, haughty person&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very much mistaken,&rdquo; interrupted Ron-die; &ldquo;he is, on the
+      contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master has to
+      manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a disciplinarian.
+      Is not that so, Clarisse?&rdquo; and the old man turned to his wife, who,
+      seemingly occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to him. À certain
+      preoccupation was very evident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking at the
+      door, came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who replied
+      coldly to his greeting; thinking, possibly, of the remonstrances he had
+      promised to lavish upon him. Zénaïde quickly followed: a plump little
+      girl, red and out of breath; not pretty, and square in face and figure,
+      she looked like her father. She wore a white cap, and her short skirts,
+      and small shawl pinned over her shoulders, increased her general
+      clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square chin indicated an unusual
+      amount of firmness and decision, offering the strongest possible contrast
+      to the gentle, irresolute expression of her stepmother&rsquo;s sweet face.
+      Without a moment&rsquo;s delay, not waiting to detach the enormous shears that
+      hung at her side, or to disembarrass herself of the needles and pins which
+      glittered on her breast like a cuirass, the girl slipped into a seat next
+      to Jack. The presence of the strangers did not abash her in the least.
+      Whatever she had to say she said, simply and decidedly; but when she spoke
+      to her cousin Chariot, it was in a vexed tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left more
+      than one scar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I wished them to marry each other,&rdquo; said Father Rondic, in a
+      despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I made no objection,&rdquo; said the young man with a laugh, as he looked
+      at his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I did, then,&rdquo; answered the girl abruptly, frowning and unabashed.
+      &ldquo;And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I should have
+      drowned myself by this time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the
+      handsome cousin was silent and discomfited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid look
+      of appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, Chariot,&rdquo; said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation: &ldquo;to
+      prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid
+      place at Guérigny for you. You will have a better salary there than here,
+      and &ldquo;&mdash;here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face of the
+      youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to finish his
+      phrase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!&rdquo; answered
+      Chariot, roughly. &ldquo;But I do not agree with you. If the Director does not
+      want me, let him say so,&mdash;and I will then look out for myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is right!&rdquo; cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the table. A
+      hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zénaïde did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her
+      stepmother, who was busy about the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, mamma,&rdquo; said she at last, &ldquo;is it not your opinion that Chariot
+      should go to Guérigny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly,&rdquo; answered Madame Rondic, quickly, &ldquo;I think he ought
+      to accept the offer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot rose quickly from his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said, moodily, &ldquo;since every one wishes to get rid of me
+      here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the
+      meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and to
+      each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked their
+      pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack listened to them sadly. &ldquo;Must I become like these?&rdquo; he said to
+      himself, with a thrill of horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the
+      workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw his
+      future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white hands.
+      Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls were cut,
+      to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the air of
+      distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated D&rsquo;Argenton,
+      was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his former home.
+      Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O,&rdquo; said Rondic, &ldquo;it is only the fatigue of his journey and these clothes
+      that give him that look;&rdquo; and then turning to his wife, the good man said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he is
+      half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o&rsquo;clock!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories,
+      the first floor divided into two rooms&mdash;one called the parlor, which
+      had a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with
+      damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zénaïde&rsquo;s room the bed
+      was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak filled
+      one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over by rosaries of
+      all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn, completed the simple
+      arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen which concealed the
+      ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice was to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is my room,&rdquo; said Zénaïde, &ldquo;and you, my boy, will be up there just
+      over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you please, I
+      sleep too soundly to be disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft,
+      which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in the
+      roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared Jack for
+      strange sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his miseries:
+      here he had no Mâdou, here he had nobody. The child looked about him. On
+      the bed lay his costume for the next day; the large pantaloons of blue
+      cloth and the blouse looked as if some person had thrown himself down
+      exhausted with fatigue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack said half aloud, &ldquo;It is I lying there!&rdquo; and while he stood, sadly
+      enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at the
+      same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Zénaïde and her
+      stepmother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl&rsquo;s voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a man&rsquo;s;
+      Madame Rondic&rsquo;s tones, on the contrary, were thin and flute-like, and
+      seemed at times choked by tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is going!&rdquo; she cried, with more passion than her ordinary
+      appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Zénaïde spoke&mdash;remonstrating, reasoning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these people,
+      but the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her as he looked
+      at the sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long, shivering sigh
+      and a sob, and found that Madame Rondic was looking out into the night,
+      and weeping like himself, at a window below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of wine
+      and ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And there,
+      could his foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she have taken
+      her child from his laborious task, for which he was so totally unfitted by
+      nature and education. The regulations for, lack of punctuality were very
+      strict. The first offence was a fine, and the third absolute dismissal.
+      Jack was generally at the door before the first sound of the bell; but one
+      day, two or three months after his arrival on the island, he was delayed
+      by the ill-nature of others. His hat had been blown away by a sudden gust
+      of wind just as he reached the forge. &ldquo;Stop it!&rdquo; cried the child, running
+      after it. Just as he reached it, an apprentice coming up the street gave
+      the hat a kick and sent it on; another did the same, and then another.
+      This was very amusing to all save Jack, who, out of breath and angry, felt
+      a strong desire to weep, for he knew that a positive hatred toward him was
+      hidden under all this apparent jesting. In the meantime the bell was
+      sounding its last strokes, and the child was compelled to relinquish the
+      useless pursuit. He was utterly wretched, for it was no small expense to
+      buy a new cap; he must write to his mother for money, and D&rsquo;Argenton would
+      read the letter. This was bad enough; but the consciousness that he was
+      disliked among his fellow-workmen troubled him still more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack was
+      one of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in his new
+      abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard quick
+      breathing behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and turning,
+      he saw a smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended the missing
+      cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where had he seen that face? &ldquo;I have it!&rdquo; he cried at last; but at that
+      moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler, to
+      whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely
+      shelter on that showery summer&rsquo;s day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child&rsquo;s spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands
+      were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts of
+      the past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother&rsquo;s house; he
+      heard the low rumbling of the doctor&rsquo;s gig, and felt the fresh breeze from
+      the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of the machine-shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening he searched for Bélisaire, but in vain; again the next day,
+      but could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face that had
+      revived so many beautiful memories, in the child&rsquo;s sick heart faded and
+      died away, and he was again left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played
+      practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and relaxation.
+      Then, with one of Dr. Rivals&rsquo; books, Jack sought a quiet nook on the bank
+      of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks, where he sat quite
+      concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the rush, the magic, and
+      the extent of the water before him. The distant church-bells rang out
+      praises to the Lord, and all was rest and peace. Occasionally a vessel
+      drifted past, and from afar came the laughter of children at play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift
+      his eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the
+      water on the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his
+      mother and his little friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at the
+      Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zénaïde in particular. The old man
+      felt a certain contempt for Jack&rsquo;s physical delicacy, and said the boy
+      stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but &ldquo;he was a good little
+      fellow all the same!&rdquo; In reality, old Rondic felt a great respect for
+      Jack&rsquo;s attainments, his own being of the most superficial description. He
+      could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and since he had
+      married the second Madame Rondic, he had become painfully conscious of his
+      deficiencies. His wife was the daughter of a subordinate artillery
+      officer, the belle and beauty of a small town. She was well brought up,&mdash;one
+      of a numerous family, where each took her share of toil and economy. She
+      accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the disparity of years and his lack of
+      education, and entertained for her husband the greatest possible
+      affection. He adored his wife, and would make any sacrifice for her
+      happiness or her gratification. He thought her prettier than any of the
+      wives of his friends,&mdash;who were all, in fact, stout Breton peasants,
+      more occupied with their household cares than with anything else. Clarisse
+      had a certain air about her, and dressed and arranged her hair in a way
+      that offered the greatest contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of
+      the country, who covered their hair with thick folds of linen, and
+      concealed their figures with the clumsy fullness of their skirts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His house, too, was different from those about him. Behind the full white
+      curtains stood a pot of flowers, sweet basil or gillyflowers, and the
+      furniture was carefully waxed and polished; and Rondic was delighted, when
+      he returned home at night, to find so carefully arranged a home, and a
+      wife as neatly dressed as if it were Sunday. He never asked himself why
+      Clarisse, after the house was in order for the day, took her seat at the
+      window with folded hands, instead of occupying herself with needlework,
+      like other women whose days were far too short for all their duties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He supposed, innocently enough, that his wife thought only of him while
+      adorning herself; but the whole village of Indret could have told him that
+      another occupied all her thoughts, and in this gossip the names of Madame
+      Rondic and Chariot were never separated. They said that the two had known
+      each other before Madame Rondic&rsquo;s marriage, and that if the nephew had
+      wished he could have married the lady, instead of his uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the young fellow had no such desire. He merely thought that Clarisse
+      was charmingly pretty, and that it would be very nice to have her for his
+      aunt. But later, when they were thrown so much together, while Father
+      Rondic slept in the arm-chair and Zénaïde sewed at the château, these two
+      natures were irresistibly attracted toward each other. But no one had a
+      right to make any invidious remark; they had, besides, always watching
+      over them a pair of frightfully suspicious eyes, those of Zénaïde. She had
+      a way of interrupting their interviews, of appearing suddenly, when least
+      expected; and, however fatigued she might be by her day&rsquo;s work, she took
+      her seat in the chimney-corner with her knitting. Zénaïde, in fact, played
+      the part of the jealous and suspicious husband. Picture to yourself, if
+      you please, a husband with all the instincts and clearsightedness of a
+      woman!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The warfare between herself and Chariot was incessant, and the little
+      outbursts served to conceal the real antipathy; but while Father Rondic
+      smiled contentedly, Clarisse turned pale as if at distant thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zénaïde had triumphed: she had so managed at the château that the Director
+      had decided to send Chariot to Guérigny, to study a new model of a machine
+      there. Months would be necessary for him to perfect his work. Clarisse
+      understood very well that Zénaïde was at the bottom of this movement, but
+      she was not altogether displeased at Chariot&rsquo;s departure; she flung
+      herself on Zénaïde&rsquo;s stronger nature, and entreated her protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had understood for some time that between these two women there was a
+      secret. He loved them both: Zénaïde won his respect and his admiration,
+      while Madame Rondic, more elegant and more carefully dressed, seemed to be
+      a remnant of the refinements of his former life. He fancied that she was
+      like his mother; and yet Ida was lively, gay, and talkative, while Madame
+      Rondic was always languid and silent. They had not a feature alike, nor
+      was there any similarity in the color of their hair. Nevertheless, they
+      did resemble each other, but it was a resemblance as vague and indefinite
+      as would result from the same perfume among the clothing, or of something
+      more subtile still, which only a skilful chemist of the human soul could
+      have analyzed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes on Sunday, Jack read aloud to the two women and to Rondic. The
+      parlor was the room in which they assembled on these occasions. The
+      apartment was decorated with a highly colored view of Naples, some
+      enormous shells, vitrified sponges, and all those foreign curiosities
+      which their vicinity to the sea seemed naturally to bring to them.
+      Handmade lace trimmed the curtains, and a sofa and an arm-chair of plush
+      made up the furniture of the apartment. In the arm-chair Father Rondic
+      took his seat to listen to the reading, while Clarisse sat in her usual
+      place at the window, idly looking out. Zénaïde profited by her one day at
+      home to mend the house-bold linen, disregarding the fact of the day being
+      Sunday. Among the books given to Jack by Dr. Rivals was Dante&rsquo;s <i>Inferno</i>.
+      The book fascinated the child, for it described a spectacle that he had
+      constantly before his eyes. Those half naked human forms, those flames,
+      those deep ditches of molten metal, all seemed to him one of the circles
+      of which the poet wrote.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One Sunday he was reading to his usual audience from his favorite book;
+      Father Rondic was asleep, according to his ordinary custom, but the two
+      women listened with fixed attention. It was the episode of Francesca da
+      Rimini. Clarisse bowed her head and shuddered. Zénaïde frowned until her
+      heavy eyebrows met, and drove her needle through her work with mad zeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those grand sonorous lines filled the humble roof with music. Tears stood
+      in the eyes of Clarisse as she listened. Without noticing them, Zenaïde
+      spoke abruptly as the voice of the reader ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a wicked, impudent woman,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;not only to relate her crime,
+      but to boast of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true that she was guilty,&rdquo; said Clarisse, &ldquo;but she was also very
+      unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unhappy! Don&rsquo;t say that, mamma; one would think that you pitied this
+      Francesca.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why should I not, my child? She loved him before her marriage, and
+      she was driven to espouse a man whom she did not love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love him or not makes but little difference. From the moment she married
+      him she was bound to be faithful. The story says that he was old, and that
+      seems to me an additional reason for respecting him more, and for
+      preventing other people from laughing at him. The old man did right to
+      kill them,&mdash;it was only what they deserved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke with great violence. Her affection as a daughter, her honor as a
+      woman, influenced her words, and she judged and spoke with that cruel
+      candor that belongs to youth, and which judges life from the ideal it has
+      itself created, without comprehending in the least any of the terrible
+      exigencies which may arise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse did not answer. She turned her face away, and was looking out of
+      the window. Jack, with his eyes on his book, thought of what he had been
+      reading. Here, amid these humble surroundings, this immortal legend of
+      guilty love had echoed &ldquo;through the corridors of time,&rdquo; and after four
+      hundred years had awakened a response. Suddenly through the open casement
+      came a cry, &ldquo;Hats! hats to sell!&rdquo; Jack started to his feet and ran into
+      the street; but quick as he was, Clarisse had preceded him, and as he went
+      out, she came in, crushing a letter into her pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pedler was far down the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bélisaire!&rdquo; shouted Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man turned. &ldquo;I was sure it was you,&rdquo; continued Jack, breathlessly. &ldquo;Do
+      you come here often?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very often;&rdquo; and then Bélisaire added, after a moment, &ldquo;How happens
+      it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that pretty house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such a
+      gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have
+      lingered there at the corner of the street for an hour, but Bélisaire said
+      he was in haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was
+      very pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you want of that man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had
+      been talking of his parents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She uttered a sigh of relief. But that whole evening she was even quieter
+      than usual, and her head seemed bowed by more than the weight of her
+      blonde braids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.~~A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Chateau des Aulnettes.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his brother
+      a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you have been at
+      Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you, nevertheless,
+      but does not seem to think you adapted for your present life. We are all
+      grieved to hear this, and feel that you are not doing all that you might
+      do. M. Rondic also says that the air of the workshops is not good for you,
+      that you are pale and thin, and that at the least exertion the
+      perspiration rolls down your face. I cannot understand this, and fear that
+      you are imprudent, that you go out in the evening uncovered, that you
+      sleep with your windows open, and that you forget to tie your scarf around
+      your throat. This must not be; your health is of the first importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit that your present occupation is not as pleasant as running wild
+      in the forest would be, but remember what M. D&rsquo;Argenton told you, that
+      &lsquo;life is not a romance.&rsquo; He knows this very well, poor man!&mdash;better,
+      too, to-day, than ever before. You have no conception of the annoyances to
+      which this great poet is exposed. The low conspiracies that have been
+      formed against him are almost incredible. They are about to bring out a
+      play at the Théâtre Français called &lsquo;<i>La Fille de Faust</i>&rsquo; It is not
+      D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s play, because his is not written, but it is his idea, and his
+      title! We do not know whom to suspect, for he is surrounded with faithful
+      friends. Whoever the guilty party may be, our friend has been most
+      painfully affected, and has been seriously ill. Dr. Hirsch fortunately was
+      here, for Dr. Rivals still continues to sulk. That reminds me to tell you
+      that we hear that you keep up your correspondence with the doctor, of
+      which M. d&rsquo;Argenton entirely disapproves. It is not wise, my child, to
+      keep up any association with people above your station; it only leads to
+      all sorts of chimerical aspirations. Your friendship for little Cécile M.
+      d&rsquo;Argenton regards also as a waste of time. You must, therefore,
+      relinquish it, as we think that you would then enter with more interest
+      into your present life. You will understand, my child, that I am now
+      speaking entirely in your interest. You are now fifteen. You are safely
+      launched in an enviable career. A future opens before you, and you can
+      make of yourself just what you please.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your loving mother,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlotte.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P. S. Ten o&rsquo;clock at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest,&mdash;I am alone, and hasten to add a good night to my letter,
+      to say on paper what I would say to you were you here with me now. Do not
+      be discouraged. You know just what he is. <i>He</i> is very determined,
+      and has resolved that you shall be a machinist, and you must be. Is he
+      right? I cannot say. I beg of you to be careful of your health; it must be
+      damp where you are; and if you need anything, write to me under cover to
+      the Archambaulds. Have you any more chocolate? For this, and for any other
+      little things you want, I lay aside from my personal expenses a little
+      money every month. So you see that you are teaching me economy. Remember
+      that some day I may have only you to rely upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you knew how sad I am sometimes in thinking of the future! Life is not
+      very gay here, and I am not always happy. But then, as you know, my sad
+      moments do not last long. I laugh and cry at the same time without knowing
+      why. I have no reason to complain, either. He is nervous like all artists,
+      but I comprehend the real generosity and nobility of his nature. Farewell!
+      I finish my letter for Mère Archambauld to mail as she goes home. We shall
+      not keep the good woman long. M. d&rsquo;Argenton distrusts her. He thinks she
+      is paid by his enemies to steal his ideas and titles for books and plays!
+      Good night, my dearest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the lines of this lengthy letter Jack saw two faces,&mdash;that of
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, dictatorial and stern,&mdash;and his mother&rsquo;s, gentle and
+      tender. How under subjection she was! How crushed was her expansive
+      nature! A child&rsquo;s imagination supplies his thoughts with illustrations. It
+      seemed to Jack, as he read, that his Ida&mdash;she was always Ida to her
+      boy&mdash;was shut up in a tower, making signals of distress to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, he would work hard, he would make money, and take his mother away
+      from such tyranny; and as a first step he put away all his books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said old Rondic; &ldquo;your books distract your attention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the workshop Jack heard constant allusions made to the Rondic
+      household, and particularly to the relations existing between Clarisse and
+      Chariot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one knew that the two met continually at a town half-way between
+      Saint Nazarre and Indret. Here Clarisse went under pretence of purchasing
+      provisions that could not be procured on the island. In the contemptuous
+      glances of the men who met her, in their familiar nods, she read that her
+      secret was known, and yet with blushes of shame dyeing the cheeks that all
+      the fresh breezes from the Loire had no power to cool, she went on. Jack
+      knew all this. No delicacy was observed in the discussion of such subjects
+      before the child. Things were called by their right names, and they
+      laughed as they talked. Jack did not laugh, however. He pitied the husband
+      so deluded and deceived. He pitied also the woman whose weakness was shown
+      in her very way of knotting her hair, in the way she sat, and whose
+      pleading eyes always seemed to be asking pardon for some fault committed.
+      He wanted to whisper to her, &ldquo;Take care&mdash;you are watched.&rdquo; But to
+      Char-lot he would have liked to say, &ldquo;Go away, and let this woman alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was also indignant in seeing his friend Bélisaire playing such a part
+      in this mournful drama. The pedler carried all the letters that passed
+      between the lovers. Many a time Jack had seen him drop one into Madame
+      Rondic&rsquo;s apron while she changed some money, and, disgusted with his old
+      ally, the child no longer lingered to speak when they met in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire had no idea of the reason of this coolness. He suspected it so
+      little, that one day, when he could not find Clarisse, he went to the
+      machine-shop, and with an air of great mystery gave the letter to the
+      apprentice. &ldquo;It is for madame; give it to her secretly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack recognized the writing of Chariot. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said at once; &ldquo;I will not
+      touch this letter, and I think you would do better to sell your hats than
+      to meddle with such matters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire looked at him with amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know very well,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;what these letters are; and do you
+      think that you are doing right to aid in deceiving that old man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pedler&rsquo;s face turned scarlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never deceived any one; if papers are given to me to carry, I carry
+      them, that is all. Be sure of one thing, and that is, if I were the sort
+      of person you call me, I should be much better off than I am today!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack tried to make him see the thing as he saw it, but evidently the man,
+      however honest, was without any delicacy of perception. &ldquo;And I, too,&rdquo;
+       thought Jack, suddenly, &ldquo;am of the people now. What right have I to any
+      such refinements?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That Father Rondic knew nothing of all that was going on, was not
+      astonishing. But Zênaïde, where was she? Of what was she thinking?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zénaïde was on the spot,&mdash;more than usual, too, for she had not been
+      at the château for a month. Her eyes were also widely open, and were more
+      keen and vivacious than ever, for Zénaïde was about to be married to a
+      handsome young soldier attached to the customhouse at Nantes, and the
+      girl&rsquo;s dowry was seven thousand francs. Père Rondic thought this too much,
+      but the soldier was firm. The old man had made no provision for Clarisse.
+      If he should die, what would become of her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his wife said, &ldquo;You are yet young&mdash;we will be economical. Let the
+      soldier have Zénaïde and the seven thousand francs, for the girl loves
+      him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zénaïde spent a great deal of time before her mirror. She did not deceive
+      herself. &ldquo;I am ugly, and M. Maugin will not marry me for my beauty, but
+      let him marry me, and he shall love me later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the girl gave a little nod, for she knew the unselfish devotion of
+      which she was capable, the tenderness and patience with which she would
+      watch over her husband. But all these new interests had so absorbed her
+      that Zénaïde had partially forgotten her suspicions; they returned to her
+      at intervals, while she was sewing on her wedding-dress, but she did not
+      notice her mother&rsquo;s pallor nor uneasiness, nor did she feel the burning
+      heat of those slender hands. She did not notice her long and frequent
+      disappearances, and she heard nothing of what was rumored in the town. She
+      saw and heard nothing but her own radiant happiness. The banns were
+      published, the marriage-day fixed, and the little house was full of the
+      joyous excitement that precedes a wedding. Zénaïde ran up and down stairs
+      twenty times each day with the movements of a young hippopotamus. Her
+      friends came and went, little gifts were pouring in, for the girl was a
+      great favorite in spite of her occasional abruptness. Jack wished to make
+      her a present; his mother had sent him a hundred francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This money is your own, my Jack,&rdquo; Charlotte wrote. &ldquo;Buy with it a gift
+      for M&rsquo;lle Rondic, and some clothes for yourself. I wish you to make a good
+      appearance at the wedding, and I am afraid that your wardrobe is in a
+      pitiable condition. Say nothing about it in your letters, nor of me to the
+      Rondics. They would thank me, which would be an annoyance, and bring me a
+      reproof besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For two days Jack carried this money with pride in his pocket. He would go
+      to Nantes and buy a new suit. What a delight it would be! and how kind his
+      mother was! One thing troubled him: What could he purchase for Zénaïde; he
+      must first see what she had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So thinking one dark night, as he entered the house, he ran against some
+      one who was coming down the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no reply, but as Jack pushed open the door, he saw that he was
+      not mistaken, that Bélisaire had been there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse was in the corridor, shivering with the cold, and so absorbed by
+      the letter she was reading in the gleam of light from the half open door
+      of the parlor, that she did not even look up as Jack went in. The letter
+      evidently contained some startling intelligence, and the boy suddenly
+      remembered having that day heard that Chariot had lost a large sum of
+      money in gambling with the crew of an English ship that had just arrived
+      at Nantes from Calcutta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the parlor Zénaïde and Maugin were alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Père Rondic had gone to Chateaubriand and would not return until the next
+      day, which did not prevent her future husband from dining with them. He
+      sat in the large arm-chair, his feet comfortably extended. While Zénaïde,
+      carefully dressed, and her hair arranged by her stepmother, laid the
+      table, this calm and reasonable lover entertained her by an estimate of
+      the prices of the various grains, indigos, and oils that entered the port
+      of Nantes. And such a wonderful prestidigitateur is love that Zénaïde was
+      moved to the depths of her soul by these details, and listened to them as
+      to music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack&rsquo;s entrance disturbed the lovers. &ldquo;Ah, here is Jack I I had no idea it
+      was so late!&rdquo; cried the girl. &ldquo;And mamma, where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse came in, pale but calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor woman!&rdquo; thought Jack, as he watched her trying to smile, to talk,
+      and to eat, swallowing at intervals great draughts of water, as if to
+      choke down some terrible emotion. Zénaïde was blind to all this. She had
+      lost her own appetite, and watched her soldier&rsquo;s plate, seeming delighted
+      at the rapidity with which the delicate morsels disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maugin talked well, and ate and drank with marvellous appetite; he weighed
+      his words as carefully as he did the square bits into which he cut his
+      bread; he held his wine-glass to the light, testing and scrutinizing it
+      each time he drank. A dinner, with him, was evidently a matter of
+      importance as well as of time. This evening it seemed as if Clarisse could
+      not endure it; she rose from the table, went to the window, listened to
+      the rattling of the hail on the glass, and then turning round, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a night it is, M. Maugin I I wish you were safely at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t, then!&rdquo; cried Zénaïde, so earnestly that they all laughed. But
+      the remark made by Clarisse bore its fruit, and the soldier rose to go.
+      But it took him some time to get off. There was his lantern to light, his
+      gloves to button; and the girl took all these duties on herself. At last
+      the soldier was in readiness; his hood was pulled over his eyes, a scarf
+      wound about his throat, then Zénaïde said good night, and watched her
+      Esquimau-looking lover somewhat anxiously down the street. What perils
+      might he not have to run in that thick darkness!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her stepmother called her impatiently. The nervous excitement of Clarisse
+      had momentarily increased. Jack had noticed this, and also that she looked
+      constantly at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How cold it must be to-night on the Loire,&rdquo; said Zénaïde.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cold, indeed!&rdquo; answered Clarisse, with a shiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, as the clock struck ten, &ldquo;let us go to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then seeing that Jack was about to lock the outer door as usual, she
+      stopped him, saying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done it myself. Let us go up stairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Zénaïde had not finished talking of M. Maugin. &ldquo;Do you like his
+      moustache, Jack?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go to bed?&rdquo; asked Madame Rondic, pretending to laugh, but
+      trembling nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the three are on the narrow staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; said Clarisse; &ldquo;I am dying with sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But her eyes were very bright. Jack put his foot on his ladder, but
+      Zénaïde&rsquo;s room was so crowded with her gifts and purchases, that it seemed
+      to him a most auspicious occasion to pass them in review. Friends had had
+      them under examination, and they were still displayed on the commode: some
+      silver spoons, a prayer-book, gloves, and all about tumbled bits of paper
+      and the colored ribbon that had fastened these gifts from the château;
+      then came the more humble presents from the wives of the employés. Zénaïde
+      showed them all with pride. The boy uttered exclamations of wonder. &ldquo;But
+      what shall I give her?&rdquo; he said to himself over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my trousseau, Jack, you have not seen it! Wait, and I will show it to
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a quaint old key she opened the carved wardrobe that had been in the
+      family for a hundred years; the two doors swung open, a delicious violet
+      perfume filled the room, and Jack could see and admire the piles of sheets
+      spun by the first Madame Rondic, and the ruffled and fluted linen piled in
+      snowy masses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, Jack had never seen such a display. His mother&rsquo;s wardrobe held
+      laces and fine embroideries, not household articles. Then, lifting a heavy
+      pile, she showed Jack a casket. &ldquo;Guess what is in this,&rdquo; Zénaïde said,
+      with a laugh; &ldquo;it contains my dowry, my dear little dowry, that in a
+      fortnight will belong to M. Maugin. Ah, when I think of it, I could sing
+      and dance with joy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the girl held out her skirts with each hand, and executed an
+      elephantine gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand.
+      Suddenly she stopped; some one had rapped on the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let the boy go to bed,&rdquo; said her stepmother in an irritated tone; &ldquo;you
+      know he must be up early.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little ashamed, the future Madame Maugin shut her wardrobe, and said
+      good night to Jack, who ascended his ladder; and five minutes later the
+      little house, wrapped in snow and rocked by the wind, slept like its
+      neighbors in the silence of the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no light in the parlor of the Rondic mansion save that which
+      comes from the fitful gleam of the dying fire in the chimney. A woman sat
+      there, and at her feet knelt a man in vehement supplication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I entreat you,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;if you love me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If she loved him! Had she not at his command left the door open that he
+      might enter? Had she not adorned herself in the dress and ornaments that
+      he liked, to make herself beautiful in his eyes? What could it be that he
+      was asking her now to grant to him? How was it that she, usually so weak,
+      was now so strong in her denials? Let us listen for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she answered, indignantly, &ldquo;it is impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I only ask it for two days, Clarisse. With these six thousand francs
+      I will pay the five thousand I have lost, and with the other thousand I
+      will conquer fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with an expression of absolute terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;it cannot be. You must find some other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen. I have a rich friend; I will write to her and ask her to lend me
+      the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I must have it to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, find the Director; tell him the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he will dismiss me instantly. No; my plan is much the best. In two
+      days I will restore the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You only say that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear it.&rdquo; And, seeing that his words did not convince her, he added,
+      &ldquo;I had better have said nothing to you, but have gone at once to the
+      wardrobe and taken what I needed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she answered, trembling, for she feared that he would yet do this, &ldquo;Do
+      you not know that Zénaïde counts her money every day? This very night she
+      showed the casket to the apprentice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot started. &ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the poor girl is very happy. It would kill her to lose it. Besides,
+      the key is not in the wardrobe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly perceiving that she was weakening her own position, she was
+      silent. The young man was no longer the supplicating lover, he was the
+      spoiled child of the house, imploring his aunt to save him from dishonor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through her tears she mechanically repeated the words, &ldquo;It is impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not? Very good. Only one thing remains then. Farewell! I will
+      not survive disgrace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He expected a cry. No; she came toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wish to die! Ah, well, so do I! I have had enough of life, of shame,
+      of falsehood, and of love&mdash;love that must be concealed with such care
+      that I am never sure of finding it. I am ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew back. &ldquo;What folly!&rdquo; he said, sullenly. &ldquo;This is too much,&rdquo; he
+      added, vehemently, after a moment&rsquo;s silence, and hurried to the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed him. &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave me!&rdquo; he said, roughly. She snatched his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care!&rdquo; she whispered with quivering lips. &ldquo;If you take one more step
+      in that direction, I will call for assistance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call, then! Let the world know that your nephew is your lover, and your
+      lover a thief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hissed these words, in her ear, for they both spoke very low,
+      impressed, in spite of themselves, by the silence and repose of the house.
+      By the red light of the dying fire he appeared to her suddenly in his true
+      colors, just what he really was, unmasked by one of those violent emotions
+      which show the inner workings of the soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw him with his keen eyes reddened by constant examination of the
+      cards; she thought of all she had sacrificed for this man; she remembered
+      the care with which she had adorned herself for this interview. Suddenly
+      she was overwhelmed by profound disgust for herself and for him, and sank,
+      half-fainting, on the couch; and while the thief crept up the familiar
+      staircase, she buried her face in the pillows to stifle her cries and
+      sobs, and to prevent herself from seeing and hearing anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets of Indret were as dark as at midnight, for it was not yet six
+      o&rsquo;clock. Here and there a light from a baker&rsquo;s window or a wine-shop shone
+      dimly through the thick fog. In one of these wineshops sat Chariot and
+      Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another glass, my boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more, thank you. I fear it would make me very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot laughed. &ldquo;And you a Parisian! Waiter, bring more wine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy dared make no farther objection. The attentions of which he was
+      the object flattered him immensely. That this man, who for eighteen months
+      had never vouchsafed him any notice, should, meeting him by chance that
+      morning in the streets, have invited him to the cabaret and treated him,
+      was a matter of surprise and congratulation to himself. At first Jack was
+      somewhat distrustful of such courtesy, for the other had such a singular
+      way of repeating his question, &ldquo;Is there nothing new at the Rondics?
+      Really, nothing new?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; thought the apprentice, &ldquo;if he wishes me to carry his letters,
+      instead of Bélisaire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But after a little while the boy became more at ease. Perhaps Chariot, he
+      thought, may not be such a bad fellow. A good friend might induce him to
+      relinquish play, and make him a better man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Jack had taken his third glass of wine, he became very cordial, and
+      offered to become this good friend. Chariot accepting the offer with
+      enthusiasm, the boy thought himself justified in at once offering his
+      advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, M. Chariot, listen to me, and don&rsquo;t play any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blow struck home, for the young man&rsquo;s lips trembled nervously, and he
+      swallowed a glass of brandy at one gulp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the factory-bell sounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; cried Jack, starting to his feet. And, as his friend had paid
+      for the first and second wine they had drank, he considered it essential
+      that he should now pay in his turn; so he drew a louis from his pocket,
+      and tossed it on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hallo! a yellow boy!&rdquo; said the barkeeper, unaccustomed to seeing such in
+      the possession of apprentices. Chariot started, but made no remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had Jack been to the wardrobe also?&rdquo; he said to himself. The boy was
+      delighted at the sensation he had created. &ldquo;And I have more of the same
+      kind,&rdquo; he added, tapping his pocket. And then he whispered in his
+      companion&rsquo;s ear, &ldquo;It is for a present that I mean to buy Zénaïde.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot said, mechanically, &ldquo;Is it?&rdquo; and turned away with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The innkeeper fingered the gold piece with some uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurry,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;or I shall be late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish, my boy,&rdquo; said Chariot, &ldquo;that you could have remained with me
+      until my boat left, which will not be for an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he gently drew the lad toward the Loire. It was easily done, for,
+      coming out from the cabaret into the cold air, the wine the child had
+      drank made him giddy. It seemed to him that his head weighed a thousand
+      pounds. This did not last long, however. &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the bell has
+      stopped, I think.&rdquo; They turned back. Jack was terrified, for it was the
+      first time that he had ever been late at the Works. But Chariot was in
+      despair. &ldquo;It is my fault,&rdquo; he reiterated. He declared that he would see
+      the Director and explain matters, and was altogether so utterly miserable,
+      that Jack was obliged to console him by saying that it was of no great
+      consequence, after all; that he could afford to be marked &lsquo;absent&rsquo; for
+      once. &ldquo;I will go with you to the boat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy was so gratified by what he believed to be the good effect of his
+      words on Chariot, that he enlarged on the noble nature of Père Rondic and
+      of Clarisse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, had you seen her this morning, you would have pitied her. She was so
+      pale that she looked as if she were dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she ate nothing. I am afraid she will be ill. And she never spoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor woman!&rdquo; said Chariot, with a sigh of relief which Jack took for one
+      of sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached the wharf. The boat was not there. A thick fog covered the
+      river from one shore to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go in here,&rdquo; said Chariot It was a little wooden shed, intended as
+      a shelter for workmen while waiting in bad weather. Clarisse knew this
+      shed very well, and the old woman who sold brandy and coffee in the corner
+      had seen Madame Rondic many a time when she crossed the Loire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us take a drop of brandy to keep out the cold,&rdquo; said Chariot. At that
+      moment a shrill whistle was heard; it was the boat for Saint Nazarre.
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Jack, and a thousand thanks for your good advice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mention it,&rdquo; said the lad, heartily; &ldquo;but pray give up gambling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I will,&rdquo; answered the other, hurrying on board to hide his
+      amusement. When Jack was again alone he felt no desire to return to the
+      Works; he was in a state of unusual excitement. Even the heavy fog hanging
+      over the Loire interested him. Suddenly he said to himself, &ldquo;Why do I not
+      go to Nantes and buy Zénaïde&rsquo;s gift to-day?&rdquo; A few moments saw him on the
+      way; but as there was no train until noon, he must wait for some time, and
+      was compelled to pass that time in a room where there were several of the
+      old employés of the Works, who had been discharged for various
+      misdemeanors. They received the lad civilly enough, and listened
+      attentively when he took up some remark that was made, and uttered some
+      platitudes, stolen from D&rsquo;Ar-genton, on the rights of labor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; they said to each other; &ldquo;it is easy to see that the boy comes
+      from Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, excited by this applause and sympathy, talked fast and freely.
+      Suddenly the room swam around&mdash;all grew dark. À fresh breeze restored
+      him to consciousness. He was seated on the bank of the river, and a sailor
+      was bathing his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you better?&rdquo; said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, much better,&rdquo; answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then go on board.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go where?&rdquo; said the apprentice, in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for provisions?
+      And here comes the man with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any point;
+      he embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left, with which
+      he could buy some little souvenir for Zénaïde, so that his trip to Nantes
+      would not be thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted with a poor enough
+      appetite, and sat at the end of the boat, wrapped in thought. He dreamily
+      recalled books that he had read&mdash;tales of strange adventures on the
+      sea; but why did a certain old volume of Robinson Crusoe persistently come
+      before him? He saw the rubbed and yellowed page, the vignette of Robinson
+      in his hammock surrounded by drunken sailors, and above it the
+      inscription, &ldquo;And in a night of debauch I forgot all my good resolutions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and by a
+      pair of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was annoyed by
+      this gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink with me, captain!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, &ldquo;Let him
+      alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled things for
+      him; he thought you had more money than you ought to have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his
+      money was his own, that it had been given him by&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.
+      Here he stopped, remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention
+      her name. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I can have more money when I wish it, and
+      I am going to buy a wedding present for Zénaïde.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He talked on, but no one listened, for a grand dispute between the two men
+      was well under way as to the place where they should land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they entered the harbor of Nantes. Old houses, with carved fronts
+      and stone balconies, met his eyes, crowded as it were among the shipping
+      at the wharves. Large vessels lay at anchor in the harbor, looking to the
+      boy like captives who panted for liberty, sunshine, and space. Then he
+      thought of Mâdou, of his flight and concealment among the cargo in the
+      hold. But this thought was gone in a moment, and he found himself on shore
+      between his two companions, whom he soon loses and finds again. They cross
+      one bridge, and then another, and wander with neither end nor aim. They
+      drink at intervals; night comes, and the boy accompanies the sailors to a
+      low dance-house, still in the strange excitement in which he has been all
+      day. Finally, he finds himself alone on a bench, in a public square, in a
+      state of exhaustion that is far from sleep. The profound solitude
+      terrifies him, when suddenly he hears the well-known cry,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hats! hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bélisaire!&rdquo; called the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Bélisaire. Jack made a futile effort at explanation. The man
+      scolded the boy gently, lifted him up, and led him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where are they going? And who comes here? and what do they want of him?
+      Rough men accost him; they shake him and put irons on his wrists, and he
+      cannot resist, for he is still more than half asleep. He sleeps in the
+      wagon into which he is thrust; in the boat, where he lies utterly inert;
+      and how happy he is after being thus buffeted about to finally throw
+      himself on a straw pallet, shut out from all further disturbance by huge
+      locks and bolts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning a frightful noise over his head awoke Jack suddenly. Ah,
+      what a dismal awakening is that of drunkenness! The nervous trembling in
+      every limb, the intense thirst and exhaustion, the shame and inexpressible
+      anguish of the human being seeing himself reduced to the level of a beast,
+      and so disgusted with his tarnished existence that he feels incapable of
+      beginning life again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was still too dark to distinguish objects, but he knew that he was not
+      in his little attic. He caught a glimpse of the coming dawn in the white
+      light from two high windows. Where was he? In the corner he began to see a
+      confused mass of cords and pulleys. Suddenly he heard the same noise that
+      had awakened him: it was a clock, and one that he well knew. He was at
+      Indret, then, but where?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could it be that he was shut in the tower where refractory apprentices
+      were occasionally put? And what had he done? He tried to recall the events
+      of the day before, and, confused as his mind still was, he remembered
+      enough to cover him with shame. He groaned heavily. The groan was answered
+      by a sigh from the corner. He was not alone, then!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo; asked Jack, uneasily; &ldquo;is it Bélisaire?&rdquo; he added. But why
+      should Bélisaire be there with him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is I,&rdquo; answered the man, in a tone of desperation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of heaven tell me why we are shut up here like two
+      criminals?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What other people have been doing I can&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; muttered the old man; &ldquo;I
+      only speak for myself, and I have done no harm to any one. My hats are
+      ruined,&mdash;and I, too, for that matter!&rdquo; continued Bélisaire,
+      dolefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have I done?&rdquo; asked Jack, for he could not imagine that among
+      the many follies of which he had been guilty there was one more grave than
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say&mdash;But why do you make me tell you? You know well enough what
+      they say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I do not; pray, go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they say that you have stolen Zénaïde&rsquo;s dowry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy uttered an exclamation of horror. &ldquo;But you do not believe this,
+      Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man did not answer. Every one at Indret thought Jack guilty. Every
+      circumstance was against the boy. On the first report of the robbery, Jack
+      was looked for, but was not to be found. Chariot had very well managed
+      matters. All along the road there were traces of the robbery in the gold
+      pieces displayed so liberally. Only one thing disturbed the belief of the
+      boy&rsquo;s guilt in the minds of the villagers: what could he have done with
+      the six thousand francs? Neither Bélisaire&rsquo;s pocket nor his own displayed
+      any indication that such a sum of money had been in their possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after daybreak the superintendent sent for the prisoners. They were
+      covered with mud, and were unwashed and unshorn; yet Jack had a certain
+      grace and refinement in spite of all this; but Bélisaire&rsquo;s naturally ugly
+      countenance was so distorted by grief and anxiety, that, as the two
+      appeared, the spectators unanimously decided that this gentle-looking
+      child was the mere instrument of the wretched being with whom he was
+      unfortunately connected. As Jack looked about he saw several faces which
+      seemed like those of some terrible nightmare, and his courage deserted
+      him. He recognized the sailors, and the proprietors of several of the
+      wineshops, with many others of those whom he had seen on that disastrous
+      yesterday. The child begged for a private interview with the
+      superintendent, and was admitted to the office, where he found Father
+      Rondic, whom Jack went forward at once to greet with extended hand. The
+      old man drew back sadly but resolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of regard for your youth, Jack,&rdquo; said the Director, &ldquo;and from respect
+      to your parents, and in consideration of your hitherto good behavior, I
+      have begged that, instead of being carried to Nantes and placed in prison,
+      you shall remain here. I now tell you that it is for you to decide what
+      will be done. Tell me the truth. Tell Father Rondic and myself what you
+      have done with the money, give him back what is left, and&mdash;no, do not
+      interrupt me,&rdquo; continued the Director, with a frown. &ldquo;Return the money,
+      and I will then send you to your parents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Bélisaire attempted to speak. &ldquo;Be quiet, fellow!&rdquo; said the
+      superintendent; &ldquo;I cannot understand how you can have the audacity to
+      speak. We believe you to be in reality the guilty party, and that this
+      child has simply been your tool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack wished to protest against this condemnation of his friend; but old
+      Rondic gave him no time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quite right, sir, it is bad company that has led the lad astray.
+      Everybody loved him in my house; we had every confidence in him until he
+      met this miserable wretch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire looked so heart-broken at this wholesale condemnation that Jack
+      rushed boldly forward in his defence. &ldquo;I assure you, air, that I met
+      Bélisaire late in the day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean,&rdquo; said the superintendent, &ldquo;that you committed this robbery
+      all alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done no wrong, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, my lad&mdash;you are going down hill with rapidity. Your guilt
+      is very evident, and it is useless to deny it. You were alone with the
+      Rondic women in their house all night. Zénaïde showed you the casket, and
+      even showed you where it was kept. In the night she heard some one moving
+      in your attic; she spoke; naturally you made no reply. She knew that it
+      must be you, for there was no one else in the house. Then you must
+      remember that we know how much money you threw away yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was about to say, &ldquo;My mother sent it to me,&rdquo; when he remembered that
+      she had forbidden him to mention this. So he hesitatingly murmured that he
+      had been saving his money for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What nonsense!&rdquo; cried the Director. &ldquo;Do you think you can make us believe
+      that with your small wages you could have laid aside the amount you
+      squandered yesterday? Tell the truth, my lad, and repair the evil you have
+      done as well as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Father Rondic spoke. &ldquo;Tell us, my boy, where this money is. Remember
+      that it is Zénaïde&rsquo;s dowry, that I have toiled day and night to lay it
+      aside for her, feeling that with it I might make her happy. You did not
+      think of all this, I am sure, and were led away by the temptation of the
+      moment. But now that you have had time to reflect, you will tell us the
+      truth. Remember, Jack, that I am old, that time may not be given me to
+      replace this money. Ah, my good lad, speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man&rsquo;s lips trembled. It must have been a hardened criminal who
+      could have resisted such a touching appeal. Bélisaire was so moved that he
+      made ar series of the most extraordinary gestures. &ldquo;Give him the money,
+      Jack, I beg of you!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas I if the child had had the money, how gladly he would have placed it
+      in the hands of old Rondic, but he could only say,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have stolen nothing&mdash;I swear I have not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The superintendent rose from his chair impatiently. &ldquo;We have had enough of
+      this. Your heart must be of adamant to resist such an appeal as has been
+      made to you. I shall send you up-stairs again, and give you until to-night
+      to reflect. If you do not then make a full confession, I shall hand you
+      over to the proper tribunal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy was then left all the long day in solitude. He tried to sleep, but
+      the knowledge that every one thought him guilty, that his own shameful
+      conduct had given ample reason for such a judgment, overwhelmed him with
+      sorrow. How could he prove his innocence? By showing his mother&rsquo;s letter.
+      But if D&rsquo;Argenton should know of it? No, he could not sacrifice his
+      mother! What, then, should he do? And the boy lay on the straw bed,
+      turning over in his bewildered brain the difficulties of his position.
+      Around him went on the business of life; he heard the workmen come and go.
+      It was evening, and he would be sent to prison. Suddenly he heard the
+      stairs creak under a heavy tread, then the turning of the key, and Zénaïde
+      entered hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;how high up you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this with a careless air, but she had wept so much that her eyes
+      were red and inflamed, her hair was roughened and carelessly put up. The
+      poor girl smiled at Jack. &ldquo;I am ugly, am I not? I have no figure nor
+      complexion. I have a big nose and small eyes; but two days ago I had a
+      handsome dowry, and I cared but little if some of the malicious young
+      girls said, &lsquo;It is only for your money that Maugin wishes to marry you,&rsquo; 
+      as if I did not know this! He wanted my money, but I loved him! And now,
+      Jack, all is changed. To-night he will come and say farewell, and I shall
+      not complain. Only, Jack, before he comes, I thought I would have a little
+      talk with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had hidden his face, and was crying. Zénaïde felt a ray of hope at
+      this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will give me back my money, Jack, will you not?&rdquo; she added
+      entreatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have not got it, I assure you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not say that. You are afraid of me, but I will not reproach you. If
+      you have spent a little you are quite welcome, but tell me where the rest
+      is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to me, Zénaïde: this is horrible. Why should every one think me
+      guilty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went on as if he had not spoken. &ldquo;Do you understand that without this
+      money I shall be miserable? In your mother&rsquo;s name I entreat you here on my
+      knees!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw herself on the floor by the side of the bed where the boy sat,
+      and gave way to tears and sobs. Jack, who was as unhappy as she, tried to
+      take her hand. Suddenly she started up. &ldquo;You will be punished. No one will
+      ever love you because your heart is bad!&rdquo; and she left the room. She ran
+      hastily down the stairs to the superintendent&rsquo;s room, whom she found with
+      her father. She could not speak, for her tears choked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be comforted, my child!&rdquo; said the Director. &ldquo;Your father tells me that
+      the mother of this boy is married to a very rich man. We will write to
+      them. If they are good people, your dowry will be restored to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame: Your son has stolen a sum of money from the honest and
+      hard-working man with whom he lived. This sum represents the savings of
+      years. I have not yet handed him over to the authorities, hoping that he
+      might be induced to restore at least a portion of this money. But I am
+      afraid that it has all been squandered among drunken companions. If that
+      is the case, you should indemnify the Rondics for their loss. The amount
+      is six thousand francs. I await your decision before taking any further
+      steps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he signed his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor things&mdash;it is terrible news for them!&rdquo; said Père Rondic, who
+      amid his own sorrows could still think of those of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zénaïde looked up indignantly. &ldquo;Why do you pity these people? If the boy
+      has taken my money, let them replace it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How pitiless is youth! The girl gave not one thought to the mother&rsquo;s
+      despair when she should hear of her son&rsquo;s crime. Old Rondic, on the
+      contrary, said to himself, &ldquo;She will die of shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In due time this letter written by the superintendent reached its
+      destination, as letters which contain bad news generally do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.~~CHARLOTTE&rsquo;S JOURNEY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines;
+      the poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman reached
+      Aulnettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! a letter from Indret!&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, slowly opening his
+      newspapers,&mdash;&ldquo;and some verses by Hugo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone that
+      he does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else shall
+      touch? Simply because Charlotte&rsquo;s eyes had kindled at the sight of it, and
+      because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment he had become a
+      secondary object in the mother&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the hour of Jack&rsquo;s departure, his mother&rsquo;s love for him had
+      increased. She avoided speaking of him, however, lest she should irritate
+      her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the child
+      increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained complaints of
+      Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough. He wished to
+      mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come. At the first
+      words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes flamed with
+      malicious joy. &ldquo;Ah! I knew it!&rdquo; he cried, and he handed the sheet to
+      Charlotte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a terrible blow for her! Wounded in her maternal pride before the
+      poet, wounded, too, by his evident satisfaction, the poor woman was still
+      more overwhelmed by the reproaches of her own conscience. &ldquo;It is my own
+      fault!&rdquo; she said to herself, &ldquo;why did I abandon him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he must be saved, and at all hazards. But where should she find the
+      money? She had nothing. The sale of her furniture had brought in some
+      millions of francs, but they had been quickly spent. The trifles of
+      jewelry she had would not bring half the necessary sum. She never thought
+      of appealing to D&rsquo;Argenton. First, he hated the boy; and next, he was very
+      miserly. Besides, he was far from rich. They lived with great economy in
+      the winter, the better to keep up their hospitality during the summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always felt,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, after leaving her time to finish
+      the letter, &ldquo;that this boy was bad at heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no reply; indeed she hardly heard what he said. She was thinking
+      that her child would go to prison if she could not obtain the money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued, &ldquo;What a disgrace this is to me!&rdquo; The mother was still saying
+      to herself, &ldquo;The money, where shall I get it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He determined to prevent her asking him the question he saw on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not rich enough to do anything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if you could,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He became very angry. &ldquo;If I could!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I expected that! You know
+      better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It is enough
+      that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for the thefts
+      he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not think of you,&rdquo; she answered, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of whom, then?&rdquo; he questioned, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered a
+      name, expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte,&rdquo; he said,
+      pompously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks! thanks! How good you are!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the
+      stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a most singular conversation&mdash;syllabic and disjointed&mdash;he
+      affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. &ldquo;It was impossible to trust
+      to a letter,&rdquo; Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own audacity, she
+      added, &ldquo;Suppose I go to Tours myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the utmost tranquillity he answered, &ldquo;Very well, we will go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good you are, dear!&rdquo; she cried: &ldquo;you will go with me there, and then
+      to Indret with the money!&rdquo; and the foolish creature kissed his hands with
+      tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go to Tours without
+      him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy. Suppose she should
+      never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow, so inconsistent! The
+      sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had relinquished&mdash;the
+      influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside the heavy chains
+      with which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by no means averse to
+      this little journey, nor to playing his part in the drama at Indret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready to
+      share her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced Charlotte
+      that he loved her more than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, &ldquo;We are obliged to go to Indret, the
+      child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our absence.&rdquo; They
+      left by the night express and reached Tours early in the morning. The old
+      friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty châteaux overlooking
+      the Loire. He was a widower without children, an excellent man, and a man
+      of the world. In spite of her infidelity, he had none but the kindest
+      recollection of the light-hearted woman who for a time had brightened his
+      solitude. He consequently replied to a little note sent by Charlotte that
+      he was ready to receive her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton and she took a carriage from the hotel, and as they approached
+      the château, Charlotte began to grow uneasy. &ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; she said to
+      herself, &ldquo;that he intends to go in with me!&rdquo; She sat in the corner of the
+      carriage, looking out at the fields where she had so often wandered with
+      the boy, who was now wearing a workman&rsquo;s blouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton watched her from the corner of his eyes, gnawing his moustache
+      with fury. She was very pretty that morning, a little pale from emotion
+      and from a night of travel. D&rsquo;Argenton was uneasy and restless; he began
+      to regret having accompanied her, and felt embarrassed by the part he was
+      playing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he saw the château, with its grounds and fountains, its air of
+      wealth, he reproached himself for his own imprudence. &ldquo;She will never
+      return to Aulnettes,&rdquo; he thought. At the end of the avenue he stopped the
+      carriage. &ldquo;I will wait here,&rdquo; he said, abruptly; and added, with a sad
+      smile, &ldquo;Do not be long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes later he saw Charlotte on the terrace with a tall and
+      elegant-looking man. Then began for him a terrible anguish. What were they
+      saying? Should he ever see her again? And it was that detestable boy that
+      had given him all this disturbance. The poet sat on the fallen trunk of a
+      tree, watching feverishly the distant door. Before him was outspread a
+      charming landscape&mdash;wooded hills, sloping vineyards, and meadows
+      overhung with willows; on one side a ruin of the time of Louis IX., and on
+      the other, one of those châteaux common enough on the shores of the Loire.
+      Just below him a sort of canal was in process of building. He watched the
+      workmen in a mechanical sort of way; they were clothed in uniform, and
+      seemed an organized body. He rose and sauntered toward them. The laborers
+      were only children, and their reddened eyes and pale faces told the story
+      of their confinement to the poorer quarters of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are these children?&rdquo; questioned the poet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They belong to the penitentiary,&rdquo; was the answer from the official who
+      superintended them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton asked question after question, saying that he was intimately
+      connected with a family whose only son had just plunged them into deep
+      affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send him to us,&rdquo; was the curt reply, &ldquo;as soon as he leaves the prison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I doubt if he goes to prison,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argen-ton, with a shade of
+      regret in his voice; &ldquo;the parents have paid the amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we have another establishment&mdash;the <i>Maison Paternelle</i>.
+      I have some of the circulars here in my pocket, and perhaps you would
+      glance over them, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton took the papers and turned back toward the house. The carriage
+      was coming down the avenue, and soon Charlotte, her color heightened and
+      her eyes bright with hope for her child, appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have succeeded,&rdquo; she cried, as the poet entered the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he answered, dryly, relapsing into silence, turning over his
+      circulars with an air of affected interest. Charlotte, too, was silent,
+      supposing his pride wounded; and finally he was obliged to say, &ldquo;You
+      succeeded, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Completely. It has always been his intention to give Jack, on his coming
+      of age, a present of ten thousand francs. He has given it to me now. Six
+      thousand will repay the money, and the other four thousand I am to employ
+      as I think best for my child&rsquo;s advantage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Employ it, then, in placing him in the <i>Maison Paternelle</i>, at
+      Mertray, for two or three years. It is there only that one can learn to
+      make an honest man from out of a thief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She started, for the harsh word recalled her to reality. We know that in
+      that poor little brain impressions are very transitory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ready to do whatever you choose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you have been so good
+      and generous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet was enchanted; he was still master, and he proceeded to read
+      Charlotte a long lecture. Her maternal weakness was the cause of all that
+      had happened. The master-hand of a man was absolutely essential. She did
+      not answer, being occupied with joy at the thought of her child not being
+      sent to prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on Sunday morning that they reached Basse Indret. The poet went at
+      once to the superintendent&rsquo;s, while Charlotte remained alone at the inn,
+      for hotel there was none at the village. The rain beating against the
+      windows, and the loud talking in the house, gave her the first clear
+      impression she had received of the exile to which she had condemned her
+      boy. However guilty he might be, he was still her child&mdash;her Jack.
+      She remembered him as a little fellow, bright, intelligent, and sensitive,
+      and the idea that he would presently appear before her as a thief and in a
+      workman&rsquo;s blouse, seemed almost incredible. Ah! had she kept her child
+      with her, or had she sent him with other boys of his age to school, he
+      would have been kept from temptation. The old doctor was right, after all.
+      And Jack had lived with these people for two years! All the prejudices of
+      her superficial nature revolted against her surroundings. She was
+      incapable of comprehending the grandeur of a task accomplished, of a life
+      purchased by the fatigue of the body and the labor of the hands. To change
+      the current of her thoughts, she took up the prospectus of which we have
+      spoken&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Maison Paternelle</i>.&rdquo; The system adopted was absolute
+      isolation. The mother&rsquo;s heart swelled with anguish, and she closed the
+      book and went to the window, where she stood with her eyes fixed on a
+      small bit of the Loire that she saw at the foot of a street, where the
+      water was as rough as the sea itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, in the meantime, was accomplishing his mission. He would not
+      have relinquished the duty for any amount of money. He was fond of
+      attitudes and scenes. He prepared in advance the terms in which he should
+      address the criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An old woman pointed out the house of the Rondics, but when he reached it
+      he hesitated. Must he not have made a mistake? From the wide open windows
+      came the sound of gay music, and heavy feet were heard keeping time to it.
+      &ldquo;No, this cannot be it,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, who naturally expected to find a
+      desolate house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Zénaïde, it is your turn,&rdquo; called some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zenaïde&rdquo;&mdash;why, that was Rondic&rsquo;s daughter! These people certainly
+      did not take this affair much to heart. All at once a crowd of
+      white-capped women passed the window, singing loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Brigadier I come, Jack!&rdquo; said some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhat mystified, the poet pushed open the door, and amid the dust and
+      crowd he saw Jack, radiant with happiness, dancing with a stout girl, who
+      smiled with her whole heart at a good-looking fellow in uniform. In a
+      corner sat a gray-haired man, much amused by all that was going on; with
+      him was a tall, pale, young woman, who looked very sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.~~CLARISSE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack&rsquo;s mother,
+      the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic entered,
+      pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness with which she
+      was received, her conduct having for a long time habituated her to the
+      silent contempt of all who respected themselves, she refused to sit down,
+      and, standing erect, said slowly, attempting to conceal her emotion,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is not
+      he who has stolen my stepdaughter&rsquo;s dowry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Director started from his chair. &ldquo;But, ma-dame, every proof is against
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What proofs? The most important is that, my husband being away, Jack was
+      alone with us in the house. It is just this proof that I have come to
+      destroy, for there was another man there that night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What man? Chariot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he took the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost
+      inaudible reply was whispered, &ldquo;No, it was not he who took it; I gave it
+      to him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unhappy woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I
+      bore for that time the sight of my husband&rsquo;s despair and of Zénaïde&rsquo;s
+      tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned. Nothing came
+      from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I heard
+      nothing, I should denounce myself,&mdash;and here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your husband&mdash;it will kill him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And me, too,&rdquo; she replied, with haughty bitterness. &ldquo;To die is a very
+      simple matter; to live is far more difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your death could repair your fault,&rdquo; returned the Director, gravely;
+      &ldquo;if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could understand why
+      you should wish to die. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall be done, then,&rdquo; she asked, plaintively; and all at once she
+      became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination failed
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some of
+      it still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler played.
+      She knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her, to procure
+      this money, and that he would play until he had lost his last sou.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go at once to Saint Nazarre,&rdquo; said his chief; &ldquo;say to Chariot that I
+      require his presence here at once. You will wait for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame Rondic&rsquo;s; he
+      cannot be far off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however, that
+      Madame Rondic is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke. She
+      stood leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the machinery,
+      the wild whistling of the steam, made a fitting accompaniment to the
+      tumult of her soul. The door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sent for me,&rdquo; said Chariot, in a gay voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief,
+      told the story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost its
+      color, and he looked like an animal driven into a corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word,&rdquo; said the Director; &ldquo;we know all that you wish to say. This
+      woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You promised to
+      return her the money in two days. Where is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him; she
+      had seen him too well that terrible night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the money?&rdquo; repeated the superintendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&mdash;I have brought it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not
+      finding her at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His chief took up the bills. &ldquo;Is it all here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All but eight hundred francs,&rdquo; the other answered, with some hesitation;
+      &ldquo;but I will return them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now sit down and write at my dictation,&rdquo; said the superintendent,
+      sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write: &lsquo;It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six thousand
+      francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that
+      Clarisse would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The superintendent continued: &ldquo;&lsquo;I return the money; it burns me. Release
+      the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle to forgive
+      me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only when, through
+      labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to shake an honest
+      man&rsquo;s hand.&rsquo; Now sign it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily,
+      &ldquo;Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter, and
+      address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariot signed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now go,&rdquo; resumed the superintendent, &ldquo;to Guérigny, if you will, and try
+      to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the
+      neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm
+      was broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door closed
+      tried to express her gratitude to the superintendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not thank me, madame,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it is for your husband&rsquo;s sake that I
+      have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most horrible torture that
+      can overwhelm a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in my husband&rsquo;s name that I thank you. I am thinking of him, and of
+      the sacrifice I must make for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sacrifice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the
+      superintendent feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately, &ldquo;Keep
+      up your courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered a
+      placard to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy&rsquo;s innocence.
+      He was fêted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and that was news
+      of Bélisaire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack was
+      greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily with
+      Zénaïde and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when D&rsquo;Argenton
+      appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that they
+      explained the finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and that a
+      second letter had been sent narrating all these facts; in vain did these
+      good people treat Jack with familiar kindness: D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s manner did not
+      relax; he expressed in the choicest terms his regret that Jack had given
+      so much trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is I who owe him every apology,&rdquo; cried the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty, and
+      of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was
+      confused, for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in which
+      Zénaïde&rsquo;s lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore listened
+      with downcast eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer, who fairly
+      talked Father Rondic to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be very thirsty after talking so long,&rdquo; said Zénaïde,
+      innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the
+      cake looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet&mdash;who was, as
+      we know, something of an epicure&mdash;made a breach in it quite as large
+      as that in the ham made by Béli-saire at Aulnettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had discovered one thing only from all D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s long words,&mdash;he
+      had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him from
+      disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great
+      injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy,
+      therefore, had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial reception
+      of the Rondics, put the poet into the most amiable state of mind. You
+      should have seen him with Jack as they trod the narrow streets of Indret!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, unwilling
+      to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character of hero and martyr; it
+      was more than the selfish nature of the man could support. And yet, to
+      deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing each other once more it
+      was necessary to be provided with some reason; and this reason Jack
+      himself soon furnished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability,
+      acknowledged to M. d&rsquo;Argenton that he did not like his present life; that
+      he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from his
+      mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better than
+      manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy&rsquo;s lips, when he saw a
+      change in his hearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be very
+      unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten
+      apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century was
+      no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;&rdquo; and on this text he
+      wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the side
+      of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in the
+      inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to bring
+      her the little criminal,&mdash;the boy whom she had not seen for two
+      years, and whom she dearly loved. But D&rsquo;Argenton had determined to keep
+      them apart. It was wisest&mdash;Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would be
+      reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the
+      sacrifice for her child&rsquo;s interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the
+      river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across its
+      waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.~~IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such
+      swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zénaïde was married, and
+      since Jack&rsquo;s terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and
+      loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since
+      Zénaïde&rsquo;s marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her
+      accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never
+      lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all alike
+      monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former serenity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island, part
+      of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled with
+      fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some weeks in
+      the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender and loving
+      when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when the poet looked
+      over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother was, that her poet had
+      had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals, who now came on Sundays,
+      with some of their pupils, to dine at Aulnettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moronval, Mâdou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who
+      thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could see
+      little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and the
+      dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus were Dr. Rivals&rsquo; words justified: &ldquo;It is social distinctions that
+      create final and absolute separations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack thought often of the old doctor and of Cécile, and on the first of
+      January each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had
+      remained unanswered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need
+      him, and he must work hard for her sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not to
+      the ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction of
+      his career. He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he received
+      but three francs per day. With these three francs he must pay for his
+      room, his food, and his dress; that is, he must replace his coarse
+      clothing as it was worn out; and what should he do if his mother were to
+      write and say, &ldquo;I am coming to live with you &ldquo;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said Père Rondic, &ldquo;your parents made a great mistake in not
+      listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you like to make
+      a voyage? The chief engineer of the &lsquo;Cydnus&rsquo; wants an assistant. You can
+      have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed. Shall I write and say
+      you will like the situation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that Mâdou&rsquo;s wild tales had
+      awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly pleased at
+      the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just four years
+      after his arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became more fresh as
+      the little steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack had never seen the
+      sea. The fresh salt breeze inspired him with restless longing. Saint
+      Nazarre lay before him,&mdash;the harbor crowded with shipping. They
+      landed at the dock, and there learned that the Cydnus, of the <i>Compagnie
+      Transatlantique</i>, would sail at three o&rsquo;clock that day, and was already
+      lying outside,&mdash;this being, in fact, the only way to have the crew
+      all on board at the moment of departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack and his companion&mdash;for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him
+      on board his ship&mdash;had no time to see anything of the town, which had
+      all the vivacity of a market-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with fowls
+      which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty. Near their
+      merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for purchasers. They
+      were in no hurry, and made no appeal to the passers-by. In contrast to
+      these, there was a number of small peddlers, selling pins, cravats, and
+      portemonnaies, who were loudly crying their wares. Sailors were hurrying
+      to and fro, and Rondic learned from one of them that the chief engineer of
+      the Cydnus was in a very bad humor because he had not his full number of
+      stokers on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must hasten,&rdquo; said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly
+      threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic steamers
+      lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large English ships
+      just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all hard at work.
+      They passed between these motionless masses, where the water was as dark
+      as a canal running through the midst of a city under high walls; then they
+      saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry little man, in his
+      shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed Jack and Rondic as
+      their boat came alongside the steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures were
+      eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come, then, have you?&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;I was afraid you meant to
+      leave me in the lurch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was my fault,&rdquo; said Rondic; &ldquo;I wished to accompany the lad, and I
+      could not get away yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On board with you, quick!&rdquo; returned the engineer; &ldquo;he must get into his
+      place at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who had
+      never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size and the
+      depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes accustomed to
+      the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing. The heat was
+      stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where the heavy
+      atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost insupportable. Great
+      activity reigned in this room; a general examination was being made of the
+      machinery, which glittered with cleanliness. Jack looked on curiously at
+      the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon be his duty to watch it
+      day and night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. &ldquo;That is where the coal
+      is kept,&rdquo; said the engineer, carelessly; &ldquo;and on the other side the
+      stokers sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the
+      Rondics, were palaces in comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened by
+      the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked, were
+      stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is your man,&rdquo; said Blanchet to the head workman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, sir,&rdquo; said the other without turning round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell,&rdquo; said Rondic. &ldquo;Take care of yourself, my boy!&rdquo; and he was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the
+      furnace to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very hard
+      work: the baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change from the
+      pure air above to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely suffocating. On
+      the third trip Jack felt his legs giving way under him. He found it
+      impossible to even lift his basket, and sank into a corner half fainting.
+      One of the stokers, seeing his condition, brought him a large flask of
+      brandy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you; I never drink anything,&rdquo; said Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other laughed. &ldquo;You will drink here,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an effort of
+      will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer ran
+      to and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who came
+      hurriedly on board. The passengers were representatives of all nations.
+      Some were gay, and others were weeping, but in the faces of all was to be
+      read an anxiety or a hope; for these displacements, these movings, are
+      almost invariably the result of some great disturbance, and are, in
+      general, the last quiver of the shock that throws you from one continent
+      to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that
+      strained at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty who had
+      come, some of them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It animated
+      the fishing-boats, whose sails were spread for a night of toil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the
+      passengers,&mdash;those belonging to the cabins comfortably established,
+      those of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they
+      going? What wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality awaited
+      them on their landing? One couple interested him especially: it was a
+      mother and a child who recalled to him the memory of Ida and little Jack.
+      The lady was young and in black, with a heavy wrap thrown about her, a
+      Mexican sarape with wide stripes. She had a certain air of independence
+      characteristic of the wives of military or naval officers, who, from the
+      frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown on their own resources. The
+      child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if he might have belonged
+      to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they both turned aside, and the
+      long silk skirts were lifted that they might not touch his blackened
+      garments. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Jack understood it.
+      A rough oath and a slap on the shoulder interrupted his sad thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!&rdquo; It was
+      the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word, humiliated
+      at the reproof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout the
+      ship: she had started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand there!&rdquo; said the head stoker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty to
+      fill it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not such an
+      easy matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching of the vessel
+      came near throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless toiled on
+      courageously, but at the end of an hour he was blind and deaf, stifled by
+      the blood that rushed to his head. He did as the others did, and ran to
+      the outer air. Ah, how good it was! Almost immediately, however, an icy
+      blast struck him between the shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick, give me the brandy!&rdquo; he cried with a choked voice, to the man who
+      had previously offered it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he was
+      so cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable warmth
+      spread over his whole system, and then began a burning sensation in his
+      stomach. To extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within, and fire
+      without,&mdash;flame upon flame,&mdash;was this the way that he was to
+      live in future?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three
+      years:&mdash;three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room
+      down in the bowels of that big ship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian, French,
+      and Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the climes they
+      visited, the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had emptied his
+      cinders, broken his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept the sleep of
+      exhaustion and intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he lives. In the
+      darkness of his life there was but one bright spot, his mother. She was
+      like the Madonna in a chapel where all the lights are extinguished save
+      the one that burns before her shrine. Now that he had become a man, much
+      of the mystery of her life had become clear to him. His respect for
+      Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and he loved her as we love those
+      for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing moments he remembered the
+      end for which he toiled, and a mechanical instinct made him carefully
+      preserve almost every sou of his wages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother and
+      son. Jack&rsquo;s letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte were
+      frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life, that he
+      read them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a living
+      tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Letters from Etiolles told him of D&rsquo;Argenton; later, some from Paris spoke
+      of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the poet
+      having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of friends.
+      This would be a way of bringing his works prominently before the public,
+      as well as to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a large package
+      addressed to him. It was the first number of the magazine. The stoker
+      mechanically turned its leaves, leaving on them the traces of his
+      blackened fingers; and suddenly, as he saw the well-known names of
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the smooth pages, he was seized with
+      wild rage and indignation, and he cried aloud, as he shook his fist
+      impatiently in the air, &ldquo;Wretches, wretches! what have you made of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and,
+      strangely enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and
+      better able to support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed hardly
+      to recognize any difference between bis days when the ship tossed and
+      groaned, and his nights when he slept a drunken sleep, disturbed only by
+      an occasional nightmare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams? That
+      rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,&mdash;was all that a
+      dream? His comrades called him, shook him. &ldquo;Jack, Jack!&rdquo; they cried; he
+      staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under water,
+      the compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against each other
+      in the darkness. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow
+      ladder; at the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your furnaces!
+      Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are obeyed.&rdquo; Each
+      one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They charged the furnaces
+      with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured out; while the water
+      still ascending, in spite of the constant work at the pumps, was as cold
+      as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces will not burn. The stokers
+      are in water up to their shoulders before the voice of the chief engineer
+      is heard: &ldquo;Save yourselves, my men, if you can!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.~~D&rsquo;ARGENTON&rsquo;S MAGAZINE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging to
+      the last century, D&rsquo;Argen-ton had established himself as editor of the new
+      magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor. Do not smile:
+      this was really the case; his money had been used to establish it
+      Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so employing these funds,
+      which she wished to preserve intact for the boy on his attaining his
+      majority; but she yielded to the poet&rsquo;s persuasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you&rsquo; know. Can there be a
+      better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad, at
+      least Have I not placed my own funds in it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Within six months D&rsquo;Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and
+      the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous. Besides
+      the offices of the magazine, D&rsquo;Argenton had hired in the same house a
+      large apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the Seine,
+      Nôtre Dame, numberless spires and domes, were all spread before his eyes.
+      He saw the carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats glide through
+      the arches. &ldquo;Here I can live and breathe,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;It was
+      impossible for me to accomplish anything in that dull little hole of
+      Aulnettes! How could one work in such a lethargic atmosphere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte was still young and gay; she managed the house and the kitchen,
+      which was no small matter with the number of persons who daily assembled
+      around her table. The poet, too, had recently acquired the habit of
+      dictating instead of writing, and as Charlotte wrote a graceful English
+      hand, he employed her as secretary. Every evening, when they were alone,
+      he walked up and down the large room and dictated for an hour. In the
+      silent old house, his solemn voice, and another sweeter and fresher,
+      awakened singular echoes. &ldquo;Our author is composing,&rdquo; said the concierge
+      with respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us look in upon the D&rsquo;Argenton ménage. We find them installed in a
+      charming little room, filled with the aroma of green tea and of Havana
+      cigars. Charlotte is preparing her writing-table, arranging her pens, and
+      straightening the ream of thick paper. D&rsquo;Argenton is in excellent vein; he
+      is in the humor to dictate all night, and twists his moustache, where
+      glitter many silvery hairs. He waits to be inspired. Charlotte, however,
+      as is often the case in a household, is very differently disposed: a cloud
+      is on her face, which is pale and anxious; but notwithstanding her evident
+      fatigue, she dips her pen in the inkstand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us see&mdash;we are at chapter first. Have you written that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chapter first,&rdquo; repeated Charlotte, in a low, sad voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet looked at her with annoyance; then, with an evident determination
+      not to question her, he continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary lore&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He repeated these words several times, then turning to Charlotte, he said,
+      &ldquo;Have you written this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made an effort to repeat the words, but stopped, her voice strangled
+      with sobs. In vain did she try to restrain herself, her tears flowed in
+      torrents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth is the matter?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton. &ldquo;Is it this news of the
+      Cydnus? It is a mere flying report, I am sure, and I attach no importance
+      to it. Dr. Hirsch was to call at the office of the Company to-day, and he
+      will be here directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a satirical tone, slightly disdainful, as the weak, children,
+      fools, and invalids are often addressed. Was she not something of all
+      these?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where were we?&rdquo; he continued, when she was calmer. &ldquo;You have made me lose
+      the thread. Read me all you have written.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte wiped her tears away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary lore&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet was very much surprised; it seemed to him that he had dictated
+      much more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression bewildered
+      him. All that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his brain, he
+      fancied was already in form and on the page, and he was aghast at the
+      disproportion between the dream and the reality. His delusion was like
+      that of Don Quixote,&mdash;he believed himself in the Empyrean, and took
+      the vapors from the kitchen for the breath of heaven, and, seated on his
+      wooden horse, felt all the shock of an imaginary fall.. Had he been in
+      such a state of mental exaltation merely to produce those two lines? Were
+      these the only result of that frantic rubbing of his dishevelled hair, of
+      that weary pacing to and fro?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was furious, for he felt that he was ridiculous. &ldquo;It is your fault,&rdquo; he
+      said to Charlotte. &ldquo;How can a man work in the face of a crying woman? It
+      is always the same thing&mdash;nothing is accomplished. Years pass away
+      and the places are filled. Do you not know how small a thing disturbs
+      literary composition? I ought to live in a tower a thousand feet above all
+      the futilities of life, instead of being surrounded by caprices, disorder,
+      and childishness.&rdquo; As he speaks he strikes a furious blow upon the table,
+      and poor Charlotte, with the tears pouring from her eyes, gathers up the
+      pens and papers that have flown about the room in wild confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of Dr. Hirsch ends this deplorable scene, and after a while
+      tranquillity is restored. The doctor is not alone; Labassandre comes with
+      him, and both are grave and mysterious in their manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte turns hastily. &ldquo;What-news, doctor?&rdquo; she asks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, madame; no news whatever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Charlotte detected a covert glance at D&rsquo;Argenton, and knew that the
+      physician&rsquo;s words were false.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do the officers of the Company say?&rdquo; continued the mother,
+      determined to learn the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Labassandre undertook to answer, and while he spoke, the doctor contrived
+      to convey to D&rsquo;Argenton that the Cydnus had gone to the bottom»,&mdash;&ldquo;a
+      collision at sea&mdash;every soul was lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s face never changed, and it would have been difficult to form
+      any idea of his feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been at work,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Excuse me, I need the fresh air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said Charlotte; &ldquo;go out for a walk;&rdquo; and the poor woman,
+      who usually detained her poet in the house lest the high-born ladies of
+      the Faubourg St. Germain should entrap him, is this evening delighted to
+      see him leave her, that she may weep in peace&mdash;that she may yield to
+      all the wild terror and mournful presentiments that assail her. This is
+      why even the presence of the servant annoys her, and she sends her to her
+      attic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame wishes to be alone! Is not madame afraid? The noise of the wind is
+      very dismal on the balcony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not afraid; leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she was alone. She could think at her ease, without the voice of
+      her tyrant saying, &ldquo;What are you thinking about?&rdquo; Ever since she had read
+      in the Journal the brief words, &ldquo;There is no intelligence of the Cydnus,&rdquo;
+       the image of her child had pursued her. Her nights had been sleepless, and
+      she listened to the wind with singular terror. It seemed to blow from all
+      quarters, rattling the windows and wailing through the chimneys. But
+      whether it whispered or shrieked, it spoke to her, and said what it always
+      says to the mothers and wives of sailors, who turn pale as they listen.
+      The wind comes from afar, but it comes quickly and has met with many
+      adventures. With one gust it has torn away the sails of a vessel, set fire
+      to a quiet home, and carried death and destruction on its wings. This it
+      is that gives to its voice such melancholy intonations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This night it was dreary enough: it rattles the windows and whistles under
+      the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this poor
+      mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking of the
+      clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same plaintive tone
+      and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well what the wind wishes
+      to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on the broad ocean, without
+      sails or rudder&mdash;of a maddened crowd on the deck, of cries and
+      shrieks, curses and prayers. Her hallucination is so strong that she even
+      hears from the ship a beseeching cry of &ldquo;Mamma!&rdquo; She starts to her feet;
+      she bears it again. To escape it, she walks about the room, opens the door
+      and looks down the corridor. She sees nothing, but she hears a sigh, and,
+      raising her lamp higher, discovers a dark shadow crouched in the corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that?&rdquo; she cried, half in terror, half in hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is I, dear mother!&rdquo; said a weak voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She ran toward him. It is her boy&mdash;a tall, rough sailor&mdash;rising
+      as she approached him, with the aid of a pair of crutches. And this is
+      what she has made of her child! Not a word, not an exclamation, not a
+      caress. They look at each other, and tears fill the eyes of both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain fatality attaches itself to some people, which renders them and
+      all that they do absolutely ridiculous. When D&rsquo;Argenton returned that
+      night, he came with the determination to disclose the fatal news to
+      Charlotte, and to have the whole affair concluded. The manner in which he
+      turned the key in the lock announced this solemn determination. But what
+      was his surprise to find the parlor a blaze of light! Charlotte&mdash;and
+      on the table by the fire the remains of a meal. She came to him in a
+      terrible state of agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! Pray make no noise&mdash;he is here and asleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack, of course. He has been shipwrecked, and is severely injured. He has
+      been saved as by a miracle. He has just come from Rio Janeiro, where he
+      spent two months in a hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton forced a smile, which Charlotte endeavored to believe was one
+      of satisfaction. It must be acknowledged that he behaved very well, and
+      said at once that Jack must stay there until he was entirely recovered. In
+      fact, he could do no less for the actual proprietor of his Review.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first excitement over, the ordinary life of the poet and Charlotte was
+      resumed, changed only by the presence of the poor lame fellow, whose legs
+      were badly burned by the explosion of a boiler, and had not yet healed. He
+      was clothed in a jacket of blue cloth. His light moustache, the color of
+      ripe wheat, was struggling into sight through the thick coating of tan
+      that darkened his face; his eyes were red and inflamed, for the lashes had
+      been burned off; and in a state of apathy painful to witness, the son of
+      Ida de Barancy dragged himself from chair to chair, to the irritation of
+      D&rsquo;Argenton and to the great shame of his mother. When some stranger
+      entered the house and cast an astonished glance at this figure, which
+      offered so strange a contrast to the quiet, luxurious surroundings, she
+      hastened to say, &ldquo;It is my son, he has been very ill,&rdquo; in the same way
+      that the mothers of deformed children quickly mention the relationship,
+      lest they should surprise a smile or a compassionate look. But if she was
+      pained in seeing her darling in this state, and blushed at the vulgarity
+      of his manners or his awkwardness at the table, she was still more
+      mortified at the tone of contempt with which her husband&rsquo;s friends spoke
+      of her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack saw little difference in the habitués of the house, save that they
+      were older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they
+      were the same. They had attained no higher social position, and were still
+      without visible means of support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice each
+      week they all dined at D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s table. Moronval generally brought with
+      him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince of an indefinite
+      age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed very small and slender.
+      With his little cane and hat, he looked like a figure of yellow clay
+      fallen from an étagère upon the Parisian sidewalk. The other, with narrow
+      slits of eyes and a black beard, recalled certain vague remembrances to
+      Jack, who at last recognized his old friend Said who had offered him cigar
+      ends on their first interview.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished, but
+      his parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the manners
+      and customs of fashionable society. All these persons treated Jack with a
+      certain air of condescension. He remained Master Jack to but one person&mdash;that
+      was that most amiable of women, Madame Moronval, who wore the same silk
+      dress that he had seen her in years before. He cared little whether he was
+      called &ldquo;Master Jack,&rdquo; or &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo;&mdash;his two months in the hospital,
+      his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the atmosphere of the
+      engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion, had caused him such
+      profound exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that he sat with his pipe
+      between his teeth, silent and half asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is intoxicated,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argent on sometimes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the
+      society of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent. Then
+      he drew his chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than talk
+      himself. Her voice made a delicious murmur in his ears like that of the
+      first bees on a warm spring day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, &ldquo;When I was
+      a child I went on a long voyage&mdash;did I not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life
+      that he had asked a question in regard to his history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you wish to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, three years ago, the first day that I was on board a steamer, I
+      had a singular sensation. It seemed to me that I had seen it all before;
+      the cabins, and the narrow ladders, impressed me as familiar; it seemed to
+      me that I had once played on those very stairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked around to assure herself that they were entirely alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not a dream, Jack. You were three years old when we came from
+      Algiers. Your father died suddenly, and we came back to Tours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was my father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated, much agitated, for she was not prepared for this sudden
+      curiosity; and yet she could not refuse to answer these questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was called by one of the grandest names in France, my child&mdash;by a
+      name that you and I would bear to-day if a sudden and terrible catastrophe
+      had not prevented him from repairing his fault. Ah, we were very young
+      when we met! I must tell you that at that time I had a perfect passion for
+      the chase. I remember a little Arabian horse called Soliman&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was gone, at full speed, mounted on this horse, and Jack made no
+      effort to interrupt her&mdash;he knew that it was useless. But when she
+      stopped to take breath, he profited by this brief halt to return to his
+      fixed idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was my father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of whom
+      they had been speaking. She answered quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;He was called the
+      Marquis de l&rsquo;Epau.&rdquo; Jack certainly had but little of his mother&rsquo;s respect
+      for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he received with the
+      greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his illustrious descent. What
+      mattered it to him that his father was a marquis, and bore a distinguished
+      name? This did not prevent his son from earning his bread as a stoker on
+      the Cydnus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Charlotte,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton impatiently, one day, &ldquo;something
+      must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He cannot remain
+      here forever without doing anything. He is quite well again; he eats like
+      an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but Dr. Hirsch says that is
+      nothing,&mdash;that he will always cough. He must decide on something. If
+      the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too severe for him, let him
+      try a railroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, &ldquo;If you could see how he loses his
+      breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still feel
+      that he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the office
+      work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will speak to Moronval,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the
+      office except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack
+      fulfilled these various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of
+      Moronval with the same indifference that he opposed to D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s cold
+      contempt. Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it was
+      small, to be sure, but he added to it by supplementary labors, for which
+      he was paid certain sums on account. The subscription books lay open on
+      the desk, expenses went on, but no receipts came in. In fact, there was
+      but one subscriber, Charlotte&rsquo;s friend at Tours, and but one proprietor,
+      and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was at work in a corner. Neither Jack
+      nor any one else realized this; but D&rsquo;Argenton knew it and felt it hourly,
+      and soon hated more strongly than ever the youth upon whose money he was
+      living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear,&rdquo; said Charlotte, &ldquo;he does all he can!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit nor
+      how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and since this
+      great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown ten years older,
+      my love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he drinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but whose
+      fault was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change of
+      air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing for
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go the
+      next day to install her son at Aulnettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They arrived there on one of those soft autumnal mornings which have all
+      the beauty of summer without its excessive heat. There was not a breath in
+      the air; the birds sang loudly, the fallen leaves rustled gently, and a
+      perfume of rich maturity of ripened grain and fruit filled the air. The
+      paths through the woods were still green and fresh; Jack recognized them
+      all, and, seeing them, regained a portion of his lost youth. Nature
+      herself seemed to welcome him with open arms, and he was soothed and
+      comforted. Charlotte left her son early the next morning, and the little
+      house, with its windows thrown wide open to the soft air and sunlight, had
+      a peaceful aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.~~THE CONVALESCENT.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
+      belief that my Jack was a thief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Dr. Rivals&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
+      Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, on feet, at the forester&rsquo;s cottage that Jack and his old friend
+      had met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each day
+      he had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons with
+      whom he held any communication were the old forester and his wife, who had
+      served Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched over his
+      health, purchased his provisions, and often cooked his dinner over her own
+      fire, while he sat and smoked at the door. These people never asked a
+      question, but when they saw his thin figure and heard his constant cough,
+      they shook their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing to
+      both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor
+      understood the truth, the awkwardness passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, gayly, &ldquo;I hope we shall see you often.
+      You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse, but you
+      need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great care,&mdash;particularly
+      in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you understand. Our house is
+      changed, for my poor wife died four years ago,&mdash;died of absolute
+      grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her place; she keeps my
+      books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she will be to see you! Now
+      when will you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cécile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling of
+      restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog is not
+      good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now in with
+      you quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall. If you do
+      not appear I shall come for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It
+      seemed to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives
+      with the doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room, while
+      the poet was above in the tower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of dried
+      grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very chilly. As of
+      old, when he returned from his country excursions with the doctor, the
+      remembrance of his kindness and affection rendered him impervious to the
+      slights he received at home, so now did the prospect of seeing Cécile
+      people his solitude with dear phantoms and happy visions, that remained
+      with him even while he slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day he knocked at the Rivals&rsquo; door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office,&rdquo; was the reply
+      of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he had
+      known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient to
+      behold his former companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Jack,&rdquo; said a sweet voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming
+      apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde hair,
+      was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had not the
+      little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet recollections of
+      their common child-hood!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
+      have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you, and
+      often spoke of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as she
+      stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her head
+      slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cécile there
+      was something indefinable&mdash;an aroma of some divine spring-time,
+      something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte&rsquo;s mannerisms and graces bore
+      little resemblance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of his
+      own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and the
+      nails were broken and deformed,&mdash;irretrievably injured by contact
+      with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even by
+      putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of
+      others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s, that
+      was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this
+      physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all the
+      disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies, the
+      hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection, and it
+      seemed to him that Cécile knew them, too. The slight cloud that hung on
+      her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all told him that
+      she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to run away and shut
+      himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cécile, busy at her
+      scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time to
+      recover his equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid
+      and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with her
+      sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them gently
+      for their mistakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack&rsquo;s,&mdash;the
+      very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was
+      little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor,
+      burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Salé yet retained a
+      little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been
+      sick for months,&mdash;who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said
+      two or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked
+      Cécile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times
+      Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he
+      restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cécile
+      listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack
+      going out, recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;the little Aulnettes boy come to life again? Ah,
+      Mademoiselle Cécile, your uncle won&rsquo;t want you to marry him now, I fancy,
+      though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the doctor
+      desired;&rdquo; and, chuckling, she left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so many
+      years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only one who
+      was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was scarlet with
+      annoyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Catherine, bring the soup.&rdquo; It was the doctor who spoke. &ldquo;And you
+      two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven years&rsquo; 
+      absence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of his
+      bad habits would show themselves; and his hands&mdash;what could he do
+      with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The
+      whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cécile saw his
+      discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it, hardly
+      glanced again in his direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot water,
+      sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her grandmother&rsquo;s
+      death had mixed the doctor&rsquo;s grog. And the good man had not gained by the
+      change; for she, as the doctor observed in a melancholy tone, &ldquo;diminished
+      daily the quantity of alcohol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had served her grandfather, Cécile turned toward their guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you drink brandy?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he drink brandy?&rdquo; said the doctor, with a laugh, &ldquo;and he in an
+      engine-room for three years? Don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;ignorant little puss
+      that you are&mdash;that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On
+      board a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
+      draught. Make Jack&rsquo;s strong, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you have some?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, mademoiselle,&rdquo; he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he withdrew
+      his glass,&mdash;for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by one of
+      those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and which are
+      only understood by those whom they address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my word, a conversion!&rdquo; said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
+      converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in God
+      only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work in the
+      fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had every
+      reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking to
+      himself, and gesticulating wildly. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;M. d&rsquo;Argenton was
+      right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with my equals; it is
+      useless for me to try and rise above them.&rdquo; It was a very long time since
+      the young man had felt any such energy. New thoughts and ideas crowded
+      into his mind; among them was Cécile&rsquo;s image. What a marvel of grace and
+      purity she was! He sighed as he thought that had he been differently
+      educated, he might have ventured to ask her to become his wife. At this
+      moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road, he found himself face to
+      face with Mother Salé, who was dragging a fagot of wood. The old woman
+      looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his present mood exasperated
+      him to such a degree that his look of anger so terrified the old creature
+      that she dropped her fagot and ran into the wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
+      Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
+      doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
+      autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the last
+      years of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, Cécile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
+      secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life
+      that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among very
+      scrupulous people. He had never heard his father&rsquo;s name mentioned, and
+      therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the extent of
+      his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of the senses he
+      lacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told it;
+      but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really a
+      marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely to
+      avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father were
+      still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son? The poor
+      fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman&rsquo;s heart is more moved by
+      compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will write to my mother,&rdquo; he thought. But the questions he wished to
+      ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at once,
+      and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the work of
+      words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech. Unfortunately he had no
+      money for his railroad fare. &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can go on foot. I did it
+      when I was eleven, and I can surely try it again.&rdquo; And he did try it the
+      next day; and if it seemed to him less long and less lonely than it did
+      before, it was far more sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
+      Saint-George&rsquo;s, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
+      carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so
+      terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth could
+      suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more afraid of the
+      Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling; and
+      pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the present
+      time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening when his
+      mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in glory, and
+      chasing away the shades of night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses,
+      Jack saw D&rsquo;Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval, who
+      was carrying a bundle of proofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is Jack!&rdquo; said Moronval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with so
+      much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet coat, much
+      too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would have supposed
+      that any tie could exist between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack extended his hand to D&rsquo;Argenton, who gave one finger in return, and
+      asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rented?&rdquo; said the other, not understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
+      occupied, and you were compelled to leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; &ldquo;no one has even called to look at
+      the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you here for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To see my mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however, there
+      are travelling expenses to be thought of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came on foot,&rdquo; said Jack, with simple dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; drawled D&rsquo;Argenton, and then added, &ldquo;I am glad to see that your
+      legs are in better order than your arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by Jack,
+      but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His pride
+      was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes without seeing
+      his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most seriously. He entered
+      the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches were being brought in,
+      for a great fête was in progress of arrangement, which was the reason that
+      D&rsquo;Argenton was so out of temper on seeing Jack. Charlotte did not appear
+      pleased, but stopped in some of her preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
+      utterly,&mdash;that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going
+      to Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments
+      with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were
+      going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to speak seriously,&rdquo; said Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and to-day
+      all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations, it will be
+      superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary. I have arranged a
+      veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not convenient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
+      with a sofa and jardinière, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
+      pattering on the zinc roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack said to himself, &ldquo;I had better have written,&rdquo; and did not know what
+      to say first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
+      attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment, as
+      one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an étagère of trifles, for that
+      which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head that
+      leaned toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like&mdash;I should like to talk to you of my father,&rdquo; he said,
+      with some hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the end of her tongue she had the words, &ldquo;What folly!&rdquo; If she did not
+      utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read amazement
+      and fear, spoke for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as it is
+      to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you. Besides,&rdquo;
+       she added, solemnly, &ldquo;I have always intended, when you were twenty, to
+      reveal to you the secret of your birth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three
+      months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered no
+      protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an older narration.
+      How well he knew her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true that my father was noble?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed he was, my child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;À marquis?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, only a baron.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I supposed&mdash;in fact, you told me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no&mdash;it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was connected then with the Bulac family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And his name was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Baron de Bulac&mdash;a lieutenant in the navy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, &ldquo;How long since he died?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, years and years!&rdquo; said Charlotte, hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
+      falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a L&rsquo;Epau?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are looking ill, child,&rdquo; said Charlotte, interrupting herself in the
+      midst of a long romance she was telling, &ldquo;your hands are like ice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise,&rdquo; answered Jack, with
+      difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before
+      it is late.&rdquo; She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his
+      throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his
+      silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fête in
+      which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the
+      waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother all
+      the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fête from which
+      he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life from
+      which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who could
+      love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a family.
+      He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from asking
+      any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing that to
+      regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it was only
+      the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would impart the
+      strength to cope with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a
+      spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere. It
+      was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
+      overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets,
+      going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one word
+      <i>Consolation</i>, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole
+      refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on
+      his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an
+      exclamation of despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?&rdquo; and entering one
+      of those miserable drink-ing-shops, Jack called for a double measure of
+      brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices, and
+      through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you drink brandy, Jack?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
+      shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks&rsquo; duration after this long walk;
+      how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals, who
+      carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health, is too
+      long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack seated in a
+      comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor&rsquo;s office. It
+      was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky, the silent
+      house, and the gentle footfall of Cécile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with watching
+      the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple home. She
+      sewed and kept her grandfather&rsquo;s accounts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; she said, looking up from her book, &ldquo;that the dear man
+      forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle!&rdquo; he answered, with a start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all his
+      eyes. If Cécile said, &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; it seemed to Jack that no other person
+      had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or good-night, his
+      heart contracted as if he were never to see her again. Her slightest words
+      were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected ways were a delight to
+      the youth. In his state of convalescence he was more susceptible to these
+      influences than he would ordinarily have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a large,
+      deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a village
+      street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was filled with
+      the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their flowering, and he
+      drank it in with delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in the
+      forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor of the
+      herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old
+      volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and which
+      he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all day, and
+      the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified many a
+      prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living, it would
+      not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself, and then, who
+      knows? he may have had his own plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile D&rsquo;Argenton, informed of Jack&rsquo;s removal to the Rivals, saw fit to
+      take great offence. &ldquo;It is not at all proper,&rdquo; wrote Charlotte, &ldquo;that you
+      should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give you the care
+      you need? You place us in a false position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the science
+      of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two days to
+      return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of that time,
+      I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant disobedience, and
+      from that moment all is over between us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with much
+      dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart from
+      her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least
+      intimidated by her coldness, said at once, &ldquo;I ought to tell you, madame,
+      that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed
+      through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions can
+      be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to which it
+      has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk and his other
+      perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope
+      the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer, and you shall
+      have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of renewing the battle
+      of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I
+      shall think that you wish to get rid of him forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an
+      insult?&rdquo; and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with a few
+      kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her son. She
+      found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off some outer
+      husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He turned pale
+      when he saw her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come to take me away,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; she answered, hastily. &ldquo;The doctor wishes you to remain, and
+      where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so tenderly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother,
+      and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly
+      caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked
+      tired and troubled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a reading,
+      and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese prince at the
+      Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D&rsquo;Argenton has translated it into
+      French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese tongue. I find it very
+      difficult, and have come to the conclusion that literature is not my
+      forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent, and has not now one
+      subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is dead. Do you remember
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Cécile came in and was received by Charlotte with the most
+      flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
+      D&rsquo;Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely, for
+      he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in Cécile&rsquo;s
+      pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless babble of
+      his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame D&rsquo;Argenton to
+      remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long, and was uneasily
+      occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her delay, which should be
+      in readiness when she encountered her poet&rsquo;s frowning face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your letter
+      &lsquo;<i>to be called for</i>,&rsquo; for M. D&rsquo;Argenton is much vexed with you just
+      now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next letter,
+      for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my sentences
+      sometimes; but don&rsquo;t mind, dear, you will understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She acknowledged her slavery with naïveté, and Jack was consoled for the
+      tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent
+      spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her
+      travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the
+      depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they
+      expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling
+      the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of
+      these two young hearts. With Cécile, the divine flower had grown in a
+      limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it. With
+      Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems reached
+      the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and needed but
+      little more to burst into flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you wish,&rdquo; said M. Rivals, one evening, &ldquo;we will go to-morrow to the
+      vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go in that
+      in the morning, and I will join you at dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright
+      morning at the end of October. À soft haze hung over the landscape,
+      retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the
+      bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of the
+      summer&rsquo;s brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of gray
+      fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge trees. The
+      freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young travellers,
+      who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and holding on
+      with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the farmer&rsquo;s daughters
+      drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which are very numerous at
+      the time when the air is full of the aroma of ripening fruits, impatiently
+      shook his long ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a crowd
+      at work. Jack and Cécile each snatched a wicker basket and joined the
+      others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen between the
+      vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and picturesque, full of
+      green islands, a little cascade and its white foam, and above all, the fog
+      showing through a golden mist, and a fresh breeze that suggested long
+      evenings and bright fires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not
+      leave Cécile&rsquo;s side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a skirt
+      of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the grapes,
+      exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the wings of a
+      butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack raised his
+      eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same faint, powdery
+      bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above her brow, added to
+      this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and brightened as hers.
+      Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil, the gayety of the
+      vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had absolutely
+      transformed M. Rivals&rsquo; quiet housekeeper. She became a child once more,
+      ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder, watched her burden
+      carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which Jack remembered to
+      have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their heads their full
+      water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two young persons,
+      overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance of a little grove
+      where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly
+      on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal
+      twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple
+      homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cécile insisted on
+      fastening around Jack&rsquo;s throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and
+      softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was like a
+      caress to the lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was
+      all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they
+      heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal
+      evenings has a charm that both Cécile and Jack felt as they entered the
+      large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper innumerable
+      dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound indifference to
+      their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully appreciated them, so
+      fully that his granddaughter quietly left her seat, ordered the carriage
+      to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her
+      in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving on the table his
+      half-filled glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country
+      roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants,
+      groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from
+      the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed
+      to follow with a golden shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you cold, Jack?&rdquo; said the doctor, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could he be cold? The fringe of Cécile&rsquo;s great shawl just touched him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew now
+      that he loved Cécile, but he realized also that this love would be to him
+      only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him, and
+      although he had changed much since he had been so near her, although he
+      had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and appearance, he
+      still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had transformed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was distasteful
+      to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to grow ashamed
+      of his hours of inaction in &ldquo;the office.&rdquo; What would she think of him
+      should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he must go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning he entered M. Rivals&rsquo; house to thank him for all his kindness,
+      and to inform him of his decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said the old man; &ldquo;you are well now bodily and mentally,
+      and you can soon find some employment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular attention
+      with which M. Rivals regarded him. &ldquo;You have something to say to me,&rdquo; said
+      the doctor, abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack colored and hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; continued the doctor, &ldquo;that when a youth was in love with a
+      girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper thing
+      was to speak to him frankly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why are you so troubled, my boy?&rdquo; continued his old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not dare to speak to you,&rdquo; answered Jack; &ldquo;I am poor and without
+      any position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can remedy all this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know&mdash;and so is she,&rdquo; said the doctor, calmly. &ldquo;Now listen to
+      a long story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were in the doctor&rsquo;s library. Through the open window they saw a
+      superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless
+      trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated, and
+      its crosses upheaved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have never been there,&rdquo; said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this
+      melancholy spot. &ldquo;Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which is
+      the one word Madeleine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There lies my daughter, Cécile&rsquo;s mother. She wished to be placed apart
+      from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put upon
+      her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her father
+      and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing to merit
+      this exile after death, and if any should have been punished, it was I, an
+      old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry on
+      account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Forêt de Sénart.
+      A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man on the
+      state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with light hair
+      and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the cold glitter of
+      ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of the balls, and, the
+      operation over, thanked me in excellent French, though with a foreign
+      accent. As he could not be moved without danger, I continued to attend him
+      at the forester&rsquo;s; I learned that he was a Russian of high rank,&mdash;&lsquo;the
+      Comte Nadine,&rsquo; his companions called him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
+      constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was soon able
+      to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took compassion on
+      his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet home to my own house
+      to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he spent the night with us.
+      I must acknowledge to you that I adored the man. He had great stores of
+      information, had been everywhere, and seen everything. To my wife he gave
+      the pharmaceutic recipes of his own land, to my daughter he taught the
+      melodies of the Ukraine. We were positively enchanted with him all of us,
+      and when I turned my face homeward on a rainy evening, I thought with
+      pleasure that I should find so congenial a person at my fireside. My wife
+      resisted somewhat the general enthusiasm, but as it was rather her habit
+      to cultivate a certain distrust as a balance to my recklessness, I paid
+      little attention. Meanwhile our invalid was quite well enough to return to
+      Paris, but he did not go, and I did not ask either myself or him why he
+      lingered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One day my wife said, &lsquo;M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to
+      the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What nonsense!&rsquo; I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count
+      lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks,
+      idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the room, I
+      should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her embroidery
+      all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind as those which
+      will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when Madeleine
+      acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went to find the
+      comte to force an explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
+      wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way by
+      his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for himself,
+      and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount that I could
+      give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the very
+      moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of lordly
+      decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly
+      attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future
+      son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I
+      realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but my
+      daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, &lsquo;We must know more
+      before we give up our daughter,&rsquo; I laughed at her, I was so certain that
+      all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Viéville, one of the huntsmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;he strikes me as
+      an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and that he
+      is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should wish to know
+      more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the Russian embassy;
+      they can tell you everything there.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what I
+      did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I have
+      never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have never had
+      any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half of what I
+      have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of this additional
+      information, I finished by lying, &lsquo;Yes, yes, I went there; everything is
+      satisfactory.&rsquo; Since then I remember the singular air of the comte each
+      time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that time I saw nothing; I
+      was absorbed in the plans that my children were making for their future
+      happiness. They were to live with us three months in the year, and to
+      spend the rest of the time in St. Petersburg, where Nadine was offered a
+      government situation. My poor wife ended in sharing my joy and
+      satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count&rsquo;s papers were
+      long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last the
+      papers came&mdash;a package of hieroglyphics impossible to decipher,&mdash;certificates
+      of birth, baptism, &amp;c. That which particularly amused us was a sheet
+      filled with the titles of my future son-in-law, Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch
+      Stephanovitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Have you really as many names as that?&rsquo; said my poor child, laughing;
+      &lsquo;and I am only Madeleine Rivals.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris with
+      great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave the
+      paternal authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at Etiolles,
+      in the little church where to this very day are to be seen the records of
+      an irreparable falsehood. How happy I was that morning as I entered the
+      church with my daughter trembling on my arm, feeling that she owed all her
+      happiness to me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the bridal
+      couple in a post-chaise&mdash;I can see them now as they drove away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough. When
+      we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our side was
+      dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but the poor
+      mother was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart was devoured
+      by her regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their sorrows and their
+      griefs come from within, and are interwoven with their daily lives and
+      employments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence, were
+      radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the side of our
+      own; we chose the furniture and the wall papers. &lsquo;They are here&mdash;they
+      are there,&rsquo; we said; and at last we expected the final letters we should
+      receive before they returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped alone;
+      when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my daughter
+      appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had parted with
+      a month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly dressed, and carried
+      in her hand a little travelling-bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It is I,&rsquo; she whispered hoarsely; &lsquo;I have come.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from head
+      to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your husband?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;I have none&mdash;I have never had one;&rsquo; and suddenly, without looking
+      at me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew by the
+      name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga, married at
+      St. Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by himself. His
+      resources he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills on the Russian
+      bank. At Turin he had been arrested on an order of extradition. Think of
+      my little girl alone in this foreign town, separated violently from her
+      husband, learning abruptly that he was a forger and a bigamist,&mdash;for
+      he made a full confession of his crimes. She had but one thought, that of
+      seeking refuge with us. Her brain was so bewildered, that, as she told us
+      afterwards, when she was asked where she was going, she simply answered
+      &lsquo;To mamma.&rsquo; She left Turin hastily, without her luggage, and at last she
+      was safe with us, and weeping for the first time since the catastrophe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!&rsquo; but my
+      tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she did
+      not reproach me. &lsquo;I knew,&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;from the beginning that there was
+      some misfortune in this marriage.&rsquo; And, in fact, she had certain
+      presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof. What
+      is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and confidences
+      whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the neighborhood
+      the arrival of my child was quickly known. &lsquo;Your travellers have
+      returned,&rsquo; they said. They asked few questions, for they readily saw that
+      I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was not with us, that Madeleine
+      and her mother never went out; and very soon I found myself met with
+      compassionate glances that were harder to bear than anything else. My
+      daughter had not confided to me that a child would be born from this
+      disastrous union, but sat sewing day after day, ornamenting the dainty
+      garments, which are the joy and pride of mothers, with ribbons and lace; I
+      fancied, however, that she looked at them with feelings of shame, for the
+      least allusion to the man who had deceived her made her turn pale. But my
+      wife, who saw things with clearer vision than my own, said, &lsquo;You are
+      mistaken: she loves him still.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love was
+      stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon after
+      Cécile&rsquo;s birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all its folds,
+      the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written before their
+      marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once pronouncing the
+      name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
+      drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the
+      crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance as
+      it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am reminded
+      of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at work in the
+      fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had not had little
+      Cécile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her life from that hour
+      was one long silence, full of regrets and self-reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in ignorance
+      of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of difficulty; it is
+      true that we were relieved of her father, who died a few months after his
+      condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew the whole story; and we
+      wished to preserve Cécile from all the gossip she would hear if she
+      associated with other children. You saw how solitary her life was. Thanks
+      to this precaution, she to-day knows nothing of the tempest that
+      surrounded her birth; for not one of the kind people about us would utter
+      one word which would give her reason to suspect that there was any
+      mystery. My wife, however, was always in dread of some childish questions
+      from Cécile. But I had other fears: who could be certain that the child of
+      my child did not inherit from her father some of his vices? I acknowledge
+      to you, Jack, that for years I dreaded seeing her father&rsquo;s characteristics
+      in Cécile; I dreaded the discovery of deceit and falsehood; but what joy
+      it has been to me to find that the child is the perfected image of her
+      mother! She has the same tender and half-sad smile, the same candid eyes,
+      and lips that can say No.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn the
+      truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;She must never love any one,&rsquo; said her grandmother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
+      protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her
+      own. Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we knew
+      no one. It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our minds that
+      your mother came to this place. She was supposed to be the wife of
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, but the forester&rsquo;s wife told me the real circumstances. I said
+      to myself instantly, &lsquo;This boy ought to be Cécile&rsquo;s husband;&rsquo; and from
+      that time I attended to your education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to me and
+      ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so indignant when
+      D&rsquo;Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself, however, Jack may emerge
+      from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if he works with his head as
+      well as his hands, he may still be worthy of the wife I wish to give him.
+      The letters that we received from you were all that they should be, and I
+      ventured to indulge the hope I have named. Suddenly came the intelligence
+      of the robbery. Ah, my friend, how terrified I was! how I bemoaned the
+      weakness of your mother, and the tyranny of the monster who had driven you
+      to evil courses! I respected, nevertheless, the tender affection that
+      existed toward you in the heart of my little girl, I had not the courage
+      to undeceive her. We talked of you constantly until the day when I told
+      her that I had seen you at the forester&rsquo;s. If you could have seen the
+      light in her eyes, and how busy she was all day! a sign with her always of
+      some excitement, as if her heart beating too quickly needed something,
+      either a pen or a needle, to regulate its movements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I am
+      satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study
+      medicine and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you
+      here, but I concluded that it would take four years to complete your
+      studies, and that your residence with us for that length of time would not
+      be advisable. In Paris you can study in the evening, and work all day, and
+      come to us on Sundays. I will examine your week&rsquo;s work and advise you, and
+      Cécile will encourage you. Velpeau and others have done this, and you can
+      do the same. Will you try? Cécile is the reward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of
+      the old man. But perhaps Cécile&rsquo;s affection was only that of a sister: and
+      four years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions,&rdquo; said M. Rivals, gayly; &ldquo;but
+      I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. Cécile is up-stairs; go and
+      speak to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a trip-hammer,
+      and a voice choked with emotion. Cécile was writing in the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cécile,&rdquo; he said, as he entered the room, &ldquo;I am going away.&rdquo; She rose
+      from her seat, very pale. &ldquo;I am going to work,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Your
+      grandfather has given me permission to tell you that I love you, and that
+      I hope to win you as my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than Cécile would have
+      failed to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this
+      room, lighted by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl stood
+      listening to this declaration of love as to an echo of her own thoughts.
+      She was perfectly unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile on her lips,
+      and her eyes full of tears. She understood perfectly that their life would
+      be no holiday, that they would be racked by separations and long years of
+      waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; she said, after he had explained all his plans, &ldquo;I will wait for
+      you, not only four years, but forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
+      Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not too
+      far removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and courage,
+      impatient to begin his double work as mechanic and student. The crowd
+      pushed against him, and he did not feel them; nor was he conscious of the
+      cold of this December night; nor did he hear the young apprentice girls,
+      as they passed him, say to each other, &ldquo;What a handsome man!&rdquo; The great
+      Faubourg was alive and seemed to encourage him with its gayety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pleasure it is to live!&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;and how hard I mean to work!&rdquo;
+       Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled with fur hats
+      and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker&rsquo;s stall. Jack
+      looked in and saw Bélisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner and better
+      clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once; but Bélisaire
+      was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of shoes that the
+      cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were not for himself, but
+      for a tiny child of four or five years of age, pale and thin, with a head
+      much too large for his body. Bélisaire was talking to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
+      feet warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack&rsquo;s appearance did not seem to surprise him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you come from?&rdquo; he asked, as calmly as if he had seen him the
+      night before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you, Bélisaire? Is this your child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber,&rdquo; said the pedler, with a sigh; and
+      when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted, Bélisaire
+      drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out some silver
+      pieces that he placed in the cobbler&rsquo;s hand with that air of importance
+      assumed by working people when they pay away money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going, comrade?&rdquo; said the pedler to Jack, as they stood on
+      the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you take
+      this side, I shall go the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, &ldquo;I hardly
+      know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck&rsquo;s, and I want to
+      find a room not too far away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Eyssendeck&rsquo;s?&rdquo; said the pedler. &ldquo;It is not easy to get in there; one
+      must bring the best of recommendations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. Bélisaire believed him guilty
+      of the robbery,&mdash;so true it is that accusations, however unfounded
+      and however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes. When Bélisaire
+      saw the letters of the superintendent at Indret, and heard the whole
+      story, his whole face lighted up with his old smile. &ldquo;Listen, Jack, it is
+      too late to seek a lodging to-night; come with me, for I have a room where
+      you can sleep tonight, and perhaps can suggest something that will suit
+      you. But we will talk about that as we sup. Come now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behold the three&mdash;Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber&rsquo;s little one,
+      whose new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously&mdash;were soon
+      hurrying along the streets. Bélisaire informed Jack that his sister was
+      now a widow, and that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in
+      the full tide of &lsquo;his history, he stopped to shout his old cry of &ldquo;Hats!
+      hats! Hats to sell!&rdquo; But before he reached his home, he was obliged to
+      lift into his arms Madame Weber&rsquo;s little boy, who had begun to weep
+      despairingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little fellow!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, &ldquo;he is not in the habit of walking.
+      He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out with me
+      sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His mother is
+      away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working woman, and has
+      to leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like
+      narrow slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which
+      serve as ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their
+      boxes. At this hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in at
+      the doors, which stood wide open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said the pedler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said the friendly voices from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light&mdash;a woman
+      and children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pedler&rsquo;s room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud of
+      it. &ldquo;I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must wait
+      until I have taken this child to its mother.&rdquo; He looked under the door of
+      a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it, went directly
+      to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the evening meal. He
+      lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high chair at the table,
+      gave it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and then said, &ldquo;Come away
+      quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute, and I wish to hear what
+      she will say when she sees the child&rsquo;s new shoes.&rdquo; He smiled as he opened
+      his room&mdash;a long attic divided in two. A pile of hats told his
+      business, and the bare walls his poverty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of a
+      fine salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two plates,
+      bread and wine, and placed them on a little table. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, with an
+      air of triumph, &ldquo;all is ready, though it is not much like that famous ham
+      you gave me in the country.&rdquo; The potato salad was excellent, however, and
+      Jack did justice to it. Bélisaire was delighted with the appetite of his
+      guest, and did his duty as host with great delight, rising every two or
+      three minutes to see if the water was boiling for the coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have a taste for housekeeping, Bélisaire,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;and have
+      things nicely arranged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; answered the pedler; &ldquo;I need very many articles,&mdash;in fact,
+      these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Waiting for what?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until we can be married!&rdquo; answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to
+      Jack&rsquo;s gay laugh. &ldquo;Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her
+      soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
+      could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him, do
+      his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any more
+      than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough for
+      three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly and
+      sober, and won&rsquo;t make too much trouble in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I do, Bélisaire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour, but
+      did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Bélisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very economical,
+      for I, too, am thinking of marrying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! But in that case we can&rsquo;t make our arrangements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four years
+      later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
+      Hark! I hear Madame Weber.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began a
+      melancholy wail. &ldquo;I am coming,&rdquo; cried the woman from the end of the
+      corridor, to console the little one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; said Bélisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed by a
+      laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her arm,
+      entered Bélisaire&rsquo;s room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of about
+      thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one&rsquo;s feet, but there
+      was a tear in her eye as she said, &ldquo;You are the person who has done this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Bélisaire, with simplicity, &ldquo;how could she guess so well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack was
+      presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that she
+      received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the
+      aspirant for this distinction, and learned that the two men had known each
+      other for ten years, and that she had before her the hero of the story of
+      the ham that she had heard so many times, her face lost its expression of
+      distrust, and she held out her hand to Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This time Bélisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
+      comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very
+      innocent, because he is so good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until the
+      marriage he should share Bélisaire&rsquo;s room and buy himself a bed; they
+      would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every
+      Saturday. After the marriage, they would establish themselves more
+      commodiously, and nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment recalled
+      to him Indret on a smaller scale. Owing to lack of space, there were in
+      the same room three rows, one above the other, of machines. Jack was on
+      the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of the place ascended. When
+      he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he beheld a constant whirl of
+      human arms, and a regular and monotonous beat of machinery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less
+      ventilation; but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life
+      supported him through all the trials of the day. His companions saw
+      intuitively that he lived apart from them, indifferent to their petty
+      quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither their pleasures nor their
+      hatreds. He never listened to their sullen complaints, nor the muttered
+      thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a Ghetto in this
+      magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic theories, the
+      natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering so near
+      the wealthier classes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not disposed to assert that Jack&rsquo;s companions liked him especially,
+      but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen, they looked
+      upon him much as a Prince Rodolphe,&mdash;for they had all read &ldquo;The
+      Mysteries of Paris,&rdquo;&mdash;and admired his tall, slender figure and his
+      careful dress. But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he passed
+      their corner of the establishment with scarcely a glance. This corner was
+      never without its excitement and drama, for most of the workwomen had a
+      lover among the men, and this led to all sorts of jealousies and scenes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to reach
+      his lodgings, to throw aside his workman&rsquo;s blouse, and to bury himself in
+      his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he had used at
+      school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was astonished to find
+      with what facility he regained all that he thought he had forever lost.
+      Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected difficulty, and it was
+      touching to see the young man, whose hands were distorted and clumsy from
+      handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside his pen in despair. At his
+      side Bélisaire sat sewing the straw of his summer hats, in respectful
+      silence, the stupefaction of a savage assistant at a magician&rsquo;s
+      incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned, grew impatient, and when his
+      comrade came to the end of some difficult passage, nodded his head with an
+      air of triumph. The noise of the pedler&rsquo;s big needle passing through the
+      stiff straw, the student&rsquo;s pen scratching upon the paper, the gigantic
+      dictionaries hastily taken up and thrown down, filled the attic with a
+      quiet and healthy atmosphere; and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from
+      the windows the light of other lamps, and other shadows courageously
+      prolonging their labors into the middle of the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
+      brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It had
+      been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to the
+      poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he wrote,
+      thought, &ldquo;How happy they are.&rdquo; His own happiness came on Sundays. Never
+      did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as did Jack on those
+      days, for he was determined that nothing about him should remind Cécile of
+      his daily toil; well might he have been taken for Prince Rodolphe had he
+      been seen as he started off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Delicious day! without hours or minutes&mdash;a day of uninterrupted
+      felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in the
+      salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and Cécile and the doctor made him
+      feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined, M. Rivals
+      examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and explained all
+      that had puzzled the youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they often
+      passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
+      experiments. So black was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that
+      one would have fancied that the man was burning all the drugs in the
+      world. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you smell the poison?&rdquo; said M. Rivals, indignantly. But the
+      young people passed the house in silence; they instinctively felt that
+      there were no kindly sentiments within those walls toward them, and, in
+      fact, feared that the fanatic Dr. Hirsch was sent there as a spy. But what
+      had they to fear, after all? Was not all intercourse between D&rsquo;Argenton
+      and Charlotte&rsquo;s son forever ended? For three months they had not met.
+      Since Jack had been engaged to Cécile, and under-stood the dignity and
+      purity of love, he had hated D&rsquo;Argenton, making him responsible for the
+      fault of his weak mother, whose chains were riveted more closely by the
+      violence and tyranny under which a nobler nature would have revolted.
+      Charlotte, who feared scenes and explanations, had relinquished all hope
+      of reconciliation between these two men. She never mentioned her son to
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, and saw him only in secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled, and
+      Jack&rsquo;s fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman elegant
+      in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of gossip in
+      regard to the mysterious visitor, which finally reached Jack&rsquo;s ears, who
+      begged his mother not to expose herself to such remarks. They then saw
+      each other in the gardens, or in some of the churches; for, like many
+      other women of similar characteristics, she had become <i>dévote</i> as
+      she grew old, as much from an overflow of idle sentimentality as from a
+      passion for honors and ceremonies. In these rare and brief interviews
+      Charlotte talked all the time, as was her habit, but with a worn, sad air.
+      She said, however, that she was happy and at peace, and that she had every
+      confidence in M. d&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s brilliant future. But one day, as mother and
+      son were leaving the church-door, she said to him, with some
+      embarrassment, &ldquo;Jack, can you let me have a little money for a few days? I
+      have made some mistake in my accounts, and have not money enough to carry
+      me to the end of the month, and I dare not ask D&rsquo;Argenton for a penny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the
+      whole amount in his mother&rsquo;s hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw
+      what the obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a look
+      of despair on the face that was generally so smiling and fresh. Intense
+      compassion filled his heart. &ldquo;You are unhappy,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;come to me, I
+      shall-be so glad to have you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She started. &ldquo;No, it is impossible,&rdquo; she said, in a low voice; &ldquo;he has so
+      many trials just now;&rdquo; and she hurried away as if to escape some
+      temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.~~THE WEDDING-PARTY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a summer morning. The pedler and his comrade were up before
+      daybreak. One was sweeping and dusting, with as little noise as possible,
+      careful not to disturb his companion, who was established at the open
+      window. The sky was the cloudless one of June, pale blue with a faint
+      tinge of rose still lingering in the east, that could be seen between the
+      chimneys. In front of Jack was a zinc roof, which, when the sun was in
+      mid-heaven, became a terrible mirror. At this moment it reflected faintly
+      the tints of the sky, so that the tall chimneys looked like the masts of a
+      vessel floating on a glittering sea. Below was heard the noise from the
+      poultry owned by the various inhabitants of the Faubourg. Suddenly a cry
+      was heard: &ldquo;Madame Jacob! Madame Mathieu! Here is your bread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was four o&rsquo;clock. The labors of the day had begun. The woman whose
+      daily business it was to supply that quarter with bread from the baker&rsquo;s
+      had begun her rounds. Her basket was filled with loaves of all sizes,
+      sweet-smelling and warm. She carries them all through the corridors,
+      placing them at the corners of the various doors; her shrill voice aroused
+      the sleepers; doors opened and shut; childish voices uttered cries of joy,
+      and little bare feet pattered to meet the good woman, and returned hugging
+      a loaf as big as themselves, with that peculiar gesture that you see in
+      the poor people who come out of the bake-shops, and which shows the
+      thoughtful observer what that hard-earned bread signifies to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the world is now astir; windows are thrown open, even those where the
+      lamps have burned the greater part of the night. At one sits a sad-faced
+      woman, at a sewing-machine, aided by a little girl, who hands her the
+      several pieces of her work. At another a young girl, with hair already
+      neatly braided, is carefully cutting a slice of bread for her slender
+      breakfast, watching that no crumb shall fall on the floor she swept at
+      daybreak. Further on is a window shaded by a large red curtain to keep off
+      the reflection from the zinc roof. All these rooms open on the other side
+      into a dark and ugly house of enormous size. But the student heeds nothing
+      but his work. One sound only depresses him at times, and that is the voice
+      of an old woman, who says every morning, before the noises of the street
+      have begun, &ldquo;How happy people ought to be who can go to the country on a
+      day like this!&rdquo; To whom does the poor woman utter these words, day after
+      day? To the whole world, to herself, or only to the canary, whose cage,
+      covered with fresh leaves, she hangs on the shutters? Perhaps she is
+      talking to her flowers. Jack never knew, but he is much of her opinion,
+      and would gladly echo her words; for his first waking thoughts turn toward
+      a tranquil village street, toward a little green door, Jack has just
+      reached this point in his reverie when a rustle of silk is heard, and the
+      handle of his door rattles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turn to the right,&rdquo; said Bélisaire, who was making the coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handle is still aimlessly rattled. Bélisaire, with the coffee-pot in
+      his hand, impatiently throws it open, and Charlotte rushes in. Bélisaire,
+      stupefied at this inundation of flounces, feathers, and laces, bows again
+      and again, while Jack&rsquo;s mother, who does not recognize him, excuses
+      herself, and retreats toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I made a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sound of her voice Jack rises from his chair in astonishment
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She ran to him and took refuge in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Save me, my child, save me! That man, for whom I have sacrificed
+      everything,&mdash;my life and that of my child,&mdash;has beaten me
+      cruelly. This morning, when he came in after two days&rsquo; absence, I ventured
+      to make some observation; I thought I had a right to speak. He flew into a
+      frightful passion, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The end of her sentence was lost in a torrent of tears and in convulsive
+      sobs. Bélisaire had retired at her first words, and discreetly closed the
+      door after him. Jack looks at his mother, full of terror and pity. How
+      pale and how changed she is! In the clear light of the young day the marks
+      of time are clearly visible on her face, and the gray hairs, that she has
+      not taken the trouble to conceal, shine like silver on her blue-veined
+      temples. Without any attempt at controlling her emotion, she speaks
+      without restraint, pouring forth all her wrongs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How I have suffered, Jack! He passes his life now at the cafés and in
+      dissipation. Did you know that, when he went to Indret with that money, I
+      was there in the village, and crazy to see you? He reproaches me with the
+      bread you ate under his roof, and yet&mdash;yes, I will tell you what I
+      never meant you to know&mdash;I had ten thousand francs of yours that were
+      given to me for you exclusively. Well, D&rsquo;Argenton put them into his
+      Review; I know that he meant to pay you large interest, but the ten
+      thousand francs have been swallowed up with all the others, and when I
+      asked him if he did not intend to account to you for them, do you know
+      what he did? He drew up a long bill of all that he has paid for you. Your
+      board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen thousand francs. But he does
+      not ask you to pay the difference; is not that very generous?&rdquo; and
+      Charlotte laughed sarcastically. &ldquo;I tell you I have borne everything,&rdquo; she
+      continued,&mdash;&ldquo;the rages he has fallen into on your account, and the
+      mean way in which he has talked with his friends of the affair at Indret;
+      as if your innocence had never been fully established!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his time
+      with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,&mdash;for those women are
+      all crazy about him,&mdash;and then to receive my reproaches with such
+      disdain, and finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too much.
+      I dressed, and put on my hat, and then I went to him. I said, &lsquo;Look at me,
+      M. d&rsquo;Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that you will see me;
+      I am going to my child.&rsquo; And then I came away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and
+      paler, and so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he
+      could not look at her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently, and
+      with much sweetness, but also with much solemnity, he said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
+      lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take
+      care! I shall never allow you to leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together&mdash;we two. You know
+      I told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Under her son&rsquo;s caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
+      occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how happy we may be. I owe you much care and
+      tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare and
+      small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This brief summary of the apartment regarded by Bélisaire as so
+      magnificent, disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no time
+      now for discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave, and he
+      must decide at once on something definite. He must consult Bélisaire, whom
+      he heard patiently pacing the corridor, and who would have waited until
+      nightfall without once knocking to see if the interview was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bélisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we manage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire started as he thought, &ldquo;And now the marriage must be postponed,
+      for Jack will not be one of our little ménage!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest some
+      plan that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It was
+      decided finally that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his mother
+      and find for himself a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock of hats
+      and his furniture with Madame Weber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack presented his friend to Bélisaire, who remembered very well the fair
+      lady at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the service
+      of Ida de Barancy; for &ldquo;Charlotte&rdquo; was no more heard of. A bed must be
+      purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took from the
+      drawer where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces which he gave
+      his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good
+      Madame Weber will attend to the dinners.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all; Bélisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do
+      everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have ready
+      for you when you come back to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready to
+      begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her with
+      his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind. With
+      what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and
+      hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some time, and marred
+      his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation would D&rsquo;Argenton
+      compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now all was changed.
+      Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would become worthy of her
+      whom she would some day call &ldquo;my daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished the
+      distance between Cécile and himself, and he smiled to himself as he
+      thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was seized
+      by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what promptitude
+      Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared lest she had
+      felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken. But on the
+      staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the house he heard
+      a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on the threshold in
+      mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with Bélisaire&rsquo;s goods
+      gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and dainty dressing-bureau,
+      the room looked like a different place. There were flowers on the chimney,
+      and the table was spread with a white cloth, on which stood a
+      tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an embroidered skirt
+      and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her puffs, hardly
+      looked like herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; she said, running to meet him; &ldquo;and what do you think of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Bélisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them to
+      dine with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what will you do for dishes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side
+      have lent me some. They are very obliging also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant, opened
+      his eyes wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell
+      them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that I
+      had to take a carriage to return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save
+      fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from the
+      <i>Palais Royale</i>. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that
+      something was wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I spent too much?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I think not,&mdash;for one occasion,&rdquo; he answered, with same
+      hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have not been extravagant. Look here,&rdquo; she said, and she showed him
+      a long green book; &ldquo;in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show my
+      entries to you after dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was
+      truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received
+      them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at
+      their ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must
+      be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his &ldquo;comrade.&rdquo; Ah, one may well
+      compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by children,
+      which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same time feels all
+      the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the light, while his
+      companion descended toward the implacable reality. To begin with, the
+      person called Bélisaire&mdash;who should in reality have been named
+      Resignation, Devotion, or Patience&mdash;was now obliged to relinquish his
+      pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor; not for
+      worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to
+      see him bring out a pile of books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to study.&rdquo; And he then told her of the double life he led; of
+      his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until then
+      he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform
+      D&rsquo;Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way his
+      happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to him
+      alone, he could speak to her of Cécile and of his supreme joy. Jack talked
+      with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not
+      understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not
+      the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him
+      with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at the <i>Gymnase</i>,
+      when the <i>Ingenue</i> in a white dress, with rose-colored ribbons,
+      listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She was pleased
+      with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two or three times,
+      &ldquo;How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and Virginia!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the echoes
+      of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed, heard none of
+      the commonplace comments of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Bélisaire came
+      to meet him with a radiant face. &ldquo;We are to be married at once! Madame
+      Weber has found a &lsquo;comrade.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend&rsquo;s disappointment,
+      was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did not last; for, on
+      seeing &ldquo;the comrade,&rdquo; he received a most unpleasant impression. The man
+      was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of his face was far from
+      agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is
+      generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the
+      church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they
+      generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire&rsquo;s wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one
+      of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to the
+      municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing, Madame
+      Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue of that
+      bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors; a many-hued
+      shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap, ornamented with
+      ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant face. She walked by the
+      side of Bélisaire&rsquo;s father, a little dried-up old man, with a hooked nose
+      and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough that his new daughter-in-law
+      endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back with considerable violence. These
+      repeated frictions somewhat disturbed the dignity of the wedding
+      procession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as
+      hooked as her father&rsquo;s. Bélisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led
+      by one hand Madame Weber&rsquo;s little child. Then came a crowd of relatives
+      and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do
+      more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to
+      take place at Vincennes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room
+      engaged by Bélisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look at
+      the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of merrymakers.
+      They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man&rsquo;s-buff and innumerable
+      other games; under the trees a girl was mending the flounces of a bride&rsquo;s
+      dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy those girls let them drag
+      over the lawn, imagining themselves for that one occasion women of
+      fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the people seek in their hours
+      of amusement: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of the envied
+      and happy of this earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bélisaire&rsquo;s party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy the
+      announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in one of
+      those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and whose
+      size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each end of the
+      table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a centrepiece of
+      pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which had officiated at
+      many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months. They took their seats in
+      solemn silence, though Madame do Barancy had not yet arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who
+      disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per
+      head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and
+      envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment. The
+      waiters were, however, filled with profound contempt, which they expressed
+      by winks at each other, invisible however to the guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him with
+      holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife&rsquo;s chair, watched him so
+      disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from the <i>carte</i>,&mdash;on
+      which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens, and beans, appeared the
+      well-known names of generals, towns, and battles&mdash;Marengo, Richelieu,
+      and so on. Bélisaire, like the others, was stupefied, the more so when two
+      plates of soup were presented with the question, &ldquo;Bisque, or Purée de
+      Crécy?&rdquo; Or two bottles: &ldquo;Xeres, or Pacaset, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where
+      you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was of
+      little consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless mixture.
+      There was so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be very dull, and
+      interminable as well, from the indecision of the guests as to the dishes
+      they should accept. It was Madame Weber&rsquo;s clear head and decided hand that
+      cut this Gordian knot. She turned to her child. &ldquo;Eat everything,&rdquo; she
+      said, &ldquo;it costs us enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after a
+      little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and
+      Ida de Barancy entered, smiling and charming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity
+      nowadays of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary effect.
+      The way in which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her gloves in a
+      wineglass, the manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to bring
+      her the carte, overwhelmed the assembly with admiration. It was delightful
+      to see her order about those imposing waiters. One of them she had
+      recognized, the one who terrified Bélisaire so much. &ldquo;You are here then,
+      now!&rdquo; she said carelessly; and shook her bracelets, and kissed her hand to
+      her son, asked for a footstool, some ice, and eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew
+      the resources of the establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!&rdquo; she cried suddenly. She
+      rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. &ldquo;I ask
+      permission to change places with Madame Bélisaire; I am quite sure that
+      her husband will not complain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber uttered
+      a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair, and all
+      this noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and restraint
+      into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the table
+      executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck so
+      adroitly carved and served that each one had as much as he wanted. And the
+      peas fell like hail on the plates; and the beans&mdash;prepared at one end
+      of the table with salt, pepper, and butter; and such butter!&mdash;were
+      mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he stirred the fell
+      combination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person
+      there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne
+      signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They talked
+      about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at dessert, a
+      waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he proceeded to open.
+      Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a sensation and assuming an
+      attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears, but the cork came out like
+      any other cork; the waiter, holding the bottle high, went around the table
+      very quickly. The bottle was inexhaustible; each person had some froth and
+      a few drops at the bottom of the glass, which he drank with respect, and
+      even believed that there was still more in the bottle. It did not matter:
+      the magic of the word champagne had produced its effect, and there is so
+      much French gayety in the least particle of its froth that an astonishing
+      animation at once pervaded the assembly. A dance was proposed; but music
+      costs so much!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if we only had a piano,&rdquo; said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the
+      same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
+      Bélisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a village
+      musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his mother at
+      first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued, but Ida
+      finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk skirts and the
+      jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the younger women with
+      admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the little Weber was
+      asleep wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack had made many
+      signs to Ida, who pretended not to understand, carried away as she was by
+      the pleasure and happiness about her. Jack was like an old father who is
+      anxious to take his daughter home from a ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is late,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, dear,&rdquo; was her answer. At length, however, he seized her cloak, and
+      wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that hour,
+      and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which they
+      hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot through the
+      Bois de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious after the heat of
+      the restaurant; the child slept sweetly on Bélisaire&rsquo;s shoulder, and did
+      not even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame Bélisaire threw aside
+      her wedding-dress, assumed a plainer one, and at once entered on the
+      duties of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.~~EFFECTS OF POETRY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great pleasure
+      and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he knew her,
+      nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared Cécile&rsquo;s calm judgment and
+      intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes are in the young.
+      The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The emphatic tone in
+      which Ida addressed Cécile as &ldquo;my daughter&rdquo; was all well enough, but when
+      under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de Barancy dropped her
+      serious air and began some of her extravagant stories, Jack felt all his
+      apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors on the <i>qui vive</i>. Some
+      one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in the Pyrenees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and all
+      that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my family,
+      the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at Biarritz in a
+      most amusing way!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cécile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma! I
+      was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who insisted on
+      my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very angry, and opened
+      the window, took me just at the waist, and held me above the water in the
+      lightning and rain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to life
+      again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain life and
+      animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his
+      lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cécile to go down
+      into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched them
+      from the window; Cécile&rsquo;s slender figure and quiet movements were those of
+      a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but loud in her
+      style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For the first
+      time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only breathed freely again
+      when they were all together walking in the woods. But on this day his
+      mother&rsquo;s presence disturbed the harmony. She had no comprehension of love,
+      and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous. But the worst of all was
+      the sudden respect she entertained for <i>les convenances</i>. She
+      recalled the young people, bade them &ldquo;not to wander away so far, but to
+      keep in sight,&rdquo; and then she looked at the doctor in a significant way.
+      Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on the old doctor&rsquo;s nerves;
+      but the forest was so lovely, Cécile so affectionate, and the few words
+      they ex-changed were so mingled with the sweet clatter of birds and the
+      humming of bees, that by degrees the poor boy forgot his terrible
+      companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation, so they stopped at the
+      forester&rsquo;s. Mère Àrchambauld was delighted to see her old mistress, paid
+      her many compliments, but asked not a question in regard to D&rsquo;Argenton,
+      her keen personal sense telling her that she had best not. But the sight
+      of this good creature, for a long time so intimately connected with their
+      life at Aul-nettes, was too much for Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so
+      carefully prepared by Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her
+      chair, as suddenly as if in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and
+      went swiftly through the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the
+      blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the
+      tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke a
+      branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and inhaled
+      the breath of its starry white blossoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, dear mother?&rdquo; said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, with rapidly falling tears, &ldquo;you know I have so much
+      buried here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin inscription
+      over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for that evening
+      her gayety was gone. In vain did Cécile, who had been told that Madame
+      D&rsquo;Argenton was separated from her husband, try with minor cares to efface
+      the painful impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek to interest her
+      in all his projects for the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my child,&rdquo; she said, on her way home, &ldquo;that it is not best for
+      me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound is too
+      recent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the
+      humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished what
+      to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk, and the
+      quiet talk with Cécile, that he might return to Paris in time to dine with
+      his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from the tranquillity
+      of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the Faubourg. The sidewalks
+      were covered by little tables, where families sat drinking their coffee,
+      and crowds were standing, with their noses in the air, watching an
+      enormous yellow balloon that had just been released from its moorings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the
+      courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with his
+      neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher than
+      they could obtain in their confined quarters within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes, in Jack&rsquo;s absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to a
+      little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Lévèque. The shop was filled
+      with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and illustrated
+      papers, which she let for a sou a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making a
+      certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems that Madame Lévèque had known better days, and that under the
+      first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. &ldquo;I am the
+      godchild of the Duc de Dantzic,&rdquo; she said to Ida, with emphasis. She was
+      one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in the
+      secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop, her
+      gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered with
+      stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had seen
+      but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in which she
+      pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of epaulettes and
+      gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the ladies of the court!
+      One especial tale Madame Lévèque was never tired of telling: it was of the
+      fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of the famous ball given by the
+      Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her subsequent years had been lighted by
+      those flames, and by that light she saw a procession of gorgeous marshals,
+      tall ladies in very low dresses, with heads dressed <i>à la Titus or à la
+      Grecque</i>, and the emperor, in his green coat and white trousers,
+      carrying in his arms across the garden the fainting Madame de
+      Schwartzenberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this
+      half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark shop,
+      with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their tongues,
+      a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some woman, impatient
+      for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come in to ask if the
+      magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the two cents that would
+      deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and, if she were young, of her
+      radishes for breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Occasionally Madame Lévèque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida had
+      no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a pile of
+      books taken at hazard from Madame Lévèque&rsquo;s shelves. These books were
+      soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread upon them,
+      showing that they had been read while eating. She sat reading by the
+      window,&mdash;reading until her head swam. She read to escape thinking.
+      Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil that she saw
+      going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her son, exciting
+      her to more strenuous exertions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other with
+      her sing-song repetition of the words, &ldquo;How happy people ought to be who
+      can go to the country in such weather!&rdquo; exasperated her almost beyond
+      endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air, made all
+      these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same way that the
+      repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the twitter of the
+      sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits. She thought of
+      her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay parties in the
+      country, and above all of the more recent years at Etiolles. She thought
+      of D&rsquo;Argenton reciting one of his poems on the porch in the moonlight.
+      Where was he? What was he doing? Three months had passed since she left
+      him, and he had not written one word. Then the book fell from her hands,
+      and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of her son, whom she
+      endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole story in the
+      disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in readiness
+      for dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done nothing,&rdquo; she said, sadly. &ldquo;The weather is so warm, and I am
+      discouraged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some little
+      amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day,&rdquo; he continued, with a tender,
+      pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out from her
+      wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too coquettish,
+      too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as modestly as
+      possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her no amusement.
+      In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her costume, Jack
+      always detected some eccentricity,&mdash;in the length of her skirts,
+      which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the trimming
+      of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet or
+      Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
+      conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been so
+      different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
+      disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished, with
+      a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
+      perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother&rsquo;s
+      ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had certain phrases caught from D&rsquo;Argenton, a peremptory tone in
+      discussion, a didactic &ldquo;I think so; I believe; I know.&rdquo; She generally
+      began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
+      signified, &ldquo;I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you.&rdquo; Thanks to
+      that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years, husband
+      and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an occasional look
+      of D&rsquo;Argenton on his mother&rsquo;s face. On her lips was often to be detected
+      the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of his boy-hood, and which
+      he always dreaded to see in D&rsquo;Argenton. Never had a sculptor found in his
+      clay more docile material than the pretentious poet had discovered in this
+      poor woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
+      was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the old
+      heights of Montfauçon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and pine
+      groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was something
+      artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its resemblance
+      to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of the alleys,
+      admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name on the ruined
+      wall, with the scores of others that were already there. When they were
+      tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit of the hill, to
+      enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them. Paris, softened and
+      veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The heights around the
+      faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle, connected by Pere la
+      Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other, with Montfauçon; nearer
+      them they could witness the enjoyment of the people. In the winding alleys
+      and under the groups of trees young people were singing and dancing, while
+      on the hillside, sitting amid the yellowed grass, and on the dried red
+      earth, families were gathered together like flocks of sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude
+      said, &ldquo;How inexpressibly tiresome it is!&rdquo; Jack felt helpless before this
+      persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some
+      one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his
+      mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what he wanted. It
+      was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in appearance,
+      leading two little children, over whom he was bending with that wonderful
+      patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly know that man,&rdquo; said Jack to his mother; &ldquo;it is&mdash;it must
+      be M. Rondic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder that
+      his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a
+      miniature of Zénaïde, while the boy looked like Maugin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile was
+      sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth dared not
+      ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Zénaïde bore down upon them
+      like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited skirt and ruffled
+      cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked larger than ever. She had
+      the arm of her husband, who was now attached to one of the custom-houses,
+      and who was in uniform. Zénaïde adored M. Maugin and was absurdly proud of
+      him, while he looked very happy in being so worshipped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they divided
+      into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaïde, &ldquo;What has happened? Is
+      it possible that Madame Clarisse&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she added, &ldquo;We say &lsquo;accidentally&rsquo; on father&rsquo;s account; but you, who
+      knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that she
+      perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah, what
+      wicked men there are in this world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock,&rdquo; resumed
+      Zénaïde; &ldquo;but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his
+      position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together in
+      the Eue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won&rsquo;t you, Jack?
+      You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse him. Perhaps
+      you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking at us, and
+      thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
+      approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D&rsquo;Argenton, as
+      indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes, which,
+      had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken long. They
+      separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long afterward,
+      called upon them with his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know so
+      well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big wardrobe as
+      an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and presented a perfect
+      picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris. But he soon saw that
+      his mother was bored by Zénaïde, who was too energetic and positive to
+      suit her, and that there, as everywhere else, she was haunted by the same
+      melancholy and the same disgust which she expressed in the brief phrase,
+      &ldquo;It smells of the work-shop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed
+      impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the window,
+      she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each breath of wind
+      brought it to her. The people she saw&mdash;even her own Jack, when he
+      returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil&mdash;exhaled the same
+      baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself&mdash;the odor of
+      toil&mdash;and filled her with immense sadness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary excitement;
+      her eyes were bright and complexion animated. &ldquo;D&rsquo;Argenton has written to
+      me!&rdquo; she cried, as he entered the room; &ldquo;yes, my dear, he has actually
+      dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe a syllable. He
+      writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and that, if I need
+      him, he is at my disposal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not need him, I think,&rdquo; said Jack, quietly, though he was in
+      reality as much moved as his mother herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do not,&rdquo; she answered, hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what shall you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not yet
+      know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just finished
+      his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious to see his
+      house, though, now that I am not there to keep all in order. He is
+      evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has been for
+      two months at&mdash;what is the name of the place?&rdquo; and she calmly drew
+      from her pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. &ldquo;Ah, yes, it
+      is at the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense! Those mineral
+      springs have always been bad for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening she
+      was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation of her
+      first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself. Suddenly she
+      crossed the room to Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are full of courage, my boy,&rdquo; she said, kissing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother&rsquo;s
+      mind. &ldquo;It is not I whom she kisses,&rdquo; he said, shrewdly; and his suspicions
+      were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the past had taken
+      possession of the poor woman&rsquo;s mind. She never ceased humming the words of
+      a little song of D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s, which the poet was in the habit of singing
+      himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and over again she sang the
+      refrain, and the words revived in Jack&rsquo;s mind only sad and shameful
+      memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would have said to the woman
+      before him! But she was his mother; he loved her, and wished by his own
+      respect to teach her to respect herself. He therefore kept strict guard
+      over his lips. This first warning of coming danger, however, awoke in him
+      all the jealous foreboding of a man who was about to be betrayed. He
+      studied her way of saying good-bye to him when he left in the morning, and
+      he analyzed her smile of greeting on his return. He could not watch her
+      himself, nor could he confide to any other person the distrust with which
+      she inspired him. He knew how often a woman surrounds the man whom she
+      deceives in an atmosphere of tender attentions,&mdash;the manifestations
+      of hidden remorse. Once, on his way home, he thought he saw Hirsch and
+      Labassandre turning a distant corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has any one been here?&rdquo; he said to the concierge; and by the way he was
+      answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him. The
+      Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so completely
+      absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in. He would not
+      have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not Ida made an
+      attempt to conceal the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You startled me,&rdquo; she said, half pouting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you reading?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&mdash;some nonsense. And how are our friends?&rdquo; But as she spoke,
+      a blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin. It
+      was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at once
+      prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze, she rose
+      from her chair. &ldquo;You wish to know what I am reading! Look, then.&rdquo; He saw
+      once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read for the first
+      time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was thinner and smaller.
+      Jack would not have opened it if the following title on the outer page had
+      not met his eyes:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        THE   PARTING.
+
+          A  POEM.
+
+ By the Vicomte Amacry d&rsquo;Abgentoh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And commenced thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! with out one word of farewell, Without a turn of the head...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the name
+      of Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine with a
+      shrug of the shoulders. &ldquo;And he dared to send you this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; two or three days ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After a
+      while she stooped, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply absurd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do not think them so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
+      human heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be more just, Jack,&rdquo;&mdash;her voice trembled,&mdash;&ldquo;heaven knows that I
+      know M. D&rsquo;Argenton better than any one, his faults and the defects of his
+      nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as to
+      the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
+      peculiarity of M. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s genius is the sympathetic quality of his
+      verses. Musset had it irksome degree; and I think that the beginning of
+      this poem, &lsquo;The Parting,&rsquo; is very touching: the young woman who goes away
+      in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of farewell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack could not restrain himself. &ldquo;But the woman is yourself,&rdquo; he cried,
+      &ldquo;and you know under what circumstances you left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered, coldly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M. D&rsquo;Argenton
+      treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be able, I hope,
+      to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the poets of France.
+      More than one person who speaks of him with contempt to-day, will yet be
+      proud of having known him and of having sat at his table!&rdquo; And as she
+      finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack took his seat at his
+      desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt that &ldquo;the enemy,&rdquo; as in
+      his childish days he had called the vicomte, was gradually making his
+      approaches. In fact Amaury d&rsquo;Argenton was as unhappy apart from Charlotte
+      as she was herself. Victim and executioner, indispensable to each other,
+      he felt profoundly the emptiness of divided lives. From the first hour of
+      their separation the poet had adopted a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a
+      broken heart. He was seen in the restaurants at night, surrounded by a
+      group of flatterers who talked of her; he wished to have every one know
+      his misery and its details; he wished to have people think that he was
+      drowning his sorrows in dissipation. When he said, &ldquo;Waiter! bring me some
+      pure absinthe,&rdquo; it was that some one at the next table might whisper, &ldquo;He
+      is killing himself by inches&mdash;all for a woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
+      constitution. His &ldquo;attacks&rdquo; were more frequent, and Charlotte&rsquo;s absence
+      was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured his
+      perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes. He was
+      afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another, sleep on a
+      sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was environed by
+      disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida, contrive to get
+      rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would burn, and currents
+      of air whistled under all the doors; and in the depths of his selfish
+      nature D&rsquo;Argenton sincerely regretted his companion, and became seriously
+      unhappy. Then he decided to take a journey, but that did him no good, to
+      judge from the melancholy tone of his letters to his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy away
+      from him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, &ldquo;Write a poem
+      about it,&rdquo; and D&rsquo;Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of being
+      calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and the
+      separation became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review
+      appeared, Hirsch and Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to
+      the Rue des Panoyeaux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This done, D&rsquo;Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand <i>coup</i>.
+      He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself at
+      Charlotte&rsquo;s door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away. D&rsquo;Argenton was
+      very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of the greatest
+      mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart, and that that
+      heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved him, but he saw a
+      certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed at the corner as for
+      an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying his hatred of Jack. He
+      pictured to himself the disappointment of the youth on his return to find
+      that the bird had flown. He meant to appear suddenly before Charlotte, to
+      throw himself at her feet, and, giving her no time to think, to carry her
+      away with him at once. She must be very much changed since he last saw her
+      if she could resist him. He entered her room without knocking, saying in a
+      low voice, &ldquo;It is I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on
+      account of the occurrence of his mother&rsquo;s birthday, had a holiday, and was
+      at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove. The two
+      men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not the
+      advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could he
+      treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking fellow, in whose intelligent
+      face appeared, as if still more to exasperate the lover, something of his
+      mother&rsquo;s beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you come here?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other stammered and colored. &ldquo;I was told that your mother was here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D&rsquo;Argenton by the
+      shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
+      difficulty preserved his footing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he said, endeavoring to be dignified,&mdash;&ldquo;there has been a
+      misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a man, all
+      this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Of what use are these theatricals between
+      us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
+      hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
+      bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what are
+      you? Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you without
+      anger, it has never been without a blush of shame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been entirely
+      false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jack cut short this discourse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a very
+      serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say that
+      every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one of them
+      in useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your slave. All
+      that I suffered in this time my pride will never let you know. My mother
+      now belongs to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you want of her? Her
+      hair is gray, and your treatment of her has made great wrinkles on her
+      forehead. She is no longer a pretty woman, but she is my mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that narrow,
+      squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so humiliating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You strangely mistake the sense of my words,&rdquo; said the poet, deadly pale.
+      &ldquo;I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come, as an old
+      friend, to see if I can serve you in any way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we require.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
+      forced to endure, has now become odious to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his
+      looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not add one
+      word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was strangely
+      out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned to his room:
+      on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes swollen with tears
+      and sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was there,&rdquo; she said in a low voice; &ldquo;I heard everything, even that I
+      was old and had wrinkles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not far away. Shall I call him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one of
+      those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly unworthy,
+      exclaimed, &ldquo;You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only your mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M. Rivals:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened in
+      such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the blow.
+      Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more dignified
+      to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro lad who
+      said, &lsquo;If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!&rsquo; I never fully
+      understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I do not write
+      you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait until Sunday
+      because I could not speak before Cécile. I told you of the explanation
+      that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my mother was so very
+      sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had gone through, that I
+      resolved to change our residence. I understood that a battle was being
+      fought, and that, if I wished her to be victorious, if I wished to keep my
+      mother with me, that I must employ all means and devices. Our street and
+      house displeased her. I wanted something gayer and more airy. I hired then
+      at Charonne Rue de Silas three rooms newly papered. I furnished these
+      rooms with great care. All the money I had saved&mdash;pardon me these
+      details&mdash;I devoted to this purpose. Bélisaire aided me in moving,
+      while Zénaïde was in the same street, and I counted on her in many ways.
+      All these arrangements were made secretly, and I hoped a great surprise
+      and pleasure was in store for my mother. The place was as quiet as a
+      village street, the trees were well grown and green, and I fancied that
+      she would, when established there, have less to regret in the country-life
+      she had so much enjoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell her
+      that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take her to
+      our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all the windows,
+      and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made a little fire,
+      for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the room. In the
+      midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It was like an
+      electric spark. &lsquo;She will not come.&rsquo; In vain did I call myself an idiot,
+      in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her footstool. I knew
+      that she would never come. More than once in my life I have had these
+      intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before striking her heaviest
+      blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a warning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not come, but Bélisaire brought a note from her. It was very
+      brief, merely stating that M. D&rsquo;Argenton was very ill, and that she
+      regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well she
+      would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself ill,
+      too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the wretch!
+      How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You remember
+      those &lsquo;attacks&rsquo; he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon disappeared
+      after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has. But my mother
+      was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be deceived. But to
+      return to my story. Behold me alone in this little home, amid all the
+      wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I could not remain
+      there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to me as sad as a
+      funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and the roses wither and
+      fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle rustle. I took the rooms for
+      two years, and I shall keep them with something of the same superstition
+      with which one preserves for a long time the cage from which some favorite
+      bird has flown. If my mother returns we will go there together. But if she
+      does not I shall never inhabit the place. I have now told you all, but do
+      not let Cécile see this letter. Ah, my friend, will she too desert me? The
+      treachery of those we love is terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking;
+      I have her word and her promise, and Cécile always tells the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.~~CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Fob a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the
+      morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he
+      heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When he
+      went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see the
+      windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of which, with
+      the key, he had sent to her: &ldquo;The house is ready. Come when you will.&rdquo; Not
+      a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
+      grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
+      Cécile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use, and
+      her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
+      resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one&rsquo;s best defence
+      against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
+      without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her indecision
+      had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all ready to go out,
+      with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide to remain at home.
+      Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and regained his lost time.
+      Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once more in love, and wiser.
+      The doctor was delighted with the progress of his pupil; before a year was
+      over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could take his degree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
+      Bélisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
+      happiness. Madame Bélisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
+      and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased at
+      Jack&rsquo;s progress with his books, he was discontented with the state of his
+      health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and his hands
+      hot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not like this,&rdquo; said the good man; &ldquo;you work too hard; you must
+      stop; you have plenty of time: Cécile does not mean to run away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel that
+      she mast take his mother&rsquo;s place as well as her own; and it was precisely
+      this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions each day. His
+      bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the Fakirs of India&mdash;urged
+      to such a point of feverish excitement that pain becomes a pleasure. He
+      was grateful to the cold of his little attic, and to the hard dry cough
+      that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his writing-table he suddenly
+      felt lightness throughout all his being&mdash;a strange clearness of
+      perception and an extraordinary excitement of all his intellectual
+      faculties; but this was accompanied with great physical exhaustion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
+      disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
+      not received a painful shock. À telegram arrived:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
+     Rivals.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Jack received that despatch just as Madame Bélisaire had ironed his fine
+      linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the brevity of
+      the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his friend&rsquo;s
+      well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a letter from
+      Cécile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing came, and for a
+      week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth was: neither Cécile
+      nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals wished for time to
+      prepare the youth for an unexpected blow&mdash;for a decision of Cécile&rsquo;s
+      so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter would be induced to
+      reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the house, he had found Cécile
+      in a state of singular agitation; her lips were pale but firmly closed. He
+      tried to make her smile at the dinner-table, but in vain; and suddenly, in
+      reply to some remark of his in regard to Jack&rsquo;s coming, she said, &ldquo;I do
+      not wish him to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a firm
+      voice she repeated, &ldquo;I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, my child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You frighten me, Cécile! Tell me what you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
+      mistaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
+      misunderstanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister&rsquo;s friendship,
+      nothing more. I cannot be his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was startled. &ldquo;Cécile,&rdquo; he said, gravely, &ldquo;do you love any
+      other person?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She colored. &ldquo;No; but I do not wish to marry;&rdquo; and to all that M. Rivals
+      said she would make no other reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little
+      world. &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that to Jack this will be a frightful blow;
+      his whole future will be sacrificed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cécile&rsquo;s pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;think well before you decide a question of such
+      importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;the sooner he knows my decision the better for us
+      both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer we delay
+      the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows the truth;
+      I am incapable of such treachery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal,&rdquo; said the doctor, in a rage.
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped
+      short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
+      yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and
+      shall always be one until the bitter end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen letters,
+      destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that Cécile
+      would have come to her senses before the week was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, &ldquo;He will
+      come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Irrevocable,&rdquo; she said, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant said,
+      &ldquo;My master is waiting for you in the garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor&rsquo;s face increased his fears,
+      for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human suffering,
+      was as troubled as Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cécile is here&mdash;is she not?&rdquo; were the youth&rsquo;s first words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my friend, I left her&mdash;at&mdash;where we have been, you know;
+      and she will remain some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again? Is
+      that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should fall.
+      They were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright November
+      morning; hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over the distant
+      hills and reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage, and their
+      first whisper of love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his shoulder.
+      &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;do not be unhappy. She is very young and will
+      perhaps change her mind. It is a mere caprice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, doctor, Cécile never has caprices. That would be horrible&mdash;to
+      drive a knife into a man&rsquo;s heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
+      reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew that
+      her love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also perish.
+      If she has done this, then it is because she knew well that it was her
+      duty so to do. I ought to have expected it; I should have known that so
+      great a happiness could not be for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. &ldquo;Forgive me, my brave
+      boy; I hoped to make you both happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
+      year,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I began the only happy season of my life. I was born
+      on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to you and
+      to Cécile;&rdquo; and the youth hurried away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will breakfast with me,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I should be too sad a guest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once looking
+      back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the curtain of a
+      window in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as his own. The
+      girl extended her slender arms, and tears rained down her cheeks. The
+      following days were sad enough. The little house that had for months been
+      bright and gay, resumed its ancient mournful aspect. The doctor, much
+      troubled, noticed that his granddaughter spent much of her time in her
+      mother&rsquo;s former room. Where Madeleine had formerly wept, her child now
+      shed in turn her tears. &ldquo;Would she die as did her mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why was
+      she so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old man was
+      sure that there was some mystery, something that he ought to know; but at
+      the least question, Cécile ran away as if in fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband of
+      old Salé, who had met with an accident. These people lived near
+      Aul-nettes, in a miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the corner
+      lay the sick man. When Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly
+      suffocated by the odor of burning herbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you been doing here, Mother Salé?&rdquo; he said. The old woman
+      hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time, however.
+      &ldquo;So Hirsch is here again, is he?&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Open the doors and
+      windows, you will be suffocated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. &ldquo;Tell
+      him, wife, tell him,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: &ldquo;Tell him, I
+      say, tell him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked at Mother Salé, who turned a deep scarlet. &ldquo;I am sure I
+      am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good young
+      lady,&rdquo; she muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What young lady? Of whom do you speak?&rdquo; asked the doctor, turning hastily
+      around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
+      francs to tell Mamselle Cécile the story of her father and mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you dared to do that?&rdquo; he cried, in a furious rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for the
+      twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it until he
+      told me, so that I could repeat it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wretch! But who could have told him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the long
+      night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste to
+      Etiolles and went directly in search of Cécile. Her room was empty, and
+      the bed had not been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to the
+      office, still he found no one. But the door of Madeleine&rsquo;s old room stood
+      open, and there among the relics of the dear dead, prostrate on the <i>Prie-Dieu</i>,
+      was Cécile asleep, in an attitude that told of a night of prayer and
+      tears. She opened her eyes as her grandfather touched her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains to
+      hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little darling,
+      the sad tale we concealed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hid her face on his shoulder. &ldquo;I am so ashamed,&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother&rsquo;s dishonor, and my
+      conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was but
+      one thing to do, and I did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
+      marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to
+      such a sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father&mdash;who
+      has no name, or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
+      with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if
+      you had had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to us
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he was willing to marry me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
+      father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference between
+      you is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the doctor, who had told Jack Cécile&rsquo;s history, now related to her
+      the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile from
+      his mother&rsquo;s arms&mdash;of all that he had endured. &ldquo;I understand it all
+      now,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;it is she who has told Hirsch of your mother&rsquo;s marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the doctor was talking, Cécile was overwhelmed with despair to think
+      that she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless sorrow. &ldquo;O,
+      how he has suffered!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;Have you heard anything from him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to know,&rdquo;
+       answered her grandfather, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he may not wish to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
+      him home with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their way to
+      Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He looked at
+      the little door. &ldquo;This is the place,&rdquo; he said, and he rang. The servant
+      opened the door, but seeing before her one of those dangerous ped-lers
+      that wander through the country, she attempted to close it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gentleman of the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is not at home, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When will they be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no idea!&rdquo; And she closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, in a choked voice; &ldquo;and must he be
+      permitted to die without any help?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.~~A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of
+      the Review; a fête had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte&rsquo;s return, at
+      which it was proposed that D&rsquo;Argenton should read his new poem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence of
+      a person who was then present? And how could he describe the sufferings of
+      a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be at the summit of
+      bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object? Never had the
+      apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were there in profusion.
+      The toilet of Charlotte was in exquisite taste, white with clusters of
+      violets, and all the surroundings breathed an atmosphere of riches. Yet
+      nothing could have been more deceptive. The Review was in a dying
+      condition; the numbers appearing at longer intervals, and growing small by
+      degrees and beautifully less. D&rsquo;Argenton had swallowed up in it the half
+      of his fortune, and now wished to sell it. It was this unfortunate
+      situation, added to an attack skilfully managed, that had induced the
+      foolish Charlotte to return to him. He had only to assume before her the
+      air of a great man crushed by unmerited misfortune, for her to reply that
+      she would serve him always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton was foolish and conceited, but he understood the nature of this
+      woman in a most wonderful degree. She thought him handsomer and more
+      fascinating than he was twelve years before, when she saw him for the
+      first time, under the chandeliers of the Moronval salon. Many of the same
+      persons were there also: Labassandre in bottle-green velvet, with the high
+      boots of Faust; and Dr. Hirsch with his coat-sleeves spotted by various
+      chemicals; and Moronval in a black coat very white in the seams, and a
+      white cravat very black in the folds; several &ldquo;children of the sun,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      everlasting Japanese prince, and the Egyptian from the banks of the Nile.
+      What a strange set of people they were! They might have been a band of
+      pilgrims on the march toward some unknown Mecca, whose golden lamps
+      retreat before them. During the twelve years that we have known them, many
+      have fallen from the ranks, but others have risen to take their places;
+      nothing discourages them, neither cold nor heat, nor even hunger. They
+      hurry on, but they never arrive. Among them D&rsquo;Argenton, better clothed and
+      better fed, resembled a rich Hadji with his harem, his pipes, and his
+      riches; on this evening he was especially radiant, for he had triumphed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the reading of the poem Charlotte sat in an attitude of feigned
+      indifference, blushing occasionally at veiled allusions to herself. Near
+      her was Madame Moronval, who, small as she was, seemed quite tall because
+      of the extraordinary height of her forehead and the length of her chin.
+      The poem went on and on, the fire crackled on the hearth, and the wind
+      rattled against the glass doors of the balcony, as it did on a certain
+      night of which Charlotte apparently had but little remembrance. Suddenly,
+      during a most pathetic passage, the door opened suddenly; the servant
+      appeared, and with a terrified air summoned her mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, madame!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte went to her. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man insists on seeing you. I told him that it was impossible; but he
+      said he would wait for you, and he seated himself on the stairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will see him,&rdquo; said Charlotte, much moved; for she guessed at the
+      purport of the message.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But D&rsquo;Argenton objected, and turning toward Labassandre, he said, &ldquo;Will
+      you have the goodness to see who this intruder is?&rdquo; and the poet turned
+      back to the table to resume his reading. But the door opened again wide
+      enough to admit the head and arm of Labassandre, who beckoned earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton, impatiently, when he reached the ante-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack is very ill,&rdquo; said the tenor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; answered the poet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This man swears that it is so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D&rsquo;Argenton looked at the man, whose face was not absolutely unknown to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you come from the gentleman,&mdash;that is to say, did he send you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he is too sick to send any one. It is three weeks since he has been
+      in his bed, and very, very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is his disease?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something on the lungs, and the doctors say that he cannot live; so I
+      thought I had better come and tell his mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bélisaire, sir; but the lady knows me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; said the poet, &ldquo;you will say to the one who sent you,
+      that the game is a good one, though rather old, and he had better try
+      something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir?&rdquo; said the pedler, interrogatively, for he did not comprehend these
+      sarcastic words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But D&rsquo;Argenton had left the room, and Bélisaire stood in silent amazement,
+      having caught a glimpse of the lighted salon and its crowd of people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nothing, only a mistake,&rdquo; said the poet on his entrance; and while
+      he majestically resumed his reading, the pedler hurried home through the
+      dark streets, through the sharp hail and fierce wind, eager to reach Jack,
+      who lay in a high fever, on the narrow iron bed in the attic-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been taken ill on his return from Etiolles; he lay there, almost
+      without speaking, a victim to fever and a severe cold, so serious, that
+      the physicians warned his friends that they had everything to fear.
+      Bélisaire wished to summon M. Rivals, but to this Jack refused to consent.
+      This was the only energy he had shown since his illness, and the only time
+      he had spoken voluntarily, save when he told his friend to take his watch,
+      and a ring he owned, and sell them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Jack&rsquo;s savings had been absorbed in furnishing the rooms at Charonne,
+      and the Bélisaire household was equally impoverished through their recent
+      marriage. But it mattered very little; the pedler and his wife were
+      capable of every sacrifice for their friend; they carried to the Mont de
+      Piété the greater part of their furniture, piece by piece&mdash;for
+      medicines were so dear. They were advised to send Jack to the hospital.
+      &ldquo;He would be better off; and, besides, he would then cost you nothing,&rdquo;
+       was the argument employed. The good people were now at the end of their
+      resources, and decided to inform Charlotte of her son&rsquo;s danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring her back with you,&rdquo; said Madame Bélisaire to her husband. &ldquo;To see
+      his mother would be such a comfort to the lad. He never speaks of her
+      because he is so proud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bélisaire did not bring her. He returned in a very unhappy frame of
+      mind, from the reception he had received. His wife, with her child asleep
+      on her lap, talked in à low voice to a neighbor, in front of a poor little
+      fire&mdash;such a one as is called a widow&rsquo;s fire by the people. The two
+      women listened to Jack&rsquo;s painful breathing, and to the horrible cough that
+      choked him. One would never have recognized this unfurnished, dismal room
+      as the bright attic where cheerful voices had resounded such a short time
+      before. There was no sign of books or studies. A pot of tisane was
+      simmering on the hearth, filling the air with that peculiar odor which
+      tells of a sickroom. Bélisaire came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alone?&rdquo; said his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told in a low voice that he had not been permitted to see Jack&rsquo;s
+      mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But had you no blood in your veins? You should have entered by force and
+      called aloud, &lsquo;Madame, your son is dying!&rsquo; Ah, my poor Bélisaire, you will
+      never be anything but a weak chicken!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, had I undertaken such a thing, I should simply have been arrested,&rdquo;
+       said the poor man, in a distressed tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what are we going to do?&rdquo; resumed Madame Bélisaire. &ldquo;This poor boy
+      must have better care than we can give him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A neighbor spoke. &ldquo;He must go to the hospital, as the physician said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, hush! not so loud!&rdquo; said Bélisaire, pointing to the bed; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      afraid he heard you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be
+      better for you in every respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is my friend,&rdquo; answered Bélisaire, proudly; and in his tone was so
+      much honest devotion that his wife&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their
+      departure, the room looked less cold and less bare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept
+      little, and lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open. If
+      that blank surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very old
+      woman, could have spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful eyes
+      but one expression could have been seen, that of utter and overwhelming
+      despair. He never complained, however; he even tried, at times, to smile
+      at his stout nurse, when she brought him his tisanes. The long and
+      solitary days passed away in this inaction and helplessness. Why was he
+      not strong in health and body like the people about him, and yet for whom
+      did he wish to labor? His mother had left him, Cécile had deserted him.
+      The faces of these two women haunted him day and night. When Charlotte&rsquo;s
+      gay and indifferent smile faded away, the delicate features of Cécile
+      appeared before him, veiled in the mystery of her strange refusal; and the
+      youth lay there incapable of a word or a gesture, while his pulses beat
+      with accelerated force, and his hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after this conversation at Jack&rsquo;s bedside, Madame Bélisaire was
+      much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt, sitting
+      in front of the fire. &ldquo;Why are you out of your bed?&rdquo; she asked with
+      severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to
+      stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to
+      Madame Bélisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of farewell
+      at the humble home which had been illuminated by so many fair dreams and
+      hopes. How long the walk was! They stopped occasionally, but dared not
+      linger long, for the air was sharp. Under the lowering December skies the
+      sick youth looked worse even than when he lay in his bed. His hair was wet
+      with perspiration, the hurrying crowds made him dizzy and faint. Paris is
+      like a huge battlefield where mere existence demands a struggle; and Jack
+      seemed like a wounded soldier borne from the field by a comrade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was,
+      however, they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An enormous
+      stove made the air of the room almost intolerable, with its smell of hot
+      iron. When Jack entered, assisted by Bélisaire/all eyes were turned upon
+      him. They were awaiting the arrival of the physician, who would give, or
+      refuse, a card of admittance. Each one was describing his symptoms to some
+      indifferent hearer, and endeavoring to show that he was more ill than any
+      one else. Jack listened to these dismal conversations, seated between a
+      stout man who coughed violently, and a slender young girl whose thin shawl
+      was so tightly drawn over her head that only her wild and affrighted eyes
+      were to be seen. Then the door opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it
+      was the physician. A profound silence followed all along the benches. The
+      doctor warmed his hands at the stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance
+      about the room. Then he began his rounds, followed by a boy carrying the
+      cards of admission to the different hospitals. What joy for the poor
+      wretches when they were pronounced sick enough to receive a ticket. What
+      disappointment, what entreaties from those who were told that they must
+      struggle on yet a little longer! The examination was brief, and if it
+      seemed somewhat brutal at times, it must be remembered that the number of
+      applicants was very large, and that the poor creatures loved to linger
+      over the recital of their woes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. &ldquo;And what is the
+      matter with you, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My chest burns like fire,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink too
+      much brandy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, sir,&rdquo; answered the patient indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drink what I want of that, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends.&rdquo; %
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On pay-days I do, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his
+      age and how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty, and
+      while he spoke, Bélisaire stood behind him with a face full of anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand up, my man,&rdquo; and the doctor applied his ear to the damp clothing of
+      the invalid. &ldquo;Did you walk here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state in
+      which you are; but you must not try it again;&rdquo; and he handed him a ticket
+      and passed on to continue his inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives in
+      the streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than the sight
+      of one of those litters, sheltered from the sun&rsquo;s rays by a striped cover,
+      and borne by two men, one behind and the other in front,&mdash;the form of
+      a human being vaguely defined under the linen sheets? Women cross
+      themselves when these litters pass them, as they do when a crow flies over
+      their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the
+      sick man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which the
+      poor are subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the familiar
+      tread of his faithful Bélisaire, who occasionally took his hand to prove
+      to him that he was not completely deserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered. It
+      was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden, on the
+      other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove, were the
+      furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or six
+      phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to inspect
+      him, and two or three more started from the stove as if frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated
+      with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron,
+      who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost
+      among the folds of her veil, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no bed
+      yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are
+      waiting, we will put him on a couch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This couch was placed close to the bed &ldquo;that would soon be empty,&rdquo; from
+      whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a
+      thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they
+      were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack was
+      himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Bélisaire&rsquo;s &ldquo;<i>au revoir</i>&rdquo;
+       nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a whispering
+      at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue. Suddenly a
+      woman&rsquo;s voice, calm and clear, said, &ldquo;Let us pray.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain did
+      he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The
+      concluding sentence reached him, however.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and travellers,
+      the sick and the dying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of
+      prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over endless
+      roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like that of
+      Etiolles; Cécile and his mother were before him refusing to wait until he
+      could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of enormous
+      machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste, and from
+      whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack determined to
+      pass between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn and mangled, and
+      scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took refuge in the
+      Foret de Sénart, amid the freshness of which Jack became once more a child
+      and was on his way to the forester&rsquo;s; but there at the cross-road stood
+      mother Salé; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with the old woman close
+      behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt her hot breath on his
+      shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her weight crushed in his
+      chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized the large room, the beds in
+      a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He dreamed no more, and yet he
+      still felt the same weight across his body, something so cold and heavy
+      that he called aloud in terror. The nurses ran, and lifted Something,
+      placed it in the next bed, and drew the curtains round it closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV.~~DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Come, wake up! Visitors are here.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains
+      of the next bed,&mdash;they hung in such straight and motionless folds to
+      the very ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in
+      the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were
+      terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you. But
+      you are very weak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and
+      a white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the sick
+      man&rsquo;s pulse and asks him some questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your trade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A machinist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now; I did at one time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a long silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack saw in the physician&rsquo;s face the same sympathetic interest that he had
+      perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the
+      doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at
+      once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some
+      curiosity to the words &ldquo;inspiration,&rdquo; &ldquo;expiration,&rdquo; &ldquo;phthisis,&rdquo; &amp;c.,
+      and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,&mdash;so
+      critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister
+      approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in Paris,
+      and if he could send to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His family! Who were they? À man and a woman who were already there at the
+      foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no other
+      friends than these, no other relatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how are we to-day?&rdquo; said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept his
+      tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine
+      oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he
+      thinking?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the good woman, suddenly, &ldquo;I am going to find your mother;&rdquo;
+       and she smiled encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets
+      all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bélisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in
+      utter contempt &ldquo;the fine lady,&rdquo; as she calls Jack&rsquo;s mother, that she
+      detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and
+      perhaps&mdash;who knows but the police may be called in?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that is all nonsense;&rdquo; but finally yielded to the
+      persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will bring her this time, never fear!&rdquo; he said, with an air of
+      confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of
+      the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To M. D&rsquo;Argenton&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you the man who was here last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely,&rdquo; answered Bélisaire, innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to the
+      country, and will not return for some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In vain
+      did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady&rsquo;s son was very ill&mdash;dying
+      in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and would not permit
+      Bélisaire to go one step further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea
+      struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had
+      taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the fact
+      that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had often
+      spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could only be
+      induced to come to Jack&rsquo;s bedside, so that the poor boy could have some
+      familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started for
+      Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During all this time, his wife sat at their friend&rsquo;s side, and knew not
+      what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation
+      into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his
+      mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that
+      always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the
+      doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother. The
+      visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the patients
+      they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging them.
+      Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were dry,
+      Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges filled
+      the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by the aid
+      of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had not come!
+      He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the
+      slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach
+      itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into
+      the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of Ida
+      de Barancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased
+      surprise at their father&rsquo;s emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered
+      exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar. But
+      Jack&rsquo;s mother did not appear. Madame Bélisaire knows not what to say. She
+      has hinted that M. D&rsquo;Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is driving in
+      the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her knees and
+      pares an orange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will not come!&rdquo; said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that
+      little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care.
+      But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its accents.
+      &ldquo;She will not come!&rdquo; he repeated; and the poor boy closed his eyes, but
+      not in sleep. He thought of Cécile. The sister heard his sighs, and said
+      to Madame Bélisaire, whose large face was shining with tears,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled that
+      she does not come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she must be sent for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won&rsquo;t come to a
+      hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, dear,&rdquo; said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her
+      little child; &ldquo;I am going for your mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still
+      continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, &ldquo;She will not come! she
+      will not come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sister tried to soothe him. &ldquo;Calm yourself, my child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. &ldquo;I tell you she will not come. You
+      do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my miserable
+      life has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the gashes she
+      has cut in it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to him on wings, and
+      would never again leave him; and I am dying, and she refuses to come to
+      me. What a cruel mother! it is she who has killed me, and she does not
+      wish to see me die!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow, and
+      the sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter&rsquo;s day
+      ended in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte and D&rsquo;Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just
+      returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in velvet
+      and furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of spirits. Remember
+      that she had just shown herself in public with her poet, and had shown
+      herself, too, to be as pretty as she was ten years before. The complexion
+      was heightened by the sharp wintry air, and the soft wraps in which she
+      was enveloped added to her beauty as does the satin and quilted lining of
+      a casket enhance the brilliancy of the gems within. Â woman of the people
+      stood on the sidewalk, and rushed forward on seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, madame! come at once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Bélisaire!&rdquo; cried Charlotte, turning pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your child is very ill; he asks for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is a persecution,&rdquo; said D&rsquo;Argenton. &ldquo;Let us pass. If the
+      gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the hospital!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you wish
+      to see him you must hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap laid
+      ready for you;&rdquo; and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can have
+      a heart like this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte turned toward her. &ldquo;Show me where he is,&rdquo; she said; and the two
+      women hurried through the streets, leaving D&rsquo;Argenton in a state of rage,
+      convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as Madame Bélisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in,&mdash;a
+      young girl and an old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A divine face bent over Jack. &ldquo;It is I, my love, it is Cécile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by reason
+      of her tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was the slender
+      one that had already brought the youth such happiness, and yet did its
+      part in bringing him where we now see him; for fate is often cruel enough
+      to strike you through your dearest and best. The sick youth opens his
+      weary eyes to see that he is not dreaming. Cécile is really there; she
+      implores his pardon, and explains why she gave him such pain. Ah, if she
+      had but known that their destinies were so similar!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness and
+      anger of the past weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you love me?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Jack; I have always loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word
+      love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had
+      taken refuge there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good you are to come, Cécile! Now I shall not utter another murmur. I
+      am ready to die, with you at my side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Die! Who is talking of dying?&rdquo; said the old doctor in his heartiest
+      voice. &ldquo;Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look
+      like the same person you were when we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed
+      Cécile&rsquo;s hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of
+      tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have
+      been friend and sister, wife and mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color to
+      frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly
+      visible. Cécile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full of
+      shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more sombre,
+      more mysterious than Night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: &ldquo;I hear her,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;she is
+      coming!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the corridors,
+      the steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and the distant
+      noises in the street. He listened a moment, said a few unintelligible
+      words, then his head fell back and his eyes closed. But he was right. Two
+      women were running up the stairs. They had been allowed to enter, though
+      the hour for the admittance of visitors had long since passed. But it was
+      one of those occasions where rules may be broken and set aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they arrived at the outer door, Charlotte stopped. &ldquo;I cannot go on,&rdquo;
+       she said, &ldquo;I am frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; the other answered, roughly; &ldquo;you must. Ah, to such women as
+      you, God should never give children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she pushed Charlotte toward the staircase. The large room, the shaded
+      lamps, the kneeling forms, the mother saw at one glance; and farther on,
+      at the end of the apartment, were two men bending over a bed, and Cécile
+      Rivals, pale as death, supporting a head on her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack, my child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Rivals turned. &ldquo;Hush,&rdquo; he said, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came a sigh&mdash;a long, shivering sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte crept nearer, with failing limbs and sinking heart. It was Jack
+      indeed, with arms stiffly falling at his side, and eyes fixed on vacancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor bent over him. &ldquo;Jack, my friend; it is your mother, she is
+      here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she, unhappy woman, stretched out her arms toward him. &ldquo;Jack, it is I!
+      I am here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother cried in a tone of horror, &ldquo;Dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said old Rivals; &ldquo;no,&mdash;<i>Delivered</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      THE END.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/25302.txt b/old/25302.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b85fd14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/25302.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11052 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jack
+       1877
+
+Author: Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translator: Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25302]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+By Alphonse Daudet
+
+Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood
+
+From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.
+
+Estes And Lauriat, 1877
+
+
+
+
+JACK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.
+
+"With a _k_, sir; with a _k_. The name is written and pronounced as
+in English. The child's godfather was English. A major-general in the
+Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
+and of the highest connections. But--you understand--M. l'Abbe! How
+deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some years
+since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of his
+friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
+country,--and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name? Wait
+a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah."
+
+"Pardon me, madame," interrupted the abbe, smiling, in spite of himself,
+at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas. "After
+Jack, what name?"
+
+With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest
+examined from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical
+shrewdness, the young woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing
+at her side.
+
+The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the hour.
+It was December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous folds of
+her black costume, and the discreet originality of her hat, all told the
+story of a woman who owns her carriage, and who steps from her carpets
+to her coupe without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was
+small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the
+bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted
+by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even
+when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance was
+extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to
+speak, or the narrow brow,--something there was, at all events, that
+indicated an absence of reflective powers, a lack of culture, and
+possibly explained the blanks in the conversation of this pretty woman;
+blanks that reminded one of those little Japanese baskets fitting one
+into another, the last of which is always empty.
+
+As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or eight,
+who had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as English boys
+are dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a _k_. His legs
+were bare, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume was in
+accordance with his years, but not with his long neck and slim figure.
+
+He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he
+would occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing
+expression, as if he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole
+Indian army.
+
+Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding,
+and with the transformation of a pretty woman's face to that of an
+intelligent man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in
+meaning; the same brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were
+firmly closed.
+
+Over the woman's face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
+furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to
+retain a certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the
+contrary, one felt that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air
+would have been almost painful, had it not been combined with a certain
+caressing indolence of attitude that indicated a petted child.
+
+Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened
+to her words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the
+priest and at all the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had promised
+not to cry, but a stifled sob shook him at times from head to foot.
+Then his mother looked at him, and seemed to say, "You know what you
+promised." Then the child choked back his tears and sobs; but it
+was easy to see that he was a prey to that first agony of exile and
+abandonment which the first boarding-school inflicts on those children
+who have lived only in their homes.
+
+This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or
+three minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but
+Father O------, who had been the director for twenty-five years of the
+aristocratic institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the
+world, and knew too well the best Parisian society, all its shades of
+manner and dialect, not to understand that in the mother of his new
+pupil he beheld a representative of an especial class.
+
+The self-possession with which she entered his office,--self-possession
+too apparent not to be forced,--her way of seating herself, her uneasy
+laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which she
+sought to conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of
+the priest a vague distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so
+mixed, the community of pleasures and similarity of toilets have so
+narrowed the line of demarcation between fashionable women of good and
+bad society, that the most experienced may at times be deceived, and
+this is the reason that the priest regarded this woman with so much
+attention. The principal difficulty in arriving at a decision arose from
+the unconnected style of her conversation; but the embarrassed air of
+the mother when he asked for the other name of the child, settled the
+question in his mind.
+
+She colored, hesitated. "True," she said; "excuse me; I have not yet
+presented myself. What could I have been thinking of?" and drawing a
+small, highly-perfumed case from her pocket, she took from it a card, on
+which, in long letters, was to be read the insignificant name--
+
+     _Ida de Barnacy_
+
+Over the face of the priest flashed a singular smile.
+
+"Is this the child's name?" he asked.
+
+The question was almost an impertinence. The lady understood him, and
+concealed her embarrassment under an assumption of great dignity.
+
+"Certainly, sir, certainly."
+
+"Ah!" said the priest, gravely.
+
+It was he now who found it difficult to express what he wished to say.
+He rolled the card between his fingers with a little movement of the
+lips natural to a man who measures the weight and effect of the words he
+is about to speak.
+
+Suddenly he arose from his chair, and approaching one of the large
+windows that looked on a garden planted with fine trees, and reddened
+by the wintry sun, tapped lightly on the glass. A black silhouette was
+drawn on the window, and a young priest appeared immediately within the
+room.
+
+"Duffieux," said the Superior, "take this child out to walk with you.
+Show him our church and our hot-houses; he is tired of us, poor little
+man!"
+
+Jack supposed that he was sent out to walk so that he might be spared
+the pain of saying good-bye to his mother, and his terrified, despairing
+expression so touched the kind priest that he hastily added,--
+
+"Don't be frightened, Jack. Your mother is not going away; you will find
+her here."
+
+The child still hesitated.
+
+"Go, my dear," said Madame de Barancy, with a queenly gesture.
+
+Then he went without another word, as if he were already conquered by
+life, and prepared for all its evils.
+
+When the door closed behind him, there was a moment of silence. The
+steps of the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel,
+and dying away, left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the chirps
+of the sparrows on the eaves, the distant pianos, and an indistinct
+murmur of voices--the hum of a great boarding-school.
+
+"This child seems to love you, madame," said the Superior, touched by
+Jack's submission.
+
+"Why should he not love me?" answered Madame de Barancy, somewhat
+melodramatically; "the poor dear has but his mother in the world."
+
+"Ah! you are a widow?"
+
+"Alas! yes, sir. My husband died ten years ago, the very year of our
+marriage, and under the most painful circumstances. Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe,
+romance-writers, who are at a loss to invent adventures for their
+heroines, do not know that many an apparently quiet life contains enough
+for ten novels. My own story is the best proof of that. The Comte
+de Barancy belonged, as his name will tell you, to one of the oldest
+families in Touraine."
+
+She made a fatal mistake here, for Father O------ was born at Amboise,
+and knew the nobility of the entire province. So he at once consigned
+the Comte de Barancy to the society of Major-General Pembroke and the
+Rajah of Singapore. He did not let this appear, however, and contented
+himself with replying gently to the _soi-disant_ comtesse,--
+
+"Do you not think with me, madame, that there would be some cruelty in
+sending away a child that seems so warmly attached to you? He is still
+very young; and do you think his physical health good enough to support
+the grief of such a separation?"
+
+"But you are mistaken, sir," she answered, promptly. "Jack is a very
+robust child; he has never been ill. He is a little pale, perhaps,
+but that is owing to the air of Paris, to which he has never been
+accustomed."
+
+Annoyed to find that she was not disposed to comprehend him, the priest
+continued,--
+
+"Besides, just now our dormitories are full; the scholastic year is very
+far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new pupils
+until the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then, madame;
+and even then--"
+
+She understood him at last.
+
+"So," she said, turning pale, "you refuse to receive my son. Do you
+refuse also to tell me why?"
+
+"Madame," answered the priest, "I would have given much if this
+explanation could have been avoided. But since you force it upon me, I
+must inform you that this institution, whose head I am, exacts from
+the families who confide their children to us the most unexceptionable
+conduct and the strictest morality. In Paris there are many laical
+institutions where your little Jack will receive every care, but with
+us it would be impossible. I beg of you," he added, with a gesture of
+indignant protestation, "do not make me explain further. I have no right
+to question you, no right to reproach you. I regret the pain I am now
+giving, and believe me when I say that my words are as painful to myself
+as to you."
+
+While the priest spoke, over the countenance of Madame de Barancy
+flitted shadows of anger, grief, and confusion. At first she tried to
+brave it out, throwing her head back disdainfully; but the kind words of
+the priest falling on her childish soul made her burst suddenly into a
+passion of sobs and tears.
+
+"She was so unhappy," she cried, "no one could ever know all she had
+done for that child! Yes, the poor little fellow had no name, no father,
+but was that any reason why a crime should be made of his misfortune,
+and that he should be made responsible for the faults of his parents?
+Ah! M. l'Abbe, I beg of you--"
+
+As she spoke she took the priest's hand. The good father sought to
+disengage it with some little embarrassment.
+
+"Be calm, dear madame," he cried, terrified by these tears and outcries,
+for she wept, like the child that she was, with vehement sobs, and
+with the abandonment in fact of a somewhat coarse nature. The poor man
+thought, "What could I do with her if this lady should be taken ill?"
+
+But the words he used to calm her only excited her more.
+
+She wished to justify herself, to explain things, to narrate the story
+of her life, and, willing or not, the Superior found himself compelled
+to follow her through an obscure recital, whose connecting thread she
+broke at every step, without looking to see how she should ever get back
+again to the light.
+
+The name of Barancy was not hers, but if she should tell him her name,
+he would be astonished. The honor of one of the oldest families in
+France was concerned, and she would rather die than speak.
+
+The Superior hastened to assure her that he had no intention of
+questioning her, but she would not listen to him. She was started, and a
+wind-mill under full sail would have been more easily arrested than
+her torrent of words, of which probably not one was true, for she
+contradicted herself perpetually throughout her incoherent discourse,
+yet withal there was something sincere, something touching even in this
+love between mother and child. They had always been together. He had
+been taught at home by masters, and she wished now to separate from him
+only because of his intelligence and his eyes that saw things that were
+not intended for his vision.
+
+"The best thing to do, it seems to me," said the priest, gravely, "would
+be to live such a life that you need fear neither the scrutiny of your
+child nor of any one else."
+
+"That was my wish, sir," she answered. "As Jack grew older, I wished to
+make his home all that which it ought to be. Besides, before long, my
+position will be assured. For some time I have been thinking of
+marrying, but to do this it was necessary to send my boy away for a time
+that he might obtain the education worthy of the name he ought to bear.
+I thought that nowhere could he do as well as here, but at one blow you
+repulse him and discourage his mother's good resolutions."
+
+Here the Superior arrested her with an exclamation of astonishment. He
+hesitated a moment; then looking her straight in her eyes, said,--
+
+"So be it, madame. I yield to your wishes. Little Jack pleases me very
+much; I consent to receive him among our pupils."
+
+"My dear sir!"
+
+"But on two conditions."
+
+"I am ready to accept all."
+
+"The first is, that until the day that your position is assured, the
+child shall spend his vacations under this roof, and shall not return to
+yours."
+
+"But he will die, my poor Jack, if he does not see his mother!"
+
+"Oh, you can come here whenever you please; only--and this is my second
+condition--you will not see him in the parlor, but always here in my
+private room, where I shall take care that you are not interfered with
+and that no one sees you."
+
+She rose in indignation.
+
+The idea that she could never enter the parlor, or be present on the
+reception-days, when she could astonish the other guests with the beauty
+of her child, with the richness of her toilette, that she could never
+say to her friends, "I met at the school, yesterday, Madame de C------,
+or Madame de V------," that she must meet Jack in secret, all this
+revolted her.
+
+The astute priest had struck well.
+
+"You are cruel with me, sir. You oblige me to refuse the favor for which
+I have so earnestly entreated, but I must protect my dignity as woman
+and mother. Your conditions are impossible. And what would my child
+think--"
+
+She stopped, for outside the glass she saw the fair, curly head of the
+child, with eyes brightened by the fresh air and by his anxiety. Upon a
+sign from his mother, he entered quickly.
+
+"Ah, mamma, how good you are! I was afraid you were gone!"
+
+She took his hand hastily.
+
+"You will go with me," she answered; "we are not wanted here."
+
+And she sailed out erect and haughty, leading the boy, who was stupefied
+by this departure which so strongly resembled a flight. She hardly
+acknowledged the respectful salute of the good father, who had also
+risen hastily from his chair; but quickly as she moved, it was not too
+quick for Jack to hear a gentle voice murmur, "Poor child! poor child!"
+in a tone of compassion that went to his heart. He was pitied--and why?
+For a long time he pondered over this.
+
+The Superior was not mistaken. Madame la Comtesse Ida de Barancy was not
+a comtesse at all. Her name was not Barancy, and possibly not even
+Ida. Whence came she? Who was she? No one could say. These complicated
+existences have fortunes so diverse, a past so long and so varied, that
+one never knows the last shape they assume. One might liken them to
+those revolving lighthouses that have long intervals of shadow between
+their gleams of fire. Of one thing only was there any certainty: she
+was not a Parisian, but came from some provincial town whose accent she
+still retained. It was said that at the Gymnase, one evening, two Lyons
+merchants thought they recognized in her a certain Melanie Favrot, who
+formerly kept an establishment of "gloves and perfumery;" but these
+merchants were mistaken.
+
+Again, an officer in the Hussars insisted that he had seen her eight
+years before at Orleans. He also was mistaken. And we all know that
+resemblances are often impertinences.
+
+Madame de Barancy had however travelled much, and made no concealment of
+the fact, but an absolute sorcerer would have been needed to evolve any
+facts from the contradictory accounts she gave of her origin and her
+life. One day Ida was born in the colonies, spoke of her mother, a
+charming creole, of her plantation and her negroes. Another time she had
+passed her childhood in a great chateau on the Loire. She seemed utterly
+indifferent as to the manner in which her hearers would piece together
+these dislocated bits of her existence.
+
+As may be imagined, in these fantastic recitals, vanity reigned
+triumphant, the vanity of a chattering paroquet. Bank and money, titles
+and riches, were the texts of her discourse. Rich she certainly was.
+She had a small hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann; she had horses and
+carriages, gorgeous furniture in most questionable taste, three or four
+servants, and led a most indolent existence, trifling away her life
+among women like herself, less confident in her bearing, perhaps,
+than they, from her provincial birth and breeding. This, and a certain
+freshness, the result of a childhood passed in the open air, all kept
+her somewhat out of the current of Parisian life, where, too, being so
+newly arrived, she had not yet found her place.
+
+Once each week, a man of middle age, and of distinguished appearance,
+came to see her. In speaking of him, Ida always said "Monsieur" with an
+air of such respect that one would have supposed him to be at the court
+of France in the days when the brother of the king was so denominated.
+The child spoke of him simply as "our friend." The servants announced
+him as "M. le Comte," but among themselves they called him "the old
+gentleman."
+
+The old gentleman was very rich, for madame spared nothing, and there
+was an enormous expenditure going on constantly in the house. This was
+managed by Mademoiselle Constant, Ida's waiting-maid. It was this woman
+who gave her mistress the addresses of the tradespeople, who guided her
+inexperience through the mazes of life in Paris; for Ida's pet dream and
+hope was to be taken for a woman of irreproachable character, and of the
+highest fashion.
+
+Thus it will be seen into what state of mind the reception of Father
+O------ had thrown her, and in what a rage she left his presence. An
+elegant coupe awaited her at the door of the Institution. She threw
+herself into it with her child, retaining only sufficient self-command
+to say "home," in so loud a voice that she was heard by a group of
+priests who were talking together, and who quickly dispersed before this
+whirlwind of furs and curled hair. In fact, as soon as the carriage-door
+was closed, the unhappy woman sank into a corner, not in her usual
+coquettish position, but overwhelmed and in tears, stifling her sobs in
+the quilted cushions.
+
+What a blow! The priest had refused to take her child, and at the first
+glance had discovered the humiliating truth that she believed to have
+thoroughly disguised under the luxurious surroundings of a woman of the
+world and of an irreproachable mother.
+
+Her wounded pride recalled with renewed flushes of shame the keen eyes
+of the good father. She recalled all her falsehood, all her folly, and
+remembered his incredulous smile at almost her first words.
+
+Silent and motionless in the other corner of the carriage sat Jack,
+looking sadly at his mother, unable to comprehend her despair. He
+vaguely conceived himself to be in fault, the dear little fellow, and
+yet was secretly glad that he had not been left at the school.
+
+For a fortnight he had heard of it night and day; his mother had
+extorted a promise from him not to weep; his trunk was packed, and all
+was ready, and the child's heart was full of trouble; and now at the
+last moment he was reprieved.
+
+If his mother had not been in so much trouble now, he would have thanked
+her; how happy would he have been curled up at her side, under her
+furs, in the little coupe in which they had had so many happy hours
+together--hours which were now to be repeated. And Jack thought of
+the afternoons in the Bois, of the long drives through the gay city
+of Paris--a city so new to both of them, and full of excitement and
+interest. A monument, perhaps, or even a mere street incident, delighted
+them.
+
+"Look, Jack--"
+
+"Look, mamma--"
+
+They were two children together, and together they peered from the
+window,--the child's head with its golden curls close to the mother's
+face tightly veiled in black lace.
+
+A despairing cry from Madame de Barancy aroused the boy from all these
+sweet recollections. "_Mon dieu!_" she cried, wringing her hands, "what
+have I done to be so wretched?"
+
+This exclamation naturally elicited no response, and little Jack, not
+knowing what to say, or how to console her, timidly caressed her hand,
+even at last kissing it with the fervor of a lover.
+
+She started and looked wildly at him.
+
+"Ah! cruel, cruel child, what harm you have done me in this world!"
+
+Jack turned pale. "I? What have I done?"
+
+He loved but one person on the face of the earth, his mother. He thought
+her absolutely perfect; and without knowing it, he had injured her in
+some mysterious way. The poor child was now overwhelmed with despair
+also, but remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his
+mother had shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on
+his own part. He was seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother
+took him in her arms. "No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be
+sensible, dear. What! must I rock my long-legged boy as if he were a
+baby? No, little Jack, you never did me any harm. It is I who did wrong.
+Come, do not weep any more. See, I am not crying."
+
+And the strange creature, forgetful of her recent grief, laughed
+gayly, that Jack too might laugh. It was one of the privileges of this
+inconsequent nature never to retain impressions for any length of time.
+Singularly enough, too, the tears she had just shed only seemed to add
+new freshness and brilliancy to her youthful beauty, as a sudden shower
+upon a dove's plumage seems to bring out new lustre without penetrating
+below the surface.
+
+"Where are we now?" said she, suddenly dropping the window that was
+covered with mist. "At the Madeleine. How quickly we have come! We must
+stop somewhere; at the pastry-cook's, I think. Dry your eyes, little
+one, we will buy some meringues."
+
+They alighted at the fashionable confectioner's, where there was a great
+crowd. Rich furs and rustling silks crushed each other; and women's
+faces with veils half lifted were reflected in the surrounding mirrors
+which were set in gilt frames and cream-colored panels; glittering
+glass, and a variety of cakes and dainties delighted the spectators.
+Madame de Barancy and her child were much looked at. This charmed her,
+and this small success following upon the mortification of the previous
+hour, gave her an appetite. She called for a quantity of meringues and
+nougat, and finished by a glass of wine. Jack followed her example, but
+with more moderation, his great grief having filled his eyes with unshed
+tears and his heart with suppressed sighs.
+
+When they left the shop the weather was so fine, although cold, and the
+flower-market of the Madeleine so fragrant with the sweet perfume of
+violets, that Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on foot.
+Briskly, and yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated a woman
+accustomed to admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack by
+the hand. The fresh air, the gay streets and attractive shops, quite
+restored Ida's good-humor. Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas
+I know not, she remembered a masqued ball to which she was going that
+night, preceded by a restaurant dinner.
+
+"Mercy! I had forgotten. Hurry! little Jack--quick!" She wanted flowers,
+a bouquet, a dozen forgotten trifles: and the child, whose life had
+always been made up of just such trifles, and who felt as much as his
+mother the subtile charm of these elegances, followed her in high glee,
+delighted by the idea of the fete that he was not to see. The toilette
+of his mother always interested him, and he fully appreciated the
+admiration her beauty excited as they went through the streets and into
+the various shops.
+
+"Exquisite! exquisite! Yes, you may send it to me--Boulevard Haussmann."
+
+Madame de Barancy tossed down her card, and went out, talking gayly to
+Jack of the beauty of her purchases. Suddenly she assumed a graver air.
+"Remember, Jack, what I say. Do not tell our good friend that I went to
+this ball; it is a great secret, It is five o'clock. How Constant will
+scold!"
+
+She was not mistaken.
+
+Her maid, a tall, stout person of forty years, ugly and masculine,
+rushed toward Ida as she entered the house.
+
+"The costume is here. There is no sense in being so late. Madame will
+not be ready in season. No one could make her toilette in such a little
+while."
+
+"Don't scold, Constant. If you only knew what had happened. Look!" and
+she pointed to Jack.
+
+The factotum seemed utterly out of patience. "What! Master Jack back
+again! That is very naughty, sir, after all you promised. The police
+will have to come and take you to school; your mother is too good."
+
+"No, no, it was not he. The priest would not have him. Do you
+understand? They insulted me!" Whereupon she began to cry again, and to
+ask of heaven why she was so unhappy. What with the meringues and the
+nougat, the wine and the heat of the room, she soon felt very ill.
+She was carried to her bed; salts and ether were hastily sought.
+Mademoiselle Constant acquitted herself with the propriety of a woman
+who is no stranger to such scenes, went in and out of the room, opened
+and shut wardrobes, with a certain self-possession that seemed to
+say, "This will soon pass off." But she did not perform her duties in
+silence.
+
+"What folly it was to take this child to the Fathers! As if it was a
+place for him in his position! It would not have been done certainly,
+had I been consulted. I would engage to find a place for this boy at
+very short notice."
+
+Jack, terrified at seeing his mother so ill, had seated himself on the
+edge of the bed; where, looking at her anxiously, he in silence asked
+her pardon for the sorrow he had caused her.
+
+"There! get away, Master Jack. Your mother is all right. I must help her
+dress now."
+
+"What! You do not mean, Constant, that I must go to this ball. I have no
+heart to amuse myself."
+
+"Pshaw! I know you, madame. You have but five minutes. Just look at this
+pretty costume, these rose-colored stockings, and your little cap."
+
+She shook out the skirts, displayed the trimming, and jingled the little
+bells which adorned it, and Ida ceased to resist.
+
+While his mother was dressing, Jack went into the boudoir, and remained
+alone in the dark. The little room, perfumed and coquettish, was, it
+is true, partially illuminated by the gas lamps on the boulevard. Sadly
+enough the child leaned against the windows and thought of the day that
+was just over. By degrees, without knowing how, he felt himself to be
+"the poor child" of whom the priest had spoken in such compassionate
+tones.
+
+It is so singular to hear one's self pitied when one believes one's self
+to be happy. There are sorrows, in fact, so well concealed, that those
+who have caused them, and even sometimes their victims, do not divine
+them.
+
+The door opened--his mother was ready.
+
+"Come in, Master Jack, and see if this is not lovely."
+
+Ah! what a charming Folly! Silver and pink, lustrous satin and delicate
+lace. What a lovely rustling of spangles when she moved!
+
+The child looked on in admiration, while the mother, light and airy,
+waving her Momus staff, smiled at Jack, and smiled at herself in the
+Psyche, without at that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then
+Constant threw over her shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to
+the carriage, while Jack, leaning over the railing, watched from stair
+to stair, moving almost as if she were dancing the little pink slippers
+embroidered with silver, that bore his mother to balls where children
+could not go. As the last sound of the silver bells died away, he turned
+towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the first time by the
+solitude in which he ordinarily passed his evenings.
+
+When Madame de Barancy dined out, Master Jack was confided to the tender
+mercies of Constant. "She will dine with you," said Ida.
+
+Two places were laid in the dining-room that seemed so huge on such
+days. But very often Constant, finding her dinner anything but cheerful,
+took the child and joined her companions below, where they feasted
+gayly. The table-cloth was soiled, and the conversation was not of the
+purest; and very often the conduct of the mistress of the house was
+commented upon, in words to be sure that were slightly veiled, so as not
+to frighten the child. This evening there was a grand discussion as to
+the refusal of the Fathers to receive the boy. The coachman declared
+that it was all for the best,--that the priests would have made of the
+child "a hypocrite and a Jesuit."
+
+Constant protested against these words. She was not a professor of
+religion, she said, but she would not hear it spoken ill of. Then the
+discussion changed to the great disappointment of Jack, who listened
+with all his little ears, hoping to hear why this priest, who appeared
+so good, was not willing to receive him.
+
+But for the moment Jack was of little consequence; each was absorbed in
+narrating his or her religious convictions.
+
+The coachman, who had been drinking, said that his God was the sun; in
+fact, he, like the elephants, adored the sun! Suddenly some one asked
+how he knew that elephants adored the sun.
+
+"I saw it once in a photograph," said he, sternly. Upon which
+Mademoiselle Constant vehemently accused him of impiety and atheism;
+while the cook, a stout Picardian with true peasant shrewdness, told
+them to be quiet.
+
+"Hush!" she said; "you should never quarrel over your religions."
+
+And Jack--what was he doing all this time?
+
+At the end of the table, stupefied by the heat and the interminable
+discussions of these brutes, he slept, with his head on his arms, and
+his fair curls spread over his velvet sleeves. In his unrestful slumber
+he heard the hum of the servants' voices, and at last he fancied that
+they were talking of him; but the voices seemed to reach from afar
+off--through a fog, as it were.
+
+"Who is he, then?" asked the cook.
+
+"I don't know," answered Constant; "but one thing is certain, he can't
+remain here, and she wishes me to find a school for him."
+
+Between a yawn and a hiccough, the coachman spoke,--
+
+"I know a capital school, and one that will, just answer your purpose.
+It is called the Moronval College--no, not college--but the Moronval
+Academy. But what of that? it is a college all the same. I put my child
+there once, when I was ordered off with the Egyptian army. The grocer
+gave me the prospectus, and I think I have it still."
+
+He looked in his portfolio, and from among the tumbled and soiled papers
+he extracted one, dirtier even than the others.
+
+"Here it is!" he cried, with an air of triumph.
+
+He unfolded the prospectus and began to read, or rather to spell with
+difficulty:
+
+"Gymnase Moronval--in the--in the--"
+
+"Give it to me," said Mademoiselle Constant; and taking it from him, she
+read it at one glance.
+
+"Moronval Academy--situated in the finest quarter of Paris--a
+family school--large garden--the number of pupils limited--course of
+instruction--particular attention paid to the correction of the accent
+of foreigners--"
+
+Mademoiselle Constant interrupted herself here to breathe, and to
+exclaim, "This seems all right enough!"
+
+"I think so," said the cook.
+
+The reading of the prospectus was resumed, but Jack was soundly asleep,
+and heard no more.
+
+He was dreaming. Yes, while his future was thus under discussion
+around this kitchen-table, while his mother was dancing as Folly in
+her rose-colored skirts and silver bells, he was dreaming of the kind
+priest, and of the tender voice that had murmured--"Poor child!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.~~THE SCHOOL IN THE AVENUE MONTAIGNE.
+
+"23 Avenue Montaigne, in the best quarter of Paris," said the
+prospectus. And no one can deny that the Avenue Montaigne is well
+situated in the Champs Elysees, but it has an incongruous unfinished
+aspect, as of a road merely sketched and not completed.
+
+By the side of the fine hotels with their plate-glass windows hung with
+silken draperies, stand the houses of workmen, whence issue the noise of
+hammers and grating of saws. One part of the Faubourg seems also to be
+relinquished to gardens after the style of Mabille.
+
+At the time of which I speak, and possibly now? from the avenue ran two
+or three narrow lanes whose sordid aspect offered a strange contrast to
+the superb buildings near them. One of these lanes opened at the number
+23, and announced on a gilded sign swinging in the passage, that the
+Moronval Academy was there situated. This sign, however, once passed, it
+seemed to you that you were taken back forty years, and to the other
+end of Paris. The black mud, the stream in the centre of the lane, the
+reverberations from the high walls, the drinking-shops built from old
+planks, all seemed to belong to the past. From every nook and cranny,
+from stairs and balconies, whence fluttered linen hung to dry, streamed
+forth a crowd of children escorted by an army of lean and hungry cats.
+It was amazing to see that so small a spot could accommodate such a
+number of persons. English grooms in shabby liveries, worn-out jockeys,
+and dilapidated body-servants, seemed there to congregate. To these must
+be added the horde of workpeople who returned at sunset; those who let
+chairs, or tiny carriages drawn by goats; dog-fanciers, beggars of all
+sorts, dwarfs from the hippodrome and their microscopic ponies. Picture
+all these to yourself, and you will have some idea of this singular
+spot--so near to the Champs Elysees that the tops of the green trees
+were to be seen, and the roar of carriages was but faintly subdued.
+
+It was in this place that the Moronval Academy was situated. Two or
+three times during the day a tall, thin mulatto made his appearance in
+the street. He wore on his head a broad-brimmed Quaker hat placed so far
+back that it resembled a halo; long hair swept over his shoulders, and
+he crossed the street with a timid, terrified air, followed by a troop
+of boys of every shade of complexion varying from a coffee tint to
+bright copper, and thence to profound black. These lads wore the coarse
+uniform of the school, and had an unfed and uncared-for aspect.
+
+The principal of the Moronval Academy himself took his pupils--his
+children of the sun, as he called them--out for their daily walks; and
+the comings and goings of this singular party gave the finishing touch
+of oddity to the appearance of the _Passage des Douze Maisons_.
+
+Most assuredly, had Madame de Barancy herself brought her child to the
+Academy, the sight of the place would have terrified her, and she would
+never have consented to leave her darling there. But her visit to the
+Jesuits had been so unfortunate, her reception so different from that
+which she had anticipated, that the poor creature, timid at heart and
+easily disconcerted, feared some new humiliation, and delegated to
+Madame Constant, her maid, the task of placing Jack at the school chosen
+for him by her servants.
+
+It was one cold, gray morning that Ida's carriage drew up in front of
+the gilt sign of the Moronval Academy. The lane was deserted, but the
+walls and the signs all had a damp and greenish look, as if a recent
+inundation had there left its traces. Constant stepped forward bravely,
+leading the child by one hand, and carrying an umbrella in the other. At
+the twelfth house she halted. It was at the end of the lane just where
+it closes, save for a narrow passage into La Rue Marbouf, between
+two high walls on which grated the dry branches of old shrubbery and
+ancient trees. A certain cleanliness indicated the vicinity of the
+aristocratic institution; and the oyster-shells, old sardine-boxes, and
+empty bottles were carefully swept away from the green door, that was as
+solid and distrustful in aspect as if it led to a prison or a convent.
+
+The profound silence that reigned was suddenly broken by a vigorous
+assault of the bell by Madame Constant. Jack felt chilled to the heart
+by the sound of this bell, and the sparrows on the one tree in the
+garden fluttered away in sudden fright.
+
+No one opened the door, but a panel was pushed away, and behind
+the heavy grating appeared a black face, with protuberant lips and
+astonished eyes.
+
+"Is this the Moronval Academy?" said Madame de Barancy's imposing maid.
+
+The woolly head now gave place to one of a different type,--a Tartar,
+possibly,--with eyes like slits, high cheekbones, and narrow, pointed
+head. Then a Creole, with a pale yellow skin, was also inspired by
+curiosity and peered out. But the door still remained closed, and
+Madame Constant was losing her temper, when a sharp voice cried from a
+distance,--
+
+"Well do you never mean to open that door, idiots?"
+
+Then they all began to whisper; keys were turned, bolts were pushed
+back, oaths were muttered, kicks were administered, and after many
+ineffectual struggles the door was finally opened; but Jack saw only the
+retreating forms of the schoolboys, who ran off in as much fright as did
+the sparrows just before.
+
+In the doorway stood a tall, colored man, whose large white cravat made
+his face look still more black. M. Moronval begged Madame Constant to
+walk in, offered her his arm, and conducted her through a garden, large
+enough, but dismal with the dried leaves and debris of winter storms.
+
+Several scattered buildings occupied the place of former flower-beds.
+The academy, it seemed, consisted of several old buildings altered by
+Moronval to suit his own needs.
+
+In one of the alleys they met a small negro with a broom and a pail. He
+respectfully stood aside as they passed, and when M. Moronval said, in a
+low voice, "A fire in the drawing-room," the boy looked as much startled
+as if he had been told that the drawing-room itself was burning.
+
+The order was by no means an unnecessary one. Nothing could have been
+colder than this great room, whose waxed floor looked like a frozen,
+slippery lake. The furniture itself had the same polar aspect, enveloped
+in coverings not made for it. But Madame Constant cared little for the
+naked walls and the discomforts of the apartment; she was occupied with
+the impression she was making, and the part she was playing, that of
+a lady of importance. She was quite condescending, and felt sure
+that children must be well off in this place, the rooms were so
+spacious,--just as well, in fact, as if in the country.
+
+"Precisely," said Moronval, hesitatingly.
+
+The black boy kindled the fire, and M. Moronval looked for a chair for
+his distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned,
+made her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long,
+pale face all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great
+erectness, as if reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to
+disguise a trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind and
+womanly expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his long
+curls and his eyes.
+
+"Yes, his eyes are like his mother's," said Moronval, coolly, examining
+Madame Constant as he spoke.
+
+She made no attempt to disclaim the honor; but Jack cried out in
+indignation, "She is not my mamma! She is my nurse!"
+
+Upon which Madame Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more
+reserved. Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and
+concluded that a servant trusted to the extent of placing her master's
+children at school, must be a person of some importance in the house.
+
+Madame Constant soon convinced him of the correctness of this
+conclusion. She spoke loudly and decidedly--stated that the choice of a
+school had been left entirely to her own discretion, and each time that
+she pronounced the name of her mistress, it was with a patronizing air
+that drove poor Jack to the verge of despair.
+
+The terms of the school were spoken of: three thousand francs per annum
+was named as the amount asked; and then Moronval launched forth on the
+superior advantages of his institution; it combined everything needed
+for the development of both soul and body. The pupils accompanied their
+masters to the theatre and into the world. Instead of making of the boys
+intrusted to his charge mere machines of Greek and Latin, he sought to
+develop in them every good quality, to prepare them for their duties
+in every position in life, and to surround them with those family
+influences of which they had too many of them been totally deprived. But
+their mental instruction was by no means neglected; quite the contrary.
+The most eminent men, savans and artists, did not shrink from the
+philanthropic duty of instructing the young in this remarkable
+institution, and were employed as professors of sciences, history,
+music, and literature. The French language was made a matter of especial
+importance, and the pronunciation was taught by a new and infallible
+method of which Madame Moronval was the author. Besides all this, every
+week there was a public lecture, to which friends and relatives of the
+pupils were invited, and where they could thoroughly convince themselves
+of the excellence of the system pursued at the Moronval Academy.
+
+This long tirade of the principal, who needed, possibly, more than any
+one else the advantages of lessons in pronunciation from his wife,
+was achieved more quickly for the reason that, in Creole fashion, he
+swallowed half his words, and left out many of his consonants.
+
+It mattered not, however, for Madame Constant was positively dazzled.
+
+The question of terms, of course, was nothing to her, she said; but it
+was necessary that the child should receive an aristocratic and finished
+education.
+
+"Unquestionably," said Madame Moronval, growing still more erect.
+
+Here her husband added that he only received into his establishment
+strangers of great distinction, scions of great families, nobles,
+princes, and the like. At that very time he had under his roof a child
+of royal birth,--a son of the king of Dahomey. At this the enthusiasm of
+Madame Constant burst all boundaries.
+
+"A king's son! You hear, Master Jack--you will be educated with the son
+of a king!"
+
+"Yes," resumed the instructor, gravely; "I have been intrusted by his
+Dahomian Majesty with the education of his royal Highness, and I believe
+that I shall be able to make of him a most remarkable man."
+
+What was the matter with the black boy, who was still at work at the
+fire, that he shook so convulsively, and made such a hideous noise with
+the shovel and tongs?
+
+M. Moronval continued. "I hope, and Madame Moronval hopes, that the
+young king, when on the throne of his ancestors, will remember the good
+advice and the noble examples afforded him by his teachers in Paris,
+the happy years spent with them, their indefatigable cares and assiduous
+efforts on his behalf."
+
+Here Jack was surprised to see the black boy kneeling before the
+chimney, turn toward him, and shake his woolly head violently, while his
+mouth opened wide in silent but furious denial.
+
+Did he wish to say that his royal Highness would never remember the
+good lessons received at the academy, or did he mean that he would never
+forget them? But what could this poor black boy know about it?
+
+Madame Constant announced, in pompous terms, that she was willing to pay
+a quarter in advance. Moronval waved his hand condescendingly, as if to
+say, "There is no need of that."
+
+But the old house told a far different tale,--the shabby furniture, the
+dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of
+Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little woman with the
+long chin.
+
+But that which proved the fact more than anything else was the eagerness
+with which the pair went to find in another room the superb register in
+which they inscribed the ages of the pupils, their names, and the date
+of their entrance into the academy.
+
+While these important facts were being written, the black boy remained
+crouched in front of the fire, which seemed quite useless while he
+absorbed all its heat. The chimney, which at first had refused to
+consume the least bit of wood, as stomachs after too long fasting reject
+food, had now revived, and a beautiful red flame was to be seen. The
+negro, with his head on his hands, his eyes fixed as in a trance, looked
+like a little black silhouette against a scarlet background. His mouth
+opened in intense delight, and his eyes were perfectly round. He seemed
+to be drinking in the heat and the light with the greatest avidity,
+while outside the snow had begun to fall silently and slowly.
+
+Jack was very sad, for he fancied that Moronval had a wicked look,
+notwithstanding his honeyed words. And, then, in this strange house
+the poor child felt himself utterly lost and desolate, discarded by his
+mother, and rendered still more miserable by the vague idea that these
+colored pupils, from every corner of the globe, had brought with them an
+atmosphere of unhappiness and of restlessness. He remembered, too, the
+Jesuits' college, so fresh and sweet; the fine trees, the green-houses,
+the whole appearance of refinement, and the kind hand of the Superior
+laid for a moment upon his head.
+
+Ah! why had he not remained there? And as this occurred to him, he said
+to himself, that perhaps they would not have him here either. He looked
+toward the table. There by the big register the husband and wife were
+busy whispering with Madame Constant. They looked at him, and he caught
+a word now and then. The little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her
+say, as did the priest,--"Poor child!"
+
+She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him?
+Jack asked himself.
+
+This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little
+heart. He could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he
+attributed this disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume,
+his bare legs, or his long curls.
+
+But he thought of his mother's despair. Should he meet with another
+refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the
+principal some notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep
+him. He was delighted, poor child, for he little knew that the great
+misfortune of his life was now inaugurated there in that room.
+
+At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below,
+singing the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not
+recovered from the shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat,
+close-cut hair, and heavy beard, burst into the room.
+
+"Hallo!" he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, "a fire in the
+parlor? What a luxury!" and he drew a long breath. In fact, the
+new-comer was in the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each
+sentence, a habit he had acquired in singing; and these breaths were
+almost like the roaring of a wild beast. Catching sight of the strangers
+and the pile of money, he stopped short with the words on his lips.
+Delight and surprise succeeded each other on his countenance, whose
+muscles seemed habituated to all facial contortions.
+
+Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. "M. Labassandre, of
+the Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music." Labassandre
+bowed once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his
+self-possession, and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for
+all parties, administered a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at
+all astonished, but picked himself up and disappeared from the room.
+
+The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly--a
+mean face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and
+wearing an overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down the
+front too visible indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted man.
+This was Dr. Hirsch, Professor of Mathematics and of Natural Sciences.
+He exhaled a strong odor of alkalies, and, thanks to his chemical
+manipulations, his fingers were every color of the rainbow. The last
+comer was very different. Imagine a handsome man, dressed with the
+greatest care, scrupulously gloved and shod, his hair thrown back from a
+forehead already unnaturally high. He had a haughty, aggressive air;
+his heavy blonde moustache, much twisted at the ends, and a large, pale
+face, gave him the look of a sick soldier.
+
+Moronval presented him as "our great poet, Amaury d'Argenton, Professor
+of Literature."
+
+He, too, looked as astonished, when he caught sight of the gold pieces,
+as did Dr. Hirsch and the singer Labassandre. His cold eyes had a gleam
+of light, but it disappeared as he glanced from the child to his nurse.
+
+Then he approached the other professors standing in front of the fire,
+and, saluting them, listened in silence. Madame Constant thought
+this Argenton looked proud; but upon Jack the man made a very strong
+impression, and the child shrank from him with terror and repugnance.
+
+Jack felt that all these men might make him wretched, but this one more
+than all others. Instinctively, on seeing him enter, the child felt
+him to be his future enemy, and that cold, hard glance meeting his own,
+froze him to the core of his heart. How many times, in days to come, was
+he to encounter those pale, blue eyes, with half-shut, heavy lids, whose
+glances were cold as steel! The eyes have been called the windows of the
+soul, but D'Argenton's eyes were windows so closely barred and locked,
+that one had no reason to suppose that there was a soul behind them.
+
+The conversation finished between Moronval and Constant, the principal
+approached his new pupil, and giving him a little friendly tap on the
+cheek, he said, "Come, come, my young friend, you must look brighter
+than this."
+
+And in fact, Jack, as the moment drew near that he must say farewell to
+his mother's maid, felt his eyes swimming in tears. Not that he had any
+great affection for this woman, but she was a part of his home, she saw
+his mother daily, and the separation was final when she was gone.
+
+"Constant," he whispered, catching her dress, "you will tell mamma to
+come and see me."
+
+"Certainly. She will come, of course. But don't cry."
+
+The child was sorely tempted to burst into tears; but it seemed to him
+that all these strange eyes were fixed upon him, and that the Professor
+of Literature examined him with especial severity: and he controlled
+himself.
+
+The snow fell heavily. Moronval proposed to send for a carriage, but
+the maid said that Augustin and the coupe were waiting at the end of the
+lane.
+
+"A coupe!" said the principal to himself, in astonished admiration.
+
+"Speaking of Augustin," said she: "he charged me with a commission. Have
+you a pupil named Said?"
+
+"To be sure--certainly--a delightful person," said Moronval.
+
+"And a superb voice. You must hear him," interrupted Labassandre,
+opening the door and calling Said in a voice of thunder.
+
+A frightful howl was heard in reply, followed by the appearance of the
+delightful person.
+
+An awkward schoolboy appeared, whose tunic, like all tunics, and,
+indeed, like all the clothing of boys of a certain age, was too short
+and too tight for him; drawn in, in the fashion of a caftan, it told
+the story at once of an Egyptian in European clothing. His features
+were regular and delicate enough, but the yellow skin was stretched
+so tightly over the bones and muscles that the eyes seemed to close of
+themselves whenever the mouth opened, and _vice versa_.
+
+This miserable young man, whose skin was so scanty, inspired you with a
+strong desire to relieve his sufferings by cutting a slit somewhere. He
+at once remembered Augustin, who had been his parents' coachman, and who
+had given him all his cigar-stumps.
+
+"What shall I say to him from you?" asked Constant, in her most amiable
+tone.
+
+"Nothing," answered Said, promptly.
+
+"And your parents, how are they? Have you had any news from them
+lately?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have they returned to Egypt, as they thought of doing?"
+
+"Don't know: they never write."
+
+It was evident that this pupil of the Moronval Academy had not been
+educated in the art of conversation, and Jack listened with many
+misgivings.
+
+The indifferent fashion with which this youth spoke of his parents,
+added to what M. Moronval had previously said of the family influences
+of which most of his pupils had been deprived since infancy, impressed
+him unfavorably.
+
+It seemed to the child that he was to live among orphans or cast-off
+children, and would be himself as much cast off as if he had come from
+Timbuctoo or Otaheite.
+
+Again he caught the dress of his mother's servant. "Tell her to come and
+see me," he whispered; "O, tell her to come."
+
+And when the door closed behind her, he understood that one chapter
+in his life was finished; that his existence as a spoiled child, as a
+petted baby, had vanished into the past, and those dear and happy days
+would never again return.
+
+While he stood silently weeping, with his face pressed against a
+window that led into the garden, a hand was extended over his shoulder
+containing something black.
+
+It was Said, who, as a consolation, offered him the stump of a cigar.
+
+"Take this: I have a trunk full," said the interesting young man,
+shutting his eyes so as to be able to speak.
+
+Jack, smiling through his tears, made a sign that he did not dare to
+accept this singular gift; and Said, whose eloquence was very limited,
+stood silently planted by his side until M. Moronval returned.
+
+He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired
+with respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
+
+The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coupe was so well
+appointed, that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence of
+the equipage.
+
+"That is well," he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. "Play together;
+but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall permit
+the boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil."
+
+Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who
+questioned him without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit,
+and bare legs, he sat motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic
+gestipulations of these little boys of foreign birth, and among them
+all, looked much like an elegant little Parisian shut up in the great
+monkey cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from
+his silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be
+altogether amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the
+solemn little voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention,
+he hastened to the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically
+defending the money paid by Madame Constant against the demands of the
+professors, whose salaries were greatly in arrear.
+
+Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and litterateur, had been sent
+from Pointe-a-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe.
+At that time he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with
+considerable ability and cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted
+a dependent position which insured his expenses paid to Paris, that
+marvellous city, the heat of whose lurid flames extends so far over the
+world that it attracts even the moths from the colonies.
+
+On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few
+acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had
+obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into
+account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every
+effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time he spoke in
+public, the shouts of laughter that greeted him proved conclusively that
+he could never make a name, for himself in Paris as a public speaker. He
+then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to understand that
+it was far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-a-Petre than in Paris.
+Haughty and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes, he passed from
+journal to journal, without being retained for any length of time on the
+staff of any one. Then began those hard experiences of life which either
+crush a man to the earth or harden him to iron. He joined the army of
+the ten thousand men who live by their wits in Paris, who rise each
+morning dizzy with hunger and ambitious dreams, make their breakfast
+from off a penny-roll, black the seams of their coats with ink, whiten
+their shirt-collars with billiard-chalk, and warm themselves in the
+churches and libraries.
+
+He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,--to credit
+refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his garret at
+eleven o'clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to shoes
+in holes.
+
+He was one of those professors of--it matters not what, who write
+articles for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history
+of the Middle Ages in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume,
+compile catalogues, and copy plays for the theatres.
+
+He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for
+having struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.
+
+After three years of this miserable existence, when he had eaten an
+incalculable number of raw artichokes and radishes, when he had lost his
+illusions and ruined his stomach, chance sent him to give lessons in
+a young ladies' school kept by three sisters. The two eldest were over
+forty; the third was thirty,--small, sentimental, and pretentious. She
+saw little prospect of marriage, when Moronval offered himself and was
+accepted.
+
+Once married, they lived some time in the house with the elder sisters;
+both made themselves useful in giving lessons. But Moronval had retained
+many of his bachelor habits, which were far from agreeable in that
+peaceful and well-ordered boarding-school. Besides, the Creole treated
+his pupils too much as he might have done his slaves at work on the
+sugar-cane plantation.
+
+The elder sisters, who adored Madame Moronval, were nevertheless obliged
+to separate from her, and paid her as an indemnification a satisfactory
+sum. What should be done with this money? Moronval wished to start a
+journal, or a review; but to make money was his first wish. Finally, a
+brilliant idea came to him one day.
+
+He knew that children were sent from all parts of the world to finish
+their education in Paris. They came from Persia, from Japan, Hindostan,
+and Guinea, confided to the care of ship-captains, or to merchants. Such
+people being generally well provided with money, and having but little
+experience in getting rid of it, Moronval decided that there was an easy
+mine to work. Besides, the wonderful system of Madame Moronval could be
+applied in perfection to the correction of foreign accents, to defective
+pronunciation. The Professor immediately caused advertisements to be
+inserted in the colonial journals, where were soon to be seen the most
+amazing advertisements in several languages.
+
+During the first year, the nephew of the Iman of Zanzibar, and two
+superb blacks from the coast of Guinea, appeared upon the scene. It was
+not until they arrived that Moronval bestirred himself to find a local
+habitation and a name. Finally, in order to combine economy with the
+exigencies of his new position, he hired the buildings we have just
+visited in this hideous _Passage des Douze Maisons_, and displayed in
+the avenue the gorgeous sign we have mentioned.
+
+The owner of the property induced Moronval to believe that certain
+improvements would soon be made, in fact, that an appropriation was
+ordered for a new boulevard on one side of the building. This conviction
+induced Moronval to forget all the inconveniences, the dampness of
+the dormitory, the cold of certain rooms, the heat of others. This was
+nothing: the appropriation bill was ready for the signature, and things
+would be all right soon.
+
+But Moronval was forced to endure that long period of waiting, only too
+well known to Parisians in the last twenty years; and this wore heavily
+upon him, costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the
+improvement or welfare of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had
+been hugely duped, and this discovery had the worst effect on the
+passionate, weak nature of the Creole. His discouragement degenerated
+into absolute incapacity and indolence. The pupils had no supervision
+whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that they used the least
+possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into
+class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered with by every caprice
+of the principal, who sent the pupils hither and thither on his personal
+service.
+
+And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,--a physician
+without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer without
+an engagement,--all of whom were in a state of constant indignation
+against the world which refused to recognize their rare merits.
+
+Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem
+to herd together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual
+complaints? Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other,
+they pretend to an admiring sympathy.
+
+Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers,
+the greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their
+pipes, the smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither
+see nor hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence
+in a vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and literature were
+picked into fragments as precious stuffs might be under the application
+of violent acids.
+
+And the "children of the sun," what became of them amid all this? Madame
+Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former home and
+school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had undertaken,
+but the kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great establishment
+absorbed a great part of her time.
+
+As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept
+in order, for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the
+chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in
+certain armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling
+compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of
+surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new
+quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to
+smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins
+for the negro blood in his own veins.
+
+His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon
+he began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time
+there remained but eight.
+
+"Number of pupils limited," said the prospectus, and there was a certain
+amount of melancholy truth in the announcement. A dismal silence seemed
+to settle down on the great establishment, which was even threatened
+with a seizure of the furniture, when Jack appeared upon the scene. It
+of course was no very great sum, this quarter in advance, but Moronval
+understood certain prospective advantages, and even had a very clear
+perception of Ida's true nature, having cross-examined Constant with
+very good results. This day, therefore, witnessed a certain armed
+neutrality between masters and pupils. A good dinner in honor of the new
+arrival was served, all the professors were present, and "the children
+of the sun" even had a drop of wine, which startling event had not
+happened to them for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.~~MADOU.
+
+If the Moronval Academy still exists, I desire to stigmatize it now and
+forever as the most unhealthy spot I ever knew. Its dampness makes it
+most objectionable for children.
+
+Imagine a long building all _rez-de-chaussee_, without windows, and
+lighted only from above. About the room hung an indescribable odor of
+collodion and ether, as if it had once been used by a photographer. The
+garden was shut in by high walls covered with ivy which dripped with
+moisture. The dormitory stood against a superb hotel; and on one side
+was a stable, always noisy with the oaths of grooms, the trampling of
+horses' feet, and the rattling of pumps. From one end of the year to
+the other the place was always damp, the only difference being that,
+according to the different seasons of the year, the dampness was either
+very cold or very warm. In summer it was filled with moisture like a
+bathroom. In addition, a crowd of winged creatures, who lived among the
+old ivy on the walls, attracted by the brightness of the glass in the
+low roof, introduced themselves into the dormitory through the smallest
+crevice, and struck their wings against the glass, humming loudly, and
+finally falling on the beds in clouds.
+
+The winter's humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the dormitory
+through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two hours of
+shivering the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they drew their
+knees up to their chins and kept the bedclothes well over their heads.
+The paternal eye of Moronval saw at once the propriety of utilizing this
+otherwise unemployed building.
+
+"This shall be the dormitory," he said.
+
+"May it not be somewhat damp?" Madame Moronval ventured to ask.
+
+"What of that?" he answered, sternly.
+
+In reality there was but room for ten beds; but twenty were placed
+there, with a lavatory at the end, a wretched bit of carpet near the
+door, and all was in readiness.
+
+Why not? After all, a dormitory is only a place to sleep in, and
+children should be able to sleep anywhere, in spite of heat or cold, of
+bad air and of creeping things, in spite of the noise of pumps and of
+horses. They catch rheumatism, ophthalmia, and bronchitis, to be sure,
+but they sleep all the same the calm sweet sleep of children worn out by
+out-door exercise and play, and undisturbed by anxieties for the morrow.
+This is the popular belief in regard to children, but too many of us
+know that the truth is quite different. For example, the first night
+little Jack could not close his eyes. He had never slept in a strange
+house, and the change was great from his own little room at home, dimly
+lighted by a night-lamp, and littered with his favorite playthings, to
+the strange and comfortless place where he now found himself.
+
+As soon as the pupils were in bed, a black servant took away the light,
+and Jack remained wide awake.
+
+A pale moon, reflected from the snow that covered a portion of the
+skylight, filled the room with a bluish light. He looked at the beds,
+standing close together foot to foot the length of the room, most of
+them unoccupied, their coverings rolled up in a bundle at one end. Seven
+or eight were animated by an occasional snore, by a hollow cough, or a
+stifled exclamation.
+
+The new-comer had the best place, a little sheltered from the wind of
+the door. Nevertheless, he was far from warm, and the cold kept him from
+sleep as much as the novelty of his surroundings. He went over and over
+again in his memory every trifling detail of the day's events. He
+saw Moronval's bulky white cravat, the enormous spectacles of Dr.
+Hirsch--his soiled and spotted overcoat; but above all he recalled the
+cold and haughty eyes of "his enemy," as he already in his innermost
+heart called D'Argenton.
+
+This thought struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he looked
+to his mother for protection and defence.
+
+Where was she at that moment? A dozen different clocks at that instant
+struck eleven. She was probably at some ball or theatre. She would soon
+come in, all wrapped in furs and laces. When she came, it mattered not
+how late, she always opened Jack's door and bent over his bed to kiss
+him. Even in his sleep he was generally conscious of her presence, and
+smilingly opened his eyes to admire her toilette. And now he shuddered
+as he thought of the change; and yet it was not altogether painful,
+for the chevrons of his uniform delighted him, and he was happy in
+concealing his long legs in the skirt of his tunic. He had made two or
+three new acquaintances,--a thing very agreeable to most children; he
+had found his fellow-pupils odd enough, but their oddities interested
+him. They had snowballed each other in the garden, which, to a child who
+had been living in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very novel
+amusement.
+
+One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where
+was the little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so
+warmly? Was he in the Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk with
+him, and make him his friend. He repeated to himself the names of the
+"eight children of the sun," but there was no prince among them. Then he
+thought he would ask the boy Said.
+
+"Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?" he asked.
+
+The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished
+silence. Jack's question remained unanswered, and the child's thoughts
+ran on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music
+that rang through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the
+perpetual sound of the pumps in the stable.
+
+Moronval's guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and
+all was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the
+small black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
+
+He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept
+between the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his
+shoulders, and his teeth chattering.
+
+Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all
+the peculiarities of the black boy--the protruding mouth, the enormous
+ears, and retreating forehead.
+
+The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there
+warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though
+dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack's heart warmed toward him. As
+he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. "Ah! the snow I the
+snow!" he murmured sadly.
+
+His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who
+looked at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and
+said, half to himself, "Ah! the new pupil! Why don't you go to sleep,
+little boy?"
+
+"I cannot," said Jack, sighing.
+
+"It is good to sigh if you are sorry," said the negro, cententiously.
+"If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!"
+
+As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
+
+"Do you sleep there?" asked the child, astonished that a servant should
+occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. "But there are no sheets!"
+
+"Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black." The negro laughed
+gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half
+clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an
+ivory smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
+
+"What a funny medal!" cried Jack.
+
+"It is not a medal," answered the negro; "it is my _Gri-qri_."
+
+But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that
+it was an amulet--something to bring him good luck. His Aunt Kerika had
+given it to him when he left his native land,--the aunt who had brought
+him up, and to whom he hoped to return at some future day.
+
+"As I shall to my mamma," said little Barancy; and both children were
+silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
+
+Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. "And your country--is it a
+pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?"
+
+"Dahomey," answered the negro.
+
+Jack started up in bed.
+
+"What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, his royal Highness,--you know him,--the little king of Dahomey."
+
+"I am he," said the negro, quietly.
+
+The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had
+seen at work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on
+the table, and rinsing glasses!
+
+The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face grew
+very sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the past,
+or toward some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king that led
+Jack to examine this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed, his white
+shirt open, while on his dark breast shone the ivory amulet, with new
+interest?
+
+"How did all this happen?" asked the child, timidly.
+
+The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. "M. Moronval not
+like it if Madou lets it burn." Then he pulled his couch close to that
+of Jack.
+
+"You are not sleepy," he said; "and I never wish to sleep if I can talk
+of Dahomey. Listen!"
+
+And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen,
+the little negro began his dismal tale.
+
+He was called Madou,--the name of his father, an illustrious warrior,
+one of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to
+whom France, Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father
+had cannon, and soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war,
+musicians and priests, four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred wives.
+His palace was immense, and ornamented by spears on which hung human
+heads after a battle or a sacrifice. Madou was born in this palace. His
+Aunt Kerika, general-in-chief of the Amazons, took him with her in all
+her expeditions. How beautiful she was, this Kerika! tall and large as a
+man,--in a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs loaded with bracelets
+and anklets; her bow slung over her shoulder, and the tail of a horse
+streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly locks, she
+wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black
+warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of Diana the white
+huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could
+cut off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible
+Kerika might have been on the battlefield, to her nephew Madou she was
+always very gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of
+coral and of amber, and all the shells he desired,--shells being the
+money in that part of the world. She even gave him a small but gorgeous
+musket, presented to herself by the Queen of England, and which Kerika
+found too light for her own use. Madou always carried it when he went to
+the forests to hunt with his aunt.
+
+There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that
+the sun never penetrated to these green temples. Then Madou described
+with enthusiasm the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds
+with wonderful plumage, and Jack listened in delight and astonishment.
+There were serpents, too, but they were harmless; and black monkeys
+leaped from tree to tree; and large mysterious lakes, that had never
+reflected the skies in their brown depths, lay here and there in the
+forests.
+
+At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, "O, how beautiful it must be!"
+
+"Yes, very beautiful," said the black boy, who undoubtedly exaggerated
+a little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of absence, of
+childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern nature;
+but encouraged by his comrade's sympathy, Madou continued his story.
+
+At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked
+in the jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were
+heard in the distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the
+bats, silent and black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered
+over and about it until daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic
+tree, motionless, and pressed against each other, looking like some
+singular leaves, dry and dead.
+
+In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,--could
+wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied
+to their mother's apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir
+to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a
+negro prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must
+also learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his
+son, "White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with."
+Of course some European might have been found in Dahomey who could
+instruct the prince,--for French and English flags floated over the
+ships in the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his father
+to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world; and he
+wished his son to receive a similar education.
+
+How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kerika; he looked at his
+sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a
+clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold
+dust stolen from the poor negroes.
+
+Madou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to
+command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of
+corn and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with
+treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them,
+and be capable of defending them when necessary,--and Madou early
+learned that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures
+than the rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.
+
+His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to
+the fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown
+open for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered
+there, and at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners
+of war were executed on the shore, and the executioner threw their heads
+into a great copper basin.
+
+"Good gracious!" gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
+
+It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the
+actors in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval
+Academy rather than in that terrible land of Dahomey.
+
+Madou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the
+ceremonies preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his
+arrival and life at Marseilles.
+
+He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the
+court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor,
+who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, "Not so much noise, if
+you please!" The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous
+scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all
+new and very trying to Madou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but
+the walls were so high, the court-yard so narrow, that he could never
+find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He was never
+allowed to go out as were the other pupils, and for a very good reason.
+At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where
+he often saw merchandise from his own country, and sometimes went into
+ecstasies at some well-known mark.
+
+The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their
+sails, all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
+
+Madou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,--one had brought
+him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed
+by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C's, for his eyes
+saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The
+result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and
+hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time,
+but escaped again, and the second time was not discovered until the ship
+was in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons. Any other child would have been
+kept on board; but when Madou's name was known, the captain took his
+royal Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a reward.
+
+After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a very
+close prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more; and this
+time, on being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so gently, and
+with such a sad smile, that no one had the heart to punish him. At
+last the principal of the institution declined the responsibility of so
+determined a pupil. Should he send the little prince back to Dahomey? M.
+Bonfils dared not permit this, fearing thereby to lose the good graces
+of the king. In the midst of these perplexities Moronvol's advertisement
+appeared, and the prince was at once dispatched to 23 Avenue
+Montaigne,--"the most beautiful situation in Paris,"--where he was
+received, as you may well believe, with open arms. This heir of a
+far-off kingdom was a godsend to the academy. He was constantly on
+exhibition; M. Moronval showed him at theatres and concerts, and along
+the boulevards, reminding one of those perambulating advertisements that
+are to be seen in all large cities.
+
+He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval,
+who entered a room with all the gravity of Fenelon conducting the Duke
+of Burgundy. The two were announced as "His Royal Highness the Prince of
+Dahomey, and M. Moronval, his tutor."
+
+For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of Madou; an attache
+of a London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and
+serious talk as to the course the young prince should pursue when called
+to the throne of his ancestors. The English journal published an account
+of the curious dialogue, and the vague replies certainly left much to be
+desired.
+
+At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this
+solitary pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented
+to him without a word of dispute. Madou's education, however, made
+but little progress. He still continued among the A B C's, and Madame
+Moronval's charming method made no impression upon him. His defective
+pronunciation was still retained, and his half-childish way of speaking
+was not changed. But he was gay and happy. All the other children were
+compelled to yield to him a certain deference. At first this was a
+difficult matter, as his intense blackness seemed to indicate to these
+other children of the sun that he was a slave.
+
+And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in
+spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their
+instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what
+could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo king.
+It was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as Madou was
+crowned, they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to develop
+the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a
+conservatory, and at the head of the Royal Chapel.
+
+Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp
+black heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon the
+inmates of which he could experiment without fear of any interference
+from the police. The first few weeks, therefore, of his sojourn at Paris
+seemed to Madou very sweet. If only the sun would shine out brightly, if
+the fine rain would cease to fall, or the thick fog clear away; if, in
+short, the boy could once have been thoroughly warm, he would have been
+content; and if Kerika, with her gun and her bow, her arms covered with
+clanking bracelets, could occasionally have appeared in the _Passage des
+Douze Maison_, he would have been very happy.
+
+But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day,
+bringing most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken
+prisoner by the Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal
+troops and the regiment of Amazons had all been conquered and dispersed.
+Kerika alone was saved, and she dispatched M. Bonfils to Madou to tell
+him to remain in France, and to take good care of his Gri-gri, for it
+was written in the great book that if Madou did not lose that amulet, he
+would come into his kingdom. The poor little king was in great trouble.
+Moronval, who placed no faith in the _gri-gri_, presented his bill--and
+such a bill!--to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but informed the principal
+that in future, if he consented to keep Madou, he must not rely upon any
+present compensation, but upon the gratitude of the king as soon as the
+fortunes and chances of war should restore him to his throne. Would
+the principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once signifying his intentions?
+Moronval promptly and nobly said, "I will keep the child." Observe that
+it was no longer "his Royal Highness." And the boy at once became
+like all the other scholars, and was scolded and punished as they
+were,--more, in fact, for the professors were out of temper with him,
+feeling apparently, that they had been deluded by false pretences. The
+child could understand little of this, and tried in vain all the gentle
+ways that had seemed to win so much affection before. It was worse still
+the next quarter, when Moronval, receiving no money, realized that Madou
+was a burden to him. He dismissed the servant, and installed Madou in
+his place, not without a scene with the young prince. The first time
+a broom was placed in his hands and its use explained to him, Madou
+obstinately refused. But M. Moronval had an irresistible argument ready,
+and after a heavy caning the boy gave up. Besides, he preferred to sweep
+rather than to learn to read. The prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept
+with singular energy, and the salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously
+clean; but Moronval's heart was not softened. In vain did the little
+fellow work; in vain did he seek to obtain a kindly word from his
+master; in vain did he hover about him with all the touching humility of
+a submissive hound: he rarely obtained any other recompense than a blow.
+
+The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain
+seemed to fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
+
+O Kerika! Aunt Kerika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come and
+see what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated, how
+scantily he is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is! He
+has but one suit now, and that a livery--a red coat and striped vest!
+Now, when he goes out with his master, he does not walk at his side--he
+follows him.
+
+Madou's honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of
+Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this
+last descendant of the powerful _Tocodonon_, the founder of the Dahomian
+dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of a huge
+basket, half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for nothing
+warms him now, neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the shame of
+having become a servant; nor even his hatred of "the father with a
+stick," as he called Moronval.
+
+And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Madou confided to Jack
+his projects of vengeance.
+
+"When Madou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the
+father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will
+cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big
+drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,--Boum!
+boum! boum!"
+
+Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro's white eyes,
+and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the
+drum, and was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the
+sabres, and the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket
+over his head, and held his breath.
+
+Madou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he
+thought his solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath,
+Madou said gently, "Shall we talk some more, sir?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jack; "only don't let us say any more about that drum,
+nor the copper basin." The negro laughed silently. "Very well, sir;
+Madou won't talk--you must talk now. What is your name?"
+
+"Jack, with a _k_. Mamma thinks a great deal about that--"
+
+"Is your mamma very rich?"
+
+"Rich! I guess she is," said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle Madou
+in his turn. "We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the boulevard,
+horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma comes here,
+how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look at her, she
+has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live at Tours;
+it was a pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we bought nice
+cakes, and where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The gentlemen
+were all good to me. I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,--not real papas,
+you know, because my own father died when I was a little fellow. When
+we first went to Paris I did not like it; I missed the trees and the
+country; but mamma petted me so much, and was so good to me, that I was
+soon happy again. I was dressed like the little English boys, and my
+hair was curled, and every day we went to the Bois. At last my mamma's
+old friend said that I ought to learn something; so mamma took me to the
+Jesuit College--"
+
+Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive
+him, wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and
+innocence of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to
+his mother in this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital,
+on which he had so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only
+serious trouble of his life. Why had they not been willing to receive
+him? why did his mother weep? and why did the Superior pity him?
+
+"Say, then, little master," asked the negro suddenly, "what is a
+cocotte?"
+
+"A cocotte?" asked Jack in astonishment. "I don't know. Is it a
+chicken?"
+
+"I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your mother
+was a cocotte."
+
+"What an ideal. You misunderstood," and at the thought of his mother
+being a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh;
+and Madou, without knowing why, followed his example.
+
+This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous
+conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided
+to each other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.~~THE REUNION.
+
+Children are like grown people,--the experiences of others are never of
+any use to them.
+
+Jack had been terrified by Madou's story, but he thought of it only as a
+frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first months
+were so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he forgot that
+Madou for a time had been equally happy.
+
+At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared
+his dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit
+appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch,
+whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable
+condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by
+descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious diseases,
+and, in fact, kept his hearers _au courant_ with all the ailments of the
+day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of the
+plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would nod his head with delight,
+and say, "It will be here before long--before long!"
+
+As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first,
+his near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of
+dropping into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops
+from a vial in his pocket The contents of this vial were never the same,
+for the doctor made new scientific discoveries each week, but in general
+bicarbonate, alkalies, and arsenic (in infinitesimal doses fortunately)
+made the base of these medicaments. Jack submitted to these preventives,
+and did not venture to say that he thought they tasted very badly.
+Occasionally the other professors were invited, and everybody drank the
+health of the little De Barancy, every one was enthusiastic over his
+sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher, Labassandre, at the least
+joke made by the child, threw himself back in his chair with a loud
+laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes with a corner
+of his napkin.
+
+Even D'Argenton, the handsome D'Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile crossed
+his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with
+haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he
+wish to understand, the signs made to him by Madou, as he waited upon
+the table, with a napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. Madou
+knew better than any one else the real value of these exaggerated
+praises and the vanity of human greatness.
+
+He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master's wine,
+flavored by the powder from the doctor's bottle; and the tunic, with its
+silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had been
+made for Madou? The story of the little negro should have been a warning
+to the small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the installation
+of both boys in the Moronval Academy had been precisely of the same
+character.
+
+The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into
+weeks. Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval,
+who snatched every opportunity of testing her method.
+
+As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new pupil.
+He had made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the Boulevard
+Hauss-mann, and had fully acquainted himself with the resources of the
+lady there. When, therefore, Madame de Barancy came to see Jack, which
+was very often, she met with a warm reception, and had an attentive
+audience for all the vain and foolish stories she saw fit to tell. At
+first Madame Moronval wished to preserve a certain dignified coolness
+toward such a person, but her husband soon changed that idea, and she
+saw herself obliged to lay aside her womanly scruples in favor of her
+interests.
+
+"Jack! Jack! here comes your mother," some one would cry as the door
+opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of
+cakes and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for every
+one; they all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy ungloved her
+hand, the one on which were the most rings, and condescended to take a
+portion. The poor creature was so generous, and money slipped so easily
+through her fingers, that she generally brought with her cakes all sorts
+of presents, playthings, &c., which she distributed as the fancy struck
+her. It is easy to imagine the enthusiastic praises lavished upon this
+inconsiderate, reckless generosity. Moronval alone had a smile of pity
+and of envy at seeing money so wasted, which should have gone to the
+assistance of some brave, generous soul like himself, for example.
+This was his fixed idea. And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing his
+finger-nails, he had an absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes
+to ask a loan, and has his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval's
+dream for some time had been to establish a Review consecrated to
+colonial interests, in this way hoping to satisfy his political
+aspirations by recalling himself regularly to his compatriots; and,
+finally, who knows he might be elected deputy. But, as a commencement,
+the journal seemed indispensable, and he had a vague notion that the
+mother of his new pupil might be induced to defray the expenses of this
+Review, but he did not wish to move too rapidly lest he should frighten
+the lady away; he intended to prepare the way gently. Unfortunately,
+Madame de Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of nature, was
+difficult to reach. She would continually change the conversation just
+at the important point, because she found it very uninteresting.
+
+"If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!" said Moronval
+to himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de
+Sevigne and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might
+as well have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was
+fluttering about his head.
+
+"I am not strong-minded nor literary," said Ida, with a half yawn, one
+day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
+
+Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be
+dazzled, not led.
+
+One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful
+tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she
+added the _de_ as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,--
+
+"M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not."
+
+"O, tell me, tell me!" said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish
+to oblige.
+
+The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the
+Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to
+act with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de
+Barancy to be present at one of their literary reunions on the following
+Saturday. Formerly these little fetes took place every week, but since
+Madou's fall they had been very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval
+had extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in vain had he
+dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the window-sill, and
+served it again the following week, the expense still was too great. But
+now he determined to hazard another attempt in that direction. Madame de
+Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea of making
+her appearance in the salon as a married woman of position was very
+attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on
+which she hoped to ascend from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.
+
+This was a most splendid fete at which she assisted. In the memory
+of all beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored
+lanterns hung on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted,
+and at least thirty candles were burning in the salon, the floor of
+which Madou had so waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it was as
+brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself;
+and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as
+to the part that the prince should take at the soiree.
+
+Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one
+day only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting;
+but, then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could
+replace him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some one in
+Paris who might not be pleased with this system of education; and
+finally it was decided that the soiree must be deprived of the presence
+and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight o'clock, "the children of
+the sun" took their seats on the benches, and among them the blonde head
+of little De Barancy glittered like a star on the dark background.
+
+Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary
+world--the one at least which he frequented--and the representatives of
+art, literature, and architecture appeared in large delegations.
+They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the depths of
+_Montparnasse_ on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and poor, unknown,
+but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the longing to be
+seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves that they
+were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure air, this glimpse of
+the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of glory and success, they
+returned to their squalid apartments, having gained a little strength
+to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there were
+painters longing for fame, but whose pictures looked as if an earthquake
+had shaken everything from its perpendicular; musicians--inventors
+of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains
+contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by
+reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if
+their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their
+offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to
+laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that
+had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have
+awakened profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.
+
+Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a
+taskmistress and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment..
+For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an
+agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.
+
+Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives.
+These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave,
+worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of
+men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they
+smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there
+were the habitues of the house, the three professors; Labassandre
+in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous
+inspirations; and D'Argenton, the handsome D'Argenton, curled and
+pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of
+authority, geniality, and condescension.
+
+Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one,
+shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later
+and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the
+countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de
+Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, "We will
+wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!"
+
+The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small
+green table, on which stood a glass of _eau-sucre_ and a reading-lamp,
+was in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red
+and oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and Madotu, shivering in
+the wind from the door,--all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile,
+as she came not, D'Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his
+assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in
+front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide forehead,
+the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called his poem.
+
+His friends were not sparing in their praises.
+
+"Magnificent!" said one. "Sublime!" exclaimed another; and the most
+amazing criticism came from yet another,--"Goethe with a heart?"
+
+Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to
+the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart
+was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat:
+now she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more his
+pale face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a
+love poem, and, believing in love as he did in God, he produced an
+extraordinary effect upon her.
+
+He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish
+sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such
+women.
+
+From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of
+her heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic
+signs to her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for
+Moronval, who bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that
+examined her from head to foot, as she stood before them in her black
+velvet dress and her little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses
+and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about her like a scarf.
+Years after she recalled the profound impression of that evening, and
+saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon, which
+seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The
+future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound
+her, crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but
+the recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be effaced.
+
+"You see, madame," said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile, "that
+we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte Amaury d'Argenton
+was reciting his magnificent poem."
+
+"Vicomte!" He was noble, then!
+
+She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
+
+"Continue, sir, I beg of you," she said.
+
+But D'Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had
+injured the effect of his poem--destroyed its point; and such things are
+not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that
+he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more
+about her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had
+displeased him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all
+little Jack's tender caresses and outspoken joy--all his delight at the
+admiration expressed for her, the attentions of everybody, the idea that
+she was queen of the fete--to efface the sorrow she felt, and which she
+showed by a silence of at least five minutes, which silence for a nature
+like hers was something as extraordinary as restful. The disturbance of
+her entrance being at last over, every one seated himself to await the
+next recitation.
+
+Mademoiselle Constant, who had accompanied her mistress, took her seat
+majestically on the front bench next the pupils. Jack swung himself on
+the arm of his mother's chair, between her and M. Moronval, who smoothed
+the lad's hair in the most paternal way.
+
+The assemblage was really quite imposing, and Madame Moronval took
+dignified possession of the little table and the shaded lamp, and
+proceeded to read an ethnographic composition of her husband's on the
+Mongolian races. It was long and tedious--one of those lucubrations
+that are delivered before certain scientific societies, and succeed in
+lulling the members to sleep. Madame Moronval took this opportunity of
+demonstrating the peculiarities of her method, which had the merit--if
+merit it were--of holding the attention as in a vice, and the words and
+syllables seemed to reverberate through your own brain. To see Madame
+Moronval open her mouth to sound her o's, to hear the r's rattle in
+her throat, was more edifying than agreeable. The mouths of the eight
+children opposite mechanically followed each one of her gestures,
+producing a most extraordinary effect; one absolutely fascinating to
+Mademoiselle Constant.
+
+But the countess saw nothing of all this; she had eyes but for her poet
+leaning against the door of the drawing-room, with arms folded and eyes
+moodily cast down. In vain did Ida seek to attract his attention; he
+glanced occasionally about the salon, but her arm-chair might as well
+have been vacant; he did not appear to see her, and the poor woman was
+rendered so utterly miserable by this neglect and indifference, that she
+forgot to congratulate Moronval on the brilliant success of his essay,
+which concluded amid great applause and universal relief.
+
+Then followed another brief poem by Argenton, to which Ida listened
+breathlessly.
+
+"Ah, how beautiful!" she cried; "how beautiful!" and she turned to
+Moronval, who sat with a forced smile on his lips. "Present me to M.
+d'Argenton, if you please."
+
+She spoke to the poet in a low voice and with great courtesy. He,
+however, bowed very coldly, apparently careless of her implied
+admiration.
+
+"How happy you are," she said, "in the possession of such a talent!"
+
+Then she asked where she could obtain his poems.
+
+"They are not to be procured, madame," answered D'Argenton, gravely.
+
+Without knowing it, she had again wounded his sensitive pride, and he
+turned away without vouchsafing another syllable.
+
+But Moronval profited by this opening. "Think of it!" he said; "think
+that such verses as those cannot find a publisher! That such genius as
+that is buried in obscurity! If we only could publish a magazine!"
+
+"And why can you not?" asked Ida, quickly.
+
+"Because we have not the funds."
+
+"But they can easily be procured. Such talent should not be allowed to
+languish!"
+
+She spoke with great earnestness; and Moronval saw at once that he had
+played his cards well, and proceeded to take advantage of the lady's
+weakness by talking to her of D'Argenton, whom he painted in glowing
+colors.
+
+He spoke of him as Lara, or Manifred, a proud and independent nature,
+one which could not be conquered by the hardships of his lot.
+
+Here Ida interrupted him to ask if the poet was not of noble birth.
+
+"Most assuredly, madame. He is a viscount, and descended from one of the
+noblest families in Auvergne. His father was ruined by the dishonesty of
+an agent."
+
+This was his text, which he proceeded to enlarge upon, and illustrate by
+many romantic incidents. Ida drank in the whole story; and while these
+two were absorbed in earnest conversation, Jack grew jealous, and made
+various efforts to attract his mother's attention. "Jack, do be quiet!"
+and "Jack, you are insufferable!" finally sent him off, with tearful
+eyes and swollen lips, to sulk in the corner of the salon. Meanwhile
+the literary entertainments of the evening went on, and finally
+Labassandre, after numerous entreaties, was induced to sing. His voice
+was so powerful, and so pervaded the house, that Madou, who was in the
+kitchen preparing tea, replied by a frightful war-cry. The poor fellow
+worshipped noise of all kinds and at all times.
+
+Moronval and the comtesse continued their conversation; and D'Argenton,
+who by this time understood that he was the subject, stood in front of
+them, apparently absorbed in conversation with one of the professors. He
+appeared to be out of temper--and with whom? With the whole world; for
+he was one of that very large class who are at war against society, and
+against the manners and customs of their day.
+
+At this very moment he was declaiming violently, "You have all the vices
+of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere name.
+Love is a farce. You have accomplished nothing intellectually."
+
+"Pardon me, sir," interrupted his hearer. But the other went on more
+vehemently and more aggressively. He wished, he said, that all France
+could hear what he thought. The nation was abased, crushed beyond all
+hope of recuperation. As for himself, he had determined to emigrate to
+America.
+
+All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that
+was bent upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that
+one has in the fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly rises
+behind you and compels you to turn toward its silent presence. The eyes
+of this woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in
+regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom
+settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D'Argenton
+wound up with a vigorous tirade against French women,--their lightness
+and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of their
+love.
+
+The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the chimney,
+and careless who heard either his voice or his words.
+
+Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that
+he was indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to
+herself.
+
+"He knows who I am," she said, and bowed her head in shame.
+
+Moronval said aloud, "What a genius!" and in a lower voice to himself,
+"What a boaster!" But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had
+Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities,
+been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this case of
+instantaneous combustion.
+
+An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two
+or three of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent
+wretchedness, stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns
+swung in the wind each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted,
+and not even a policeman enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the
+disputative little group that left the Moronval Academy cared little
+for the gloom, the cold, or the dampness.
+
+When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus
+had passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of
+life--in the same brave spirit.
+
+Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees,
+as well as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each
+borrow a little, and with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm serenity
+that may well be envied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.~~A DINNER WITH IDA.
+
+The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an invitation
+for the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a postscript,
+expressing the pleasure she should have in receiving also M. d'Argenton.
+
+"I shall not go," said the poet, dryly, when Moron-val handed him the
+coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw
+his plans frustrated. "Why would not D'Argenton accept the invitation?"
+
+"Because," was the answer, "I never visit such women."
+
+"You make a great mistake," said Moronval; "Madame de Barancy is not the
+kind of person you imagine. Besides, to serve a friend, you should
+lay aside your scruples. You see that I need the countess, that she is
+disposed to look favorably on my Colonial Review, and you should do all
+that lies in your power to favor my views. Come, now, think better of
+it."
+
+D'Argenton, after being properly entreated, finished by accepting the
+invitation.
+
+On the following Monday, therefore, Moronval and his wife left the
+academy under the supervision of Dr. Hirsch, and presented themselves in
+the Boulevard Haussmann, where the poet was to join them.
+
+Dinner was at seven; D'Argenton did not arrive until half an hour past
+the time. Ida was in a state of great anxiety. "Do you think he will
+come?" she asked; "perhaps he is ill. He looks very delicate."
+
+At last he appeared with the air of a conquering hero, making some
+indifferent excuse for his lack of punctuality. His manner, however, was
+less disdainful than usual, for the hotel had impressed him. Its luxury,
+the flowers, and thick carpets; the little boudoir with its bouquets of
+white lilacs; the commonplace salon, like a dentist's waiting-room, a
+blue ceiling and gilded mouldings, the ebony furniture, cushioned with
+gold color, and the balcony exposed to the dust of the boulevard,--all
+charmed the attache of the Moronval Academy, and gave him a favorable
+impression of wealth and high life.
+
+The table equipage, the imposing effect produced by Augustin, in short,
+all the luxurious details of the house, appealed to his senses, and
+D'Argenton, without flattering the countess as openly as did Moronval;
+yet succeeded in doing so in a more subtile manner, by thawing under her
+influence to a very marked extent.
+
+He was an interminable talker, and submitted with a very bad grace to
+any interruption. He was arbitrary and egotistical, and rang the changes
+on the _I_ and the _my_ for a whole evening, without allowing any one
+else to speak.
+
+Unhappily, to be a good listener is a quality far above natures
+like that of the countess; and the dinner was characterized by some
+unfortunate incidents. D'Argenton was particularly fond of repeating the
+replies he had made to the various editors and theatrical managers who
+had declined his articles, and refused to print his prose or his verse.
+His mots on these occasions had been clever and caustic; but with Madame
+de Barancy he was never able to reach that point, preceded as it must
+necessarily be with lengthy explanations. At the critical moment Ida
+would invariably interrupt him,--always, to be sure, with some thought
+for his comfort.
+
+"A little more of this ice, M. d'Argenton, I beg of you."
+
+"Not any, madame," the poet would answer with a frown, and continue,
+"Then I said to him--"
+
+"I am afraid you do not like it," urged the lady.
+
+"It is excellent, madame,--and I said these cruel words--"
+
+Another interruption from Ida; who, later, when she saw her poet in a
+fit of the sulks, wondered what she had done to displease him. Two or
+three times during dinner she was quite ready to weep, but did her best
+to hide her feelings by urging all the delicacies of her table upon M.
+and Madame Moronval. Dinner over, and the guests established in the well
+warmed and lighted salon, the principal fancied he saw his way clear,
+and said suddenly, in a half indifferent tone, to the countess,--
+
+"I have thought much of our little matter of business. It will cost less
+than I fancied."
+
+"Indeed!" she answered absently,
+
+"If, madame, you would accord to me a few moments of your attention--"
+
+But madame was occupied in looking at her poet, who was walking up and
+down the salon silent and preoccupied.
+
+"Of what can he be thinking?" she said to herself.
+
+Of his digestion only, dear reader. Suffering somewhat from dyspepsia,
+and always anxious in regard to his health, he never failed, on leaving
+the table, to walk for half an hour, no matter where he might chance to
+be.
+
+Ida watched him silently. For the first time in her life she loved,
+really and passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat
+before. Foolish and ignorant, while at the same time credulous and
+romantic; very near that fatal age--thirty years--which is almost
+certain to create in woman a great transformation; she now, aided by the
+memory of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal
+who resembled D'Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in
+looking at him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that
+her passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any one.
+
+Moron val, who looked on, shrugged his shoulders, with a glance at his
+wife. "She is simply crazy," he said to himself.
+
+She certainly was crazed in a degree; and, after dinner, she tormented
+herself to find some way of returning to the good graces of D'Argenton,
+and, as he approached her in his walk, she said,--
+
+"If M. d'Argenton wished to be very amiable, he would recite to us that
+beautiful poem which created such a sensation the other evening. I
+have thought of it all the week. There is one verse that haunts me,
+especially the final line:
+
+     'And I believe in love,
+     As I believe in a good God above.'"
+
+"As I believe in God above," said the poet, making as horrible a grimace
+as if his finger had been caught in a vice.
+
+The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply
+that she had again incurred the displeasure of D'Argenton. The fact
+is that he had begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own
+control, and which, in its unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the
+timid worship offered by the Japanese to their hideous idols.
+
+Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than
+nature had made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility
+that rendered her so charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D'Argenton
+relented, and suspended his hygienic exercise for a moment.
+
+"I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but
+what?"
+
+Here Moronval interposed. "Recite the 'Credo,' my dear fellow," he said.
+
+"Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you."
+
+The poem commenced gently enough with the words,--
+
+    "Madame, your toilette is charming."
+
+Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in
+these terrific words:
+
+     "Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,
+     Who drains from my heart its life-blood."
+
+As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful
+recollections, D'Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another
+word the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague
+fears of the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her
+poet, so drained his heart that there was not a drop left for her.
+
+"You know, my dear fellow," said Moronval, as they strolled through
+the empty boulevards, arm-inarm, that night, little Madame Moronval
+pattering on in front of them,--"you know if I can succeed in the
+establishment of my Review, that I shall make you editor-in-chief!"
+
+Moronval threw the half of his cargo overboard in order to save his
+ship, for he saw that unless the poet was enlisted, the countess would
+take no interest in the scheme. D'Argenton made no reply, for he was
+absorbed in thoughts of Ida.
+
+No man can play the part of a lyric poet, a martyr to love, without
+being conscious of, and touched by, that silent adoration which appeals
+to his vanity, both as a man of letters and a man of the world. Since
+he had seen Ida in her luxurious home, about which there was the same
+suspicion of vulgarity that clung about herself, the rigidity of his
+principles had amazingly softened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.~~AMAURY D'ARGENTON.
+
+Amaury d'Argenton belonged to one of those ancient provincial families
+whose castles resembled great farms. Impoverished for the three last
+generations, they had finally sold their property, and come to Paris to
+seek their fortunes; with little change for the better, however; and for
+the last thirty years they had dropped the _De_, which Amaury ventured
+to resume on adopting his literary career. He meant to make it famous,
+and even was audacious enough to announce this intention aloud.
+
+The childhood of the poet had been one of gloom and privation;
+surrounded by anxieties and by tears, by sordid cares, and that constant
+lack of money which imbitters the lives of so many of us, he had never
+laughed nor played like other children. A scholarship that was obtained
+for him enabled him to complete his studies, and his only recreation was
+obtained through the kindness of an aunt who resided in the Marais, and
+who gave him gloves and other trifles, which the poet very early in life
+learned to regard as essentials.
+
+Such a childhood ripens early into bitter maturity. Infinite prosperity
+is needed to efface such early impressions, and we often see men who
+have attained to high honors, who are rich and powerful, and yet who
+have never conquered the timidity born of their early deprivations.
+D'Argenton's bitterness was not without reason: at twenty-five he had
+succeeded in nothing; he had published a volume at his own expense, and
+had lived on bread and water in consequence for at least six months.
+He was industrious as well as ambitious; but something more than these
+qualities are essential to a poet, whose imagination and genius must be
+endowed with wings. These D'Argenton had not; he felt merely that vague
+uneasiness which indicates a missing limb, but that was all, and he lost
+both time and trouble in ineffectual efforts; his aunt aided him by a
+small allowance, but his life bore not the shadow of a resemblance to
+the picture drawn by Ida. In fact, D'Argenton had never been entangled
+in any serious love affair; his nature was cold and prudent, and yet he
+had been beloved by more than one woman. To D'Argenton, however, their
+society had always seemed a waste of time. Ida de Barancy was the first
+who had made upon him any real impression. Of this fact Ida had no idea,
+and whenever she met the poet on her very frequent visits to Jack, it
+was always with the same deprecating air and timid voice. The poet,
+while adopting an air of utter indifference, cultivated the affection
+and society of little Jack, whom he induced to talk freely of his
+mother.
+
+Jack being extremely flattered, gladly gave every information in his
+power, and talked freely of the kind friend who was so good to mamma.
+The mention of this person cost the poet a strange pang. "He is so
+kind," babbled Jack, "he comes to see us every day; or, if he does not
+come, he sends us great baskets of fruit, and playthings for me."
+
+"And is your mother very fond of him, too?" continued D'Argenton, without
+looking up from his writing.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir," answered the little fellow, innocently.
+
+But are we quite sure that he spoke so innocently. The minds of children
+are not always so transparent as we believe; and it is difficult to say
+when they understand matters that go on about them, and when they do
+not. That mysterious growth that is constantly going on within them,
+has unexpected seasons of bursting into flower, and they suddenly mass
+together the disconnected fragments of information they have acquired
+and intuitively attain the result.
+
+Had Jack, therefore, no perception of the hidden rage that filled the
+heart of his professor when he questioned him in regard to their kind
+friend? Jack did not like D'Argenton; in addition to his first dislike,
+he was now actuated by strong jealousy. His mother was too much occupied
+by this man. When he passed the day with her, she in her turn plied him
+with questions, and asked if his teacher never spoke to him of her.
+
+"Never," said Jack, calmly. And yet that very day D'Argenton had desired
+him to present his compliments to the countess, with a copy of his
+poems; but Jack at first forgot the volume, and finally lost it, as much
+from cunning as from heedlessness.
+
+Thus, while these two dissimilar natures were attracted toward each
+other, the child stood between them suspicious and defiant, as if he
+already foresaw what the future would bring about.
+
+Every two weeks Jack dined with his mother, sometimes alone with her,
+sometimes with their friend. They went to the theatre in the evening, or
+to a concert, and Jack was sent back to school with his pockets full of
+dainties, in which the other children shared.
+
+One evening, as he entered his mother's house, he saw the dining-table
+laid for three, and a gorgeous display of flowers and crystal. His
+mother met him, exquisitely dressed, wearing in her hair sprays of white
+lilacs, like those that filled the vases. The blazing fire alone lighted
+the salon, into which she gayly drew the boy, as she said, "Guess who is
+here!"
+
+"O, I know very well!" exclaimed Jack in delight; "it is our good
+friend."
+
+But it was D'Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa,
+near the fire. The enemy was in Jack's own seat, and the child was so
+overwhelmed by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained his
+tears. There was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all three.
+Just then the door was thrown open, and dinner announced by Augustin.
+The dinner was long and tedious to little Jack. Have you ever felt so
+entirely out of place that you would have gladly disappeared from off
+the face of the globe, painfully conscious, withal, that had you
+so vanished, no one would have missed you? When Jack spoke, no one
+listened; his questions were unheard and his wants unheeded. The
+conversation between his mother and D'Argenton was incomprehensible to
+him, although he saw that his mother blushed more than once, and hastily
+raised her glass to her lips as if to conceal her rising color. Where
+were those gay little dinners when Jack sat close at his mother's side
+and reigned an absolute king at the table? This recollection came to
+the boy's mind just as Madame de Barancy offered a superb pear to
+D'Argenton.
+
+"That came from our friend at Tours," said Jack, maliciously.
+
+D'Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate
+with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her
+child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did
+not venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary
+continuation of the repast.
+
+Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone
+that indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of
+his early home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors
+where the wind raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles
+in the great city, the constant obstacles thrown in the way of the
+development of his genius, of his jealous rivals and literary enemies,
+and of the terrible epigrams which he had hurled upon them.
+
+"Then I uttered these stinging words." This time she did not interrupt
+him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that
+when he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be
+heard in the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of the
+leaves of the album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over. Suddenly
+she rose with a start.
+
+"Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is
+quite time."
+
+"O, mamma!" said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he
+generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his
+mother, nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene
+and laughing eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
+
+She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
+
+"Good night, my child!" said D'Argenton, and he drew the child toward
+him as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of repulsion,
+turned aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
+
+"I cannot! I cannot!" he murmured, throwing himself back in his
+arm-chair and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
+
+Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
+
+"Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant." And while Madame de Barancy
+sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to
+his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor
+installed in his mother's chimney-corner, said to himself, "He is very
+comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!"
+
+In D'Argenton's exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there was
+certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very
+jealous of the child, who represented to him Ida's past, not that the
+poet was profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary,
+loved himself in her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image which
+he saw reflected in her clear eyes. But D'Argenton would have preferred
+to be the first to disturb those depths.
+
+But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. "Why did I not
+know him earlier?" she said to herself over and over again.
+
+"She ought to understand by this time," said D'Argenton, sulkily, "that
+I do not wish to see that boy."
+
+But even for her poet's sake Ida could not keep her child away from her
+entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon
+Jack from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the
+smallest of the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
+
+As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she
+lived, she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D'Argenton.
+
+"You will see," she said, "how I can aid you. I can work, and, besides,
+I shall not be completely penniless."
+
+But D'Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent
+enthusiasm and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
+
+"No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and then--"
+
+He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose heir
+he would unquestionably be. "The good old lady was very old," he added.
+And the two, Ida and D'Argenton, made a great many plans for the days
+that were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far away
+from Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They would
+have a little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed this
+legend: _Parva domus, magna quies_. There he could work, write a
+book--a novel, and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in
+readiness, but that was all.
+
+Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps
+a member of the Academy--though, to be sure, that institution was
+mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
+
+"That is nothing!" said Ida; "you must be a member!" and she saw herself
+already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly dressed, as
+befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited, however,
+they regaled themselves on the pears sent by "the kind friend, who was
+certainly the best and least suspicious of men."
+
+D'Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious;
+but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many
+little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.
+
+Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their
+lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement
+between Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily
+expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected
+D'Argenton of influencing her against the project, and this belief he
+ended by expressing to the poet.
+
+One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the
+windows with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so
+blue, that he longed for liberty and out-door life.
+
+The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the
+garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.
+
+From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of
+singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days
+when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to
+drive away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length
+of the nights and the smoke of the fires.
+
+While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother
+entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great
+care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not
+bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval's permission first; but
+as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission
+was easily granted.
+
+"How jolly!" cried Jack; "how jolly!" and while his mother casually
+informed Moronval that M. d'Argenton had told her the evening previous
+that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy ran
+to change his dress. On his way he met Madou, who, sad and lonely, was
+busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that
+the air was soft and the sunshipe warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright
+idea.
+
+"O, mamma, if we could take Madou!"
+
+This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were
+the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame
+Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy's place.
+
+"Madou! Madou!" cried the child, rushing toward him. "Quick, dress
+yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to
+breakfast in the Bois!"
+
+There was a moment of confusion. Madou stood still in amazement, while
+Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this
+emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited
+like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details
+in regard to the illness of D'Argenton's aunt.
+
+At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the
+victoria, and Madou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly
+be regarded as a royal one, but Madou was satisfied. The drive itself
+was charming, the Avenue de l'Imperatrice was filled with people
+driving, riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene.
+Babies, in their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet
+solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully dressed, with their
+tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight,
+kissed his mother, and pulled Madou by the sleeve.
+
+"Are you happy, Madou?"
+
+"Yes, sir, very happy," was the answer. They reached the Bois, in places
+quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of
+the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked
+like smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with
+snow half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose
+leaf-buds were only beginning to swell The carriage drew up at the
+restaurant, and while the breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in
+course of preparation, she and the children took a walk to the lake. At
+this early hour there were few of those superb equipages to be seen that
+appeared later in the day. The lake was lovely, with white swans dotting
+it here and there, and now and then a gentle ripple shook its surface,
+and miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old willows on one
+side.
+
+What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The
+children attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed
+incessantly from the beginning to the end of the repast.
+
+When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the _Jardin
+d'Acclimation_.
+
+"That is a splendid idea," said Jack, "for Madou has never been there,
+and won't he be amused!"
+
+They drove through _La Grande Allee_ in the almost deserted garden,
+which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the
+animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive
+eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought
+from the restaurant.
+
+Madou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify
+Jack, now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the
+blue ticket over the little inclosures to recognize certain animals from
+his own land. With mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the kangaroos,
+and seemed to suffer in seeing them in the limited space which they
+covered in three leaps.
+
+He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were
+inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and
+cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary
+exotic; but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even
+a green leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and Madou thought of the
+Academy Moronval and of himself. The plumage of the birds was dull and
+torn; they told a tale of past battles, of dismal flutterings against
+the bars of their prison-house. Even the rose-colored flamingoes and the
+long-billed ibex, who seem associated with the Nile and the desert and
+the immovable sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly commonplace aspect among
+the white peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that paddled at ease in
+their miniature pond.
+
+By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly appeared
+at the end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle that Madou
+stood still in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two elephants, who
+were slowly approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and bearing on
+their broad backs a crowd of women with light umbrellas, of children
+with straw hats and colored ribbons. Following the elephant came a
+giraffe carrying his small and haughty head very high. This singular
+caravan wound through the circuitous road, with many nervous laughs and
+terrified cries.
+
+Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief
+upon the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their
+trunks either toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the
+spectators, shaking their long ears when gently touched by some child,
+or by the umbrella of some laughing girl on their backs.
+
+"What is the matter, Madou; you tremble. Are you ill?" asked Jack. Madou
+was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he too
+could mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic in
+expression. Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his mother,
+whom he considered too grave for this fete-day. He liked to walk close
+at her side, or linger behind her in the dust of her long silken skirts,
+which she disdained to lift. They seated themselves, and watched the
+little black boy climb on the back of the elephant. Once there, the
+child seemed in his native place. He was no longer an exile, nor the
+awkward schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated by his menial
+duties and by his master's tyranny. He seemed imbued with new life, and
+his eyes sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little king! Two
+or three times he went around the garden. "Again! again!" he cried,
+and over the little bridge, between the inclosures of the kangaroos
+and other animals, he went to and fro, excited almost to madness by the
+heavy long strides of the elephant. Kerika, Dahomey, war-like scenes,
+and the hunt, all returned to his memory. He spoke to the elephant in
+his native tongue, and as he heard the sweet African voice, the huge
+creature shut his eyes with delight and trumpeted his pleasure. The
+zebras neighed, and the antelopes started in terror, while from the
+great cage of tropical birds, where the sun shone most fully, came
+warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant screams, and an enraged
+chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small scale, of a primeval
+forest in the tropics.
+
+But it was growing late. Madou must awaken from this beautiful dream.
+Besides, as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose
+keen and cold, as so often happens in the early spring. This wintry
+chill affected the spirits of the children, and they grew strangely
+quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She
+had something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty
+in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment.
+Then she took Jack's hand in hers. "Listen, child, I have some bad news
+to tell you!"
+
+He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he
+turned his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low,
+quick voice,--
+
+"I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you
+behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I
+shall not be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes,
+very soon, I promise you." And she threw out mysterious hints of a
+fortune to come, and money affairs, and other things that were not at
+all interesting to the child, who in reality paid little attention to
+her words, for he was weeping silently but chokingly. The gay streets
+seemed no longer the Paris of the morning, the sunshine was gone, the
+flowers on the corner-stands were faded, and all was very dreary, for
+he saw through eyes dim with tears, and the child was about to lose his
+mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.~~MADOU'S FLIGHT.
+
+Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D'Argenton.
+
+The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed
+the position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation
+as Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added
+that Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite
+time, and that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval's paternal
+care. In case of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be
+forwarded to the mother under cover to D'Argenton.
+
+"The paternal care of Moronval!" Had the poet laughed aloud as he penned
+these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child's fate at the
+academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left Paris, and
+that nothing more was to be expected from her?
+
+The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage,
+which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado
+might have done in the tropics.
+
+The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow,
+who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of
+her years--for she was by no means in her earliest youth--should be so
+heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
+
+But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, "Wait a while,
+young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you."
+
+But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished
+project, he was more indignant that D'Argenton and Ida should have made
+use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to
+the Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no
+nearer elucidation.
+
+Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that
+she had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to
+be given up, and the furniture sold.
+
+"Ah! sir," said Constant, mournfully, "it was an unfortunate day for us
+when we set foot in your old barracks!"
+
+The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of
+the next quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding,
+therefore, that the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined
+to put an end to all the indulgences with which he had been treated.
+Poor Jack after this day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as
+the butt for all the teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him.
+There were constant allusions made to D'Argenton: he was selfish and
+vain, a man totally without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more
+than doubtful; the chateau in the mountains, of which he discoursed so
+fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the
+man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented him
+from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly
+laughed at each one of Moronval's witticisms. The fact was, that Jack
+dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks
+invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning,
+but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly.
+Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly
+word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand. During his
+absence, she administered a reproof to her husband and his friends.
+
+"Pshaw!" said Labassandre, "he does not understand." Perhaps he did not
+fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.
+
+He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the
+same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one
+of the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage.
+The boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and
+Jack for the first time was severely flogged.
+
+From that day the charm was broken, and Jack's daily life did not
+greatly differ from that of Madou, who was at this time very unhappy.
+The pleasant weather, and the day at the _Jardin d'Aclimation_, had
+given him a terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took
+the form of a sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all
+this was changed, the boy's eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about
+the house and the garden as if in a dream.
+
+One night the black boy was undressing, and Jack heard him singing to
+himself in a language that was strange.
+
+"What are you singing, Madou?"
+
+"I am not singing, sir; I'm talking negro talk!" and Madou confided to
+his friend his intention of running away from school. He had thought of
+it for some time, and was only waiting for pleasant weather; and now he
+meant to go to Dahomey, and find Kerika. If Jack would go with him,
+they would go to Marseilles on foot, and then go on board some vessel.
+Nothing could happen to them, for he had his amulet all safe. Jack made
+many objections. Dahomey had no charms for him. He thought of the copper
+basin, and the terrible heads, with an emotion of sick horror; and,
+besides, how could he go so far from his mother?
+
+"Good," said Madou; "you can remain here, and I will go alone."
+
+"And when?"
+
+"To-morrow," answered the negro, resolutely closing his eyes as if he
+knew that he would need all the strength that sleep could give him.
+
+The next morning, when Jack passed through the large recitation-room,
+he saw Madou busily scrubbing the floor, and concluded that he had
+relinquished his project.
+
+The classes were busy for an hour or two, when Moronval appeared. "Where
+is Madou?" he asked abruptly. "He has gone to market," answered madame.
+Jack, however, said to himself that Madou would not return.
+
+In a little while Moronval came back and asked the same question.
+His wife answered, uneasily, that she could not understand the boy's
+prolonged absence.
+
+Dinner-time came, but no Madou, no vegetables, and no meat.
+
+"Something must have happened," said Madame Moronval, more indulgent
+than her impatient husband, who paced up and down the corridor with his
+rod in his hand, while the hungry schoolboys were quite ready to devour
+each other. Finally, Madame Moronval sallied forth herself to buy some
+provisions; and on her return, burdened with packages, she was greeted
+by an enthusiastic shout from the children, who, when the fierceness
+of their hunger abated, ventured on surmises as to Madou's whereabouts.
+Moronval shrewdly suspected the truth. "How much money did he have?" he
+asked.
+
+"Fifteen francs," was his wife's timid answer.
+
+"Fifteen francs! Then it is certain he has run away!"
+
+"But where has he gone?" asked the doctor; "he could hardly reach
+Dahomey with that amount."
+
+Moronval scowled fiercely, and went to report to the police, for it was
+very essential to him that the child should be found, or, at all events,
+prevented from reaching Marseilles. Moronval was in wholesome fear of
+Monsieur Bonfils. "The world is so wicked, you know," he said to
+his wife; "the boy might make some complaints which would injure the
+school." Consequently, in making his report at the police office,
+he stated that Madou had carried away a large sum. "But," he added,
+assuming an air of indifference, "the money part of the matter is of
+very little importance, compared to the dangers that the poor child
+runs--this dethroned king without country or people;" and Moronval
+dashed away a tear.
+
+"We will find him, my good sir," said the official; "have no anxiety."
+
+But Moronval was anxious, nevertheless, and so agitated, that, instead
+of awaiting quietly at home the result of the investigations, as he had
+been advised to do, he started out himself, with all the children to
+join in the search.
+
+They went to each one of the gates, interrogated the custom-house
+officers, and gave them a description of Madou. Then the party repaired
+to the police court, for Moronval had the singular idea that in this
+way his pupils might learn something of Parisian life. The children,
+fortunately, were too young to understand all they saw, but they carried
+away with them a most sinister impression. Jack especially, who was
+the most intelligent of the boys, returned to the academy with a heavy
+heart, shocked at the glimpse he had caught of this under-current of
+life. Over and over again he said to himself, "Where can Madou be?"
+
+Then the child consoled himself with the thought that the negro was far
+on the road to Marseilles; which road little Jack pictured to himself as
+running straight as an arrow, with the sea at its termination, and the
+vessel lying ready to sail. Only one thing disturbed him in regard
+to Madou's journey: the weather, that had been so fine the day of
+his departure, had suddenly changed; and now the rain fell in
+torrents,--hail too, and even snow; and the wind blew around their frail
+dwelling, causing the poor little children of the sun to shiver in their
+sleep, and dream of a rocking ship and a heavy sea. Curled up under his
+blankets one night, listening to the howling of the fierce wind, Jack
+thought of his friend, imagined him half frozen lying under a tree, his
+thin clothing thoroughly wet. But the reality was worse than this.
+
+"He is found!" cried Moronval, rushing into the dining-room, one
+morning. "He is found; I have just been notified by the police. Give me
+my hat and my cane!"
+
+He was in a state of great excitement. As much from the desire to
+flatter the master, as from the love of noise that characterizes boys,
+the children hailed this news with a wild hurrah. Jack did not speak,
+but sighed as he said to himself, "Poor Madou!"
+
+Madou had been, in fact, at the station-house since the evening before.
+It was there, amid criminals of all grades, that the presumptive heir of
+the kingdom of Dahomey was found by his excellent tutor.
+
+"Ah, my unfortunate child! have I found you at last?"
+
+The worthy Moronval could say no more; and, on seeing him throw his long
+arms eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector of
+police could not help thinking: "At last I have seen one teacher who
+loves his pupils!" Madou, however, displayed the utmost indifference.
+His face was positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of
+apprehension was visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to
+see nothing; his face was pale--and the pallor of a negro is something
+appalling. He was covered with mud from head to foot, and looked like
+some amphibious animal who, after swimming in the water, had rolled in
+the mud on the shore. No hat, and no shoes. What had happened to him? He
+alone could have told you, and he would not speak. The policeman said,
+that, making his rounds the evening before, he had found the boy hidden
+in a lime-kiln, that he was half-starved, and stupefied by the excessive
+heat. Why had he lingered in Paris?
+
+This question Moronval did not ask; nor, indeed, did he speak one word
+to Madou during their long drive to the academy. The boy was so worn out
+and crushed that he sank into a corner, while Moronval glanced at him
+occasionally with an expression of rage that at any other time would
+have terrified him.
+
+Moronval's glance was like a keen rapier, with a flash like lightning,
+crossing a poor little broken blade, shivered and rusty.
+
+When Jack saw the pitiful black face, the rags and the dirt, he could
+hardly recognize the little king. Madou, as he passed, said good morning
+in so mournful a tone that Jack's eyes filled with tears. The children
+saw nothing more of the black boy that day. Recitations went on in their
+usual routine, and at intervals the sound of a lash was heard, and heavy
+groans from Moronval's private study. Madame Moronval turned pale, and
+the book she held trembled. Even when all was again silent, Jack fancied
+that he still heard the groans.
+
+At dinner the principal was radiant, though seemingly exhausted by
+fatigue. "The little wretch!" he said to Dr. Hirsch and his wife. "The
+little wretch! Just, see the state he has put me into!"
+
+That night Jack found the bed next to his occupied. Poor Madou had put
+his master into such a state that he himself had not been able to go
+to bed without assistance. Madame Moronval and Dr. Hirsch were there
+watching the lad, whose sleep was broken by those heavy sighs and sobs
+common to children after a day of painful excitement.
+
+"Then, Dr. Hirsch, you don't think him ill?" asked Madame Moronval,
+anxiously.
+
+"Not in the least, madame; that race has a covering like a monitor!"
+
+When they were alone, Jack took Madou's hand and found it as burning
+hot as a brick from the furnace. "Dear Madou," he whispered. Madou half
+opened his eyes and looked at his friend with an expression of utter
+discouragement.
+
+"It's all over with Madou," he murmured; "Madou has lost his Gri-gri,
+and will never see Dahomey again."
+
+This was the reason, then, that he had not left Paris. Two hours after
+he had run away from the academy, the fifteen francs of market-money
+and his medal had been stolen from him. Then, relinquishing all idea of
+Marseilles, of the ship and of the sea, knowing that without his Gri-gri
+Dahomey was unattainable, Madou had spent eight days and nights in the
+lowest depths of Paris, looking for his amulet. Fearing that Moronval
+would discover his whereabouts, he hid during the day and ventured
+into the streets only after nightfall. He slept by the side of piles of
+bricks and mortar, which partly protected him from the wind; or crawled
+into an open doorway, or under the arches of a bridge.
+
+Favored by his size and by his color, Madou glided about almost unseen;
+he had associated with criminals of all classes, and had escaped without
+contamination, for he thought only of finding his amulet. He had shared
+a crust of bread with assassins, and drank with robbers; but the little
+king escaped from these dangers as he had from others in Dahomey, where,
+when hunting with Kerika, he had been awakened by the trumpeting of
+elephants and the roaring of wild beasts, and saw, under some gigantic
+tree, the dim shadow of some strange animal passing between himself
+and the bivouac fires; or caught a glimpse of some great snake slowly
+winding through the underbrush. But the monsters to be found in Paris
+are more terrible even than those in the African forests; or they would
+have been, had he understood the dangers he incurred. But he could
+not find his Gri-gri. Madou could not talk much, his exhaustion was so
+great; and Jack fell asleep with his curiosity but partially satisfied.
+
+In the middle of the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from
+Madou, who was singing and talking in his own language with frightful
+volubility. Delirium had begun.
+
+In the morning, Dr. Hirsch announced that Madou was very ill. "A
+brain-fever!" he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
+
+This Dr. Hirsch was a terrible man. His head was stuffed full of
+all sorts of Utopian ideas, of impracticable theories, and notions
+absolutely without method. His studies had been too desultory to amount
+to anything. He had mastered a few Latin phrases, and covered his real
+ignorance by a smattering of the science of medicine as practised among
+the Indians and the Chinese. He even had a strong leaning toward the
+magic arts, and when a human life was intrusted to his care he took that
+opportunity to try some experiments. Madame Moronval was inclined to
+call in another physician, but the principal, less compassionate, and
+unwilling to incur the additional expense, determined to leave the case
+solely in the hands of Dr. Hirsch. Wishing to have no interference,
+this singular physician pretended that the disease was contagious, and
+ordered Madou's bed to be placed at the end of the garden in an old
+hot-house. For a week he tried on his little victim every drug he had
+ever heard of, the child making no more resistance than a sick dog would
+have done. When the doctor, armed with his bottles and his powders,
+entered the hot-house, the "children of the sun," to whose minds a
+physician was always more or less of a magician, gathered about the door
+and listened, saying to each other in awed tones, "What is he going
+to do now to Madou?" But the doctor locked the door, and peremptorily
+ordered the children from its vicinity, telling them that they would be
+ill too, that Madou's illness was contagious; and this last idea added
+additional mystery to that corner of the garden.
+
+Jack, nevertheless, desired to see his friend so much that he alone of
+all the boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been too
+closely guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the doctor
+had gone in search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into the
+improvised infirmary.
+
+It was one of those half rustic buildings which are used as a shelter
+for rakes and hoes, or even to house some tender plants. Close by
+the side of Madou's iron bed, in the corner, was a pile of earthen
+flowerpots; a broken trellis, some panes of glass, and a bundle of dried
+roots, completed the dismal picture; and in the chimney, as if for the
+protection of some fragile tropical plant, flickered a tiny fire.
+
+Madou was not asleep. His poor little thin face had still the same
+expression of absolute indifference. His black hands, tightly clenched,
+lay on the outside of the bedclothes. There was a look of a sick animal
+in his whole attitude, and in the manner in which he turned his face
+toward the wall, as if an invisible road was open to his eyes through
+the white stones, and every chink in the wall had become a brilliant
+outlook toward a country known to him alone.
+
+Jack whispered, "It is I, Madou,--little Jack."
+
+The child looked at him vacantly; he no longer understood the French
+language. In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct
+had effaced all that art had inculcated, and Madou understood and
+spoke nothing save his savage dialect. At this moment, another of "the
+children of the sun," Said, encouraged by Jack's example, followed him
+into the sick-room, but, startled and disturbed by the strange scene,
+retreated to the doorway, and stood with affrighted eyes.
+
+Madou drew one long, shivering sigh.
+
+"He is going to sleep, I think," whispered Said, shivering with terror;
+for, older than Jack, he intuitively felt the cold blast from the wings
+of Death, which already fanned the brow of the sick boy.
+
+"Let us go," said Jack, pale and troubled; and they hastily ran down the
+garden-walk, leaving their comrade alone in the twilight. Night came
+on. In that silent room, which the children had left, the fire crackled
+cheerfully, burning brightly, and illuminating every corner as if in
+search of something that was hidden. The light flickered on the ceiling
+and was reflected on every small window-pane, glanced over the little
+bed, and brought out the color of Madou's red sleeve, until tired
+apparently of its fruitless search, discouraged and exhausted, and
+convinced that its heat was useless, for no one was there to warm. The
+fire gave one last expiring flicker, and then, like the poor little
+half-frozen king, who had so loved it, sank into eternal rest.
+
+Poor Madou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for
+Moronval hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal
+prince or of a servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on
+the other, vanity and policy had a word to say. After much indecision,
+Moronval decided to strike a great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he
+had not profited much by the prince living, he might gain something
+from him dead. So a pompous funeral was arranged. All the daily papers
+published a biography of the little king of Dahomey. It was a short one,
+to be sure, but lengthened by a panegyric of the Moronval Institute, and
+of its principal. The discipline of the establishment was commended;
+its hygienic regulations, the peculiar skill of its medical
+adviser,--nothing had been forgotten, and the unanimity of the eulogiums
+was something quite touching.
+
+One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its innumerable
+occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one eye open to
+all that goes on,--Paris saw on its principal boulevards a singular
+procession. Four black boys walked by the side of a bier. Behind, a
+taller lad, a tone lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,--our friend
+Said,--carried on a velvet cushion an order or two, some royal insignia
+fantastic in character. Then came Moronval, with Jack and the other
+schoolboys. The professors followed with the habitues of the house, the
+literary men whom we met at the soiree. How shabby were these last!
+How many worn-out coats and worn-out hearts were there! How many
+disappointed hopes and unattainable ambitions! All these slowly
+marched on, embarrassed by the full light of day to which they were
+unaccustomed; and this melancholy escort precisely suited the little
+deposed king. Were not all of these persons pretendents, too, to some
+imaginary kingdom to which they would never succeed? Where but in Paris
+could such a funeral be seen? A king of Dahomey escorted to the grave by
+a procession of Bohemians!
+
+To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to fall,
+as if fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather, even to
+the very grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been lowered,
+Moronval pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it would
+not have warmed you, my poor Madou! Moronval spoke of the virtues and
+estimable qualities of the defunct, of the model sovereign he would one
+day have made had he lived. To those who had been familiar with that
+pitiful little face, who had seen the child abased by servitude,
+Moronval's discourse was at once heart-breaking and absurd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK'S DEPARTURE.
+
+The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The
+death of his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and
+the lonely deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew too
+that now he must bear alone all Moronval's whims and caprices, for the
+other pupils all had some one who came occasionally to see them, and
+who would report any brutalities of which they were the victims. Jack's
+mother never wrote to him nowadays, and no one at the Institute knew
+even where she was. Ah! had he but been able to ascertain, how quickly
+would the child have gone to her, and told her all his sorrows. Jack
+thought of all this as they returned from the cemetery. Labassandre and
+Dr. Hirsch were in front of him, talking to each other.
+
+"She is in Paris," said Labassandre, "for I saw her yesterday."
+
+Jack listened eagerly.
+
+"And was he with her?"
+
+She--he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet Jack
+knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet
+not have hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was
+meditating his escape.
+
+Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head
+of the procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with a
+rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys,
+whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked. They would
+increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again.
+Jack contrived to linger more and more among the last.
+
+"Come!" cried Moronval.
+
+"Come, come!" repeated Said.
+
+At the entrance of the Champs Elysees Said turned for the last time,
+gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the
+Egyptian's arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!
+
+At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any
+look of haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he
+drew nearer the Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took possession
+of him, and his little feet, in spite of himself, went faster and
+faster. Would the house be closed? And if Labassandre were mistaken, and
+his mother not in Paris, what would become of him? The alternative of a
+return to the academy never occurred to him. Indeed, if he had thought
+of it, the remembrance of the heavy blows and heartfelt sobs that he had
+heard all one afternoon would have filled him with terror.
+
+"She is there," cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all
+the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when
+his mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should
+take her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule,
+he was struck by something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full
+of people all busily talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas
+and chairs, covered for a boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that
+in the broad light of day they looked faded. A mirror, framed in
+silver, and ornamented with cupids, was leaning against one of the stone
+pillars; a jardiniere without flowers, and curtains that bad been taken
+down and thrown over a chair, were near by. Several women richly dressed
+were talking together of the merits of a crystal chandelier.
+
+Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could
+hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The
+visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard,
+felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady,
+without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or
+two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she?
+He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same
+direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he
+heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that said,--
+
+"A child's bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!"
+
+And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough
+men. He wished to exclaim,
+
+"The bed is mine--my very own--I will not have it touched;" but a
+certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room
+looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.
+
+"What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?"
+
+It was Constant, his mother's maid--Constant, in her Sunday dress,
+wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.
+
+"Where is mamma?" asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so
+pitiful and troubled that the woman's heart was touched.
+
+"Your mother is not here, my poor child," she said.
+
+"But where is she? And what are all these people doing?"
+
+"They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen, Master
+Jack, we can talk better there."
+
+There was quite a party in the kitchen,--the old cook, Augustin, and
+several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne
+around the same table where Jack's future had been one evening decided.
+The child's arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them all,
+for the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother. As
+he was afraid that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack
+took good care not to say that he had run away, and merely spoke of an
+imaginary permission he had received to enable him to visit his mother.
+
+"She is not here, Master Jack," said Constant, "and I really do not know
+whether I ought--" Then, interrupting herself, Constant exclaimed, "O! it
+is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his mother!"
+
+Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.
+
+The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. "Is it far
+from here?" he asked.
+
+"Eight good leagues," answered Augustin.
+
+But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated
+discussion as to the route to be taken to reach _Etiolles_. Jack
+listened eagerly, for he had already decided to attempt the journey
+alone and on foot.
+
+"Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a wood,"
+said Constant.
+
+Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This
+and the name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The
+distance did not frighten him. "I can walk all night," he said to
+himself, "even if my legs are little." Then he spoke aloud. "I must go
+now," he said, "I must go back to school." One question, however, burned
+on his lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this powerful
+barrier between his mother and himself? He dared not ask Constant,
+however. Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet felt very
+keenly that this. Was not the best side of his mother's life, and he
+avoided all mention of it.
+
+The servants said "good-bye," the coachman shook hands with him, and
+then the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He
+did not linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest
+for him, but hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey that
+would end by placing him with his mother.
+
+Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned
+as the first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find,
+although it was a good distance off, but the fear of being caught by
+Moronval spurred him on. An inquisitive look from a policeman startled
+him, a shadow on the wall, or a hurried step behind, made his heart
+beat, and over and above the noise and confusion of the streets he
+seemed to hear the cry of "Stop him! Stop him!" At last he climbed over
+the bank and began to run on the narrow path by the water's edge. The
+day was coming to an end. The river was very high and yellow from recent
+rains, the water rolled heavily against the arches of the bridge, and
+the wind curled it in little waves, the tops of which were just touched
+by the level rays of the setting sun. Women passed him bearing baskets
+of wet linen, fishermen drew in their lines, and a whole river-side
+population, sailors and bargemen, with their rounded shoulders and
+woollen hoods, hurried past him. With these there was still another
+class, rough and ferocious of aspect, who were quite capable of pulling
+you out of the Seine for fifteen francs, and of throwing you in again
+for a hundred sous. Occasionally one of these men would turn to look at
+this slender schoolboy who seemed in such a hurry.
+
+The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place
+it was black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal.
+Farther on, similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor
+of fresh orchards was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a
+great harbor; steamboats were loading at the wharves; a few rods more,
+and a group of old trees bathed their distorted roots in a limpid
+stream, and one could easily fancy one's self twenty leagues from Paris,
+and in an earlier century.
+
+But night was close at hand.
+
+The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted,
+and illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very
+darkest body of water.
+
+But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long
+wharf, covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had
+reached Bercy, but it was night, and he was filled with terror lest
+he should be stopped at the gate; but the little fugitive was hardly
+noticed. He passed the barrier without hindrance, and soon found himself
+in a long, narrow street, solitary and dimly lighted. While the child
+was in the life and motion of the city, he was terrified only by one
+thought, and that was that Moronval would find him. Now he was still
+afraid, but his fear was of another character--born of silence and
+solitude.
+
+Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street
+was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled
+on, these buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably
+lower in height. Although barely eight o'clock, this road was almost
+deserted. Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp
+ground, while the dismal howling of a dog added to the cheerlessness
+of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step that he took led him further
+from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the last wineshop.
+A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the child the
+limits of the inhabited world.
+
+After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go
+into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated
+at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking
+and talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had
+hideous faces--such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day
+they were looking for Madou. The woman, above all, was frightful.
+
+"What does he want?" said one of the men.
+
+The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of
+light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The
+darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until
+he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after
+field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the
+monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of
+reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith's forge. The child
+stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of
+doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now
+suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what
+he had undertaken.
+
+Had he strength enough to reach his mother?
+
+He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of
+the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the
+spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was
+stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow
+against the white stones.
+
+Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step
+forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and
+to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the
+wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally
+repulsive.
+
+The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful
+beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If
+he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that
+he should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this
+stupor. An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern,
+suddenly appeared.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," said the child, gently, breathless with
+emotion.
+
+The soldier who carried the lantern raised it in the direction of the
+voice.
+
+"This is a bad hour to travel, my boy," remarked the officer; "are you
+going far?"
+
+"O, no, sir; not very far," answered Jack, who did not care to tell the
+truth.
+
+"Ah, well! we can go on together as far as Charenton."
+
+What a delight it was to the child to walk for an hour at the side of
+these two honest soldiers, to regulate his steps by theirs, and to see
+the cheerful light from the lantern! From the soldier, too, he casually
+learned that he was on the right road.
+
+"Now we are at home," said the officer, halting suddenly. "Good night.
+And take my advice, my lad, and don't travel alone again at night--it
+is not safe." And with these parting words, the men turned up a narrow
+lane, swinging the lantern, leaving Jack alone at the entrance of the
+principal street in Charenton. The child wandered on until he found
+himself on the quay; he crossed a bridge which seemed to him to be
+thrown over an abyss, so profound were the depths below. He lingered for
+a moment, but rough voices singing and laughing so startled him that he
+took to his heels and ran until he was out of breath, and was again in
+the open fields. He turned and looked back; the red light of the great
+city was still reflected on the horizon. Afar off he heard the grinding
+of wheels. "Good!" said the child; "something is coming." But nothing
+appeared. And the invisible wagon, whose wheels moved apparently with
+difficulty, turned down some unseen lane.
+
+Jack toiled on slowly. Who was that man that stood waiting for him at
+the turning of the road? One man! Nay, there were two or three. But they
+were trees,--tall, slender poplars,--or a clump of elms--those lovely
+old elms which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was
+environed by the mysteries of nature,--nature in the springtime of the
+year, when one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and the
+earth crackle as the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint, vague
+noises bewildered little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme with
+which his mother formerly rocked him to sleep.
+
+It was pitiful to hear the child, alone in the darkness, encouraging
+himself by these reminiscences of his happy, petted infancy. Suddenly
+the little trembling voice stopped.
+
+Something was coming--something blacker than the darkness itself,
+sweeping down on the child as if to swallow him up. Cries were heard;
+human voices, and heavy blows. Then came a drove of enormous cattle,
+which pressed against little Jack on all sides; he feels the damp breath
+from their nostrils; their tails switch violently, and the heat of their
+bodies, and the odor of the stable, is almost stifling. Two boys and
+two dogs are in charge of these animals; the dogs bark, and the uncouth
+peasants yell, until the noise is appalling.
+
+As they pass on, the child is absolutely stupefied by terror. These
+animals have gone, but will there not be others? It begins to rain, and
+Jack, in despair, fails on his knees, and wishes to die. The sound of a
+carriage, and the sight of two lamps like friendly eyes coming quickly
+toward him, revives him suddenly. He calls aloud.
+
+The carriage stops. A head, with a travelling cap drawn closely down
+over the ears, bends forward to ascertain the whereabouts of the shrill
+cry.
+
+"I am very tired," pleaded Jack; "would you be so kind as to let me come
+into your carriage?"
+
+The man hesitated, but a woman's voice came to the child's assistance.
+"Ah, what a little fellow I Let him come in here."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the traveller.
+
+The child hesitated. Like all fugitives, he wished to hide his
+destination. "To Villeneuve St George," he answered, nervously.
+
+"Come on, then," said the man, with gruff kindness.
+
+The child was soon curled up under a comfortable travelling rug, between
+a stout lady and gentleman, who both examined him curiously by the light
+of the little lamp.
+
+Where was he going so late, and all alone, too? Jack would have liked
+to tell the truth, but he was in too great fear of being carried back to
+the Institute. Then he invented a story to suit the occasion. His mother
+was very ill in the country, where she was visiting. He had been told of
+this the night before, and he had at once started off on foot, because
+he had not patience to wait for the next day's train.
+
+"I understand," said the lady. And the gentleman looked as if he
+understood also, but made many wise observations as to the imprudence of
+running about the country alone, there were so many dangers. Then he was
+asked in what house in Villeneuve his mother's friends resided.
+
+"At the end of the town," answered Jack, promptly,--"the last house on
+the right."
+
+It was lucky that his rising color was hidden by the darkness. His
+cross-examination, however, was by no means over. The husband and wife
+were great talkers, and, like all great talkers, extremely curious, and
+could not be content until they had learned the private affairs of all
+those persons with whom they came in contact. They kept a little store,
+and each Saturday went into the country to get rid of the dust of the
+week; but they were making money, and some day would live altogether at
+Soisy-sous-Etiolles.
+
+"Is that place far from Etiolles?" asked Jack, with a start.
+
+"O, no, close by," answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut with
+his whip to his beast.
+
+What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have
+gone on in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary
+legs, and had a comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman's shawl,
+who asked him, every little while, if he was warm enough.
+
+If he could but summon courage enough to say, "I have told you a
+falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;" but he was
+unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet,
+when they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could not
+restrain a sob.
+
+"Do not cry, my little friend," said the kind woman; "your mother,
+perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her
+well."
+
+At the last house the carriage stopped.
+
+"Yes, this is it," said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind
+good-bye. "How lucky you are to have finished your journey," said the
+woman; "we have four good leagues before us."
+
+Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the
+garden-gate. "Good night," said his new friends, "good night."
+
+He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward
+the right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it
+with all his speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened
+by inadequate repose, refused all service. At the end of a few rods he
+could go no further, but sank on the roadside with a burst of passionate
+tears, while the hospitable proprietors of the carriage rolled
+comfortably on, without an idea of the despair they had left behind
+them.
+
+He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to
+think or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little boy
+sleeps quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and sees
+something monstrous--a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes that
+send forth a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving behind
+him a train like a comet's tail. A grove of trees, quite unsuspected by
+Jack, suddenly flashed out clearly; each leaf could have been counted.
+Not until this apparition was far away, and nothing of it was visible
+save a small green light, did Jack know that it was the express train.
+
+What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill
+and stiff in every limb. He had dreamed of Madou,--dreamed that they lay
+side by side in the cemetery; he saw Madou's face, and shivered at the
+thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from
+this idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened
+in the cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so
+unnaturally heavy, that he fancied Madou was at his side or behind him.
+
+The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two.
+Another village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy
+plods on, with swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop.
+Occasionally he meets a huge covered wagon, driver and horses sound
+asleep. He asks, in a timid, tired voice, "Is it far now to Etiolles?"
+No answer comes save a loud snore.
+
+Soon, however, another traveller joins the child--a traveller whose
+praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of
+the frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety
+of expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born
+day.
+
+Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the
+town where his mother was, the clouds divide--are torn apart suddenly,
+as it were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually
+broadens, with a waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light
+with a strength imparted by incipient delirium.
+
+Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting to
+welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and looked
+like a large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness. The road
+no longer dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth highway, without
+ditch or pavement, intended, it seemed, for the carriages of the
+wealthy. Superb residences, with grounds carefully kept, were on both
+sides of this road. Between the white houses and the vineyards were
+green lawns that led down to the river, whose surface reflected the
+tender blue and rosy tints of the sky above. O sun, hasten thy coming;
+warm and comfort the little child, who is so weary and so sad!
+
+"Am I far from Etiolles?" asked Jack of some laborers who were going to
+their work.
+
+"No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road
+straight on through the wood."
+
+The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and
+the rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of
+wild roses was repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old
+oak-trees; the branches shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged
+creatures; and while the last of the shadows faded away, and the
+night-birds with silent, heavy flight hurried to their mysterious
+shelters, a lark suddenly rises from the field with its wings
+wide-spread, and flies higher and higher until it is lost in the sky
+above. The child no longer walks, he crawls; an old woman meets him,
+leading a goat; mechanically he asks if it is far to Etiolles.
+
+The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a
+little stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles
+over the pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he
+sees a steeple and a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will
+reach them. But he is dizzy and falls; through his half-shut eyes he
+sees close at hand a little house covered with vines and roses. Over the
+door, between the wavering shadows of a lilac-tree already in flower, he
+saw an inscription in gold letters:--
+
+     PARVA  DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the
+blinds are still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are
+awake, for he hears a woman's voice singing,--singing, too, his own
+cradle-song, in a fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were
+thrown open, and a woman appeared in a white negligee, with her hair
+lightly twisted in a simple knot.
+
+"Mamma, mamma!" cried Jack, in a weak voice.
+
+The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor
+little worn and travel-stained lad.
+
+She screamed "Jack!" and in a moment more was beside him, warming him in
+her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out the
+anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.~~PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+"No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go
+back to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I tell
+you that you shall never go there again, but shall always be with me. I
+will arrange a little room for you to-day, and you will see how nice it
+is to be in the country. We have cows and chickens, and that reminds me
+the poultry has not yet been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a while. I
+will wake you at dinner-time, but first drink this soup. It is good, is
+it not? And to think that while I was calmly sleeping, you were alone
+in the cold and dark night. I must go. My chickens are calling me;" and
+with a loving kiss Ida went off on tiptoe, happy and bright, browned
+somewhat by the sun, and dressed with rather a theatrical idea of the
+proprieties. Her country costume had a great deal of black velvet about
+it, and she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, trimmed with poppies and
+wheat.
+
+Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by Mere
+Archambauld, his mother's cook, had restored his strength to a very
+great degree, and he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm,
+satisfied eyes.
+
+There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large,
+furnished in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the
+least gilding. Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the
+pigeons on the roof, and his mother's voice talking to her chickens,
+lulled him to repose.
+
+One thing troubled him: D'Argenton's portrait hung at the foot of the
+bed, in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.
+
+The child said to himself, "Where is he? Why have I not seen
+him?" Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue
+him either with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his
+mother.
+
+She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and
+her dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high
+heels.
+
+Mere Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife
+of an employe in the government forests, who attended to the culinary
+department at Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack's mother
+lived.
+
+"Heavens! how pretty your boy is!" said the old woman, delighted by
+Jack's appearance.
+
+"Is he not, Mere Archambauld? What did I tell you?"
+
+"But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa.
+Good day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?"
+
+At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.
+
+"Ah, well! if you can't sleep, let us go and look at the house," said
+his mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She shook down
+her skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which was
+situated a stone's throw from the village, and realized better than
+most poets' dreams those of D'Argenton. The house had been originally a
+shooting-box belonging to a distant chateau. A new tower had been added,
+and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense respectability
+to the place. They visited the stable and the orchard, and finished
+their examination by a visit to the tower.
+
+A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a
+large, round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular
+divan covered with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious
+old oaken chests, a Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high
+carved chair of the time of Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous
+table covered with papers, composed the furniture of the apartment. A
+charming landscape was visible from the windows, a valley and a river, a
+fresh green wood, and some fair meadow-land.
+
+"It is here that HE works," said his mother, in an awed tone.
+
+Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.
+
+In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at
+her son,--
+
+"At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I
+shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is
+very fond of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little
+severe sometimes. You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall be
+very unhappy."
+
+As she spoke she looked at D'Argenton's picture hung at the end of this
+room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact,
+a portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the
+entrance-hall, and it was a most significant fact that there was no
+other portrait than his in the whole house. "You promise me, Jack, that
+you will love him?"
+
+Jack answered with much effort, "I promise, dear mamma."
+
+This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in
+that quaint old drawing-room. They heard Mere Archambauld rattling her
+dishes in the kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack
+sat and admired his mother. She thought him much grown and very large
+for his age, and they laughed and kissed each other every few minutes.
+In the evening they had some visitors. Pere Archambauld came for his
+wife, as he always did, for they lived in the depths of the forest. He
+took a seat in the dining-room.
+
+"You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the health
+of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you sometimes
+into the forest?"
+
+And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of
+the poachers throughout the country, looked about the room with that
+restless glance acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and
+answered timidly,--
+
+"That I will, Madame d'Argenton."
+
+This name of D'Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little
+friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or
+dignities of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother's
+new title, and became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two dogs
+under the table. The old couple had just gone, when a carriage was heard
+at the door.
+
+"Is it you, doctor?" cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,
+
+"Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose
+arrival I have heard."
+
+Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy
+locks. The doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling walk,
+the result of twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.
+
+"Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through
+my servant, that he and you might require my services."
+
+What good people these all were, and bow thankful little Jack felt that
+he had forever left that detestable school!
+
+When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother
+and child went tranquilly to their bedroom.
+
+There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D'Argenton a long letter, telling
+him of her son's arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the
+little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her
+side. She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from her
+poet.
+
+Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness,
+and to the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less
+terrible than she had anticipated. In fact, D'Argenton concluded that
+it was well to be relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and
+while disapproving of the escapade, he thought it no great misfortune,
+as the Institution was rapidly running down. "Had he not left it?" As to
+the child's fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a week
+later, they would consult together as to what plan to adopt.
+
+Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of
+utter happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs
+and the goat, the forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his
+mother for many minutes at a time. He followed her wherever she went,
+laughed when she laughed without asking why, and was altogether content.
+
+Another letter. "He will come to-morrow!"
+
+Although D'Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and
+wished to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused
+to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She
+gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had
+each been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly
+mortifying.
+
+"You will remain at the end of the garden," she said, "and do not come
+until I call you."
+
+The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the
+grinding of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself
+behind the gooseberry bushes. He heard D'Argenton speak. His tone was
+harder, sterner than ever. He heard his mother's sweet voice answer
+gently, "Yes, my dear--no, my dear." Then a window in the tower opened.
+"Come, Jack, I want you, my child!"
+
+The boy's heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D'Argenton was
+leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the
+dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to
+the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate
+to a certain extent. "Jack," he said, in conclusion, "life is not a
+romance; you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your
+penitence; and if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we
+three may live together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a
+very busy man.--I am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every
+day to your education. If you will study faithfully, I can make of you,
+frivolous as you are by nature, a man like myself."
+
+"You hear, Jack," said his mother, alarmed at his silence, "and you
+understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you--"
+
+"Yes, mamma," stammered Jack.
+
+"Wait, Charlotte," interrupted D'Argenton; "he must decide for himself:
+I wish to force no one."
+
+Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to
+find words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying
+nothing. Seeing the child's embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him
+into the poet's arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.
+
+"Ah, dear, how good you are!" murmured the poor woman, while the child,
+dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.
+
+In reality Jack's installation in the house was a relief to the poet.
+He loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also
+because he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the
+name of Ida de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her
+a complete slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and D'Argenton
+had grown tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he
+would have some one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to
+bully; and it was in this spirit that he undertook Jack's education,
+for which he made all arrangements with that methodical solemnity
+characteristic of the man's smallest actions.
+
+The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to
+the wall, and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a
+carefully prepared arrangement for the routine of the day.
+
+"_Rise at six_. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight,
+recitation; from eight to nine," and so on.
+
+Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose
+shutters hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light
+to see with. Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but
+D'Argenton allowed no such laxity.
+
+D'Argenton's method of education was too severe for Jack, who was,
+however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in
+his studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to
+whom he had a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by
+the new life he was leading.
+
+Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the
+country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and charmed
+by Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside all books
+until the child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day, when he sat
+in the tower opposite his teacher, he was seized with a strong desire
+to leap out of the window, and rush into the fresh woods after the birds
+that had just flown away, or in search of the squirrel of which he had
+caught a glimpse. What a penance it was to write his copy, while the
+wild roses beckoned him to come and pluck them!
+
+"This child is an idiot," cried D'Argenton, when to all his questions
+Jack stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if
+he had that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily
+watching. At the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished
+the task, that it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no
+use to the boy, who neither could nor would learn anything. In
+reality, he was by no means unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had
+established, and which pressed with severity on himself as well as on
+the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She preferred
+to think her boy incapable of study rather than endure the daily scenes,
+and the incessant lectures and tears of this educational experiment.
+
+Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as
+her intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future,
+however brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of
+present tranquillity.
+
+Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard:
+"Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight," &c.
+The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that his
+presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself for
+the whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to children
+and loungers.
+
+He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the
+morning he started for Father Archambauld's, just as the old man's wife,
+before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers, served her
+husband's breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light green paper
+that represented the same hunting-scene over and over again.
+
+When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started
+out on a long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants'
+nests, with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the
+trees; the haunts of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the young
+kids. The hawthorn's white blossoms perfumed the air, and a variety of
+wild flowers enamelled the turf. The forester's duty was to protect the
+birds and their young broods from all injury, and to destroy the moles
+and snakes. He received a certain sum for the heads or tails of these
+vermin, and every six months carried to Corbiel a bag of dry and dusty
+relics. He would have been better pleased could he have taken also the
+heads of the poachers, with whom he was in constant conflict. He had
+also a great deal of trouble with the peasants who injured his trees.
+
+A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a
+tree, the growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched
+them so carefully that he knew all their maladies. One species of
+fir was attacked by tiny worms, which come in some mysterious way by
+thousands. They select the strongest and handsomest specimens, and take
+possession of them. The trees have only their resinous sap as a weapon
+of defence. This sap they pour over their enemies, and over their eggs
+deposited in the crevices of the bark. Jack watched this unequal contest
+with the greatest interest, and saw the slow dropping of these odorous
+tears. Sometimes the fir-tree won the victory, but too often it perished
+and withered slowly, until at last the giant of the forest; whose lofty
+top had been the haunt of singing-birds, where bees had made their home,
+and which had sheltered a thousand different lives, stood white and
+ghastly as if struck by lightning.
+
+During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion
+talked very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable
+sounds about them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it
+touched. Among the pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the
+birches and aspens, it rattled the leaves like castanets; while from the
+borders of the ponds, which were numerous in this part of the forest,
+came gentle rustlings from the long, slender, silken-coated reeds. Jack
+learned to distinguish all these sounds and to love them.
+
+The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the
+peasants, who saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had
+sworn eternal hatred. Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats
+respectfully enough to Jack when they met him with Father Archambauld,
+but when he was alone, they shook their fists at him with horrible
+oaths.
+
+There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very
+dreams of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with
+her fagots on her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her
+tongue; and sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few
+steps. Poor little Jack often reached his mother's side breathless and
+terrified, but, after all, this only added another interest to his life.
+Sometimes Jack found his mother in the kitchen talking in a low voice;
+no sound was to be heard in the house save the ticking of the great
+clock in the dining-room. "Hush, my dear," said his mother; "He is
+up-stairs. He is at work!"
+
+Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With
+the awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he
+ought not to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.
+
+"Hush, dear," exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother
+Archambauld, laying the table, moved on the points of her big
+feet--moved as lightly as possible, so as not to disturb "her master who
+was at work."
+
+He was heard up-stairs--pushing back his chair, or moving his table.
+He had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the
+title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that
+formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,--leisure,
+sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and
+country air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn
+his chair, and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky
+and water. All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river,
+came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the
+cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
+
+"Now to work!" cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his
+pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion
+of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful
+country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached
+by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around
+him every essential for poetry,--a charming woman named in memory of
+Goethe's heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white
+goat to follow him from place to place, and an antique clock to mark the
+hours and to connect the prosaic Present with the romance of the Past!
+All these were very imposing, but the brain was as sterile as when
+D'Argenton had given lessons all day and retired to his garret at night,
+worn out in body and mind.
+
+When Charlotte's step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression
+of profound absorption. "Come in," he said, in reply to her knock,
+timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to
+the elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face
+seemed to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an opera bouffe.
+
+"I have come to see my poet," she said, as she came in. She had a way
+of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. "How are you getting
+on?" she continued. "Are you pleased?"
+
+"Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible
+profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!"
+
+"That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know--"
+
+"To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his
+_Faust?_ And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was
+not condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude--mental solitude, I mean."
+
+The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened
+to similar complaints from D'Ar-genton, she had at last learned to
+understand the reproaches conveyed in his words.
+
+The poet's tone signified, "It is not you who can fill the blank around
+me." In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone
+with her.
+
+Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him
+in this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the
+luxury by which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to
+himself--transformed and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm
+in his eyes, and yet she was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to
+witness the air of business with which he opened each morning the three
+or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke the seals as if
+he expected to find in their columns something of absorbing personal
+interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a resume
+of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these journals
+without missing one word, and always found something to arouse his
+contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces were
+played; and what pieces they were! Their books were printed; and such
+books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he could write them
+down.
+
+"You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was produced;
+it was simply my _Pommes D'Atlante_."
+
+"But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur Angier,"
+said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.
+
+During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D'Argenton lashed
+himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the
+heavy frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him
+very clearly that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BELISAIRE.
+
+One afternoon, when D'Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack,
+who was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his
+usual excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.
+
+The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges;
+distant rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of
+expectation which often precedes a storm.
+
+Fatigued by the child's restlessness, the forester's wife looked out at
+the weather, and said to Jack,--
+
+"Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you
+to go and get me a little grass for my rabbits."
+
+The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off
+to search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.
+
+The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in
+clouds, when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, "Hats! Hats to sell!
+Nice Panamas!"
+
+Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on his
+shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if he
+were footsore and weary.
+
+Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman
+must be? He knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can
+obtain the shelter of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a
+pedler, or any stranger, indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with
+distrustful eyes.
+
+"Hats! Hats to sell!" For whose ears did he intend this repetition of
+his monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was it
+for the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm, had
+taken shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of stones,
+while Jack, on the other side of the road, examined him with much
+curiosity. His face was forbidding to a certain extent, but expressed so
+much suffering in the heavy features, that Jack's kind heart was filled
+with pity. At that moment a thunder-clap was heard; the man looked up
+at the skies anxiously, and then called to Jack to ask how far off the
+village was.
+
+"Half a mile exactly," answered the child.
+
+"And the shower will be here in a few moments," said the pedler,
+despairingly. "All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined."
+
+The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a
+kind act.
+
+"You can come to our house," he said, "and then your hats will not
+be injured." The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for his
+merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible; the
+man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.
+
+"Are you in pain?" asked the child.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are
+so big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I
+should ever be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!"
+
+They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold
+of hats, and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the
+dining-room, saying, "You must have a glass of wine and a bit of bread."
+
+Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big loaf
+and a pot of wine.
+
+"Now a slice of ham," said Jack, in a tone of command.
+
+"But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham," said the old
+woman, grumbling. In fact, D'Argenton was something of a glutton, and
+there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his especial
+enjoyment.
+
+"Never mind! bring it out!" said the child, delighted at playing the
+part of host.
+
+The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The ped-ler's appetite was of the
+most formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple
+story. His name was Belisaire, and he was the eldest of a large
+family, and spent the summer wandering from town to town.--A violent
+thunder-clap shook the house, the rain fell in torrents, and the noise
+was terrific. At that moment some one knocked. Jack turned pale. "They
+have come!" he said with a gasp.
+
+It was D'Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not
+to have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they
+had given up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the
+poet was in a fearful rage with himself and every one else. "A fire in
+the parlor," he said, in a tone of command.
+
+But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D'Argenton
+perceived the formidable pile of hats.
+
+"What is that?" he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred feet
+under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The poet
+entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The child
+stammered a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.
+
+"Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it
+seems."
+
+"O, Jack! Jack!" cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.
+
+"Do not scold him, madame," stammered Belisaire. "I only am in fault!"
+
+Here D'Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most
+imposing gesture. "Go at once," he said, violently; "how dare you come
+into this house?"
+
+Belisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of
+remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress
+at the tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little
+Jack--who sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the
+Panamas,--and hurried down the garden walk. No sooner had the man
+reached the highway, than his melancholy voice resumed the cry, "Hats!
+Hats to sell!"
+
+In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a
+fire, and Charlotte was shaking the poet's coat, while he sulkily strode
+up and down the room.
+
+As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler's
+knife had made sad havoc. D'Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham
+was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. "What! the
+ham, too!" he exclaimed.
+
+Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically
+repeat his words.
+
+"I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was
+too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much
+yet, he is so young."
+
+Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only
+beg pardon in a troubled tone.
+
+"Pardon, indeed!" cried the poet, giving way, as it must be admitted
+he rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently, exclaimed,
+"What right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not yours. You
+know that nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the food
+you eat, you are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you?
+I know not even your name!" Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte
+stopped the torrent of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room,
+and listening with eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed
+up stairs, banging the door after him.
+
+Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her
+pretty hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done to
+merit such a hard fate.
+
+This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and,
+naturally, her question remained unanswered.
+
+To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D'Argenton
+was now taken with one of "his attacks," a form of bilious fever.
+
+Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The
+sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly
+nature, made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How
+tenderly she protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the table
+under the white one to soften the noise of the plates and the silver.
+She piled the Henry II. chair with cushions, and had her rolls of hot
+flannels and her tisanes in readiness at all hours of the day and night.
+
+Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by
+a fretful exclamation from the poet. "Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk
+too much!"
+
+This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more.
+Charlotte met him in the hall. "Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is
+suffering," she said, anxiously.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement."
+
+In fact, D'Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid
+tones, soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a
+new face, which made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a
+few moments later beheld him launched on some dazzling episode of his
+Parisian life. The doctor saw no reason to doubt the truth of these
+narrations told in such measured and careful phrases, and was always
+pleased with the appearance of the family,--the intellectual husband,
+the pretty gay wife, and the amusing child; and no intuition gave him a
+hint, as might have been the case with a more delicate organization,
+of the peculiarity and bitterness of the ties which bound the household
+together.
+
+Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor's horse
+was fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass
+carefully mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told
+of his wonderful adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears
+wide open.
+
+"Jack!" said D'Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the door.
+
+"Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am
+quite sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;" and
+the old man talked of his little Cecile, who was two years younger than
+Jack.
+
+"Bring her to see us, doctor," said Charlotte; "the two children would
+be so happy together."
+
+"Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She
+never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere
+since our great sorrow."
+
+This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his
+daughter and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some
+mystery surrounded this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld, who
+knew everything, contented herself with saying, "Yes, poor things! they
+have had a great deal of trouble."
+
+The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, "Keep him
+amused, madame; keep him amused!"
+
+How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little
+carriage; breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the
+forest; but he was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a tete-a-tete
+in the middle of the Seine was worse than one on shore; and the little
+boat soon lay moored at the landing, half full of water and dead leaves.
+
+Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an
+Italian terrace: but even this did not amuse him.
+
+One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of
+an AEolian harp. D'Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic
+scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack's
+life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like
+a soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child's great
+relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to
+the end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard.
+D'Argenton fiercely commanded that the instrument should be buried,
+which was done, and the earth heaped upon it as over some mad animal.
+All these various occupations failing to amuse her poet, Charlotte
+reluctantly decided to invite some of his old friends, but was repaid
+for her sacrifice by witnessing D'Argenton's joy on being told that Dr.
+Hirsch and Labassandre were soon to visit them.
+
+When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of
+his old professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the
+sounds recalled the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped quietly
+into the garden, there to await the dinner-bell.
+
+"Come, gentlemen," said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on the
+terrace,--her large white apron indicating that au a good housekeeper
+she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and
+take an active part.
+
+The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack
+as he took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large doors
+opened on the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.
+
+"You are a lucky fellow," said Labassandre. "Tomorrow I shall be in that
+hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner."
+
+"It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable dinner,"
+grumbled Dr. Hirsch.
+
+"Why not remain here for a time?" said D'Argen-ton, cordially. "There is
+a room for each of you; the cellar has some good wine in it--"
+
+"And we can make excursions," interrupted Charlotte, gayly.
+
+"But what would become of my rehearsals?" said Labassandre.
+
+"But you, Dr. Hirsch," continued Charlotte, "you are tied down to the
+opera-house!"
+
+"Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this
+season."
+
+The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no
+one laughed.
+
+"Well, decide!" cried the poet, "In the first place, you would be doing
+me a favor, and could prescribe for me."
+
+"To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution,
+while I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute
+and of Moron-val, and never wish to see either more." Thereupon the
+doctor launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported
+him. Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every
+one was giving him up; the affair of Madou had done him great injury;
+and finally Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack on his
+energetic departure.
+
+At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was
+overjoyed at finding so gay and talkative a circle. "You see, madame, I
+was right: our invalid only needed a little excitement."
+
+"There I differ from you!" cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the
+battle from afar.
+
+Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. "Dr.
+Hirsch," said D'Argenton, "allow me to present you to Dr. Rivals."
+They bowed like two duellists on the field who salute each other
+before crossing their swords. The country physician concluded his
+new acquaintance to be some famous Parisian practitioner, full of
+eccentricities and hobbies. D'Argenton's illness was the occasion of a
+long discussion between the physicians.
+
+It was droll to see the poet's expression. He was inclined to take
+offence that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and
+again to be equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a
+hundred diseases, each one with a worse name than the others.
+
+Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.
+
+"But this is utter nonsense," cried Rivals, who had listened
+impatiently; "there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if
+there were, our friend has no such symptoms."
+
+This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They
+hurled at each other titles of books in every language, names of every
+drug known and unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable than
+terrific, and was very much like one from "Moliere." Jack and his mother
+escaped to the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his voice.
+The winged inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the peacocks
+in the neighboring chateau answered by those alarmed cries with which
+they greet the approach of a thunder-shower; the neighboring peasants
+started from their sleep, and old Mother Archambauld wondered what was
+going on in the little house, where the moon shone so whitely on the
+legend in gold characters over the door:
+
+     PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.~~CECILE.
+
+"Where are you going so early?" asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he
+saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the
+stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of
+Lord Pembroke.
+
+"To church, my dear sir. Has not D'Argenton told you that I have an
+especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you
+not?"
+
+It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being
+asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats
+reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned
+with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on
+a rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the
+picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives
+in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in
+the Te Deum of this official fete.
+
+Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one
+told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious
+festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse
+D'Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige
+of a married woman. This new role amused and interested her. She
+corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her
+rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.
+
+When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a
+halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother's ear
+a question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him;
+Charlotte hesitated, for "she knew so few persons in the church.
+Then the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals' grandchild--a little girl on the
+opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children walked
+slowly behind the majestic official, Cecile carrying a velvet bag much
+too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous wax
+candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers. They
+were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply dressed,
+with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and her face
+illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers mingled with
+the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. Cecile
+presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave.
+The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his
+own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the
+forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his best friend, and
+that, later, all that was most precious in life for him would come from
+her?
+
+"They would make a pretty pair," said an old woman, as the children
+passed her, and in a lower voice added, "Poor little soul, I hope she
+will be more fortunate than her mother!"
+
+Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence
+of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in
+store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame
+D'Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast.
+Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the boy's
+necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, "Be a good child!"
+
+From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old
+doctor's, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his
+neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a
+brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were
+black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that
+some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of
+that nature had been interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and
+the old people had never had the heart to go on with their improvements
+since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say, with a discouraged air,
+"What is the use?" The garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass
+grew over the walks, and weeds choked the fountain. The human beings in
+the house had much the same air. From Madame Rivals, who, eight years
+after her daughter's death, still wore the deepest of black, down
+to little Cecile, whose childish face had a precocious expression of
+sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter of a century had shared
+the griefs and sorrows of the family,--all seemed to live in an
+atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain
+intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was ever
+cheerful.
+
+To Madame Rivals, Cecile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the
+child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the
+doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her
+mother's place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would
+give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on
+meeting his wife's sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
+
+Little Cecile's life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden,
+or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the
+apartment that had once been her mother's, and which was full of the
+souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this
+room, but little Cecile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent.
+The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very
+bad for her; she needed the association of other children. "Let us ask
+little D'Argenton here," said her grandfather: "the boy is charming!"
+
+"Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?"
+answered his wife. "Who knows them?"
+
+"Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he is
+an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The woman
+is not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will answer for
+their respectability."
+
+Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
+husband's insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
+
+Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original
+idea.
+
+"The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
+could possibly happen?"
+
+The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cecile became close
+companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw
+that he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and
+that he had no lesson-hours.
+
+"Do you not go to school, my dear?"
+
+"No, madame," was the answer; and then quickly added,--for a child's
+instinct is very delicate,--"Mamma teaches me."
+
+"I cannot understand," said Madame Rivals to her husband, "how they can
+let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till
+night."
+
+"The child is not very clever," answered the doctor, anxious to excuse
+his friends.
+
+"No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him."
+
+Jack's best friends were in the doctor's house. Cecile adored him. They
+played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy
+if it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
+apothecary's store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself.
+She had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable
+experience, and was often consulted in her husband's absence. The
+children found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles,
+and pasting on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy's awkwardness,
+while little Cecile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman
+grown.
+
+The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he went
+about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large, the
+children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably, and
+merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were warmly
+welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the children
+roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.
+
+Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is
+never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life.
+The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to
+pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the
+wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard day's
+toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn,
+while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for morning.
+Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have been very
+rich, had he not been so generous.
+
+His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for
+home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet
+occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees,
+with their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low
+white houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern
+scene. "It is like Nazareth," said little Cecile; and the two children
+told each other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.
+
+Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
+intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to
+himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an
+hour's instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of
+enjoying a siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by
+the old man, when I add that it was this precise time that he now freely
+gave to the little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied himself
+with his whole heart to his lessons. Cecile was almost always present,
+and was as pleased as Jack himself when her grandfather, examining the
+copy-book, said, "Well done!" To his mother, Jack said nothing of
+his labors; he determined to prove to her at some future day that the
+diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This concealment was rendered
+very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent to her
+child, and more completely absorbed in D'Argenton. The boy's comings and
+goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was often vacant,
+but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the board, for
+D'Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means generous in his
+hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him, timidly, "I am out of
+money, my friend," he would reply by a wry face and the word, "Already?"
+But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the pleasure of patronizing
+his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he had formerly lived, carried
+the day. They all knew that he had a pleasant home, that the air was
+good and the table better; consequently, one would say to another, "Who
+wants to go to Etiolles to-night?" They came in droves.
+
+Poor Charlotte was in despair. "Madame Archambauld, are there
+eggs?--is there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give
+them?"
+
+"Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved," said
+the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
+her master's friends.
+
+D'Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
+dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as
+happy and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh
+country, in the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed
+more rusty and more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy,
+and D'Argenton radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal "I
+think," and "I know." Was he not the master of the house, and had he not
+the key of the wine cellar?
+
+Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
+Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She
+was flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was
+pleased to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
+
+Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy mists
+of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the fierce
+winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and violets,
+gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing was changed
+there. D'Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms, dignified
+by Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as totally without
+salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as she had always
+been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having studied
+industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.
+
+"Send him to school now," said Doctor Rivals to his mother, "and I
+answer for his making a figure."
+
+"Ah, doctor, how good you are!" cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and
+feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
+stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
+
+D'Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that
+he had grave objections to a school, &c., and when alone with Charlotte,
+expressed his indignation at the doctor's interference, but from that
+time took more interest in the movements of the boy.
+
+"Come here, sir," said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed
+somewhat anxiously. "Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot
+of the garden?"
+
+"It was I, sir."
+
+Cecile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had
+manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.
+
+"Did you make it yourself, without any aid?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the child.
+
+"It is wonderful, very wonderful," continued the singer, turning to the
+others. "The child has a positive genius for mechanics."
+
+In the evening there was a grand discussion. "Yes, madame/," said
+Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; "the man of the future, the coming
+man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs,
+and now it is the workman's turn. You may to-day despise his horny
+hands, in twenty years he will lead the world."
+
+"He is right," interrupted D'Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded
+approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the
+conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion
+felt a keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
+
+Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village
+forge. "You know, my friends," he said, "whether I have been successful.
+You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals. You may
+believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part with
+all sooner than with this;" and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve and
+displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two blacksmith's
+hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an inscription was
+above these emblems in small letters: _Work and Liberty_. Labassandre
+proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the manager of the opera at
+Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let alone, he would by this time
+have been the proprietor of a large machine shop, with a provision laid
+up for his old age.
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, "but you were very strong, and I have heard you
+say that the life was a hard one."
+
+"Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in question
+is sufficiently robust."
+
+"I will answer for that," said Dr. Hirsch.
+
+Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more
+refined than others--"that certain aristocratic instincts--"
+
+Here D'Argenton interrupted her in a rage. "What nonsense! My friends
+occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
+absurdities."
+
+Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire
+to fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his
+pretty mother.
+
+Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in
+his mother's manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him
+with that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom we
+are about to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D'Argenton say
+to Dr. Rivals, with a satirical smile, "We are all busy, sir, in your
+pupil's interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will
+astonish you."
+
+The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, "You see, my dear, that
+I did well to make them open their eyes."
+
+"Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good
+to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with
+folded arms than trouble himself about you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.~~LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.
+
+One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had brought
+Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the garden
+busy with his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice came
+from the window of the poet's room. Something in its tone, or a certain
+instinct so marked in some persons, told the child that the crisis had
+come, and he tremblingly ascended the stairs. On the Henri Deux chair
+D'Argenton sat, throned as it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch
+stood on either side. Jack saw at once that there were the tribunal, the
+judge, and the witnesses, while his mother sat a little apart at an open
+window.
+
+"Come here!" said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
+dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself
+had spoken. "I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have
+seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn
+has now come to enter the arena. You are a man,"--the child was but
+twelve,--"you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For
+a year,--the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,--I have
+permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of
+observation, I have been able to decide on your path in life. I have
+watched the development of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and,
+with your mother's consent, have taken a step of importance." Jack was
+frightened, and turned to his mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat
+gazing from the window, shading her eyes from the sun. D'Argenton called
+on Labassandre to produce the letter he had received. The singer pulled
+out a large, ill-folded peasant's letter, and read it aloud:--
+
+     "FOUNDRY D'INDRET.
+
+     "My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to
+     the young man, your friend's son, and he is willing, in
+     spite of his youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may
+     live under our roof, and in four years I promise you that he
+     shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and
+     Zenaide send messages.
+
+     "Rondic."
+
+"You hear, Jack," interrupted D'Argenton; "in four years you will hold a
+position second to none in the world,--you will be a good workman."
+
+The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen
+a noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o'clock in
+the _Passage des Douze Maisons_. The idea of wearing a blouse was
+the first that struck him. He remembered his mother's tone of
+contempt,--"Those are workmen, those men in blouses!"--he remembered the
+care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed.
+But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest,
+the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from
+the window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much
+and had found again after so much difficulty.
+
+Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand
+dashed away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading away
+of all her dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?
+
+"Then must I go away?" asked the child, faintly.
+
+The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.
+
+"In a week we will go, my boy," said Labassandre, cheeringly. But
+D'Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, "You can leave
+the room now, and be ready for your journey in a week."
+
+Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did
+not stop to take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who
+listened to his story with indignation.
+
+"It is preposterous!" he cried. "The very idea of making a mechanic of
+you is absurd. I will see your father at once."
+
+The persons who saw the two pass through the street--the doctor
+gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat--concluded that some one
+must be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr. Rivals
+heard loud talking and laughing as he entered the house, and Charlotte,
+as she descended the stairs, was singing a bar from the last opera.
+
+"I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir," said Mr. Rivals.
+
+"We are among friends," answered D'Argenton, "and have no secrets. You
+have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These gentlemen
+know all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar
+circumstances of the case."
+
+"But, my friend "--Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the explanation that
+was forthcoming.
+
+"Go on, doctor," interrupted the poet, sternly.
+
+"Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at
+Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part."
+
+"Not in the least, sir."
+
+"But you can have no conception of the child's nature, nor of his
+constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are
+trifling. I assure you, madame," he continued, turning toward Charlotte,
+"that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking now simply
+of his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally unfitted for
+it."
+
+"You are mistaken, doctor," interrupted D'Argen-ton; "I know the boy
+better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and now
+that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this
+way, of exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes
+complaints of me."
+
+Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and
+continued,--
+
+"He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I
+told him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to
+reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way."
+
+"I deny the degradation," shouted Labassandre. "Manual labor does not
+degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter."
+
+"That is true," murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once floated a
+vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some feast-day.
+
+"Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear ma-dame," cried the doctor,
+exasperated out of all patience. "To make your boy a mechanic is to
+separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the
+world, and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is
+too late; the day will come that you will blush for him, when he
+will appear before you, not as the loving, tender son, but humble and
+servile, as holding a social position far inferior to your own."
+
+Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of the
+future, started up from his seat in the corner.
+
+"I will not be a mechanic!" he said, in a firm voice.
+
+"O, Jack!" cried his mother, in consternation.
+
+But D'Argenton thundered out, "You will not be a mechanic, you say? But
+you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have
+had enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites." Then, suddenly
+cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the boy to
+retire to his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry discussion
+going on below, but the words were not to be understood. Suddenly the
+hall-door opened, and Mr. Rivals was heard to say,--
+
+"May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!"
+
+At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the
+first time she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had
+laid aside her role of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had
+shed had been those that age a mother's face, and leave ineffaceable
+marks upon it.
+
+"Listen to me, Jack," she said, tenderly. "You have made me very
+unhappy. You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends.
+I know, my child, that you will be happy in your new life. I acknowledge
+that at first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard what they said,
+did you not? A mechanic is very different nowadays from what it was
+once. And, besides, at your age you should rely on the judgment of those
+older than yourself, who have only your interests at heart."
+
+A sob from the child interrupted her.
+
+"Then you, too, send me away!"
+
+The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. "I
+send you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with
+me, you should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be
+reasonable, and think a little of the future, which is dreary enough for
+us." And then Charlotte hesitatingly continued, "You know, dear, you are
+very young, and there are many things you cannot understand. Some day,
+when you are older, I will tell you the secret of your birth. It is an
+absolute romance: some day you shall learn your father's name. But now
+all that is necessary for you to understand is, that we have not a penny
+in the world, and are absolutely dependent on--D'Argenton." This name
+the poor woman uttered with shame and hesitation, accompanied, at the
+same time, with a touching look of appeal to her son. "I cannot," she
+continued, "ask him to do anything more for us; he has already done so
+much. Besides, he is not rich. What am I to do between you both? Ah, if
+I could only go in your place to Indret and earn my bread! And yet
+you would refuse an opening that gives you a certainty of earning your
+livelihood, and of becoming your own master."
+
+By the sparkle in her boy's eyes the mother saw that these words had
+struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, "Do this for me,
+Jack; do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to
+look to you as my sole support." Did she really believe her own words?
+Was it a presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that
+illuminate the future's dark horizon? or had she simply talked for
+effect?
+
+At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this
+generous nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother
+some day would lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He
+looked her straight in the eyes. "Promise me that you will never be
+ashamed of me when my hands are black, and that you will always love
+me."
+
+She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and
+remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey to
+remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized contraction
+of the heart.
+
+But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and possibly
+from shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.
+
+"Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said the little fellow to D'Argenton, as he
+opened the door; "I was very wrong in refusing your kindness. I accept
+it with thanks."
+
+"I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now
+express your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are
+indebted."
+
+The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous
+paw of the artist.
+
+This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious
+than sad, and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little
+wrinkles on his childish brow. He was determined not to go away without
+seeing Cecile.
+
+"But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not
+be suitable," remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack's
+departure, D'Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans,
+consented that the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there
+in the evening. The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from
+the library--if library it could be called--a mere closet, crammed with
+books. The doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, "I
+was afraid they would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was
+partially my fault. I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me
+well. She has gone away, you know, with Cecile, to pass a month in the
+Pyrenees with my sister. The child was not well; I think I told her of
+your impending departure too abruptly. Ah, these children! we think they
+do not feel, but we are mistaken, and they feel quite as deeply as we
+ourselves." He spoke to Jack as one man to another. In fact, every one
+treated him in the same way at present. And yet the little fellow now
+burst into a violent passion of tears at the thought of his little
+friend having gone away without his seeing her.
+
+"Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?" asked the old man. "Well, I
+am selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in this way
+every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I do not
+think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do so, I
+am sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,"--the old man kissed
+the boy twice,--"for Cecile and myself," he said, kindly; and, as the
+door closed, the child heard him say, "Poor child, poor child!"
+
+The words were the same as at the Jesuits' College; but by this time
+Jack had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started,
+Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for
+an expedition across the Pampas,--high gaiters, a green velvet vest,
+a knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and
+happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty;
+happy, because this departure filled him with joy.
+
+Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. "You will take good
+care of him, M. Labassandre?"
+
+"As of my best note, madame."
+
+Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of
+working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end
+of the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his
+memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled
+through her tears.
+
+"Write often!" cried the mother.
+
+And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, "Remember, Jack, life is not
+a romance!"
+
+Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish
+egotist! He stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on
+Charlotte's shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself
+in a pose pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having
+won the day, that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to
+the child he had driven from the shelter of his roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.
+
+The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, "Is not the scene
+beautiful, Jack?"
+
+It was about four o'clock--a July evening; the waves glittered in the
+sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the
+golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they
+were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white
+salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the
+caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with
+grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream,
+arriving, perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years' voyage,
+and bearing with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands.
+A fresh breeze came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue of
+the ocean.
+
+"And Indret--where is it?" asked Jack.
+
+"There, that island opposite."
+
+Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly
+a row of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a
+thick black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on
+iron, and a continual whistling and puffing, as if the island itself had
+been an enormous steamer. As the boat slowly made her way to the wharf,
+the child saw long, low buildings on every side, and close at the
+river-side a row of enormous furnaces, which were filled from the water
+by coal barges.
+
+"There is Rondic!" cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous
+chest sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the
+clatter of machinery.
+
+The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled
+each other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His face
+was closely shaven, and he wore a sailor's hat that shaded a true Breton
+peasant face tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as steel.
+
+"And how are you all?" asked Labassandre.
+
+"Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new
+apprentice?--he looks very small and not over-strong."
+
+"Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in
+Paris!"
+
+"So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we
+must present ourselves to the Director at once."
+
+They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue
+terminated in a village street, with white houses on both sides,
+inhabited by the master and head-workmen. At this hour all was silent;
+life and movement were concentrated at the factory; and, but for the
+linen drying in the yards, an occasional cry of an infant, and a pot of
+flowers at the window, one would have supposed the place uninhabited.
+
+"Ah, the flag is lowered!" said the singer, as they reached the door.
+"Once that terrified me!" and he explained to Jack that when the flag
+was dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the
+factory were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were marked
+as absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now admitted by
+the porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the large halls
+which were crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of copper were piled
+between old cannons brought there to be recast. Rondic pointed out all
+the different branches of the establishment; he could not make himself
+understood save by gestures, for the noise was deafening.
+
+Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors
+being set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of
+arms and blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow,
+and then with a red light playing over their polished surface.
+
+Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an
+impalpable black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled
+like diamonds,--all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic
+of the place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of
+an enormous beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some
+subterranean dungeon.
+
+They had now reached an old chateau of the time of the League.
+
+"Here we are," said Rondic; and addressing his brother, "Will you go up
+with us?"
+
+"Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see 'the monkey'
+once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and something."
+
+He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and
+knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.
+
+They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were
+small and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In
+the inner room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a
+high window.
+
+"Ah, it is you, Pere Rondic!"
+
+"Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for--"
+
+"This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have
+an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very
+strong. Is he delicate?"
+
+"No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably
+robust."
+
+"Remarkably," repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to
+the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the
+manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember," answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at
+the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
+"Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of
+him. Under you he must turn out well."
+
+The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat
+crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and
+then the two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with
+a different impression. Jack thought of the words "he does not look very
+strong," while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best
+might. "Has anything gone wrong?" he suddenly asked his brother,--"the
+Director seems even more surly now than in my day."
+
+"No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister's son, who is giving us
+a great deal of trouble."
+
+"In what way?" asked the artist.
+
+"Since his mother's death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted
+debts. He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends
+them before he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he breaks
+his promises as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for him
+several times, but I can never do it again. I have my own family, you
+see, and Zenaide is growing up, and she must be established. Poor girl!
+Women have more sense than we. I wanted her to marry her cousin, but
+she would not consent. Now we are trying to separate him from his bad
+acquaintances here, and the Director has found a situation at Nantes;
+but I dare say the obstinate fellow will object. You will reason with
+him to-night, can't you? He will, perhaps, listen to you."
+
+"I will see what I can do," answered Labassandre, pompously.
+
+As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with
+all classes of people, some in mechanics' blouses, others wearing coats.
+Jack was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this to one
+in Paris, composed of similar classes.
+
+Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that
+he received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His
+theatrical costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone
+first on one side and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to
+first one and then another of his old friends.
+
+At the door of Rondic's house stood a young woman talking to a youth two
+or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man's daughter,
+and then remembered that he had married a second time. She was tall
+and slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white throat, and a
+graceful head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by its rich weight
+of hair. Unlike the Breton peasants, she wore no cap; her light dress
+and black apron were totally unlike the costume of a working woman.
+
+"Is she not pretty?" asked Rondic of his brother. "She has been giving a
+lecture to her nephew."
+
+Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. "I hope,"
+she said to the child, "that you will be happy with us."
+
+They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table,
+Labassandre said with a theatrical start, "And where is Zenaide?"
+
+"We will not wait for her," answered Rondic; "she will be here
+presently. She is at work now at the chateau, for she has become a
+famous seamstress."
+
+"Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under
+control, if she can work at the Director's," said Labassandre, "for he
+is such an arrogant, haughty person--"
+
+"You are very much mistaken," interrupted Ron-die; "he is, on the
+contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master
+has to manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a
+disciplinarian. Is not that so, Clarisse?" and the old man turned to his
+wife, who, seemingly occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to him.
+A certain preoccupation was very evident.
+
+At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking
+at the door, came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who
+replied coldly to his greeting; thinking, possibly, of the remonstrances
+he had promised to lavish upon him. Zenaide quickly followed: a plump
+little girl, red and out of breath; not pretty, and square in face and
+figure, she looked like her father. She wore a white cap, and her short
+skirts, and small shawl pinned over her shoulders, increased her general
+clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square chin indicated an unusual
+amount of firmness and decision, offering the strongest possible
+contrast to the gentle, irresolute expression of her stepmother's sweet
+face. Without a moment's delay, not waiting to detach the enormous
+shears that hung at her side, or to disembarrass herself of the needles
+and pins which glittered on her breast like a cuirass, the girl slipped
+into a seat next to Jack. The presence of the strangers did not
+abash her in the least. Whatever she had to say she said, simply and
+decidedly; but when she spoke to her cousin Chariot, it was in a vexed
+tone.
+
+He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left more
+than one scar.
+
+"And I wished them to marry each other," said Father Rondic, in a
+despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.
+
+"And I made no objection," said the young man with a laugh, as he looked
+at his cousin.
+
+"But I did, then," answered the girl abruptly, frowning and unabashed.
+"And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I should
+have drowned myself by this time!"
+
+These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the
+handsome cousin was silent and discomfited.
+
+Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid
+look of appeal.
+
+"Listen, Chariot," said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation: "to
+prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid
+place at Guerigny for you. You will have a better salary there than
+here, and "--here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face
+of the youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to
+finish his phrase.
+
+"And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!" answered
+Chariot, roughly. "But I do not agree with you. If the Director does not
+want me, let him say so,--and I will then look out for myself!"
+
+"He is right!" cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the table. A
+hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.
+
+Zenaide did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her
+stepmother, who was busy about the table.
+
+"And you, mamma," said she at last, "is it not your opinion that Chariot
+should go to Guerigny?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," answered Madame Rondic, quickly, "I think he
+ought to accept the offer."
+
+Chariot rose quickly from his chair.
+
+"Very well," he said, moodily, "since every one wishes to get rid of
+me here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the
+meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it."
+
+The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and
+to each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked
+their pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly.
+
+Jack listened to them sadly. "Must I become like these?" he said to
+himself, with a thrill of horror.
+
+During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the
+workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw
+his future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white
+hands. Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls
+were cut, to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the
+air of distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated
+D'Argenton, was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his
+former home. Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken.
+
+"O," said Rondic, "it is only the fatigue of his journey and these
+clothes that give him that look;" and then turning to his wife, the good
+man said,
+
+"You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he
+is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o'clock!"
+
+The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories,
+the first floor divided into two rooms--one called the parlor, which had
+a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece.
+
+One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with
+damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zenaide's room the
+bed was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak
+filled one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over
+by rosaries of all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn,
+completed the simple arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen
+which concealed the ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice was
+to sleep.
+
+"This is my room," said Zenaide, "and you, my boy, will be up there just
+over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you please,
+I sleep too soundly to be disturbed."
+
+A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft,
+which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in
+the roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared
+Jack for strange sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his
+miseries: here he had no Madou, here he had nobody. The child looked
+about him. On the bed lay his costume for the next day; the large
+pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse looked as if some person had
+thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.
+
+Jack said half aloud, "It is I lying there!" and while he stood, sadly
+enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at the
+same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Zenaide and
+her stepmother.
+
+The young girl's voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a man's;
+Madame Rondic's tones, on the contrary, were thin and flute-like, and
+seemed at times choked by tears.
+
+"And he is going!" she cried, with more passion than her ordinary
+appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.
+
+Then Zenaide spoke--remonstrating, reasoning.
+
+Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these
+people, but the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her
+as he looked at the sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long,
+shivering sigh and a sob, and found that Madame Rondic was looking out
+into the night, and weeping like himself, at a window below.
+
+In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of wine
+and ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And there,
+could his foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she have taken
+her child from his laborious task, for which he was so totally unfitted
+by nature and education. The regulations for, lack of punctuality
+were very strict. The first offence was a fine, and the third absolute
+dismissal. Jack was generally at the door before the first sound of the
+bell; but one day, two or three months after his arrival on the island,
+he was delayed by the ill-nature of others. His hat had been blown away
+by a sudden gust of wind just as he reached the forge. "Stop it!" cried
+the child, running after it. Just as he reached it, an apprentice coming
+up the street gave the hat a kick and sent it on; another did the same,
+and then another. This was very amusing to all save Jack, who, out
+of breath and angry, felt a strong desire to weep, for he knew that a
+positive hatred toward him was hidden under all this apparent jesting.
+In the meantime the bell was sounding its last strokes, and the
+child was compelled to relinquish the useless pursuit. He was utterly
+wretched, for it was no small expense to buy a new cap; he must write to
+his mother for money, and D'Argenton would read the letter. This was
+bad enough; but the consciousness that he was disliked among his
+fellow-workmen troubled him still more.
+
+Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack
+was one of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in his
+new abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard
+quick breathing behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+turning, he saw a smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended the
+missing cap.
+
+Where had he seen that face? "I have it!" he cried at last; but at that
+moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler,
+to whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely
+shelter on that showery summer's day.
+
+The child's spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands
+were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts
+of the past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother's
+house; he heard the low rumbling of the doctor's gig, and felt the fresh
+breeze from the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of the
+machine-shop.
+
+That evening he searched for Belisaire, but in vain; again the next day,
+but could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face that had
+revived so many beautiful memories, in the child's sick heart faded and
+died away, and he was again left alone.
+
+The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and
+played practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and
+relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals' books, Jack sought a quiet
+nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks,
+where he sat quite concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the
+rush, the magic, and the extent of the water before him. The distant
+church-bells rang out praises to the Lord, and all was rest and peace.
+Occasionally a vessel drifted past, and from afar came the laughter of
+children at play.
+
+He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift
+his eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the
+water on the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his
+mother and his little friend.
+
+At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at
+the Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zenaide in particular. The
+old man felt a certain contempt for Jack's physical delicacy, and said
+the boy stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but "he was a good
+little fellow all the same!" In reality, old Rondic felt a great
+respect for Jack's attainments, his own being of the most superficial
+description. He could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and
+since he had married the second Madame Rondic, he had become painfully
+conscious of his deficiencies. His wife was the daughter of a
+subordinate artillery officer, the belle and beauty of a small town.
+She was well brought up,--one of a numerous family, where each took
+her share of toil and economy. She accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the
+disparity of years and his lack of education, and entertained for her
+husband the greatest possible affection. He adored his wife, and would
+make any sacrifice for her happiness or her gratification. He thought
+her prettier than any of the wives of his friends,--who were all, in
+fact, stout Breton peasants, more occupied with their household cares
+than with anything else. Clarisse had a certain air about her, and
+dressed and arranged her hair in a way that offered the greatest
+contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of the country, who covered
+their hair with thick folds of linen, and concealed their figures with
+the clumsy fullness of their skirts.
+
+His house, too, was different from those about him. Behind the full
+white curtains stood a pot of flowers, sweet basil or gillyflowers,
+and the furniture was carefully waxed and polished; and Rondic was
+delighted, when he returned home at night, to find so carefully arranged
+a home, and a wife as neatly dressed as if it were Sunday. He never
+asked himself why Clarisse, after the house was in order for the day,
+took her seat at the window with folded hands, instead of occupying
+herself with needlework, like other women whose days were far too short
+for all their duties.
+
+He supposed, innocently enough, that his wife thought only of him while
+adorning herself; but the whole village of Indret could have told him
+that another occupied all her thoughts, and in this gossip the names of
+Madame Rondic and Chariot were never separated. They said that the two
+had known each other before Madame Rondic's marriage, and that if the
+nephew had wished he could have married the lady, instead of his uncle.
+
+But the young fellow had no such desire. He merely thought that Clarisse
+was charmingly pretty, and that it would be very nice to have her for
+his aunt. But later, when they were thrown so much together, while
+Father Rondic slept in the arm-chair and Zenaide sewed at the chateau,
+these two natures were irresistibly attracted toward each other. But no
+one had a right to make any invidious remark; they had, besides, always
+watching over them a pair of frightfully suspicious eyes, those of
+Zenaide. She had a way of interrupting their interviews, of appearing
+suddenly, when least expected; and, however fatigued she might be by her
+day's work, she took her seat in the chimney-corner with her knitting.
+Zenaide, in fact, played the part of the jealous and suspicious husband.
+Picture to yourself, if you please, a husband with all the instincts and
+clearsightedness of a woman!
+
+The warfare between herself and Chariot was incessant, and the little
+outbursts served to conceal the real antipathy; but while Father Rondic
+smiled contentedly, Clarisse turned pale as if at distant thunder.
+
+Zenaide had triumphed: she had so managed at the chateau that the
+Director had decided to send Chariot to Guerigny, to study a new model
+of a machine there. Months would be necessary for him to perfect his
+work. Clarisse understood very well that Zenaide was at the bottom
+of this movement, but she was not altogether displeased at Chariot's
+departure; she flung herself on Zenaide's stronger nature, and entreated
+her protection.
+
+Jack had understood for some time that between these two women there
+was a secret. He loved them both: Zenaide won his respect and his
+admiration, while Madame Rondic, more elegant and more carefully
+dressed, seemed to be a remnant of the refinements of his former life.
+He fancied that she was like his mother; and yet Ida was lively, gay,
+and talkative, while Madame Rondic was always languid and silent. They
+had not a feature alike, nor was there any similarity in the color of
+their hair. Nevertheless, they did resemble each other, but it was
+a resemblance as vague and indefinite as would result from the same
+perfume among the clothing, or of something more subtile still, which
+only a skilful chemist of the human soul could have analyzed.
+
+Sometimes on Sunday, Jack read aloud to the two women and to Rondic.
+The parlor was the room in which they assembled on these occasions.
+The apartment was decorated with a highly colored view of Naples, some
+enormous shells, vitrified sponges, and all those foreign curiosities
+which their vicinity to the sea seemed naturally to bring to them.
+Handmade lace trimmed the curtains, and a sofa and an arm-chair of plush
+made up the furniture of the apartment. In the arm-chair Father Rondic
+took his seat to listen to the reading, while Clarisse sat in her usual
+place at the window, idly looking out. Zenaide profited by her one day
+at home to mend the house-bold linen, disregarding the fact of the day
+being Sunday. Among the books given to Jack by Dr. Rivals was Dante's
+_Inferno_. The book fascinated the child, for it described a spectacle
+that he had constantly before his eyes. Those half naked human forms,
+those flames, those deep ditches of molten metal, all seemed to him one
+of the circles of which the poet wrote.
+
+One Sunday he was reading to his usual audience from his favorite book;
+Father Rondic was asleep, according to his ordinary custom, but the two
+women listened with fixed attention. It was the episode of Francesca da
+Rimini. Clarisse bowed her head and shuddered. Zenaide frowned until her
+heavy eyebrows met, and drove her needle through her work with mad zeal.
+
+Those grand sonorous lines filled the humble roof with music. Tears
+stood in the eyes of Clarisse as she listened. Without noticing them,
+Zenaide spoke abruptly as the voice of the reader ceased.
+
+"What a wicked, impudent woman," she cried, "not only to relate her
+crime, but to boast of it!"
+
+"It is true that she was guilty," said Clarisse, "but she was also very
+unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy! Don't say that, mamma; one would think that you pitied this
+Francesca."
+
+"And why should I not, my child? She loved him before her marriage, and
+she was driven to espouse a man whom she did not love."
+
+"Love him or not makes but little difference. From the moment she
+married him she was bound to be faithful. The story says that he was
+old, and that seems to me an additional reason for respecting him more,
+and for preventing other people from laughing at him. The old man did
+right to kill them,--it was only what they deserved!"
+
+She spoke with great violence. Her affection as a daughter, her honor as
+a woman, influenced her words, and she judged and spoke with that cruel
+candor that belongs to youth, and which judges life from the ideal
+it has itself created, without comprehending in the least any of the
+terrible exigencies which may arise.
+
+Clarisse did not answer. She turned her face away, and was looking out
+of the window. Jack, with his eyes on his book, thought of what he had
+been reading. Here, amid these humble surroundings, this immortal legend
+of guilty love had echoed "through the corridors of time," and after
+four hundred years had awakened a response. Suddenly through the open
+casement came a cry, "Hats! hats to sell!" Jack started to his feet and
+ran into the street; but quick as he was, Clarisse had preceded him, and
+as he went out, she came in, crushing a letter into her pocket.
+
+The pedler was far down the street.
+
+"Belisaire!" shouted Jack.
+
+The man turned. "I was sure it was you," continued Jack, breathlessly.
+"Do you come here often?"
+
+"Yes, very often;" and then Belisaire added, after a moment, "How
+happens it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that pretty
+house?"
+
+The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,--
+
+"That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such a
+gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?"
+
+Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have
+lingered there at the corner of the street for an hour, but Belisaire
+said he was in haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
+
+When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was
+very pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,--
+
+"What did you want of that man?"
+
+The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had
+been talking of his parents.
+
+She uttered a sigh of relief. But that whole evening she was even
+quieter than usual, and her head seemed bowed by more than the weight of
+her blonde braids.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.~~A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.
+
+"Chateau des Aulnettes.
+
+"I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his
+brother a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you
+have been at Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you,
+nevertheless, but does not seem to think you adapted for your present
+life. We are all grieved to hear this, and feel that you are not doing
+all that you might do. M. Rondic also says that the air of the workshops
+is not good for you, that you are pale and thin, and that at the least
+exertion the perspiration rolls down your face. I cannot understand
+this, and fear that you are imprudent, that you go out in the evening
+uncovered, that you sleep with your windows open, and that you forget to
+tie your scarf around your throat. This must not be; your health is of
+the first importance.
+
+"I admit that your present occupation is not as pleasant as running wild
+in the forest would be, but remember what M. D'Argenton told you, that
+'life is not a romance.' He knows this very well, poor man!--better,
+too, to-day, than ever before. You have no conception of the annoyances
+to which this great poet is exposed. The low conspiracies that have been
+formed against him are almost incredible. They are about to bring out
+a play at the Theatre Francais called '_La Fille de Faust_' It is not
+D'Argenton's play, because his is not written, but it is his idea, and
+his title! We do not know whom to suspect, for he is surrounded with
+faithful friends. Whoever the guilty party may be, our friend has
+been most painfully affected, and has been seriously ill. Dr. Hirsch
+fortunately was here, for Dr. Rivals still continues to sulk. That
+reminds me to tell you that we hear that you keep up your correspondence
+with the doctor, of which M. d'Argenton entirely disapproves. It is
+not wise, my child, to keep up any association with people above your
+station; it only leads to all sorts of chimerical aspirations. Your
+friendship for little Cecile M. d'Argenton regards also as a waste of
+time. You must, therefore, relinquish it, as we think that you
+would then enter with more interest into your present life. You will
+understand, my child, that I am now speaking entirely in your interest.
+You are now fifteen. You are safely launched in an enviable career.
+A future opens before you, and you can make of yourself just what you
+please.
+
+"Your loving mother,
+
+"Charlotte."
+
+"P. S. Ten o'clock at night.
+
+"Dearest,--I am alone, and hasten to add a good night to my letter, to
+say on paper what I would say to you were you here with me now. Do not
+be discouraged. You know just what he is. _He_ is very determined,
+and has resolved that you shall be a machinist, and you must be. Is he
+right? I cannot say. I beg of you to be careful of your health; it must
+be damp where you are; and if you need anything, write to me under cover
+to the Archambaulds. Have you any more chocolate? For this, and for any
+other little things you want, I lay aside from my personal expenses a
+little money every month. So you see that you are teaching me economy.
+Remember that some day I may have only you to rely upon.
+
+"If you knew how sad I am sometimes in thinking of the future! Life is
+not very gay here, and I am not always happy. But then, as you know, my
+sad moments do not last long. I laugh and cry at the same time without
+knowing why. I have no reason to complain, either. He is nervous like
+all artists, but I comprehend the real generosity and nobility of his
+nature. Farewell! I finish my letter for Mere Archambauld to mail as
+she goes home. We shall not keep the good woman long. M. d'Argenton
+distrusts her. He thinks she is paid by his enemies to steal his ideas
+and titles for books and plays! Good night, my dearest."
+
+Between the lines of this lengthy letter Jack saw two faces,--that of
+D'Argenton, dictatorial and stern,--and his mother's, gentle and tender.
+How under subjection she was! How crushed was her expansive nature! A
+child's imagination supplies his thoughts with illustrations. It seemed
+to Jack, as he read, that his Ida--she was always Ida to her boy--was
+shut up in a tower, making signals of distress to him.
+
+Yes, he would work hard, he would make money, and take his mother away
+from such tyranny; and as a first step he put away all his books.
+
+"You are right," said old Rondic; "your books distract your attention."
+
+In the workshop Jack heard constant allusions made to the Rondic
+household, and particularly to the relations existing between Clarisse
+and Chariot.
+
+Every one knew that the two met continually at a town half-way
+between Saint Nazarre and Indret. Here Clarisse went under pretence of
+purchasing provisions that could not be procured on the island. In the
+contemptuous glances of the men who met her, in their familiar nods, she
+read that her secret was known, and yet with blushes of shame dyeing the
+cheeks that all the fresh breezes from the Loire had no power to
+cool, she went on. Jack knew all this. No delicacy was observed in the
+discussion of such subjects before the child. Things were called by
+their right names, and they laughed as they talked. Jack did not laugh,
+however. He pitied the husband so deluded and deceived. He pitied also
+the woman whose weakness was shown in her very way of knotting her hair,
+in the way she sat, and whose pleading eyes always seemed to be asking
+pardon for some fault committed. He wanted to whisper to her, "Take
+care--you are watched." But to Char-lot he would have liked to say, "Go
+away, and let this woman alone!"
+
+He was also indignant in seeing his friend Belisaire playing such a part
+in this mournful drama. The pedler carried all the letters that passed
+between the lovers. Many a time Jack had seen him drop one into Madame
+Rondic's apron while she changed some money, and, disgusted with his old
+ally, the child no longer lingered to speak when they met in the street.
+
+Belisaire had no idea of the reason of this coolness. He suspected it
+so little, that one day, when he could not find Clarisse, he went to the
+machine-shop, and with an air of great mystery gave the letter to the
+apprentice. "It is for madame; give it to her secretly!"
+
+Jack recognized the writing of Chariot. "No," he said at once; "I will
+not touch this letter, and I think you would do better to sell your hats
+than to meddle with such matters."
+
+Belisaire looked at him with amazement.
+
+"You know very well," said the boy, "what these letters are; and do you
+think that you are doing right to aid in deceiving that old man?"
+
+The pedler's face turned scarlet.
+
+"I never deceived any one; if papers are given to me to carry, I carry
+them, that is all. Be sure of one thing, and that is, if I were the sort
+of person you call me, I should be much better off than I am today!"
+
+Jack tried to make him see the thing as he saw it, but evidently the
+man, however honest, was without any delicacy of perception. "And I,
+too," thought Jack, suddenly, "am of the people now. What right have I
+to any such refinements?"
+
+That Father Rondic knew nothing of all that was going on, was not
+astonishing. But Zenaide, where was she? Of what was she thinking?
+
+Zenaide was on the spot,--more than usual, too, for she had not been at
+the chateau for a month. Her eyes were also widely open, and were more
+keen and vivacious than ever, for Zenaide was about to be married to a
+handsome young soldier attached to the customhouse at Nantes, and the
+girl's dowry was seven thousand francs. Pere Rondic thought this too
+much, but the soldier was firm. The old man had made no provision for
+Clarisse. If he should die, what would become of her?
+
+But his wife said, "You are yet young--we will be economical. Let the
+soldier have Zenaide and the seven thousand francs, for the girl loves
+him!"
+
+Zenaide spent a great deal of time before her mirror. She did not
+deceive herself. "I am ugly, and M. Maugin will not marry me for my
+beauty, but let him marry me, and he shall love me later."
+
+And the girl gave a little nod, for she knew the unselfish devotion of
+which she was capable, the tenderness and patience with which she would
+watch over her husband. But all these new interests had so absorbed her
+that Zenaide had partially forgotten her suspicions; they returned to
+her at intervals, while she was sewing on her wedding-dress, but she
+did not notice her mother's pallor nor uneasiness, nor did she feel the
+burning heat of those slender hands. She did not notice her long and
+frequent disappearances, and she heard nothing of what was rumored in
+the town. She saw and heard nothing but her own radiant happiness. The
+banns were published, the marriage-day fixed, and the little house was
+full of the joyous excitement that precedes a wedding. Zenaide ran up
+and down stairs twenty times each day with the movements of a young
+hippopotamus. Her friends came and went, little gifts were pouring in,
+for the girl was a great favorite in spite of her occasional abruptness.
+Jack wished to make her a present; his mother had sent him a hundred
+francs.
+
+"This money is your own, my Jack," Charlotte wrote. "Buy with it a gift
+for M'lle Rondic, and some clothes for yourself. I wish you to make a
+good appearance at the wedding, and I am afraid that your wardrobe is in
+a pitiable condition. Say nothing about it in your letters, nor of me to
+the Rondics. They would thank me, which would be an annoyance, and bring
+me a reproof besides."
+
+For two days Jack carried this money with pride in his pocket. He would
+go to Nantes and buy a new suit. What a delight it would be! and how
+kind his mother was! One thing troubled him: What could he purchase
+for Zenaide; he must first see what she had.
+
+So thinking one dark night, as he entered the house, he ran against some
+one who was coming down the steps.
+
+"Is that you, Belisaire?"
+
+There was no reply, but as Jack pushed open the door, he saw that he was
+not mistaken, that Belisaire had been there.
+
+Clarisse was in the corridor, shivering with the cold, and so absorbed
+by the letter she was reading in the gleam of light from the half open
+door of the parlor, that she did not even look up as Jack went in. The
+letter evidently contained some startling intelligence, and the boy
+suddenly remembered having that day heard that Chariot had lost a large
+sum of money in gambling with the crew of an English ship that had just
+arrived at Nantes from Calcutta.
+
+In the parlor Zenaide and Maugin were alone.
+
+Pere Rondic had gone to Chateaubriand and would not return until the
+next day, which did not prevent her future husband from dining with
+them. He sat in the large arm-chair, his feet comfortably extended.
+While Zenaide, carefully dressed, and her hair arranged by her
+stepmother, laid the table, this calm and reasonable lover entertained
+her by an estimate of the prices of the various grains, indigos,
+and oils that entered the port of Nantes. And such a wonderful
+prestidigitateur is love that Zenaide was moved to the depths of her
+soul by these details, and listened to them as to music.
+
+Jack's entrance disturbed the lovers. "Ah, here is Jack I I had no idea
+it was so late!" cried the girl. "And mamma, where is she?"
+
+Clarisse came in, pale but calm.
+
+"Poor woman!" thought Jack, as he watched her trying to smile, to talk,
+and to eat, swallowing at intervals great draughts of water, as if to
+choke down some terrible emotion. Zenaide was blind to all this. She
+had lost her own appetite, and watched her soldier's plate, seeming
+delighted at the rapidity with which the delicate morsels disappeared.
+
+Maugin talked well, and ate and drank with marvellous appetite; he
+weighed his words as carefully as he did the square bits into which
+he cut his bread; he held his wine-glass to the light, testing and
+scrutinizing it each time he drank. A dinner, with him, was evidently
+a matter of importance as well as of time. This evening it seemed as
+if Clarisse could not endure it; she rose from the table, went to the
+window, listened to the rattling of the hail on the glass, and then
+turning round, said,--
+
+"What a night it is, M. Maugin I I wish you were safely at home."
+
+"I don't, then!" cried Zenaide, so earnestly that they all laughed. But
+the remark made by Clarisse bore its fruit, and the soldier rose to go.
+But it took him some time to get off. There was his lantern to light,
+his gloves to button; and the girl took all these duties on herself. At
+last the soldier was in readiness; his hood was pulled over his eyes, a
+scarf wound about his throat, then Zenaide said good night, and watched
+her Esquimau-looking lover somewhat anxiously down the street. What
+perils might he not have to run in that thick darkness!
+
+Her stepmother called her impatiently. The nervous excitement of
+Clarisse had momentarily increased. Jack had noticed this, and also that
+she looked constantly at the clock.
+
+"How cold it must be to-night on the Loire," said Zenaide.
+
+"Cold, indeed!" answered Clarisse, with a shiver.
+
+"Come," she said, as the clock struck ten, "let us go to bed."
+
+Then seeing that Jack was about to lock the outer door as usual, she
+stopped him, saying,--
+
+"I have done it myself. Let us go up stairs."
+
+But Zenaide had not finished talking of M. Maugin. "Do you like his
+moustache, Jack?" she asked.
+
+"Will you go to bed?" asked Madame Rondic, pretending to laugh, but
+trembling nervously.
+
+At last the three are on the narrow staircase.
+
+"Good night," said Clarisse; "I am dying with sleep."
+
+But her eyes were very bright. Jack put his foot on his ladder, but
+Zenaide's room was so crowded with her gifts and purchases, that it
+seemed to him a most auspicious occasion to pass them in review. Friends
+had had them under examination, and they were still displayed on the
+commode: some silver spoons, a prayer-book, gloves, and all about
+tumbled bits of paper and the colored ribbon that had fastened these
+gifts from the chateau; then came the more humble presents from the
+wives of the employes. Zenaide showed them all with pride. The boy
+uttered exclamations of wonder. "But what shall I give her?" he said to
+himself over and over again.
+
+"And my trousseau, Jack, you have not seen it! Wait, and I will show it
+to you."
+
+With a quaint old key she opened the carved wardrobe that had been in
+the family for a hundred years; the two doors swung open, a delicious
+violet perfume filled the room, and Jack could see and admire the piles
+of sheets spun by the first Madame Rondic, and the ruffled and fluted
+linen piled in snowy masses.
+
+In fact, Jack had never seen such a display. His mother's wardrobe held
+laces and fine embroideries, not household articles. Then, lifting a
+heavy pile, she showed Jack a casket. "Guess what is in this," Zenaide
+said, with a laugh; "it contains my dowry, my dear little dowry, that
+in a fortnight will belong to M. Maugin. Ah, when I think of it, I could
+sing and dance with joy!"
+
+And the girl held out her skirts with each hand, and executed an
+elephantine gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand.
+Suddenly she stopped; some one had rapped on the wall.
+
+"Let the boy go to bed," said her stepmother in an irritated tone; "you
+know he must be up early."
+
+A little ashamed, the future Madame Maugin shut her wardrobe, and said
+good night to Jack, who ascended his ladder; and five minutes later the
+little house, wrapped in snow and rocked by the wind, slept like its
+neighbors in the silence of the night.
+
+There is no light in the parlor of the Rondic mansion save that which
+comes from the fitful gleam of the dying fire in the chimney. A woman
+sat there, and at her feet knelt a man in vehement supplication.
+
+"I entreat you," he whispered, "if you love me--"
+
+If she loved him! Had she not at his command left the door open that he
+might enter? Had she not adorned herself in the dress and ornaments that
+he liked, to make herself beautiful in his eyes? What could it be that
+he was asking her now to grant to him? How was it that she, usually so
+weak, was now so strong in her denials? Let us listen for a moment.
+
+"No, no," she answered, indignantly, "it is impossible."
+
+"But I only ask it for two days, Clarisse. With these six thousand
+francs I will pay the five thousand I have lost, and with the other
+thousand I will conquer fortune."
+
+She looked at him with an expression of absolute terror.
+
+"No, no," she repeated, "it cannot be. You must find some other way."
+
+"But there is none."
+
+"Listen. I have a rich friend; I will write to her and ask her to lend
+me the money."
+
+"But I must have it to-morrow."
+
+"Well, then, find the Director; tell him the truth."
+
+"And he will dismiss me instantly. No; my plan is much the best. In two
+days I will restore the money."
+
+"You only say that."
+
+"I swear it." And, seeing that his words did not convince her, he added,
+"I had better have said nothing to you, but have gone at once to the
+wardrobe and taken what I needed."
+
+But she answered, trembling, for she feared that he would yet do this,
+"Do you not know that Zenaide counts her money every day? This very
+night she showed the casket to the apprentice."
+
+Chariot started. "Is that so?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; the poor girl is very happy. It would kill her to lose it.
+Besides, the key is not in the wardrobe."
+
+Suddenly perceiving that she was weakening her own position, she was
+silent. The young man was no longer the supplicating lover, he was
+the spoiled child of the house, imploring his aunt to save him from
+dishonor.
+
+Through her tears she mechanically repeated the words, "It is
+impossible."
+
+Suddenly he rose to his feet.
+
+"You will not? Very good. Only one thing remains then. Farewell! I will
+not survive disgrace."
+
+He expected a cry. No; she came toward him.
+
+"You wish to die! Ah, well, so do I! I have had enough of life, of
+shame, of falsehood, and of love--love that must be concealed with such
+care that I am never sure of finding it. I am ready."
+
+He drew back. "What folly!" he said, sullenly. "This is too much," he
+added, vehemently, after a moment's silence, and hurried to the stairs.
+
+She followed him. "Where are you going?" she asked.
+
+"Leave me!" he said, roughly. She snatched his arm.
+
+"Take care!" she whispered with quivering lips. "If you take one more
+step in that direction, I will call for assistance!"
+
+"Call, then! Let the world know that your nephew is your lover, and your
+lover a thief."
+
+He hissed these words, in her ear, for they both spoke very low,
+impressed, in spite of themselves, by the silence and repose of the
+house. By the red light of the dying fire he appeared to her suddenly
+in his true colors, just what he really was, unmasked by one of those
+violent emotions which show the inner workings of the soul.
+
+She saw him with his keen eyes reddened by constant examination of
+the cards; she thought of all she had sacrificed for this man; she
+remembered the care with which she had adorned herself for this
+interview. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by profound disgust for herself
+and for him, and sank, half-fainting, on the couch; and while the thief
+crept up the familiar staircase, she buried her face in the pillows
+to stifle her cries and sobs, and to prevent herself from seeing and
+hearing anything.
+
+The streets of Indret were as dark as at midnight, for it was not yet
+six o'clock. Here and there a light from a baker's window or a wine-shop
+shone dimly through the thick fog. In one of these wineshops sat Chariot
+and Jack.
+
+"Another glass, my boy!"
+
+"No more, thank you. I fear it would make me very ill."
+
+Chariot laughed. "And you a Parisian! Waiter, bring more wine!"
+
+The boy dared make no farther objection. The attentions of which he
+was the object flattered him immensely. That this man, who for eighteen
+months had never vouchsafed him any notice, should, meeting him by
+chance that morning in the streets, have invited him to the cabaret and
+treated him, was a matter of surprise and congratulation to himself. At
+first Jack was somewhat distrustful of such courtesy, for the other had
+such a singular way of repeating his question, "Is there nothing new at
+the Rondics? Really, nothing new?"
+
+"I wonder," thought the apprentice, "if he wishes me to carry his
+letters, instead of Belisaire!"
+
+But after a little while the boy became more at ease. Perhaps Chariot,
+he thought, may not be such a bad fellow. A good friend might induce him
+to relinquish play, and make him a better man.
+
+After Jack had taken his third glass of wine, he became very cordial,
+and offered to become this good friend. Chariot accepting the offer with
+enthusiasm, the boy thought himself justified in at once offering his
+advice.
+
+"Look here, M. Chariot, listen to me, and don't play any more."
+
+The blow struck home, for the young man's lips trembled nervously, and
+he swallowed a glass of brandy at one gulp.
+
+At that moment the factory-bell sounded.
+
+"I must go," cried Jack, starting to his feet. And, as his friend had
+paid for the first and second wine they had drank, he considered it
+essential that he should now pay in his turn; so he drew a louis from
+his pocket, and tossed it on the table.
+
+"Hallo! a yellow boy!" said the barkeeper, unaccustomed to seeing such
+in the possession of apprentices. Chariot started, but made no remark.
+
+"Had Jack been to the wardrobe also?" he said to himself. The boy was
+delighted at the sensation he had created. "And I have more of the
+same kind," he added, tapping his pocket. And then he whispered in his
+companion's ear, "It is for a present that I mean to buy Zenaide."
+
+Chariot said, mechanically, "Is it?" and turned away with a smile.
+
+The innkeeper fingered the gold piece with some uneasiness.
+
+"Hurry," said Jack, "or I shall be late."
+
+"I wish, my boy," said Chariot, "that you could have remained with me
+until my boat left, which will not be for an hour."
+
+And he gently drew the lad toward the Loire. It was easily done, for,
+coming out from the cabaret into the cold air, the wine the child had
+drank made him giddy. It seemed to him that his head weighed a thousand
+pounds. This did not last long, however. "Hark!" he said; "the bell has
+stopped, I think." They turned back. Jack was terrified, for it was the
+first time that he had ever been late at the Works. But Chariot was in
+despair. "It is my fault," he reiterated. He declared that he would
+see the Director and explain matters, and was altogether so utterly
+miserable, that Jack was obliged to console him by saying that it was
+of no great consequence, after all; that he could afford to be marked
+'absent' for once. "I will go with you to the boat."
+
+The boy was so gratified by what he believed to be the good effect
+of his words on Chariot, that he enlarged on the noble nature of Pere
+Rondic and of Clarisse.
+
+"O, had you seen her this morning, you would have pitied her. She was so
+pale that she looked as if she were dead."
+
+Chariot started.
+
+"And she ate nothing. I am afraid she will be ill. And she never spoke."
+
+"Poor woman!" said Chariot, with a sigh of relief which Jack took for one
+of sorrow.
+
+They reached the wharf. The boat was not there. A thick fog covered the
+river from one shore to the other.
+
+"Let us go in here," said Chariot It was a little wooden shed, intended
+as a shelter for workmen while waiting in bad weather. Clarisse knew
+this shed very well, and the old woman who sold brandy and coffee in the
+corner had seen Madame Rondic many a time when she crossed the Loire.
+
+"Let us take a drop of brandy to keep out the cold," said Chariot.
+At that moment a shrill whistle was heard; it was the boat for Saint
+Nazarre. "Good-bye, Jack, and a thousand thanks for your good advice!"
+
+"Don't mention it," said the lad, heartily; "but pray give up gambling."
+
+"Of course I will," answered the other, hurrying on board to hide his
+amusement. When Jack was again alone he felt no desire to return to
+the Works; he was in a state of unusual excitement. Even the heavy fog
+hanging over the Loire interested him. Suddenly he said to himself, "Why
+do I not go to Nantes and buy Zenaide's gift to-day?" A few moments saw
+him on the way; but as there was no train until noon, he must wait for
+some time, and was compelled to pass that time in a room where there
+were several of the old employes of the Works, who had been discharged
+for various misdemeanors. They received the lad civilly enough, and
+listened attentively when he took up some remark that was made, and
+uttered some platitudes, stolen from D'Ar-genton, on the rights of
+labor.
+
+"Listen!" they said to each other; "it is easy to see that the boy comes
+from Paris."
+
+Jack, excited by this applause and sympathy, talked fast and freely.
+Suddenly the room swam around--all grew dark. A fresh breeze restored
+him to consciousness. He was seated on the bank of the river, and a
+sailor was bathing his forehead.
+
+"Are you better?" said the man.
+
+"Yes, much better," answered Jack, his teeth chattering.
+
+"Then go on board."
+
+"Go where?" said the apprentice, in amazement.
+
+"Why, have you forgotten that you hired a boat, and sent for provisions?
+And here comes the man with them."
+
+Jack was stupefied with amazement, but he was too weak to argue any
+point; he embarked without remonstrance. He had a little money left,
+with which he could buy some little souvenir for Zenaide, so that his
+trip to Nantes would not be thrown away absolutely. He breakfasted
+with a poor enough appetite, and sat at the end of the boat, wrapped in
+thought. He dreamily recalled books that he had read--tales of strange
+adventures on the sea; but why did a certain old volume of Robinson
+Crusoe persistently come before him? He saw the rubbed and yellowed
+page, the vignette of Robinson in his hammock surrounded by drunken
+sailors, and above it the inscription, "And in a night of debauch I
+forgot all my good resolutions."
+
+He was brought back to real life by the songs of his companions, and
+by a pair of keen bright eyes that were fixed upon his own. Jack was
+annoyed by this gaze, and leaned forward with a bottle in his hand.
+
+"Drink with me, captain!" he said.
+
+The man declined abruptly. The younger sailor whispered to Jack, "Let
+him alone; he did not wish to take you on board; his wife settled things
+for him; he thought you had more money than you ought to have!"
+
+Jack was indignant at being treated like a thief. He exclaimed that his
+money was his own, that it had been given him by------. Here he stopped,
+remembering that his mother had forbidden him to mention her name.
+"But," he continued, "I can have more money when I wish it, and I am
+going to buy a wedding present for Zenaide."
+
+He talked on, but no one listened, for a grand dispute between the two
+men was well under way as to the place where they should land.
+
+At last they entered the harbor of Nantes. Old houses, with carved
+fronts and stone balconies, met his eyes, crowded as it were among the
+shipping at the wharves. Large vessels lay at anchor in the harbor,
+looking to the boy like captives who panted for liberty, sunshine, and
+space. Then he thought of Madou, of his flight and concealment among the
+cargo in the hold. But this thought was gone in a moment, and he found
+himself on shore between his two companions, whom he soon loses and
+finds again. They cross one bridge, and then another, and wander with
+neither end nor aim. They drink at intervals; night comes, and the
+boy accompanies the sailors to a low dance-house, still in the strange
+excitement in which he has been all day. Finally, he finds himself alone
+on a bench, in a public square, in a state of exhaustion that is far
+from sleep. The profound solitude terrifies him, when suddenly he hears
+the well-known cry,--
+
+"Hats! hats! Hats to sell!"
+
+"Belisaire!" called the boy.
+
+It was Belisaire. Jack made a futile effort at explanation. The man
+scolded the boy gently, lifted him up, and led him away.
+
+Where are they going? And who comes here? and what do they want of him?
+Rough men accost him; they shake him and put irons on his wrists, and he
+cannot resist, for he is still more than half asleep. He sleeps in the
+wagon into which he is thrust; in the boat, where he lies utterly inert;
+and how happy he is after being thus buffeted about to finally throw
+himself on a straw pallet, shut out from all further disturbance by huge
+locks and bolts.
+
+In the morning a frightful noise over his head awoke Jack suddenly. Ah,
+what a dismal awakening is that of drunkenness! The nervous trembling
+in every limb, the intense thirst and exhaustion, the shame and
+inexpressible anguish of the human being seeing himself reduced to the
+level of a beast, and so disgusted with his tarnished existence that he
+feels incapable of beginning life again.
+
+It was still too dark to distinguish objects, but he knew that he was
+not in his little attic. He caught a glimpse of the coming dawn in the
+white light from two high windows. Where was he? In the corner he began
+to see a confused mass of cords and pulleys. Suddenly he heard the same
+noise that had awakened him: it was a clock, and one that he well knew.
+He was at Indret, then, but where?
+
+Could it be that he was shut in the tower where refractory apprentices
+were occasionally put? And what had he done? He tried to recall the
+events of the day before, and, confused as his mind still was, he
+remembered enough to cover him with shame. He groaned heavily. The groan
+was answered by a sigh from the corner. He was not alone, then!
+
+"Who is there?" asked Jack, uneasily; "is it Belisaire?" he added. But
+why should Belisaire be there with him?
+
+"Yes, it is I," answered the man, in a tone of desperation.
+
+"In the name of heaven tell me why we are shut up here like two
+criminals?"
+
+"What other people have been doing I can't tell," muttered the old man;
+"I only speak for myself, and I have done no harm to any one. My
+hats are ruined,--and I, too, for that matter!" continued Belisaire,
+dolefully.
+
+"But what have I done?" asked Jack, for he could not imagine that among
+the many follies of which he had been guilty there was one more grave
+than another.
+
+"They say--But why do you make me tell you? You know well enough what
+they say."
+
+"Indeed, I do not; pray, go on."
+
+"Well, they say that you have stolen Zenaide's dowry."
+
+The boy uttered an exclamation of horror. "But you do not believe this,
+Belisaire?"
+
+The old man did not answer. Every one at Indret thought Jack guilty.
+Every circumstance was against the boy. On the first report of the
+robbery, Jack was looked for, but was not to be found. Chariot had
+very well managed matters. All along the road there were traces of
+the robbery in the gold pieces displayed so liberally. Only one thing
+disturbed the belief of the boy's guilt in the minds of the villagers:
+what could he have done with the six thousand francs? Neither
+Belisaire's pocket nor his own displayed any indication that such a sum
+of money had been in their possession.
+
+Soon after daybreak the superintendent sent for the prisoners. They were
+covered with mud, and were unwashed and unshorn; yet Jack had a certain
+grace and refinement in spite of all this; but Belisaire's naturally
+ugly countenance was so distorted by grief and anxiety, that, as the two
+appeared, the spectators unanimously decided that this gentle-looking
+child was the mere instrument of the wretched being with whom he was
+unfortunately connected. As Jack looked about he saw several faces which
+seemed like those of some terrible nightmare, and his courage deserted
+him. He recognized the sailors, and the proprietors of several of the
+wineshops, with many others of those whom he had seen on that
+disastrous yesterday. The child begged for a private interview with the
+superintendent, and was admitted to the office, where he found Father
+Rondic, whom Jack went forward at once to greet with extended hand. The
+old man drew back sadly but resolutely.
+
+"Out of regard for your youth, Jack," said the Director, "and from
+respect to your parents, and in consideration of your hitherto good
+behavior, I have begged that, instead of being carried to Nantes and
+placed in prison, you shall remain here. I now tell you that it is for
+you to decide what will be done. Tell me the truth. Tell Father Rondic
+and myself what you have done with the money, give him back what is
+left, and--no, do not interrupt me," continued the Director, with a
+frown. "Return the money, and I will then send you to your parents."
+
+Here Belisaire attempted to speak. "Be quiet, fellow!" said the
+superintendent; "I cannot understand how you can have the audacity to
+speak. We believe you to be in reality the guilty party, and that this
+child has simply been your tool."
+
+Jack wished to protest against this condemnation of his friend; but old
+Rondic gave him no time.
+
+"You are quite right, sir, it is bad company that has led the lad
+astray. Everybody loved him in my house; we had every confidence in him
+until he met this miserable wretch."
+
+Belisaire looked so heart-broken at this wholesale condemnation that
+Jack rushed boldly forward in his defence. "I assure you, air, that I
+met Belisaire late in the day."
+
+"Do you mean," said the superintendent, "that you committed this robbery
+all alone?"
+
+"I have done no wrong, sir."
+
+"Take care, my lad--you are going down hill with rapidity. Your guilt
+is very evident, and it is useless to deny it. You were alone with the
+Rondic women in their house all night. Zenaide showed you the casket,
+and even showed you where it was kept. In the night she heard some one
+moving in your attic; she spoke; naturally you made no reply. She knew
+that it must be you, for there was no one else in the house. Then you
+must remember that we know how much money you threw away yesterday."
+
+Jack was about to say, "My mother sent it to me," when he remembered
+that she had forbidden him to mention this. So he hesitatingly murmured
+that he had been saving his money for some time.
+
+"What nonsense!" cried the Director. "Do you think you can make us
+believe that with your small wages you could have laid aside the amount
+you squandered yesterday? Tell the truth, my lad, and repair the evil
+you have done as well as possible."
+
+Then Father Rondic spoke. "Tell us, my boy, where this money is.
+Remember that it is Zenaide's dowry, that I have toiled day and night to
+lay it aside for her, feeling that with it I might make her happy.
+You did not think of all this, I am sure, and were led away by the
+temptation of the moment. But now that you have had time to reflect, you
+will tell us the truth. Remember, Jack, that I am old, that time may not
+be given me to replace this money. Ah, my good lad, speak!"
+
+The poor man's lips trembled. It must have been a hardened criminal who
+could have resisted such a touching appeal. Belisaire was so moved that
+he made ar series of the most extraordinary gestures. "Give him the
+money, Jack, I beg of you!" he whispered.
+
+Alas I if the child had had the money, how gladly he would have placed
+it in the hands of old Rondic, but he could only say,--
+
+"I have stolen nothing--I swear I have not!"
+
+The superintendent rose from his chair impatiently. "We have had enough
+of this. Your heart must be of adamant to resist such an appeal as has
+been made to you. I shall send you up-stairs again, and give you until
+to-night to reflect. If you do not then make a full confession, I shall
+hand you over to the proper tribunal."
+
+The boy was then left all the long day in solitude. He tried to sleep,
+but the knowledge that every one thought him guilty, that his own
+shameful conduct had given ample reason for such a judgment, overwhelmed
+him with sorrow. How could he prove his innocence? By showing his
+mother's letter. But if D'Argenton should know of it? No, he could not
+sacrifice his mother! What, then, should he do? And the boy lay on the
+straw bed, turning over in his bewildered brain the difficulties of his
+position. Around him went on the business of life; he heard the workmen
+come and go. It was evening, and he would be sent to prison. Suddenly he
+heard the stairs creak under a heavy tread, then the turning of the key,
+and Zenaide entered hastily.
+
+"Good heavens," she cried, "how high up you are!"
+
+She said this with a careless air, but she had wept so much that her
+eyes were red and inflamed, her hair was roughened and carelessly put
+up. The poor girl smiled at Jack. "I am ugly, am I not? I have no figure
+nor complexion. I have a big nose and small eyes; but two days ago I had
+a handsome dowry, and I cared but little if some of the malicious young
+girls said, 'It is only for your money that Maugin wishes to marry you,'
+as if I did not know this! He wanted my money, but I loved him! And now,
+Jack, all is changed. To-night he will come and say farewell, and I
+shall not complain. Only, Jack, before he comes, I thought I would have
+a little talk with you."
+
+Jack had hidden his face, and was crying. Zenaide felt a ray of hope at
+this.
+
+"You will give me back my money, Jack, will you not?" she added
+entreatingly.
+
+"But I have not got it, I assure you."
+
+"Do not say that. You are afraid of me, but I will not reproach you.
+If you have spent a little you are quite welcome, but tell me where the
+rest is!"
+
+"Listen to me, Zenaide: this is horrible. Why should every one think me
+guilty?"
+
+She went on as if he had not spoken. "Do you understand that without
+this money I shall be miserable? In your mother's name I entreat you
+here on my knees!"
+
+She threw herself on the floor by the side of the bed where the boy sat,
+and gave way to tears and sobs. Jack, who was as unhappy as she, tried
+to take her hand. Suddenly she started up. "You will be punished. No one
+will ever love you because your heart is bad!" and she left the room.
+She ran hastily down the stairs to the superintendent's room, whom she
+found with her father. She could not speak, for her tears choked her.
+
+"Be comforted, my child!" said the Director. "Your father tells me that
+the mother of this boy is married to a very rich man. We will write to
+them. If they are good people, your dowry will be restored to you."
+
+He wrote the following letter:--
+
+"Madame: Your son has stolen a sum of money from the honest and
+hard-working man with whom he lived. This sum represents the savings of
+years. I have not yet handed him over to the authorities, hoping that he
+might be induced to restore at least a portion of this money. But I am
+afraid that it has all been squandered among drunken companions. If that
+is the case, you should indemnify the Rondics for their loss. The amount
+is six thousand francs. I await your decision before taking any further
+steps."
+
+And he signed his name.
+
+"Poor things--it is terrible news for them!" said Pere Rondic, who amid
+his own sorrows could still think of those of others.
+
+Zenaide looked up indignantly. "Why do you pity these people? If the boy
+has taken my money, let them replace it."
+
+How pitiless is youth! The girl gave not one thought to the mother's
+despair when she should hear of her son's crime. Old Rondic, on the
+contrary, said to himself, "She will die of shame!"
+
+In due time this letter written by the superintendent reached its
+destination, as letters which contain bad news generally do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.~~CHARLOTTE'S JOURNEY.
+
+One gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines;
+the poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman
+reached Aulnettes.
+
+"Ah! a letter from Indret!" said D'Argenton, slowly opening his
+newspapers,--"and some verses by Hugo!"
+
+Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone that
+he does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else shall
+touch? Simply because Charlotte's eyes had kindled at the sight of it,
+and because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment he had
+become a secondary object in the mother's eyes.
+
+From the hour of Jack's departure, his mother's love for him had
+increased. She avoided speaking of him, however, lest she should
+irritate her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of
+the child increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained
+complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough.
+He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come.
+At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes
+flamed with malicious joy. "Ah! I knew it!" he cried, and he handed the
+sheet to Charlotte.
+
+What a terrible blow for her! Wounded in her maternal pride before the
+poet, wounded, too, by his evident satisfaction, the poor woman was
+still more overwhelmed by the reproaches of her own conscience. "It is
+my own fault!" she said to herself, "why did I abandon him?"
+
+Now he must be saved, and at all hazards. But where should she find the
+money? She had nothing. The sale of her furniture had brought in some
+millions of francs, but they had been quickly spent. The trifles of
+jewelry she had would not bring half the necessary sum. She never
+thought of appealing to D'Argenton. First, he hated the boy; and next,
+he was very miserly. Besides, he was far from rich. They lived with
+great economy in the winter, the better to keep up their hospitality
+during the summer.
+
+"I have always felt," said D'Argenton, after leaving her time to finish
+the letter, "that this boy was bad at heart!"
+
+She made no reply; indeed she hardly heard what he said. She was
+thinking that her child would go to prison if she could not obtain the
+money.
+
+He continued, "What a disgrace this is to me!" The mother was still
+saying to herself, "The money, where shall I get it?"
+
+He determined to prevent her asking him the question he saw on her lips.
+
+"We are not rich enough to do anything!"
+
+"Ah! if you could," she murmured.
+
+He became very angry. "If I could!" he cried. "I expected that! You
+know better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It is
+enough that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for
+the thefts he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find
+them?"
+
+"I did not think of you," she answered, slowly.
+
+"Of whom, then?" he questioned, sternly.
+
+With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered a
+name, expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.
+
+He was silent for a moment.
+
+"I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte," he said,
+pompously.
+
+"Thanks! thanks! How good you are!" she cried.
+
+And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the
+stairs.
+
+It was a most singular conversation--syllabic and disjointed--he
+affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. "It was impossible to
+trust to a letter," Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own audacity,
+she added, "Suppose I go to Tours myself."
+
+With the utmost tranquillity he answered, "Very well, we will go."
+
+"How good you are, dear!" she cried: "you will go with me there, and
+then to Indret with the money!" and the foolish creature kissed his
+hands with tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go to
+Tours without him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy.
+Suppose she should never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow,
+so inconsistent! The sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had
+relinquished--the influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside
+the heavy chains with which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by
+no means averse to this little journey, nor to playing his part in the
+drama at Indret.
+
+He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready
+to share her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced
+Charlotte that he loved her more than ever.
+
+At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, "We are obliged to go to Indret,
+the child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our absence."
+They left by the night express and reached Tours early in the morning.
+The old friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty chateaux
+overlooking the Loire. He was a widower without children, an excellent
+man, and a man of the world. In spite of her infidelity, he had none but
+the kindest recollection of the light-hearted woman who for a time had
+brightened his solitude. He consequently replied to a little note sent
+by Charlotte that he was ready to receive her.
+
+D'Argenton and she took a carriage from the hotel, and as they
+approached the chateau, Charlotte began to grow uneasy. "It cannot be,"
+she said to herself, "that he intends to go in with me!" She sat in the
+corner of the carriage, looking out at the fields where she had so often
+wandered with the boy, who was now wearing a workman's blouse.
+
+D'Argenton watched her from the corner of his eyes, gnawing his
+moustache with fury. She was very pretty that morning, a little pale
+from emotion and from a night of travel. D'Argenton was uneasy
+and restless; he began to regret having accompanied her, and felt
+embarrassed by the part he was playing.
+
+When he saw the chateau, with its grounds and fountains, its air of
+wealth, he reproached himself for his own imprudence. "She will never
+return to Aulnettes," he thought. At the end of the avenue he stopped
+the carriage. "I will wait here," he said, abruptly; and added, with a
+sad smile, "Do not be long."
+
+Ten minutes later he saw Charlotte on the terrace with a tall and
+elegant-looking man. Then began for him a terrible anguish. What were
+they saying? Should he ever see her again? And it was that detestable
+boy that had given him all this disturbance. The poet sat on the fallen
+trunk of a tree, watching feverishly the distant door. Before him was
+outspread a charming landscape--wooded hills, sloping vineyards, and
+meadows overhung with willows; on one side a ruin of the time of Louis
+IX., and on the other, one of those chateaux common enough on the shores
+of the Loire. Just below him a sort of canal was in process of building.
+He watched the workmen in a mechanical sort of way; they were clothed
+in uniform, and seemed an organized body. He rose and sauntered toward
+them. The laborers were only children, and their reddened eyes and pale
+faces told the story of their confinement to the poorer quarters of the
+town.
+
+"Who are these children?" questioned the poet.
+
+"They belong to the penitentiary," was the answer from the official who
+superintended them.
+
+D'Argenton asked question after question, saying that he was intimately
+connected with a family whose only son had just plunged them into deep
+affliction.
+
+"Send him to us," was the curt reply, "as soon as he leaves the prison."
+
+"But I doubt if he goes to prison," said D'Argen-ton, with a shade of
+regret in his voice; "the parents have paid the amount."
+
+"Well, then, we have another establishment--the _Maison Paternelle_.
+I have some of the circulars here in my pocket, and perhaps you would
+glance over them, sir."
+
+D'Argenton took the papers and turned back toward the house. The
+carriage was coming down the avenue, and soon Charlotte, her color
+heightened and her eyes bright with hope for her child, appeared.
+
+"I have succeeded," she cried, as the poet entered the carriage.
+
+"Ah!" he answered, dryly, relapsing into silence, turning over his
+circulars with an air of affected interest. Charlotte, too, was silent,
+supposing his pride wounded; and finally he was obliged to say, "You
+succeeded, then?"
+
+"Completely. It has always been his intention to give Jack, on his
+coming of age, a present of ten thousand francs. He has given it to me
+now. Six thousand will repay the money, and the other four thousand I am
+to employ as I think best for my child's advantage."
+
+"Employ it, then, in placing him in the _Maison Paternelle_, at Mertray,
+for two or three years. It is there only that one can learn to make an
+honest man from out of a thief."
+
+She started, for the harsh word recalled her to reality. We know that in
+that poor little brain impressions are very transitory.
+
+"I am ready to do whatever you choose," she said, "you have been so good
+and generous!"
+
+The poet was enchanted; he was still master, and he proceeded to read
+Charlotte a long lecture. Her maternal weakness was the cause of all
+that had happened. The master-hand of a man was absolutely essential.
+She did not answer, being occupied with joy at the thought of her child
+not being sent to prison.
+
+It was on Sunday morning that they reached Basse Indret. The poet went
+at once to the superintendent's, while Charlotte remained alone at the
+inn, for hotel there was none at the village. The rain beating against
+the windows, and the loud talking in the house, gave her the first clear
+impression she had received of the exile to which she had condemned her
+boy. However guilty he might be, he was still her child--her Jack. She
+remembered him as a little fellow, bright, intelligent, and sensitive,
+and the idea that he would presently appear before her as a thief and in
+a workman's blouse, seemed almost incredible. Ah! had she kept her child
+with her, or had she sent him with other boys of his age to school, he
+would have been kept from temptation. The old doctor was right, after
+all. And Jack had lived with these people for two years! All the
+prejudices of her superficial nature revolted against her surroundings.
+She was incapable of comprehending the grandeur of a task accomplished,
+of a life purchased by the fatigue of the body and the labor of the
+hands. To change the current of her thoughts, she took up the prospectus
+of which we have spoken--"_Maison Paternelle_." The system adopted was
+absolute isolation. The mother's heart swelled with anguish, and she
+closed the book and went to the window, where she stood with her eyes
+fixed on a small bit of the Loire that she saw at the foot of a street,
+where the water was as rough as the sea itself.
+
+D'Argenton, in the meantime, was accomplishing his mission. He would
+not have relinquished the duty for any amount of money. He was fond
+of attitudes and scenes. He prepared in advance the terms in which he
+should address the criminal.
+
+An old woman pointed out the house of the Rondics, but when he reached
+it he hesitated. Must he not have made a mistake? From the wide open
+windows came the sound of gay music, and heavy feet were heard keeping
+time to it. "No, this cannot be it," said D'Argenton, who naturally
+expected to find a desolate house.
+
+"Come, Zenaide, it is your turn," called some one.
+
+"Zenaide"--why, that was Rondic's daughter! These people certainly did
+not take this affair much to heart. All at once a crowd of white-capped
+women passed the window, singing loudly.
+
+"Come, Brigadier I come, Jack!" said some one.
+
+Somewhat mystified, the poet pushed open the door, and amid the dust and
+crowd he saw Jack, radiant with happiness, dancing with a stout girl,
+who smiled with her whole heart at a good-looking fellow in uniform. In
+a corner sat a gray-haired man, much amused by all that was going on;
+with him was a tall, pale, young woman, who looked very sad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.~~CLARISSE.
+
+This was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack's
+mother, the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic
+entered, pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness with
+which she was received, her conduct having for a long time habituated
+her to the silent contempt of all who respected themselves, she refused
+to sit down, and, standing erect, said slowly, attempting to conceal her
+emotion,--
+
+"I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is
+not he who has stolen my stepdaughter's dowry."
+
+The Director started from his chair. "But, ma-dame, every proof is
+against him."
+
+"What proofs? The most important is that, my husband being away, Jack
+was alone with us in the house. It is just this proof that I have come
+to destroy, for there was another man there that night."
+
+"What man? Chariot?"
+
+She made a sign of assent. Ah, how pale she was!
+
+"Then he took the money?"
+
+There was a moment's hesitation. The white lips parted, and an almost
+inaudible reply was whispered, "No, it was not he who took it; I gave it
+to him!"
+
+"Unhappy woman!"
+
+"Yes, most unhappy. He said that he needed it for two days only, and I
+bore for that time the sight of my husband's despair and of Zenaide's
+tears, and the fear of seeing an innocent person condemned. Nothing came
+from Chariot. I wrote to him that if by the next day at eleven I heard
+nothing, I should denounce myself,--and here I am."
+
+"But what am I to do?"
+
+"Arrest the real criminals, now that you know who they are."
+
+"But your husband--it will kill him!"
+
+"And me, too," she replied, with haughty bitterness. "To die is a very
+simple matter; to live is far more difficult."
+
+She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.
+
+"If your death could repair your fault," returned the Director, gravely;
+"if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could understand why
+you should wish to die. But--"
+
+"What shall be done, then," she asked, plaintively; and all at once
+she became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination
+failed her.
+
+"First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some of
+it still."
+
+Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler
+played. She knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her,
+to procure this money, and that he would play until he had lost his last
+sou.
+
+The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:
+
+"Go at once to Saint Nazarre," said his chief; "say to Chariot that I
+require his presence here at once. You will wait for him."
+
+"Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame Rondic's; he
+cannot be far off."
+
+"That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however, that
+Madame Rondic is here."
+
+The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke. She
+stood leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the machinery,
+the wild whistling of the steam, made a fitting accompaniment to the
+tumult of her soul. The door opened.
+
+"You sent for me," said Chariot, in a gay voice.
+
+The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief,
+told the story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost
+its color, and he looked like an animal driven into a corner.
+
+"Not a word," said the Director; "we know all that you wish to say. This
+woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You promised to
+return her the money in two days. Where is it?"
+
+Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him;
+she had seen him too well that terrible night.
+
+"Where is the money?" repeated the superintendent.
+
+"Here--I have brought it."
+
+What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not
+finding her at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.
+
+His chief took up the bills. "Is it all here?"
+
+"All but eight hundred francs," the other answered, with some
+hesitation; "but I will return them."
+
+"Now sit down and write at my dictation," said the superintendent,
+sternly.
+
+Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death
+to her.
+
+"Write: 'It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six thousand
+francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.'"
+
+Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that
+Clarisse would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.
+
+The superintendent continued: "'I return the money; it burns me. Release
+the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle to
+forgive me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only when,
+through labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to shake an
+honest man's hand.' Now sign it."
+
+Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily,
+"Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter,
+and address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested."
+
+Chariot signed.
+
+"Now go," resumed the superintendent, "to Guerigny, if you will, and
+try to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the
+neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once."
+
+As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm
+was broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door
+closed tried to express her gratitude to the superintendent.
+
+"Do not thank me, madame," he said; "it is for your husband's sake that
+I have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most horrible torture
+that can overwhelm a man."
+
+"It is in my husband's name that I thank you. I am thinking of him, and
+of the sacrifice I must make for him."
+
+"What sacrifice?"
+
+"That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary."
+
+And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the
+superintendent feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately,
+"Keep up your courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves
+you."
+
+And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered
+a placard to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy's
+innocence. He was feted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and
+that was news of Belisaire.
+
+When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack was
+greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily with
+Zenaide and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when D'Argenton
+appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that they
+explained the finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and that a
+second letter had been sent narrating all these facts; in vain did these
+good people treat Jack with familiar kindness: D'Argenton's manner did
+not relax; he expressed in the choicest terms his regret that Jack had
+given so much trouble.
+
+"But it is I who owe him every apology," cried the old man.
+
+D'Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty,
+and of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was
+confused, for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in
+which Zenaide's lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore
+listened with downcast eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer,
+who fairly talked Father Rondic to sleep.
+
+"You must be very thirsty after talking so long," said Zenaide,
+innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the
+cake looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet--who was, as we
+know, something of an epicure--made a breach in it quite as large as
+that in the ham made by Beli-saire at Aulnettes.
+
+Jack had discovered one thing only from all D'Argenton's long words,--he
+had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him from
+disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great
+injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy,
+therefore, had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial reception
+of the Rondics, put the poet into the most amiable state of mind.
+You should have seen him with Jack as they trod the narrow streets of
+Indret!
+
+"Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?" said D'Argenton, unwilling
+to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character of hero and martyr;
+it was more than the selfish nature of the man could support. And yet,
+to deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing each other once
+more it was necessary to be provided with some reason; and this reason
+Jack himself soon furnished.
+
+The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability,
+acknowledged to M. d'Argenton that he did not like his present life;
+that he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from
+his mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better
+than manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy's lips, when he
+saw a change in his hearer.
+
+"You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be
+very unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten
+apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century
+was no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;" and on this text he
+wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the
+side of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in
+the inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to
+bring her the little criminal,--the boy whom she had not seen for two
+years, and whom she dearly loved. But D'Argenton had determined to keep
+them apart. It was wisest--Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would
+be reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the
+sacrifice for her child's interest.
+
+And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the
+river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across its
+waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.~~IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.
+
+How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such
+swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zenaide was married, and
+since Jack's terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and
+loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since
+Zenaide's marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her
+accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never
+lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all
+alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former
+serenity.
+
+The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island,
+part of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled
+with fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some
+weeks in the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender
+and loving when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when
+the poet looked over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother was,
+that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals, who now
+came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at Aulnettes.
+
+Moronval, Madou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who
+thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could
+see little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and
+the dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered.
+
+Thus were Dr. Rivals' words justified: "It is social distinctions that
+create final and absolute separations."
+
+Jack thought often of the old doctor and of Cecile, and on the first of
+January each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had
+remained unanswered.
+
+One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need
+him, and he must work hard for her sake.
+
+Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not
+to the ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction
+of his career. He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he
+received but three francs per day. With these three francs he must pay
+for his room, his food, and his dress; that is, he must replace his
+coarse clothing as it was worn out; and what should he do if his mother
+were to write and say, "I am coming to live with you "?
+
+"Look here," said Pere Rondic, "your parents made a great mistake in not
+listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you like to
+make a voyage? The chief engineer of the 'Cydnus' wants an assistant.
+You can have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed. Shall I
+write and say you will like the situation?"
+
+The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that Madou's wild tales
+had awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly
+pleased at the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just
+four years after his arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became
+more fresh as the little steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack
+had never seen the sea. The fresh salt breeze inspired him with
+restless longing. Saint Nazarre lay before him,--the harbor crowded with
+shipping. They landed at the dock, and there learned that the Cydnus, of
+the _Compagnie Transatlantique_, would sail at three o'clock that day,
+and was already lying outside,--this being, in fact, the only way to
+have the crew all on board at the moment of departure.
+
+Jack and his companion--for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him on
+board his ship--had no time to see anything of the town, which had all
+the vivacity of a market-day.
+
+The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with
+fowls which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty.
+Near their merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for
+purchasers. They were in no hurry, and made no appeal to the passers-by.
+In contrast to these, there was a number of small peddlers, selling pins,
+cravats, and portemonnaies, who were loudly crying their wares. Sailors
+were hurrying to and fro, and Rondic learned from one of them that the
+chief engineer of the Cydnus was in a very bad humor because he had not
+his full number of stokers on board.
+
+"We must hasten," said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly
+threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic
+steamers lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large
+English ships just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all
+hard at work. They passed between these motionless masses, where the
+water was as dark as a canal running through the midst of a city under
+high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry
+little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed
+Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.
+
+His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures
+were eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
+
+"You have come, then, have you?" he shouted. "I was afraid you meant
+to leave me in the lurch."
+
+"It was my fault," said Rondic; "I wished to accompany the lad, and I
+could not get away yesterday."
+
+"On board with you, quick!" returned the engineer; "he must get into his
+place at once."
+
+They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who
+had never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size
+and the depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes
+accustomed to the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing. The
+heat was stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where the
+heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost insupportable.
+Great activity reigned in this room; a general examination was being
+made of the machinery, which glittered with cleanliness. Jack looked on
+curiously at the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon be his
+duty to watch it day and night.
+
+At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. "That is where the
+coal is kept," said the engineer, carelessly; "and on the other side the
+stokers sleep."
+
+Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the
+Rondics, were palaces in comparison.
+
+The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened
+by the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked,
+were stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
+
+"Here is your man," said Blanchet to the head workman.
+
+"All right, sir," said the other without turning round.
+
+"Farewell," said Rondic. "Take care of yourself, my boy!" and he was
+gone.
+
+Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the
+furnace to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very hard
+work: the baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change
+from the pure air above to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely
+suffocating. On the third trip Jack felt his legs giving way under him.
+He found it impossible to even lift his basket, and sank into a corner
+half fainting. One of the stokers, seeing his condition, brought him a
+large flask of brandy.
+
+"Thank you; I never drink anything," said Jack.
+
+The other laughed. "You will drink here," he answered.
+
+"Never," murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an effort
+of will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
+
+From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer
+ran to and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who
+came hurriedly on board. The passengers were representatives of all
+nations. Some were gay, and others were weeping, but in the faces of
+all was to be read an anxiety or a hope; for these displacements, these
+movings, are almost invariably the result of some great disturbance, and
+are, in general, the last quiver of the shock that throws you from one
+continent to the other.
+
+This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that
+strained at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty
+who had come, some of them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It
+animated the fishing-boats, whose sails were spread for a night of toil.
+
+Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the
+passengers,--those belonging to the cabins comfortably established,
+those of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they
+going? What wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality
+awaited them on their landing? One couple interested him especially:
+it was a mother and a child who recalled to him the memory of Ida and
+little Jack. The lady was young and in black, with a heavy wrap thrown
+about her, a Mexican sarape with wide stripes. She had a certain air of
+independence characteristic of the wives of military or naval officers,
+who, from the frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown on their
+own resources. The child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if
+he might have belonged to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they both
+turned aside, and the long silk skirts were lifted that they might not
+touch his blackened garments. It was an almost imperceptible movement,
+but Jack understood it. A rough oath and a slap on the shoulder
+interrupted his sad thoughts.
+
+"What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!" It
+was the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word,
+humiliated at the reproof.
+
+As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout the
+ship: she had started.
+
+"Stand there!" said the head stoker.
+
+Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty
+to fill it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not
+such an easy matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching
+of the vessel came near throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless
+toiled on courageously, but at the end of an hour he was blind and deaf,
+stifled by the blood that rushed to his head. He did as the others
+did, and ran to the outer air. Ah, how good it was! Almost immediately,
+however, an icy blast struck him between the shoulders.
+
+"Quick, give me the brandy!" he cried with a choked voice, to the man
+who had previously offered it to him.
+
+"Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before
+long."
+
+He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he was
+so cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable warmth
+spread over his whole system, and then began a burning sensation in his
+stomach. To extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within, and fire
+without,--flame upon flame,--was this the way that he was to live in
+future?
+
+Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three
+years:--three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room
+down in the bowels of that big ship.
+
+He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian,
+French, and Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the
+climes they visited, the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had
+emptied his cinders, broken his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept
+the sleep of exhaustion and intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he
+lives. In the darkness of his life there was but one bright spot, his
+mother. She was like the Madonna in a chapel where all the lights are
+extinguished save the one that burns before her shrine. Now that he had
+become a man, much of the mystery of her life had become clear to him.
+His respect for Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and he loved her
+as we love those for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing moments
+he remembered the end for which he toiled, and a mechanical instinct
+made him carefully preserve almost every sou of his wages.
+
+Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother and
+son. Jack's letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte were
+frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life, that
+he read them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a living
+tenderness.
+
+Letters from Etiolles told him of D'Argenton; later, some from Paris
+spoke of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the
+poet having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of
+friends. This would be a way of bringing his works prominently before
+the public, as well as to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a
+large package addressed to him. It was the first number of the magazine.
+The stoker mechanically turned its leaves, leaving on them the traces of
+his blackened fingers; and suddenly, as he saw the well-known names of
+D'Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the smooth pages, he was seized
+with wild rage and indignation, and he cried aloud, as he shook his fist
+impatiently in the air, "Wretches, wretches! what have you made of me?"
+
+This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and,
+strangely enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and
+better able to support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed hardly
+to recognize any difference between bis days when the ship tossed and
+groaned, and his nights when he slept a drunken sleep, disturbed only by
+an occasional nightmare.
+
+Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams?
+That rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,--was all that a
+dream? His comrades called him, shook him. "Jack, Jack!" they cried; he
+staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under water,
+the compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against each
+other in the darkness. "What is it?" they cried.
+
+An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow
+ladder; at the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his
+hand.
+
+"The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your
+furnaces! Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are
+obeyed." Each one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They
+charged the furnaces with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured
+out; while the water still ascending, in spite of the constant work at
+the pumps, was as cold as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces
+will not burn. The stokers are in water up to their shoulders before the
+voice of the chief engineer is heard: "Save yourselves, my men, if you
+can!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.~~D'ARGENTON'S MAGAZINE.
+
+In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging
+to the last century, D'Argen-ton had established himself as editor of
+the new magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor.
+Do not smile: this was really the case; his money had been used to
+establish it Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so employing
+these funds, which she wished to preserve intact for the boy on his
+attaining his majority; but she yielded to the poet's persuasions.
+
+"Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you' know. Can there be a
+better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad,
+at least Have I not placed my own funds in it?"
+
+Within six months D'Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and
+the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous. Besides
+the offices of the magazine, D'Argenton had hired in the same house a
+large apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the Seine,
+Notre Dame, numberless spires and domes, were all spread before his
+eyes. He saw the carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats glide
+through the arches. "Here I can live and breathe," he said to himself.
+"It was impossible for me to accomplish anything in that dull little
+hole of Aulnettes! How could one work in such a lethargic atmosphere?"
+
+Charlotte was still young and gay; she managed the house and the
+kitchen, which was no small matter with the number of persons who daily
+assembled around her table. The poet, too, had recently acquired the
+habit of dictating instead of writing, and as Charlotte wrote a graceful
+English hand, he employed her as secretary. Every evening, when they
+were alone, he walked up and down the large room and dictated for an
+hour. In the silent old house, his solemn voice, and another sweeter and
+fresher, awakened singular echoes. "Our author is composing," said the
+concierge with respect.
+
+Let us look in upon the D'Argenton menage. We find them installed in a
+charming little room, filled with the aroma of green tea and of Havana
+cigars. Charlotte is preparing her writing-table, arranging her pens,
+and straightening the ream of thick paper. D'Argenton is in excellent
+vein; he is in the humor to dictate all night, and twists his moustache,
+where glitter many silvery hairs. He waits to be inspired. Charlotte,
+however, as is often the case in a household, is very differently
+disposed: a cloud is on her face, which is pale and anxious; but
+notwithstanding her evident fatigue, she dips her pen in the inkstand.
+
+"Let us see--we are at chapter first. Have you written that?"
+
+"Chapter first," repeated Charlotte, in a low, sad voice.
+
+The poet looked at her with annoyance; then, with an evident
+determination not to question her, he continued,--
+
+"In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore--"
+
+He repeated these words several times, then turning to Charlotte, he
+said, "Have you written this?"
+
+She made an effort to repeat the words, but stopped, her voice strangled
+with sobs. In vain did she try to restrain herself, her tears flowed in
+torrents.
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" said D'Argenton. "Is it this news of
+the Cydnus? It is a mere flying report, I am sure, and I attach no
+importance to it. Dr. Hirsch was to call at the office of the Company
+to-day, and he will be here directly."
+
+He spoke in a satirical tone, slightly disdainful, as the weak,
+children, fools, and invalids are often addressed. Was she not something
+of all these?
+
+"Where were we?" he continued, when she was calmer. "You have made me
+lose the thread. Read me all you have written."
+
+Charlotte wiped her tears away.
+
+"In a valley among the Pyrenees, those Pyrenees so rich in legendary
+lore--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"It is all," she answered.
+
+The poet was very much surprised; it seemed to him that he had dictated
+much more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression bewildered
+him. All that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his brain, he
+fancied was already in form and on the page, and he was aghast at the
+disproportion between the dream and the reality. His delusion was like
+that of Don Quixote,--he believed himself in the Empyrean, and took the
+vapors from the kitchen for the breath of heaven, and, seated on his
+wooden horse, felt all the shock of an imaginary fall.. Had he been in
+such a state of mental exaltation merely to produce those two lines?
+Were these the only result of that frantic rubbing of his dishevelled
+hair, of that weary pacing to and fro?'
+
+He was furious, for he felt that he was ridiculous. "It is your fault,"
+he said to Charlotte. "How can a man work in the face of a crying woman?
+It is always the same thing--nothing is accomplished. Years pass away
+and the places are filled. Do you not know how small a thing disturbs
+literary composition? I ought to live in a tower a thousand feet above
+all the futilities of life, instead of being surrounded by caprices,
+disorder, and childishness." As he speaks he strikes a furious blow upon
+the table, and poor Charlotte, with the tears pouring from her eyes,
+gathers up the pens and papers that have flown about the room in wild
+confusion.
+
+The arrival of Dr. Hirsch ends this deplorable scene, and after a while
+tranquillity is restored. The doctor is not alone; Labassandre comes
+with him, and both are grave and mysterious in their manner.
+
+Charlotte turns hastily. "What-news, doctor?" she asks.
+
+"None, madame; no news whatever."
+
+But Charlotte detected a covert glance at D'Argenton, and knew that the
+physician's words were false.
+
+"And what do the officers of the Company say?" continued the mother,
+determined to learn the truth.
+
+Labassandre undertook to answer, and while he spoke, the doctor
+contrived to convey to D'Argenton that the Cydnus had gone to the
+bottom",--"a collision at sea--every soul was lost."
+
+D'Argenton's face never changed, and it would have been difficult to
+form any idea of his feelings.
+
+"I have been at work," he said. "Excuse me, I need the fresh air."
+
+"You are right," said Charlotte; "go out for a walk;" and the poor
+woman, who usually detained her poet in the house lest the high-born
+ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain should entrap him, is this evening
+delighted to see him leave her, that she may weep in peace--that she may
+yield to all the wild terror and mournful presentiments that assail her.
+This is why even the presence of the servant annoys her, and she sends
+her to her attic.
+
+"Madame wishes to be alone! Is not madame afraid? The noise of the wind
+is very dismal on the balcony."
+
+"No, I am not afraid; leave me."
+
+At last she was alone. She could think at her ease, without the voice of
+her tyrant saying, "What are you thinking about?" Ever since she had
+read in the Journal the brief words, "There is no intelligence of the
+Cydnus," the image of her child had pursued her. Her nights had been
+sleepless, and she listened to the wind with singular terror. It seemed
+to blow from all quarters, rattling the windows and wailing through the
+chimneys. But whether it whispered or shrieked, it spoke to her, and
+said what it always says to the mothers and wives of sailors, who turn
+pale as they listen. The wind comes from afar, but it comes quickly and
+has met with many adventures. With one gust it has torn away the sails
+of a vessel, set fire to a quiet home, and carried death and destruction
+on its wings. This it is that gives to its voice such melancholy
+intonations.
+
+This night it was dreary enough: it rattles the windows and whistles
+under the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this
+poor mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking
+of the clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same
+plaintive tone and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well
+what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on the
+broad ocean, without sails or rudder--of a maddened crowd on the deck,
+of cries and shrieks, curses and prayers. Her hallucination is so strong
+that she even hears from the ship a beseeching cry of "Mamma!" She
+starts to her feet; she bears it again. To escape it, she walks about
+the room, opens the door and looks down the corridor. She sees nothing,
+but she hears a sigh, and, raising her lamp higher, discovers a dark
+shadow crouched in the corner.
+
+"Who is that?" she cried, half in terror, half in hope.
+
+"It is I, dear mother!" said a weak voice.
+
+She ran toward him. It is her boy--a tall, rough sailor--rising as she
+approached him, with the aid of a pair of crutches. And this is what
+she has made of her child! Not a word, not an exclamation, not a caress.
+They look at each other, and tears fill the eyes of both.
+
+A certain fatality attaches itself to some people, which renders them
+and all that they do absolutely ridiculous. When D'Argenton returned
+that night, he came with the determination to disclose the fatal news to
+Charlotte, and to have the whole affair concluded. The manner in which
+he turned the key in the lock announced this solemn determination.
+But what was his surprise to find the parlor a blaze of light!
+Charlotte--and on the table by the fire the remains of a meal. She came
+to him in a terrible state of agitation.
+
+"Hush! Pray make no noise--he is here and asleep."
+
+"Who is here?"
+
+"Jack, of course. He has been shipwrecked, and is severely injured. He
+has been saved as by a miracle. He has just come from Rio Janeiro, where
+he spent two months in a hospital."
+
+D'Argenton forced a smile, which Charlotte endeavored to believe was one
+of satisfaction. It must be acknowledged that he behaved very well, and
+said at once that Jack must stay there until he was entirely recovered.
+In fact, he could do no less for the actual proprietor of his Review.
+
+The first excitement over, the ordinary life of the poet and Charlotte
+was resumed, changed only by the presence of the poor lame fellow, whose
+legs were badly burned by the explosion of a boiler, and had not yet
+healed. He was clothed in a jacket of blue cloth. His light moustache,
+the color of ripe wheat, was struggling into sight through the thick
+coating of tan that darkened his face; his eyes were red and inflamed,
+for the lashes had been burned off; and in a state of apathy painful to
+witness, the son of Ida de Barancy dragged himself from chair to chair,
+to the irritation of D'Argenton and to the great shame of his mother.
+When some stranger entered the house and cast an astonished glance at
+this figure, which offered so strange a contrast to the quiet, luxurious
+surroundings, she hastened to say, "It is my son, he has been very ill,"
+in the same way that the mothers of deformed children quickly mention
+the relationship, lest they should surprise a smile or a compassionate
+look. But if she was pained in seeing her darling in this state, and
+blushed at the vulgarity of his manners or his awkwardness at the table,
+she was still more mortified at the tone of contempt with which her
+husband's friends spoke of her son.
+
+Jack saw little difference in the habitues of the house, save that they
+were older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they
+were the same. They had attained no higher social position, and were
+still without visible means of support.
+
+They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice
+each week they all dined at D'Argenton's table. Moronval generally
+brought with him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince
+of an indefinite age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed very
+small and slender. With his little cane and hat, he looked like a figure
+of yellow clay fallen from an etagere upon the Parisian sidewalk. The
+other, with narrow slits of eyes and a black beard, recalled certain
+vague remembrances to Jack, who at last recognized his old friend Said
+who had offered him cigar ends on their first interview.
+
+The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished,
+but his parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the
+manners and customs of fashionable society. All these persons treated
+Jack with a certain air of condescension. He remained Master Jack to but
+one person--that was that most amiable of women, Madame Moronval, who
+wore the same silk dress that he had seen her in years before. He cared
+little whether he was called "Master Jack," or "My boy,"--his two months
+in the hospital, his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the atmosphere
+of the engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion, had caused him
+such profound exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that he sat with his
+pipe between his teeth, silent and half asleep.
+
+"He is intoxicated," said D'Argent on sometimes.
+
+This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the
+society of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent.
+Then he drew his chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than
+talk himself. Her voice made a delicious murmur in his ears like that of
+the first bees on a warm spring day.
+
+Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, "When I
+was a child I went on a long voyage--did I not?"
+
+She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life
+that he had asked a question in regard to his history.
+
+"Why do you wish to know?"
+
+"Because, three years ago, the first day that I was on board a steamer,
+I had a singular sensation. It seemed to me that I had seen it all
+before; the cabins, and the narrow ladders, impressed me as familiar; it
+seemed to me that I had once played on those very stairs."
+
+She looked around to assure herself that they were entirely alone.
+
+"It was not a dream, Jack. You were three years old when we came from
+Algiers. Your father died suddenly, and we came back to Tours."
+
+"What was my father's name?"
+
+She hesitated, much agitated, for she was not prepared for this sudden
+curiosity; and yet she could not refuse to answer these questions.
+
+"He was called by one of the grandest names in France, my child--by
+a name that you and I would bear to-day if a sudden and terrible
+catastrophe had not prevented him from repairing his fault. Ah, we
+were very young when we met! I must tell you that at that time I had a
+perfect passion for the chase. I remember a little Arabian horse called
+Soliman--"
+
+She was gone, at full speed, mounted on this horse, and Jack made no
+effort to interrupt her--he knew that it was useless. But when she
+stopped to take breath, he profited by this brief halt to return to his
+fixed idea.
+
+"What was my father's name?" he repeated.
+
+How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of
+whom they had been speaking. She answered quickly,--"He was called
+the Marquis de l'Epau." Jack certainly had but little of his mother's
+respect for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he received
+with the greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his illustrious
+descent. What mattered it to him that his father was a marquis, and
+bore a distinguished name? This did not prevent his son from earning his
+bread as a stoker on the Cydnus.
+
+"Look here, Charlotte," said D'Argenton impatiently, one day, "something
+must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He cannot
+remain here forever without doing anything. He is quite well again; he
+eats like an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but Dr. Hirsch
+says that is nothing,--that he will always cough. He must decide on
+something. If the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too severe for
+him, let him try a railroad."
+
+Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, "If you could see how he loses his
+breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still
+feel that he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the
+office work?"
+
+"I will speak to Moronval," was the reply.
+
+The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the
+office except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack
+fulfilled these various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of
+Moronval with the same indifference that he opposed to D'Argenton's cold
+contempt. Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it was
+small, to be sure, but he added to it by supplementary labors, for which
+he was paid certain sums on account. The subscription books lay open on
+the desk, expenses went on, but no receipts came in. In fact, there was
+but one subscriber, Charlotte's friend at Tours, and but one proprietor,
+and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was at work in a corner. Neither
+Jack nor any one else realized this; but D'Argenton knew it and felt
+it hourly, and soon hated more strongly than ever the youth upon whose
+money he was living.
+
+At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the
+office.
+
+"But, my dear," said Charlotte, "he does all he can!"
+
+"And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit
+nor how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and
+since this great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown ten
+years older, my love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he drinks."
+
+Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but
+whose fault was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf?
+
+"I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change
+of air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing for
+him."
+
+She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go
+the next day to install her son at Aulnettes.
+
+They arrived there on one of those soft autumnal mornings which have all
+the beauty of summer without its excessive heat. There was not a breath
+in the air; the birds sang loudly, the fallen leaves rustled gently, and
+a perfume of rich maturity of ripened grain and fruit filled the air.
+The paths through the woods were still green and fresh; Jack recognized
+them all, and, seeing them, regained a portion of his lost youth. Nature
+herself seemed to welcome him with open arms, and he was soothed and
+comforted. Charlotte left her son early the next morning, and the little
+house, with its windows thrown wide open to the soft air and sunlight,
+had a peaceful aspect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.~~THE CONVALESCENT.
+
+"And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
+belief that my Jack was a thief!"
+
+"But, Dr. Rivals--"
+
+"And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
+Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!"
+
+It was, on feet, at the forester's cottage that Jack and his old friend
+had met.
+
+For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each
+day he had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons
+with whom he held any communication were the old forester and his wife,
+who had served Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched over
+his health, purchased his provisions, and often cooked his dinner over
+her own fire, while he sat and smoked at the door. These people never
+asked a question, but when they saw his thin figure and heard his
+constant cough, they shook their heads.
+
+The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing
+to both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor
+understood the truth, the awkwardness passed away.
+
+"And now," said the old gentleman, gayly, "I hope we shall see you
+often. You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse,
+but you need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great
+care,--particularly in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you
+understand. Our house is changed, for my poor wife died four years
+ago,--died of absolute grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her
+place; she keeps my books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she
+will be to see you! Now when will you come?"
+
+Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,--
+
+"Cecile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling
+of restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog
+is not good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now
+in with you quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall.
+If you do not appear I shall come for you."
+
+As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It
+seemed to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives
+with the doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room,
+while the poet was above in the tower.
+
+He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of dried
+grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very chilly. As of
+old, when he returned from his country excursions with the doctor, the
+remembrance of his kindness and affection rendered him impervious to the
+slights he received at home, so now did the prospect of seeing Cecile
+people his solitude with dear phantoms and happy visions, that remained
+with him even while he slept.
+
+The next day he knocked at the Rivals' door.
+
+"The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office," was the
+reply of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he
+had known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient to
+behold his former companion.
+
+"Come in, Jack," said a sweet voice.
+
+Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming
+apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde
+hair, was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had
+not the little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet
+recollections of their common child-hood!
+
+"Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me," she said. "I
+have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you, and
+often spoke of you."
+
+He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as
+she stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her
+head slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
+
+Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cecile
+there was something indefinable--an aroma of some divine spring-time,
+something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte's mannerisms and graces
+bore little resemblance.
+
+Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of
+his own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and
+the nails were broken and deformed,--irretrievably injured by contact
+with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even
+by putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of
+others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D'Argenton's, that
+was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this
+physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all the
+disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies, the
+hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection, and it
+seemed to him that Cecile knew them, too. The slight cloud that hung on
+her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all told him
+that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to run away and
+shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it again.
+
+Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cecile, busy at her
+scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time
+to recover his equanimity.
+
+How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid
+and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with
+her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them
+gently for their mistakes.
+
+She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack's,--the
+very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was
+little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor,
+burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Sale yet retained a
+little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been
+sick for months,--who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two
+or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked Cecile
+directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack
+felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he
+restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cecile
+listened.
+
+The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack
+going out, recognized him.
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, "the little Aulnettes boy come to life again?
+Ah, Mademoiselle Cecile, your uncle won't want you to marry him now, I
+fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the
+doctor desired;" and, chuckling, she left the room.
+
+Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so
+many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the
+only one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was
+scarlet with annoyance.
+
+"Come, Catherine, bring the soup." It was the doctor who spoke. "And you
+two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven years'
+absence?"
+
+At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of
+his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands--what could he
+do with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The
+whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cecile saw his
+discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it, hardly
+glanced again in his direction.
+
+Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot
+water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her
+grandmother's death had mixed the doctor's grog. And the good man
+had not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a
+melancholy tone, "diminished daily the quantity of alcohol."
+
+When she had served her grandfather, Cecile turned toward their guest.
+
+"Do you drink brandy?" she asked.
+
+"Does he drink brandy?" said the doctor, with a laugh, "and he in an
+engine-room for three years? Don't you know--ignorant little puss that
+you are--that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board
+a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
+draught. Make Jack's strong, my dear."
+
+She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
+
+"Will you have some?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle," he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
+withdrew his glass,--for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
+one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and
+which are only understood by those whom they address.
+
+"Upon my word, a conversion!" said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
+converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in
+God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work
+in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had
+every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking
+to himself, and gesticulating wildly. "Yes," he exclaimed,
+"M. d'Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with
+my equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them." It was a
+very long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New
+thoughts and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was Cecile's image.
+What a marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that
+had he been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to
+become his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road,
+he found himself face to face with Mother Sale, who was dragging a fagot
+of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his
+present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so
+terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the
+wood.
+
+That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
+Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
+doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
+autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the last
+years of his life.
+
+No, Cecile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
+secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life
+that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among
+very scrupulous people. He had never heard his father's name mentioned,
+and therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the
+extent of his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of
+the senses he lacks.
+
+But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all
+others.
+
+He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told it;
+but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really a
+marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely to
+avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father were
+still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son? The
+poor fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman's heart is more
+moved by compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the world.
+
+"I will write to my mother," he thought. But the questions he wished
+to ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at
+once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the work
+of words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech. Unfortunately he
+had no money for his railroad fare. "Pshaw!" he said, "I can go on foot.
+I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it again." And he did
+try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less long and less lonely
+than it did before, it was far more sad.
+
+Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
+Saint-George's, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
+carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so
+terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth
+could suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more
+afraid of the Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.
+
+He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling;
+and pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the
+present time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening
+when his mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in
+glory, and chasing away the shades of night.
+
+Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses,
+Jack saw D'Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval,
+who was carrying a bundle of proofs.
+
+"Here is Jack!" said Moronval.
+
+The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with
+so much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet coat,
+much too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would have
+supposed that any tie could exist between them.
+
+Jack extended his hand to D'Argenton, who gave one finger in return, and
+asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
+
+"Rented?" said the other, not understanding.
+
+"To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
+occupied, and you were compelled to leave it."
+
+"No," said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; "no one has even called to look
+at the place."
+
+"What are you here for?"
+
+"To see my mother."
+
+"Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however,
+there are travelling expenses to be thought of."
+
+"I came on foot," said Jack, with simple dignity.
+
+"Indeed!" drawled D'Argenton, and then added, "I am glad to see that your
+legs are in better order than your arms."
+
+And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
+
+A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by Jack,
+but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His pride
+was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes without
+seeing his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most seriously.
+He entered the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches were being
+brought in, for a great fete was in progress of arrangement, which
+was the reason that D'Argenton was so out of temper on seeing
+Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some of her
+preparations.
+
+"Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
+utterly,--that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going
+to Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments
+with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery."
+
+They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were
+going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
+
+"I wish to speak seriously," said Jack.
+
+"What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and
+to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations,
+it will be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary.
+I have arranged a veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not
+convenient?"
+
+She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
+with a sofa and jardiniere, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
+pattering on the zinc roof.
+
+Jack said to himself, "I had better have written," and did not know what
+to say first.
+
+"Well?" said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
+attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment,
+as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an etagere of trifles,
+for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head
+that leaned toward him.
+
+"I should like--I should like to talk to you of my father," he said,
+with some hesitation.
+
+On the end of her tongue she had the words, "What folly!" If she did
+not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
+amazement and fear, spoke for her.
+
+"It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as
+it is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you.
+Besides," she added, solemnly, "I have always intended, when you were
+twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth."
+
+It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three
+months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered
+no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an older
+narration. How well he knew her!
+
+"Is it true that my father was noble?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Indeed he was, my child."
+
+"A marquis?"
+
+"No, only a baron."
+
+"But I supposed--in fact, you told me--"
+
+"No, no--it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble."
+
+"He was connected then with the Bulac family?"
+
+"Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch."
+
+"And his name was--"
+
+"The Baron de Bulac--a lieutenant in the navy."
+
+Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, "How long since he died?"
+
+"O, years and years!" said Charlotte, hurriedly.
+
+That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
+falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a
+L'Epau?
+
+"You are looking ill, child," said Charlotte, interrupting herself in
+the midst of a long romance she was telling, "your hands are like ice."
+
+"Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise," answered Jack, with
+difficulty.
+
+"Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before
+it is late." She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his
+throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his
+silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fete in
+which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the
+waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
+
+"You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself."
+
+He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother
+all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fete from
+which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life
+from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who
+could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a
+family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from
+asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing
+that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it
+was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would
+impart the strength to cope with them.
+
+Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a
+spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere.
+It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
+overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets,
+going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one
+word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole
+refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on
+his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an
+exclamation of despair.
+
+"They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?" and entering
+one of those miserable drink-ing-shops, Jack called for a double measure
+of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
+and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,--
+
+"Do you drink brandy, Jack?"
+
+No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
+shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.
+
+How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks' duration after this long
+walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals,
+who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health,
+is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack
+seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor's
+office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky,
+the silent house, and the gentle footfall of Cecile.
+
+He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with
+watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple
+home. She sewed and kept her grandfather's accounts.
+
+"I am sure," she said, looking up from her book, "that the dear man
+forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?"
+
+"Mademoiselle!" he answered, with a start.
+
+He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all
+his eyes. If Cecile said, "My friend," it seemed to Jack that no
+other person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or
+good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again.
+Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected
+ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was
+more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have been.
+
+O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a
+large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a
+village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room
+was filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their
+flowering, and he drank it in with delight.
+
+In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in
+the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor
+of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
+
+With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old
+volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and
+which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all
+day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified
+many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living, it
+would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself, and
+then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.
+
+Meanwhile D'Argenton, informed of Jack's removal to the Rivals, saw fit
+to take great offence. "It is not at all proper," wrote Charlotte, "that
+you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give you the
+care you need? You place us in a false position."
+
+This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:--"I
+sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the
+science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two
+days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration
+of that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant
+disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us."
+
+As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with
+much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart
+from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least
+intimidated by her coldness, said at once, "I ought to tell you, madame,
+that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed
+through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions
+can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to
+which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk
+and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere,
+and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer,
+and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of
+renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch
+get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him
+forever."
+
+"Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an
+insult?" and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with
+a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her
+son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off
+some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He
+turned pale when he saw her.
+
+"You have come to take me away," he exclaimed.
+
+"Not at all," she answered, hastily. "The doctor wishes you to remain,
+and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
+tenderly?"
+
+For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother,
+and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly
+caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked
+tired and troubled.
+
+"We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
+reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese
+prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D'Argenton has
+translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese
+tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that
+literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent,
+and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is
+dead. Do you remember him?"
+
+At this moment Cecile came in and was received by Charlotte with the
+most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
+D'Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely,
+for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in
+Cecile's pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless
+babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame
+D'Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long,
+and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her
+delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet's
+frowning face.
+
+"Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your
+letter '_to be called for_,' for M. D'Argenton is much vexed with you
+just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next
+letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my
+sentences sometimes; but don't mind, dear, you will understand."
+
+She acknowledged her slavery with naivete, and Jack was consoled for the
+tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent
+spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her
+travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of
+life.
+
+Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the
+depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they
+expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling
+the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of
+these two young hearts. With Cecile, the divine flower had grown in a
+limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it.
+With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems
+reached the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and
+needed but little more to burst into flower.
+
+"If you wish," said M. Rivals, one evening, "we will go to-morrow to the
+vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go in
+that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner."
+
+They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright
+morning at the end of October. A soft haze hung over the landscape,
+retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the
+bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of
+the summer's brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of
+gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge
+trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young
+travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and
+holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the farmer's
+daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which are
+very numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of ripening
+fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
+
+They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a
+crowd at work. Jack and Cecile each snatched a wicker basket and joined
+the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen
+between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and
+picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white foam,
+and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh breeze
+that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
+
+This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not
+leave Cecile's side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a
+skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the
+grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the
+wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack
+raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same
+faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above
+her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and
+brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil,
+the gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had
+absolutely transformed M. Rivals' quiet housekeeper. She became a child
+once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder,
+watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which
+Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their
+heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two
+young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance
+of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.
+
+And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly
+on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal
+twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple
+homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cecile insisted on
+fastening around Jack's throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and
+softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was like a
+caress to the lover.
+
+He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was
+all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they
+heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal
+evenings has a charm that both Cecile and Jack felt as they entered the
+large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper innumerable
+dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound indifference
+to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully appreciated them, so
+fully that his granddaughter quietly left her seat, ordered the carriage
+to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing
+her in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving on the table his
+half-filled glass.
+
+The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country
+roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants,
+groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from
+the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed
+to follow with a golden shower.
+
+"Are you cold, Jack?" said the doctor, suddenly.
+
+How could he be cold? The fringe of Cecile's great shawl just touched
+him.
+
+Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew
+now that he loved Cecile, but he realized also that this love would be
+to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him,
+and although he had changed much since he had been so near her, although
+he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and appearance,
+he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had transformed
+him.
+
+The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was
+distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to
+grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in "the office." What would she
+think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he
+must go.
+
+One morning he entered M. Rivals' house to thank him for all his
+kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
+
+"You are right," said the old man; "you are well now bodily and
+mentally, and you can soon find some employment."
+
+There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular
+attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. "You have something to say
+to me," said the doctor, abruptly.
+
+Jack colored and hesitated.
+
+"I thought," continued the doctor, "that when a youth was in love with a
+girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper thing
+was to speak to him frankly."
+
+Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
+
+"Why are you so troubled, my boy?" continued his old friend.
+
+"I did not dare to speak to you," answered Jack; "I am poor and without
+any position."
+
+"You can remedy all this."
+
+"But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!"
+
+"Yes, I know--and so is she," said the doctor, calmly. "Now listen to a
+long story."
+
+They were in the doctor's library. Through the open window they saw a
+superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless
+trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated,
+and its crosses upheaved.
+
+"You have never been there," said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this
+melancholy spot. "Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which
+is the one word Madeleine.
+
+"There lies my daughter, Cecile's mother. She wished to be placed apart
+from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put upon
+her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her father
+and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing to merit
+this exile after death, and if any should have been punished, it was I,
+an old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon us.
+
+"One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry
+on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Foret de
+Senart. A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man on
+the state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with light
+hair and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the cold
+glitter of ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of the
+balls, and, the operation over, thanked me in excellent French, though
+with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved without danger, I
+continued to attend him at the forester's; I learned that he was a
+Russian of high rank,--'the Comte Nadine,' his companions called him.
+
+"Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
+constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was
+soon able to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took
+compassion on his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet home
+to my own house to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he spent
+the night with us. I must acknowledge to you that I adored the man.
+He had great stores of information, had been everywhere, and seen
+everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic recipes of his own land,
+to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine. We were positively
+enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face homeward on a
+rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find so congenial a
+person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the general enthusiasm,
+but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a certain distrust as a
+balance to my recklessness, I paid little attention. Meanwhile our
+invalid was quite well enough to return to Paris, but he did not go, and
+I did not ask either myself or him why he lingered.
+
+"One day my wife said, 'M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to
+the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.'
+
+"'What nonsense!' I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count
+lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks,
+idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the
+room, I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her
+embroidery all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind
+as those which will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when
+Madeleine acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went
+to find the comte to force an explanation.
+
+"He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
+wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way by
+his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for himself,
+and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount that I
+could give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
+
+"A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the
+very moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of
+lordly decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly
+attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future
+son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I
+realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but
+my daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, 'We must know more
+before we give up our daughter,' I laughed at her, I was so certain
+that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Vieville, one of the
+huntsmen.
+
+"'Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,' he said; 'he strikes me
+as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and that
+he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should wish
+to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the Russian
+embassy; they can tell you everything there.'
+
+"You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what I
+did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I have
+never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have never
+had any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half of
+what I have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of this
+additional information, I finished by lying, 'Yes, yes, I went there;
+everything is satisfactory.' Since then I remember the singular air of
+the comte each time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that time
+I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans that my children were making
+for their future happiness. They were to live with us three months in
+the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St. Petersburg, where
+Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor wife ended in sharing
+my joy and satisfaction.
+
+"The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count's papers were
+long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last
+the papers came--a package of hieroglyphics impossible to
+decipher,--certificates of birth, baptism, &c. That which particularly
+amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law,
+Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
+
+"'Have you really as many names as that?' said my poor child, laughing;
+'and I am only Madeleine Rivals.'
+
+"There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris
+with great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave
+the paternal authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at
+Etiolles, in the little church where to this very day are to be seen the
+records of an irreparable falsehood. How happy I was that morning as I
+entered the church with my daughter trembling on my arm, feeling that
+she owed all her happiness to me!
+
+"Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the
+bridal couple in a post-chaise--I can see them now as they drove away.
+
+"The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough.
+When we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our
+side was dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but
+the poor mother was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart
+was devoured by her regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their
+sorrows and their griefs come from within, and are interwoven with their
+daily lives and employments.
+
+"The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence, were
+radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the side
+of our own; we chose the furniture and the wall papers. 'They are
+here--they are there,' we said; and at last we expected the final
+letters we should receive before they returned.
+
+"One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped
+alone; when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my
+daughter appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had
+parted with a month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly dressed,
+and carried in her hand a little travelling-bag.
+
+"'It is I,' she whispered hoarsely; 'I have come.'
+
+"'Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?'
+
+"She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from
+head to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
+
+"'Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your husband?'
+
+"'I have none--I have never had one;' and suddenly, without looking at
+me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible history.
+
+"He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew
+by the name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga,
+married at St. Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by
+himself. His resources he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills
+on the Russian bank. At Turin he had been arrested on an order of
+extradition. Think of my little girl alone in this foreign town,
+separated violently from her husband, learning abruptly that he was a
+forger and a bigamist,--for he made a full confession of his crimes. She
+had but one thought, that of seeking refuge with us. Her brain was so
+bewildered, that, as she told us afterwards, when she was asked where
+she was going, she simply answered 'To mamma.' She left Turin hastily,
+without her luggage, and at last she was safe with us, and weeping for
+the first time since the catastrophe.
+
+"I said, 'Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!' but
+my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she
+did not reproach me. 'I knew,' she said, 'from the beginning that there
+was some misfortune in this marriage.' And, in fact, she had certain
+presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof.
+What is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and
+confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the
+neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known. 'Your travellers
+have returned,' they said. They asked few questions, for they readily
+saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was not with us,
+that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very soon I found
+myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to bear than
+anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a child would
+be born from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day after day,
+ornamenting the dainty garments, which are the joy and pride of mothers,
+with ribbons and lace; I fancied, however, that she looked at them with
+feelings of shame, for the least allusion to the man who had deceived
+her made her turn pale. But my wife, who saw things with clearer vision
+than my own, said, 'You are mistaken: she loves him still.'
+
+"Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love
+was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon after
+Cecile's birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all its
+folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written before
+their marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once
+pronouncing the name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
+
+"You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
+drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the
+crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance as
+it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am reminded
+of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at work in
+the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had not had
+little Cecile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her life from
+that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and self-reproach.
+
+"But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in
+ignorance of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of
+difficulty; it is true that we were relieved of her father, who died a
+few months after his condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew
+the whole story; and we wished to preserve Cecile from all the gossip
+she would hear if she associated with other children. You saw how
+solitary her life was. Thanks to this precaution, she to-day knows
+nothing of the tempest that surrounded her birth; for not one of the
+kind people about us would utter one word which would give her reason
+to suspect that there was any mystery. My wife, however, was always in
+dread of some childish questions from Cecile. But I had other fears:
+who could be certain that the child of my child did not inherit from her
+father some of his vices? I acknowledge to you, Jack, that for years
+I dreaded seeing her father's characteristics in Cecile; I dreaded the
+discovery of deceit and falsehood; but what joy it has been to me to
+find that the child is the perfected image of her mother! She has the
+same tender and half-sad smile, the same candid eyes, and lips that can
+say No.
+
+"Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn
+the truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
+
+"'She must never love any one,' said her grandmother.
+
+"If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
+protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her
+own. Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we
+knew no one. It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our
+minds that your mother came to this place. She was supposed to be
+the wife of D'Argenton, but the forester's wife told me the real
+circumstances. I said to myself instantly, 'This boy ought to be
+Cecile's husband;' and from that time I attended to your education.
+
+"I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to
+me and ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so
+indignant when D'Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself, however,
+Jack may emerge from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if he works
+with his head as well as his hands, he may still be worthy of the wife
+I wish to give him. The letters that we received from you were all
+that they should be, and I ventured to indulge the hope I have named.
+Suddenly came the intelligence of the robbery. Ah, my friend, how
+terrified I was! how I bemoaned the weakness of your mother, and the
+tyranny of the monster who had driven you to evil courses! I respected,
+nevertheless, the tender affection that existed toward you in the heart
+of my little girl, I had not the courage to undeceive her. We talked of
+you constantly until the day when I told her that I had seen you at the
+forester's. If you could have seen the light in her eyes, and how busy
+she was all day! a sign with her always of some excitement, as if her
+heart beating too quickly needed something, either a pen or a needle, to
+regulate its movements.
+
+"Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I
+am satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study
+medicine and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you
+here, but I concluded that it would take four years to complete your
+studies, and that your residence with us for that length of time would
+not be advisable. In Paris you can study in the evening, and work all
+day, and come to us on Sundays. I will examine your week's work and
+advise you, and Cecile will encourage you. Velpeau and others have done
+this, and you can do the same. Will you try? Cecile is the reward."
+
+Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of
+the old man. But perhaps Cecile's affection was only that of a sister:
+and four years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
+
+"Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions," said M. Rivals, gayly;
+"but I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. Cecile is up-stairs;
+go and speak to her."
+
+That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a
+trip-hammer, and a voice choked with emotion. Cecile was writing in the
+office.
+
+"Cecile," he said, as he entered the room, "I am going away." She rose
+from her seat, very pale. "I am going to work," he continued. "Your
+grandfather has given me permission to tell you that I love you, and
+that I hope to win you as my wife."
+
+He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than Cecile would have
+failed to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this
+room, lighted by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl stood
+listening to this declaration of love as to an echo of her own thoughts.
+She was perfectly unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile on her lips,
+and her eyes full of tears. She understood perfectly that their life
+would be no holiday, that they would be racked by separations and long
+years of waiting.
+
+"Jack," she said, after he had explained all his plans, "I will wait for
+you, not only four years, but forever."
+
+Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
+Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not
+too far removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and
+courage, impatient to begin his double work as mechanic and student. The
+crowd pushed against him, and he did not feel them; nor was he conscious
+of the cold of this December night; nor did he hear the young apprentice
+girls, as they passed him, say to each other, "What a handsome man!" The
+great Faubourg was alive and seemed to encourage him with its gayety.
+
+"What a pleasure it is to live!" said Jack; "and how hard I mean to
+work!" Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled with
+fur hats and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker's stall.
+Jack looked in and saw Belisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner and
+better clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once; but
+Belisaire was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of shoes
+that the cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were not for
+himself, but for a tiny child of four or five years of age, pale and
+thin, with a head much too large for his body. Belisaire was talking to
+the child.
+
+"And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
+feet warm."
+
+Jack's appearance did not seem to surprise him.
+
+"Where did you come from?" he asked, as calmly as if he had seen him the
+night before.
+
+"How are you, Belisaire? Is this your child?"
+
+"O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber," said the pedler, with a sigh; and
+when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted, Belisaire
+drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out some silver
+pieces that he placed in the cobbler's hand with that air of importance
+assumed by working people when they pay away money.
+
+"Where are you going, comrade?" said the pedler to Jack, as they stood
+on the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you
+take this side, I shall go the other.
+
+Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, "I hardly
+know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck's, and I want to
+find a room not too far away."
+
+"At Eyssendeck's?" said the pedler. "It is not easy to get in there; one
+must bring the best of recommendations."
+
+The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. Belisaire believed
+him guilty of the robbery,--so true it is that accusations, however
+unfounded and however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes.
+When Belisaire saw the letters of the superintendent at Indret, and
+heard the whole story, his whole face lighted up with his old smile.
+"Listen, Jack, it is too late to seek a lodging to-night; come with me,
+for I have a room where you can sleep tonight, and perhaps can suggest
+something that will suit you. But we will talk about that as we sup.
+Come now."
+
+Behold the three--Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber's little one, whose
+new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously--were soon hurrying along
+the streets. Belisaire informed Jack that his sister was now a widow,
+and that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in the full
+tide of 'his history, he stopped to shout his old cry of "Hats! hats!
+Hats to sell!" But before he reached his home, he was obliged to
+lift into his arms Madame Weber's little boy, who had begun to weep
+despairingly.
+
+"Poor little fellow!" said Belisaire, "he is not in the habit of
+walking. He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out
+with me sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His
+mother is away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working
+woman, and has to leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we
+are!"
+
+They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like
+narrow slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which
+serve as ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their
+boxes. At this hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in
+at the doors, which stood wide open.
+
+"Good evening," said the pedler.
+
+"Good evening," said the friendly voices from within.
+
+In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light--a woman
+and children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the
+corner.
+
+The pedler's room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud
+of it. "I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must
+wait until I have taken this child to its mother." He looked under the
+door of a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it,
+went directly to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the
+evening meal. He lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high
+chair at the table, gave it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and
+then said, "Come away quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute,
+and I wish to hear what she will say when she sees the child's new
+shoes." He smiled as he opened his room--a long attic divided in two. A
+pile of hats told his business, and the bare walls his poverty.
+
+Belisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of
+a fine salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two
+plates, bread and wine, and placed them on a little table. "Now," he
+said, with an air of triumph, "all is ready, though it is not much
+like that famous ham you gave me in the country." The potato salad was
+excellent, however, and Jack did justice to it. Belisaire was delighted
+with the appetite of his guest, and did his duty as host with great
+delight, rising every two or three minutes to see if the water was
+boiling for the coffee.
+
+"You have a taste for housekeeping, Belisaire," said Jack, "and have
+things nicely arranged."
+
+"Not yet," answered the pedler; "I need very many articles,--in fact,
+these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are waiting."
+
+"Waiting for what?" asked Jack.
+
+"Until we can be married!" answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to
+Jack's gay laugh. "Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her
+soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
+could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him,
+do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any
+more than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough
+for three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly
+and sober, and won't make too much trouble in the house."
+
+"How should I do, Belisaire?"
+
+"Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour,
+but did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for
+you."
+
+"No, Belisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very
+economical, for I, too, am thinking of marrying."
+
+"Really! But in that case we can't make our arrangements."
+
+Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four
+years later.
+
+"Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
+Hark! I hear Madame Weber."
+
+A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began
+a melancholy wail. "I am coming," cried the woman from the end of the
+corridor, to console the little one.
+
+"Listen," said Belisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed by a
+laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her arm,
+entered Belisaire's room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of about
+thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one's feet, but
+there was a tear in her eye as she said, "You are the person who has
+done this."
+
+"Now," said Belisaire, with simplicity, "how could she guess so well?"
+
+Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack was
+presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that
+she received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the
+aspirant for this distinction, and learned that the two men had known
+each other for ten years, and that she had before her the hero of the
+story of the ham that she had heard so many times, her face lost its
+expression of distrust, and she held out her hand to Jack.
+
+"This time Belisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
+comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very
+innocent, because he is so good."
+
+Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until the
+marriage he should share Belisaire's room and buy himself a bed; they
+would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every
+Saturday. After the marriage, they would establish themselves more
+commodiously, and nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment
+recalled to him Indret on a smaller scale. Owing to lack of space, there
+were in the same room three rows, one above the other, of machines.
+Jack was on the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of the place
+ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he beheld
+a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous beat of
+machinery.
+
+The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less
+ventilation; but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life
+supported him through all the trials of the day. His companions saw
+intuitively that he lived apart from them, indifferent to their petty
+quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither their pleasures nor their
+hatreds. He never listened to their sullen complaints, nor the muttered
+thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a Ghetto in this
+magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic theories, the
+natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering so near
+the wealthier classes.
+
+I am not disposed to assert that Jack's companions liked him especially,
+but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen, they
+looked upon him much as a Prince Rodolphe,--for they had all read "The
+Mysteries of Paris,"--and admired his tall, slender figure and his
+careful dress. But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he passed
+their corner of the establishment with scarcely a glance. This corner
+was never without its excitement and drama, for most of the workwomen
+had a lover among the men, and this led to all sorts of jealousies and
+scenes.
+
+Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to
+reach his lodgings, to throw aside his workman's blouse, and to bury
+himself in his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he
+had used at school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was
+astonished to find with what facility he regained all that he thought
+he had forever lost. Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected
+difficulty, and it was touching to see the young man, whose hands were
+distorted and clumsy from handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside
+his pen in despair. At his side Belisaire sat sewing the straw of
+his summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of a savage
+assistant at a magician's incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned,
+grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
+passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
+pedler's big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student's pen
+scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up
+and thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere;
+and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of other
+lamps, and other shadows courageously prolonging their labors into the
+middle of the night.
+
+After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
+brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It had
+been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to the
+poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he wrote,
+thought, "How happy they are." His own happiness came on Sundays. Never
+did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as did Jack on those
+days, for he was determined that nothing about him should remind Cecile
+of his daily toil; well might he have been taken for Prince Rodolphe had
+he been seen as he started off.
+
+Delicious day! without hours or minutes--a day of uninterrupted
+felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in
+the salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and Cecile and the doctor
+made him feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined,
+M. Rivals examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and
+explained all that had puzzled the youth.
+
+Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they
+often passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
+experiments. So black was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that
+one would have fancied that the man was burning all the drugs in the
+world. "Don't you smell the poison?" said M. Rivals, indignantly. But
+the young people passed the house in silence; they instinctively felt
+that there were no kindly sentiments within those walls toward them,
+and, in fact, feared that the fanatic Dr. Hirsch was sent there as
+a spy. But what had they to fear, after all? Was not all intercourse
+between D'Argenton and Charlotte's son forever ended? For three months
+they had not met. Since Jack had been engaged to Cecile, and under-stood
+the dignity and purity of love, he had hated D'Argenton, making him
+responsible for the fault of his weak mother, whose chains were riveted
+more closely by the violence and tyranny under which a nobler nature
+would have revolted. Charlotte, who feared scenes and explanations, had
+relinquished all hope of reconciliation between these two men. She never
+mentioned her son to D'Argenton, and saw him only in secret.
+
+She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled,
+and Jack's fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman
+elegant in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of
+gossip in regard to the mysterious visitor, which finally reached Jack's
+ears, who begged his mother not to expose herself to such remarks. They
+then saw each other in the gardens, or in some of the churches; for,
+like many other women of similar characteristics, she had become
+_devote_ as she grew old, as much from an overflow of idle
+sentimentality as from a passion for honors and ceremonies. In these
+rare and brief interviews Charlotte talked all the time, as was her
+habit, but with a worn, sad air. She said, however, that she was happy
+and at peace, and that she had every confidence in M. d'Argenton's
+brilliant future. But one day, as mother and son were leaving the
+church-door, she said to him, with some embarrassment, "Jack, can you
+let me have a little money for a few days? I have made some mistake in
+my accounts, and have not money enough to carry me to the end of the
+month, and I dare not ask D'Argenton for a penny."
+
+He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the
+whole amount in his mother's hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw
+what the obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a
+look of despair on the face that was generally so smiling and fresh.
+Intense compassion filled his heart. "You are unhappy," he said; "come
+to me, I shall-be so glad to have you."
+
+She started. "No, it is impossible," she said, in a low voice; "he has
+so many trials just now;" and she hurried away as if to escape some
+temptation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.~~THE WEDDING-PARTY.
+
+It was a summer morning. The pedler and his comrade were up before
+daybreak. One was sweeping and dusting, with as little noise as
+possible, careful not to disturb his companion, who was established at
+the open window. The sky was the cloudless one of June, pale blue with
+a faint tinge of rose still lingering in the east, that could be seen
+between the chimneys. In front of Jack was a zinc roof, which, when
+the sun was in mid-heaven, became a terrible mirror. At this moment it
+reflected faintly the tints of the sky, so that the tall chimneys looked
+like the masts of a vessel floating on a glittering sea. Below was
+heard the noise from the poultry owned by the various inhabitants of the
+Faubourg. Suddenly a cry was heard: "Madame Jacob! Madame Mathieu! Here
+is your bread."
+
+It was four o'clock. The labors of the day had begun. The woman whose
+daily business it was to supply that quarter with bread from the baker's
+had begun her rounds. Her basket was filled with loaves of all sizes,
+sweet-smelling and warm. She carries them all through the corridors,
+placing them at the corners of the various doors; her shrill voice
+aroused the sleepers; doors opened and shut; childish voices uttered
+cries of joy, and little bare feet pattered to meet the good woman, and
+returned hugging a loaf as big as themselves, with that peculiar gesture
+that you see in the poor people who come out of the bake-shops,
+and which shows the thoughtful observer what that hard-earned bread
+signifies to them.
+
+All the world is now astir; windows are thrown open, even those where
+the lamps have burned the greater part of the night. At one sits a
+sad-faced woman, at a sewing-machine, aided by a little girl, who hands
+her the several pieces of her work. At another a young girl, with hair
+already neatly braided, is carefully cutting a slice of bread for her
+slender breakfast, watching that no crumb shall fall on the floor she
+swept at daybreak. Further on is a window shaded by a large red curtain
+to keep off the reflection from the zinc roof. All these rooms open
+on the other side into a dark and ugly house of enormous size. But the
+student heeds nothing but his work. One sound only depresses him at
+times, and that is the voice of an old woman, who says every morning,
+before the noises of the street have begun, "How happy people ought to
+be who can go to the country on a day like this!" To whom does the poor
+woman utter these words, day after day? To the whole world, to herself,
+or only to the canary, whose cage, covered with fresh leaves, she hangs
+on the shutters? Perhaps she is talking to her flowers. Jack never knew,
+but he is much of her opinion, and would gladly echo her words; for his
+first waking thoughts turn toward a tranquil village street, toward a
+little green door, Jack has just reached this point in his reverie when
+a rustle of silk is heard, and the handle of his door rattles.
+
+"Turn to the right," said Belisaire, who was making the coffee.
+
+The handle is still aimlessly rattled. Belisaire, with the coffee-pot
+in his hand, impatiently throws it open, and Charlotte rushes in.
+Belisaire, stupefied at this inundation of flounces, feathers, and
+laces, bows again and again, while Jack's mother, who does not recognize
+him, excuses herself, and retreats toward the door.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," she said; "I made a mistake."
+
+At the sound of her voice Jack rises from his chair in astonishment
+
+"Mother!" he cried.
+
+She ran to him and took refuge in his arms.
+
+"Save me, my child, save me! That man, for whom I have sacrificed
+everything,--my life and that of my child,--has beaten me cruelly. This
+morning, when he came in after two days' absence, I ventured to make
+some observation; I thought I had a right to speak. He flew into a
+frightful passion, and--"
+
+The end of her sentence was lost in a torrent of tears and in convulsive
+sobs. Belisaire had retired at her first words, and discreetly closed
+the door after him. Jack looks at his mother, full of terror and pity.
+How pale and how changed she is! In the clear light of the young day the
+marks of time are clearly visible on her face, and the gray hairs,
+that she has not taken the trouble to conceal, shine like silver on her
+blue-veined temples. Without any attempt at controlling her emotion, she
+speaks without restraint, pouring forth all her wrongs.
+
+"How I have suffered, Jack! He passes his life now at the cafes and in
+dissipation. Did you know that, when he went to Indret with that money,
+I was there in the village, and crazy to see you? He reproaches me with
+the bread you ate under his roof, and yet--yes, I will tell you what I
+never meant you to know--I had ten thousand francs of yours that were
+given to me for you exclusively. Well, D'Argenton put them into his
+Review; I know that he meant to pay you large interest, but the ten
+thousand francs have been swallowed up with all the others, and when I
+asked him if he did not intend to account to you for them, do you know
+what he did? He drew up a long bill of all that he has paid for you.
+Your board at Etiolles, that amounts to fifteen thousand francs. But he
+does not ask you to pay the difference; is not that very generous?" and
+Charlotte laughed sarcastically. "I tell you I have borne everything,"
+she continued,--"the rages he has fallen into on your account, and
+the mean way in which he has talked with his friends of the affair at
+Indret; as if your innocence had never been fully established!
+
+"And then to leave me in ignorance of his where-abouts, to spend his
+time with some countess in the Faubourg St. Germaine,--for those women
+are all crazy about him,--and then to receive my reproaches with such
+disdain, and finally to strike me! Me, Ida de Barancy! This was too
+much. I dressed, and put on my hat, and then I went to him. I said,
+'Look at me, M. d'Argenton; look at me well; it is the last time that
+you will see me; I am going to my child.' And then I came away."
+
+Jack had listened in silence to these revelations, growing paler and
+paler, and so filled with shame for the woman who narrated them that he
+could not look at her. When she had finished, he took her hand gently,
+and with much sweetness, but also with much solemnity, he said,--
+
+"I thank you for having come to me, dear mother. Only one thing was
+lacking to complete my happiness, and that was your presence. Now take
+care! I shall never allow you to leave me."
+
+"Leave you! No, Jack; we will always live together--we two. You know
+I told you that the day would come when I should need you. It has come
+now."
+
+Under her son's caresses she became tranquillized. There came an
+occasional sob, like a child who has wept for a long time.
+
+"You see," she said, "how happy we may be. I owe you much care and
+tenderness. I feel now that I can breathe freely. Your room is bare and
+small, but it seems to me like Paradise itself."
+
+This brief summary of the apartment regarded by Belisaire as so
+magnificent, disturbed Jack somewhat as to the future; but he had no
+time now for discussions; he had but half an hour before he must leave,
+and he must decide at once on something definite. He must consult
+Belisaire, whom he heard patiently pacing the corridor, and who
+would have waited until nightfall without once knocking to see if the
+interview was over.
+
+"Belisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we manage?"
+
+Belisaire started as he thought, "And now the marriage must be
+postponed, for Jack will not be one of our little menage!"
+
+But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest
+some plan that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It
+was decided finally that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his
+mother and find for himself a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock
+of hats and his furniture with Madame Weber.
+
+Jack presented his friend to Belisaire, who remembered very well the
+fair lady at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the
+service of Ida de Barancy; for "Charlotte" was no more heard of. A bed
+must be purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took
+from the drawer where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces
+which he gave his mother.
+
+"You know," he said, "that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good
+Madame Weber will attend to the dinners."
+
+"Not at all; Belisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do
+everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have
+ready for you when you come back to-night."
+
+She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready
+to begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her
+with his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind.
+With what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and
+hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some time, and marred
+his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation would D'Argenton
+compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now all was changed.
+Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would become worthy of her
+whom she would some day call "my daughter."
+
+It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished
+the distance between Cecile and himself, and he smiled to himself as
+he thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was
+seized by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what
+promptitude Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared
+lest she had felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken.
+But on the staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the
+house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on
+the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with
+Belisaire's goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and dainty
+dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There were
+flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white cloth,
+on which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an
+embroidered skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her
+puffs, hardly looked like herself.
+
+"Well!" she said, running to meet him; "and what do you think of it!"
+
+"It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!"
+
+"Yes; Belisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them
+to dine with us."
+
+"But what will you do for dishes?"
+
+"You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side
+have lent me some. They are very obliging also."
+
+Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant,
+opened his eyes wide.
+
+"But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell
+them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that
+I had to take a carriage to return."
+
+This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save
+fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be
+found.
+
+The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from
+the _Palais Royale_. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that
+something was wrong.
+
+"Have I spent too much?" she asked.
+
+"No, I think not,--for one occasion," he answered, with same hesitation.
+
+"But I have not been extravagant. Look here," she said, and she showed
+him a long green book; "in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show
+my entries to you after dinner."
+
+Belisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was
+truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received
+them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at
+their ease.
+
+Belisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must
+be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his "comrade." Ah, one may
+well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by
+children, which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same
+time feels all the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the
+light, while his companion descended toward the implacable reality. To
+begin with, the person called Belisaire--who should in reality have been
+named Resignation, Devotion, or Patience--was now obliged to relinquish
+his pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor;
+not for worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.
+
+Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to
+see him bring out a pile of books.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"I am going to study." And he then told her of the double life he led;
+of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until
+then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform
+D'Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way
+his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to
+him alone, he could speak to her of Cecile and of his supreme joy. Jack
+talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not
+understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not
+the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him
+with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at
+the _Gymnase_, when the _Ingenue_ in a white dress, with rose-colored
+ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She
+was pleased with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two
+or three times, "How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and
+Virginia!"
+
+Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the
+echoes of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed,
+heard none of the commonplace comments of his mother.
+
+Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Belisaire
+came to meet him with a radiant face. "We are to be married at once!
+Madame Weber has found a 'comrade.'"
+
+Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend's
+disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did
+not last; for, on seeing "the comrade," he received a most unpleasant
+impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of
+his face was far from agreeable.
+
+The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is
+generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the
+church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they
+generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.
+
+Belisaire's wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one
+of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to
+the municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing,
+Madame Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue
+of that bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors;
+a many-hued shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap,
+ornamented with ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant face.
+She walked by the side of Belisaire's father, a little dried-up old man,
+with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough that
+his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back with
+considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat disturbed the
+dignity of the wedding procession.
+
+Belisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as
+hooked as her father's. Belisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led
+by one hand Madame Weber's little child. Then came a crowd of relatives
+and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do
+more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to
+take place at Vincennes.
+
+When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room
+engaged by Belisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look
+at the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of
+merrymakers. They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man's-buff and
+innumerable other games; under the trees a girl was mending the flounces
+of a bride's dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy those girls
+let them drag over the lawn, imagining themselves for that one occasion
+women of fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the people seek in
+their hours of amusement: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of
+the envied and happy of this earth.
+
+Belisaire's party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy
+the announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in
+one of those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and
+whose size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each
+end of the table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a
+centrepiece of pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which
+had officiated at many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months. They
+took their seats in solemn silence, though Madame do Barancy had not yet
+arrived.
+
+The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who
+disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per
+head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and
+envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment.
+The waiters were, however, filled with profound contempt, which they
+expressed by winks at each other, invisible however to the guests.
+
+Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him
+with holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife's chair, watched him
+so disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from
+the _carte_,--on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens,
+and beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and
+battles--Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. Belisaire, like the others, was
+stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with
+the question, "Bisque, or Puree de Crecy?" Or two bottles: "Xeres, or
+Pacaset, sir?"
+
+They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where
+you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was
+of little consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless
+mixture. There was so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be
+very dull, and interminable as well, from the indecision of the guests
+as to the dishes they should accept. It was Madame Weber's clear head
+and decided hand that cut this Gordian knot. She turned to her child.
+"Eat everything," she said, "it costs us enough."
+
+These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after
+a little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open,
+and Ida de Barancy entered, smiling and charming.
+
+"A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept."
+
+She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity
+nowadays of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary effect.
+The way in which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her gloves in a
+wineglass, the manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to
+bring her the carte, overwhelmed the assembly with admiration. It was
+delightful to see her order about those imposing waiters. One of them
+she had recognized, the one who terrified Belisaire so much. "You are
+here then, now!" she said carelessly; and shook her bracelets, and
+kissed her hand to her son, asked for a footstool, some ice, and
+eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew the resources of the establishment.
+
+"But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!" she cried suddenly.
+She rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. "I ask
+permission to change places with Madame Belisaire; I am quite sure that
+her husband will not complain."
+
+This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber
+uttered a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair,
+and all this noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and
+restraint into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the
+table executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck
+so adroitly carved and served that each one had as much as he wanted.
+And the peas fell like hail on the plates; and the beans--prepared
+at one end of the table with salt, pepper, and butter; and such
+butter!--were mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he stirred the
+fell combination.
+
+At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person
+there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne
+signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They
+talked about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at
+dessert, a waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he proceeded
+to open. Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a sensation and
+assuming an attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears, but the cork
+came out like any other cork; the waiter, holding the bottle high, went
+around the table very quickly. The bottle was inexhaustible; each person
+had some froth and a few drops at the bottom of the glass, which he
+drank with respect, and even believed that there was still more in the
+bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word champagne had produced
+its effect, and there is so much French gayety in the least particle of
+its froth that an astonishing animation at once pervaded the assembly. A
+dance was proposed; but music costs so much!
+
+"Ah! if we only had a piano," said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the
+same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
+Belisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a
+village musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his
+mother at first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued,
+but Ida finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk
+skirts and the jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the younger
+women with admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the
+little Weber was asleep wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack
+had made many signs to Ida, who pretended not to understand, carried
+away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about her. Jack was like
+an old father who is anxious to take his daughter home from a ball.
+
+"It is late," he said.
+
+"Wait, dear," was her answer. At length, however, he seized her cloak,
+and wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that
+hour, and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which
+they hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot
+through the Bois de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious
+after the heat of the restaurant; the child slept sweetly on Belisaire's
+shoulder, and did not even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame
+Belisaire threw aside her wedding-dress, assumed a plainer one, and at
+once entered on the duties of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.~~EFFECTS OF POETRY.
+
+The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great
+pleasure and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he knew
+her, nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared Cecile's calm judgment
+and intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes are in the
+young. The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The emphatic
+tone in which Ida addressed Cecile as "my daughter" was all well enough,
+but when under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de Barancy
+dropped her serious air and began some of her extravagant stories, Jack
+felt all his apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors on the _qui
+vive_. Some one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in the Pyrenees.
+
+"Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!" she sighed. "Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and all
+that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my family,
+the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at Biarritz in a
+most amusing way!"
+
+Cecile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,--
+
+"Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma!
+I was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who insisted
+on my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very angry, and
+opened the window, took me just at the waist, and held me above the
+water in the lightning and rain."
+
+Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to life
+again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain life
+and animation.
+
+The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his
+lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cecile to go down
+into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched
+them from the window; Cecile's slender figure and quiet movements were
+those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but
+loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For
+the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only breathed
+freely again when they were all together walking in the woods. But
+on this day his mother's presence disturbed the harmony. She had no
+comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous.
+But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for _les
+convenances_. She recalled the young people, bade them "not to wander
+away so far, but to keep in sight," and then she looked at the doctor in
+a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on
+the old doctor's nerves; but the forest was so lovely, Cecile so
+affectionate, and the few words they ex-changed were so mingled with the
+sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the poor
+boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation,
+so they stopped at the forester's. Mere Archambauld was delighted to see
+her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked not a question in
+regard to D'Argenton, her keen personal sense telling her that she
+had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a long time so
+intimately connected with their life at Aul-nettes, was too much for
+Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by Mother
+Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if in
+answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through the
+forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
+
+The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the
+blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the
+tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke
+a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and
+inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms.
+
+"What is it, dear mother?" said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.
+
+"Ah!" she said, with rapidly falling tears, "you know I have so much
+buried here!"
+
+Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin
+inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for
+that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did Cecile, who had been told
+that Madame D'Argenton was separated from her husband, try with minor
+cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek
+to interest her in all his projects for the future.
+
+"You see, my child," she said, on her way home, "that it is not best for
+me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound is too
+recent."
+
+Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the
+humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved
+him.
+
+For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished
+what to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk,
+and the quiet talk with Cecile, that he might return to Paris in time to
+dine with his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from
+the tranquillity of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the
+Faubourg. The sidewalks were covered by little tables, where families
+sat drinking their coffee, and crowds were standing, with their noses in
+the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon that had just been released
+from its moorings.
+
+In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the
+courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with his
+neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher than
+they could obtain in their confined quarters within.
+
+Sometimes, in Jack's absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to
+a little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Leveque. The shop was
+filled with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and
+illustrated papers, which she let for a sou a day.
+
+Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making
+a certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
+
+It seems that Madame Leveque had known better days, and that under the
+first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. "I am the
+godchild of the Duc de Dantzic," she said to Ida, with emphasis. She was
+one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in the
+secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop, her
+gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered with
+stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had seen
+but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in which she
+pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of epaulettes and
+gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the ladies of the
+court! One especial tale Madame Leveque was never tired of telling: it
+was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of the famous ball
+given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her subsequent years had
+been lighted by those flames, and by that light she saw a procession of
+gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low dresses, with heads dressed
+_a la Titus or a la Grecque_, and the emperor, in his green coat and
+white trousers, carrying in his arms across the garden the fainting
+Madame de Schwartzenberg.
+
+Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this
+half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark
+shop, with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their
+tongues, a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some
+woman, impatient for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come
+in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the
+two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and, if
+she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.
+
+Occasionally Madame Leveque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida
+had no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a
+pile of books taken at hazard from Madame Leveque's shelves. These books
+were soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread upon
+them, showing that they had been read while eating. She sat reading by
+the window,--reading until her head swam. She read to escape thinking.
+Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil that she saw
+going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her son, exciting
+her to more strenuous exertions.
+
+The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other with
+her sing-song repetition of the words, "How happy people ought to be who
+can go to the country in such weather!" exasperated her almost beyond
+endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air, made
+all these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same way that
+the repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the twitter of
+the sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits. She thought
+of her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay parties in the
+country, and above all of the more recent years at Etiolles. She thought
+of D'Argenton reciting one of his poems on the porch in the moonlight.
+Where was he? What was he doing? Three months had passed since she left
+him, and he had not written one word. Then the book fell from her hands,
+and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of her son, whom she
+endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole story in
+the disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in
+readiness for dinner.
+
+"I have done nothing," she said, sadly. "The weather is so warm, and I
+am discouraged."
+
+"Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some
+little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day," he continued, with a
+tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out
+from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too
+coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as
+modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her
+no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her
+costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,--in the length of her
+skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the
+trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet
+or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
+conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been
+so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
+disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
+with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
+perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother's
+ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
+
+She had certain phrases caught from D'Argenton, a peremptory tone in
+discussion, a didactic "I think so; I believe; I know." She generally
+began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
+signified, "I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you." Thanks
+to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
+husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an
+occasional look of D'Argenton on his mother's face. On her lips was
+often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of
+his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D'Argenton.
+Never had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the
+pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.
+
+After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
+was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the old
+heights of Montfaucon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and pine
+groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was something
+artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its resemblance
+to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of the alleys,
+admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name on the
+ruined wall, with the scores of others that were already there. When
+they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit of the
+hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them. Paris,
+softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The heights
+around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle,
+connected by Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other,
+with Montfaucon; nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the
+people. In the winding alleys and under the groups of trees young
+people were singing and dancing, while on the hillside, sitting amid
+the yellowed grass, and on the dried red earth, families were gathered
+together like flocks of sheep.
+
+Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude
+said, "How inexpressibly tiresome it is!" Jack felt helpless before this
+persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some
+one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his
+mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what he wanted.
+It was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in appearance,
+leading two little children, over whom he was bending with that
+wonderful patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.
+
+"I certainly know that man," said Jack to his mother; "it is--it must be
+M. Rondic."
+
+Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder
+that his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a
+miniature of Zenaide, while the boy looked like Maugin.
+
+The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile
+was sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth
+dared not ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Zenaide bore
+down upon them like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited
+skirt and ruffled cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked larger
+than ever. She had the arm of her husband, who was now attached to one
+of the custom-houses, and who was in uniform. Zenaide adored M. Maugin
+and was absurdly proud of him, while he looked very happy in being so
+worshipped.
+
+Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they
+divided into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaide, "What has
+happened? Is it possible that Madame Clarisse--"
+
+"Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally."
+
+Then she added, "We say 'accidentally' on father's account; but you, who
+knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that she
+perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah, what
+wicked men there are in this world!"
+
+Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his
+companion.
+
+"Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock," resumed
+Zenaide; "but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his
+position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together
+in the Eue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won't you,
+Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse him.
+Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking at us,
+and thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that."
+
+Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
+approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D'Argenton, as
+indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes, which,
+had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken long. They
+separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long afterward,
+called upon them with his mother.
+
+He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know so
+well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big wardrobe
+as an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and presented a
+perfect picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris. But he soon
+saw that his mother was bored by Zenaide, who was too energetic and
+positive to suit her, and that there, as everywhere else, she was
+haunted by the same melancholy and the same disgust which she expressed
+in the brief phrase, "It smells of the work-shop."
+
+The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed
+impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the
+window, she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each
+breath of wind brought it to her. The people she saw--even her own Jack,
+when he returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil--exhaled the
+same baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself--the odor of
+toil--and filled her with immense sadness.
+
+One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary
+excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. "D'Argenton
+has written to me!" she cried, as he entered the room; "yes, my dear, he
+has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe
+a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and
+that, if I need him, he is at my disposal."
+
+"You do not need him, I think," said Jack, quietly, though he was in
+reality as much moved as his mother herself.
+
+"Of course I do not," she answered, hurriedly.
+
+"And what shall you say?"
+
+"Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not
+yet know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just
+finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious
+to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all in order.
+He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has
+been for two months at--what is the name of the place?" and she calmly
+drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. "Ah,
+yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense!
+Those mineral springs have always been bad for him."
+
+Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening
+she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation
+of her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself.
+Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.
+
+"You are full of courage, my boy," she said, kissing him.
+
+He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother's
+mind. "It is not I whom she kisses," he said, shrewdly; and his
+suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the
+past had taken possession of the poor woman's mind. She never ceased
+humming the words of a little song of D'Argenton's, which the poet was
+in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and
+over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack's mind
+only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would
+have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he loved
+her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect herself. He
+therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first warning of coming
+danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous foreboding of a man who
+was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of saying good-bye to him
+when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her smile of greeting on
+his return. He could not watch her himself, nor could he confide to any
+other person the distrust with which she inspired him. He knew how often
+a woman surrounds the man whom she deceives in an atmosphere of tender
+attentions,--the manifestations of hidden remorse. Once, on his way
+home, he thought he saw Hirsch and Labassandre turning a distant corner.
+
+"Has any one been here?" he said to the concierge; and by the way he was
+answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him.
+The Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so
+completely absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in.
+He would not have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not
+Ida made an attempt to conceal the book.
+
+"You startled me," she said, half pouting.
+
+"What are you reading?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing,--some nonsense. And how are our friends?" But as she spoke,
+a blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin.
+It was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at
+once prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze, she
+rose from her chair. "You wish to know what I am reading! Look, then."
+He saw once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read for
+the first time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was thinner
+and smaller. Jack would not have opened it if the following title on the
+outer page had not met his eyes:--
+
+        THE   PARTING.
+
+          A  POEM.
+
+ By the Vicomte Amacry d'Abgentoh.
+
+And commenced thus:--
+
+"TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.
+
+"What! with out one word of farewell, Without a turn of the head..."
+
+Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the
+name of Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine
+with a shrug of the shoulders. "And he dared to send you this?"
+
+"Yes; two or three days ago."
+
+Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After a
+while she stooped, carelessly.
+
+"You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply
+absurd."
+
+"But I do not think them so."
+
+"He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
+human heart."
+
+"Be more just, Jack,"--her voice trembled,--"heaven knows that I know
+M. D'Argenton better than any one, his faults and the defects of his
+nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as
+to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
+peculiarity of M. D'Argenton's genius is the sympathetic quality of his
+verses. Musset had it irksome degree; and I think that the beginning
+of this poem, 'The Parting,' is very touching: the young woman who goes
+away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of farewell."
+
+Jack could not restrain himself. "But the woman is yourself," he cried,
+"and you know under what circumstances you left."
+
+She answered, coldly,--
+
+"Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
+D'Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
+able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the
+poets of France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt
+to-day, will yet be proud of having known him and of having sat at his
+table!" And as she finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack
+took his seat at his desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt
+that "the enemy," as in his childish days he had called the vicomte,
+was gradually making his approaches. In fact Amaury d'Argenton was as
+unhappy apart from Charlotte as she was herself. Victim and executioner,
+indispensable to each other, he felt profoundly the emptiness of divided
+lives. From the first hour of their separation the poet had adopted
+a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken heart. He was seen in the
+restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of flatterers who talked
+of her; he wished to have every one know his misery and its details;
+he wished to have people think that he was drowning his sorrows in
+dissipation. When he said, "Waiter! bring me some pure absinthe," it was
+that some one at the next table might whisper, "He is killing himself by
+inches--all for a woman!"
+
+D'Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
+constitution. His "attacks" were more frequent, and Charlotte's absence
+was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured his
+perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes.
+He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another,
+sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
+environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
+contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would
+burn, and currents of air whistled under all the doors; and in the
+depths of his selfish nature D'Argenton sincerely regretted his
+companion, and became seriously unhappy. Then he decided to take a
+journey, but that did him no good, to judge from the melancholy tone of
+his letters to his friends.
+
+One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy
+away from him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, "Write a
+poem about it," and D'Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of
+being calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and
+the separation became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review
+appeared, Hirsch and Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to
+the Rue des Panoyeaux.
+
+This done, D'Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand _coup_.
+He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself at
+Charlotte's door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away. D'Argenton
+was very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of the
+greatest mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart,
+and that that heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved
+him, but he saw a certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed
+at the corner as for an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying
+his hatred of Jack. He pictured to himself the disappointment of the
+youth on his return to find that the bird had flown. He meant to appear
+suddenly before Charlotte, to throw himself at her feet, and, giving her
+no time to think, to carry her away with him at once. She must be very
+much changed since he last saw her if she could resist him. He entered
+her room without knocking, saying in a low voice, "It is I."
+
+There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on
+account of the occurrence of his mother's birthday, had a holiday, and
+was at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove. The
+two men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not the
+advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could
+he treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking fellow, in whose
+intelligent face appeared, as if still more to exasperate the lover,
+something of his mother's beauty.
+
+"Why do you come here?" asked Jack.
+
+The other stammered and colored. "I was told that your mother was here."
+
+"So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her."
+
+This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D'Argenton by
+the shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
+difficulty preserved his footing.
+
+"Jack," he said, endeavoring to be dignified,--"there has been a
+misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a man,
+all this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child."
+
+Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Of what use are these theatricals between
+us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!"
+
+"And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?"
+
+"Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
+hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
+bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what
+are you? Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you
+without anger, it has never been without a blush of shame."
+
+"It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been entirely
+false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance."
+
+But Jack cut short this discourse.
+
+"You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a
+very serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say
+that every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one
+of them in useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your
+slave. All that I suffered in this time my pride will never let you
+know. My mother now belongs to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you
+want of her? Her hair is gray, and your treatment of her has made great
+wrinkles on her forehead. She is no longer a pretty woman, but she is my
+mother!"
+
+They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that
+narrow, squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so
+humiliating.
+
+"You strangely mistake the sense of my words," said the poet, deadly
+pale. "I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come, as an
+old friend, to see if I can serve you in any way."
+
+"We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we require."
+
+"You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always."
+
+"That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
+forced to endure, has now become odious to me."
+
+The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his
+looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not
+add one word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was
+strangely out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned
+to his room: on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes
+swollen with tears and sleep.
+
+"I was there," she said in a low voice; "I heard everything, even that I
+was old and had wrinkles."
+
+He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her
+eyes.
+
+"He is not far away. Shall I call him?"
+
+She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one
+of those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly unworthy,
+exclaimed, "You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only your
+mother!"
+
+Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M.
+Rivals:--
+
+"My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened
+in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the
+blow. Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more
+dignified to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro
+lad who said, 'If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!' I
+never fully understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I
+do not write you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait
+until Sunday because I could not speak before Cecile. I told you of
+the explanation that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my
+mother was so very sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had gone
+through, that I resolved to change our residence. I understood that a
+battle was being fought, and that, if I wished her to be victorious,
+if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ all means and
+devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted something gayer
+and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas three rooms newly
+papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All the money I had
+saved--pardon me these details--I devoted to this purpose. Belisaire
+aided me in moving, while Zenaide was in the same street, and I counted
+on her in many ways. All these arrangements were made secretly, and
+I hoped a great surprise and pleasure was in store for my mother. The
+place was as quiet as a village street, the trees were well grown and
+green, and I fancied that she would, when established there, have less
+to regret in the country-life she had so much enjoyed.
+
+"Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell
+her that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take
+her to our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all the
+windows, and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made a
+little fire, for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the
+room. In the midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It was
+like an electric spark. 'She will not come.' In vain did I call
+myself an idiot, in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her
+footstool. I knew that she would never come. More than once in my life I
+have had these intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before striking
+her heaviest blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a warning.
+
+"She did not come, but Belisaire brought a note from her. It was very
+brief, merely stating that M. D'Argenton was very ill, and that she
+regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well she
+would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself ill,
+too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the wretch!
+How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You remember
+those 'attacks' he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon disappeared
+after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has. But my mother
+was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be deceived. But
+to return to my story. Behold me alone in this little home, amid all
+the wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I could not remain
+there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to me as sad as a
+funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and the roses wither
+and fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle rustle. I took the
+rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with something of the same
+superstition with which one preserves for a long time the cage from
+which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother returns we will go
+there together. But if she does not I shall never inhabit the place.
+I have now told you all, but do not let Cecile see this letter. Ah,
+my friend, will she too desert me? The treachery of those we love is
+terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking; I have her word and her
+promise, and Cecile always tells the truth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.~~CECILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
+
+Fob a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the
+morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he
+heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When
+he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see the
+windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of which,
+with the key, he had sent to her: "The house is ready. Come when you
+will." Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
+
+Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
+grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
+Cecile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use,
+and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
+resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one's best defence
+against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
+without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her indecision
+had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all ready to go out,
+with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide to remain at home.
+Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and regained his lost time.
+Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once more in love, and wiser.
+The doctor was delighted with the progress of his pupil; before a year
+was over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could take his degree.
+
+These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
+Belisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
+happiness. Madame Belisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
+and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased
+at Jack's progress with his books, he was discontented with the state of
+his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and his
+hands hot.
+
+"I do not like this," said the good man; "you work too hard; you must
+stop; you have plenty of time: Cecile does not mean to run away."
+
+Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel
+that she mast take his mother's place as well as her own; and it was
+precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions
+each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the
+Fakirs of India--urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain
+becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic,
+and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his
+writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being--a
+strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all
+his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great physical
+exhaustion.
+
+His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
+disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
+not received a painful shock. A telegram arrived:
+
+     "Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
+     Rivals."
+
+Jack received that despatch just as Madame Belisaire had ironed his fine
+linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the brevity
+of the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his friend's
+well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a letter
+from Cecile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing came, and
+for a week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth was: neither
+Cecile nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals wished for time
+to prepare the youth for an unexpected blow--for a decision of Cecile's
+so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter would be induced to
+reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the house, he had found
+Cecile in a state of singular agitation; her lips were pale but firmly
+closed. He tried to make her smile at the dinner-table, but in vain; and
+suddenly, in reply to some remark of his in regard to Jack's coming,
+she said, "I do not wish him to come."
+
+He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a
+firm voice she repeated, "I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever
+again."
+
+"What is the matter, my child?"
+
+"Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack."
+
+"You frighten me, Cecile! Tell me what you mean."
+
+"I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
+mistaken."
+
+"Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
+misunderstanding."
+
+"No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister's friendship,
+nothing more. I cannot be his wife."
+
+The doctor was startled. "Cecile," he said, gravely, "do you love any
+other person?"
+
+She colored. "No; but I do not wish to marry;" and to all that M. Rivals
+said she would make no other reply.
+
+He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little
+world. "Remember," he said, "that to Jack this will be a frightful blow;
+his whole future will be sacrificed."
+
+Cecile's pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her
+hand.
+
+"My child," he said, "think well before you decide a question of such
+importance."
+
+"No," she answered; "the sooner he knows my decision the better for us
+both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer we delay
+the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows the
+truth; I am incapable of such treachery."
+
+"Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal," said the doctor, in a
+rage. "Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!"
+
+She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped
+short.
+
+"No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
+yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and
+shall always be one until the bitter end."
+
+Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen letters,
+destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that Cecile
+would have come to her senses before the week was over.
+
+The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, "He will
+come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?"
+
+"Irrevocable," she said, slowly.
+
+Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant said,
+"My master is waiting for you in the garden."
+
+Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor's face increased his
+fears, for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human
+suffering, was as troubled as Jack.
+
+"Cecile is here--is she not?" were the youth's first words.
+
+"No, my friend, I left her--at--where we have been, you know; and she
+will remain some time."
+
+"Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again?
+Is that it?"
+
+The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should
+fall. They were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright
+November morning; hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over the
+distant hills and reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage,
+and their first whisper of love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his
+shoulder. "Jack," he whispered, "do not be unhappy. She is very young
+and will perhaps change her mind. It is a mere caprice."
+
+"No, doctor, Cecile never has caprices. That would be horrible--to
+drive a knife into a man's heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
+reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew
+that her love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also
+perish. If she has done this, then it is because she knew well that it
+was her duty so to do. I ought to have expected it; I should have known
+that so great a happiness could not be for me."
+
+He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. "Forgive me, my
+brave boy; I hoped to make you both happy."
+
+"Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
+year," he continued, "I began the only happy season of my life. I was
+born on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to
+you and to Cecile;" and the youth hurried away.
+
+"But you will breakfast with me," said the doctor.
+
+"No; I should be too sad a guest."
+
+He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once
+looking back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the
+curtain of a window in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as
+his own. The girl extended her slender arms, and tears rained down her
+cheeks. The following days were sad enough. The little house that had
+for months been bright and gay, resumed its ancient mournful aspect. The
+doctor, much troubled, noticed that his granddaughter spent much of her
+time in her mother's former room. Where Madeleine had formerly wept, her
+child now shed in turn her tears. "Would she die as did her mother?"
+
+The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why
+was she so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old
+man was sure that there was some mystery, something that he ought to
+know; but at the least question, Cecile ran away as if in fear.
+
+One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband
+of old Sale, who had met with an accident. These people lived near
+Aul-nettes, in a miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the
+corner lay the sick man. When Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly
+suffocated by the odor of burning herbs.
+
+"What have you been doing here, Mother Sale?" he said. The old woman
+hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time, however.
+"So Hirsch is here again, is he?" he continued. "Open the doors and
+windows, you will be suffocated."
+
+While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. "Tell
+him, wife, tell him," he muttered.
+
+The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: "Tell him, I
+say, tell him."
+
+The doctor looked at Mother Sale, who turned a deep scarlet. "I am sure
+I am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good
+young lady," she muttered.
+
+"What young lady? Of whom do you speak?" asked the doctor, turning
+hastily around.
+
+"Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
+francs to tell Mamselle Cecile the story of her father and mother."
+
+M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
+
+"And you dared to do that?" he cried, in a furious rage.
+
+"It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for the
+twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it until he
+told me, so that I could repeat it."
+
+"The wretch! But who could have told him?"
+
+A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the
+long night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste
+to Etiolles and went directly in search of Cecile. Her room was empty,
+and the bed had not been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to
+the office, still he found no one. But the door of Madeleine's old room
+stood open, and there among the relics of the dear dead, prostrate on
+the _Prie-Dieu_, was Cecile asleep, in an attitude that told of a night
+of prayer and tears. She opened her eyes as her grandfather touched her.
+
+"And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains
+to hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little
+darling, the sad tale we concealed."
+
+She hid her face on his shoulder. "I am so ashamed," she whispered.
+
+"And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me why?"
+
+"Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother's dishonor, and my
+conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was
+but one thing to do, and I did it."
+
+"But you love him?"
+
+"With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
+marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to
+such a sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father--who has
+no name, or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger."
+
+"But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
+with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if
+you had had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to
+us all."
+
+"And he was willing to marry me!"
+
+"Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
+father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference
+between you is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner."
+
+Then the doctor, who had told Jack Cecile's history, now related to her
+the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile from
+his mother's arms--of all that he had endured. "I understand it all now,"
+he cried; "it is she who has told Hirsch of your mother's marriage."
+
+While the doctor was talking, Cecile was overwhelmed with despair to
+think that she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless
+sorrow. "O, how he has suffered!" she sobbed. "Have you heard anything
+from him?"
+
+"No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to know,"
+answered her grandfather, with a smile.
+
+"But he may not wish to come."
+
+"Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
+him home with us."
+
+An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their
+way to Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He
+looked at the little door. "This is the place," he said, and he
+rang. The servant opened the door, but seeing before her one of those
+dangerous ped-lers that wander through the country, she attempted to
+close it again.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"The gentleman of the house."
+
+"He is not at home."
+
+"And the young lady?"
+
+"She is not at home, either."
+
+"When will they be back?"
+
+"I have no idea!" And she closed the door.
+
+"Good heavens!" said Belisaire, in a choked voice; "and must he be
+permitted to die without any help?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.~~A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLE.
+
+That evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of
+the Review; a fete had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte's return, at
+which it was proposed that D'Argenton should read his new poem.
+
+But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence
+of a person who was then present? And how could he describe the
+sufferings of a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be
+at the summit of bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object?
+Never had the apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were
+there in profusion. The toilet of Charlotte was in exquisite taste,
+white with clusters of violets, and all the surroundings breathed an
+atmosphere of riches. Yet nothing could have been more deceptive.
+The Review was in a dying condition; the numbers appearing at longer
+intervals, and growing small by degrees and beautifully less. D'Argenton
+had swallowed up in it the half of his fortune, and now wished to sell
+it. It was this unfortunate situation, added to an attack skilfully
+managed, that had induced the foolish Charlotte to return to him. He had
+only to assume before her the air of a great man crushed by unmerited
+misfortune, for her to reply that she would serve him always.
+
+D'Argenton was foolish and conceited, but he understood the nature of
+this woman in a most wonderful degree. She thought him handsomer and
+more fascinating than he was twelve years before, when she saw him for
+the first time, under the chandeliers of the Moronval salon. Many of the
+same persons were there also: Labassandre in bottle-green velvet, with
+the high boots of Faust; and Dr. Hirsch with his coat-sleeves spotted by
+various chemicals; and Moronval in a black coat very white in the seams,
+and a white cravat very black in the folds; several "children of the
+sun,"--the everlasting Japanese prince, and the Egyptian from the banks
+of the Nile. What a strange set of people they were! They might have
+been a band of pilgrims on the march toward some unknown Mecca, whose
+golden lamps retreat before them. During the twelve years that we have
+known them, many have fallen from the ranks, but others have risen to
+take their places; nothing discourages them, neither cold nor heat,
+nor even hunger. They hurry on, but they never arrive. Among them
+D'Argenton, better clothed and better fed, resembled a rich Hadji with
+his harem, his pipes, and his riches; on this evening he was especially
+radiant, for he had triumphed.
+
+During the reading of the poem Charlotte sat in an attitude of feigned
+indifference, blushing occasionally at veiled allusions to herself.
+Near her was Madame Moronval, who, small as she was, seemed quite tall
+because of the extraordinary height of her forehead and the length of
+her chin. The poem went on and on, the fire crackled on the hearth, and
+the wind rattled against the glass doors of the balcony, as it did on a
+certain night of which Charlotte apparently had but little remembrance.
+Suddenly, during a most pathetic passage, the door opened suddenly; the
+servant appeared, and with a terrified air summoned her mistress.
+
+"Madame, madame!" she cried.
+
+Charlotte went to her. "What is it?" she asked.
+
+"A man insists on seeing you. I told him that it was impossible; but he
+said he would wait for you, and he seated himself on the stairs."
+
+"I will see him," said Charlotte, much moved; for she guessed at the
+purport of the message.
+
+But D'Argenton objected, and turning toward Labassandre, he said, "Will
+you have the goodness to see who this intruder is?" and the poet turned
+back to the table to resume his reading. But the door opened again wide
+enough to admit the head and arm of Labassandre, who beckoned earnestly.
+
+"What is it?" said D'Argenton, impatiently, when he reached the
+ante-room.
+
+"Jack is very ill," said the tenor.
+
+"I don't believe it," answered the poet.
+
+"This man swears that it is so."
+
+D'Argenton looked at the man, whose face was not absolutely unknown to
+him.
+
+"Did you come from the gentleman,--that is to say, did he send you?"
+
+"No; he is too sick to send any one. It is three weeks since he has been
+in his bed, and very, very ill."
+
+"What is his disease?"
+
+"Something on the lungs, and the doctors say that he cannot live; so I
+thought I had better come and tell his mother."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Belisaire, sir; but the lady knows me."
+
+"Very well, then," said the poet, "you will say to the one who sent you,
+that the game is a good one, though rather old, and he had better try
+something else."
+
+"Sir?" said the pedler, interrogatively, for he did not comprehend these
+sarcastic words.
+
+But D'Argenton had left the room, and Belisaire stood in silent
+amazement, having caught a glimpse of the lighted salon and its crowd of
+people.
+
+"It is nothing, only a mistake," said the poet on his entrance; and
+while he majestically resumed his reading, the pedler hurried home
+through the dark streets, through the sharp hail and fierce wind, eager
+to reach Jack, who lay in a high fever, on the narrow iron bed in the
+attic-room.
+
+He had been taken ill on his return from Etiolles; he lay there, almost
+without speaking, a victim to fever and a severe cold, so serious, that
+the physicians warned his friends that they had everything to fear.
+Belisaire wished to summon M. Rivals, but to this Jack refused to
+consent. This was the only energy he had shown since his illness, and
+the only time he had spoken voluntarily, save when he told his friend to
+take his watch, and a ring he owned, and sell them.
+
+All Jack's savings had been absorbed in furnishing the rooms at
+Charonne, and the Belisaire household was equally impoverished through
+their recent marriage. But it mattered very little; the pedler and his
+wife were capable of every sacrifice for their friend; they carried
+to the Mont de Piete the greater part of their furniture, piece by
+piece--for medicines were so dear. They were advised to send Jack to the
+hospital. "He would be better off; and, besides, he would then cost you
+nothing," was the argument employed. The good people were now at the end
+of their resources, and decided to inform Charlotte of her son's danger.
+
+"Bring her back with you," said Madame Belisaire to her husband. "To see
+his mother would be such a comfort to the lad. He never speaks of her
+because he is so proud."
+
+But Belisaire did not bring her. He returned in a very unhappy frame
+of mind, from the reception he had received. His wife, with her child
+asleep on her lap, talked in a low voice to a neighbor, in front of a
+poor little fire--such a one as is called a widow's fire by the people.
+The two women listened to Jack's painful breathing, and to the horrible
+cough that choked him. One would never have recognized this unfurnished,
+dismal room as the bright attic where cheerful voices had resounded such
+a short time before. There was no sign of books or studies. A pot of
+tisane was simmering on the hearth, filling the air with that peculiar
+odor which tells of a sickroom. Belisaire came in.
+
+"Alone?" said his wife.
+
+He told in a low voice that he had not been permitted to see Jack's
+mother.
+
+"But had you no blood in your veins? You should have entered by force
+and called aloud, 'Madame, your son is dying!' Ah, my poor Belisaire,
+you will never be anything but a weak chicken!"
+
+"But, had I undertaken such a thing, I should simply have been
+arrested," said the poor man, in a distressed tone.
+
+"But what are we going to do?" resumed Madame Belisaire. "This poor boy
+must have better care than we can give him."
+
+A neighbor spoke. "He must go to the hospital, as the physician said."
+
+"Hush, hush! not so loud!" said Belisaire, pointing to the bed; "I'm
+afraid he heard you."
+
+"What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be
+better for you in every respect."
+
+"But he is my friend," answered Belisaire, proudly; and in his tone was
+so much honest devotion that his wife's eyes filled with tears.
+
+The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their
+departure, the room looked less cold and less bare.
+
+Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept
+little, and lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open.
+If that blank surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very
+old woman, could have spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful
+eyes but one expression could have been seen, that of utter and
+overwhelming despair. He never complained, however; he even tried, at
+times, to smile at his stout nurse, when she brought him his
+tisanes. The long and solitary days passed away in this inaction and
+helplessness. Why was he not strong in health and body like the people
+about him, and yet for whom did he wish to labor? His mother had left
+him, Cecile had deserted him. The faces of these two women haunted him
+day and night. When Charlotte's gay and indifferent smile faded away,
+the delicate features of Cecile appeared before him, veiled in the
+mystery of her strange refusal; and the youth lay there incapable of a
+word or a gesture, while his pulses beat with accelerated force, and his
+hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
+
+The day after this conversation at Jack's bedside, Madame Belisaire
+was much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt,
+sitting in front of the fire. "Why are you out of your bed?" she asked
+with severity.
+
+"I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to
+stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will."
+
+"But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are."
+
+"Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm."
+
+It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to
+Madame Belisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of farewell
+at the humble home which had been illuminated by so many fair dreams and
+hopes. How long the walk was! They stopped occasionally, but dared not
+linger long, for the air was sharp. Under the lowering December skies
+the sick youth looked worse even than when he lay in his bed. His hair
+was wet with perspiration, the hurrying crowds made him dizzy and
+faint. Paris is like a huge battlefield where mere existence demands a
+struggle; and Jack seemed like a wounded soldier borne from the field by
+a comrade.
+
+It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was,
+however, they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An
+enormous stove made the air of the room almost intolerable, with its
+smell of hot iron. When Jack entered, assisted by Belisaire/all eyes
+were turned upon him. They were awaiting the arrival of the physician,
+who would give, or refuse, a card of admittance. Each one was describing
+his symptoms to some indifferent hearer, and endeavoring to show that
+he was more ill than any one else. Jack listened to these dismal
+conversations, seated between a stout man who coughed violently, and a
+slender young girl whose thin shawl was so tightly drawn over her head
+that only her wild and affrighted eyes were to be seen. Then the door
+opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it was the physician. A profound
+silence followed all along the benches. The doctor warmed his hands at
+the stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance about the room. Then he
+began his rounds, followed by a boy carrying the cards of admission to
+the different hospitals. What joy for the poor wretches when they were
+pronounced sick enough to receive a ticket. What disappointment, what
+entreaties from those who were told that they must struggle on yet a
+little longer! The examination was brief, and if it seemed somewhat
+brutal at times, it must be remembered that the number of applicants was
+very large, and that the poor creatures loved to linger over the recital
+of their woes.
+
+Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. "And what is
+the matter with you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"My chest burns like fire," was the answer.
+
+"Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink too
+much brandy?"
+
+"Never, sir," answered the patient indignantly.
+
+"Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?"
+
+"I drink what I want of that, of course."
+
+"Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends." %
+
+"On pay-days I do, certainly."
+
+"That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue."
+
+When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his
+age and how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty,
+and while he spoke, Belisaire stood behind him with a face full of
+anxiety.
+
+"Stand up, my man," and the doctor applied his ear to the damp clothing
+of the invalid. "Did you walk here?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state
+in which you are; but you must not try it again;" and he handed him a
+ticket and passed on to continue his inspection.
+
+Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives
+in the streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than
+the sight of one of those litters, sheltered from the sun's rays by
+a striped cover, and borne by two men, one behind and the other in
+front,--the form of a human being vaguely defined under the linen
+sheets? Women cross themselves when these litters pass them, as they do
+when a crow flies over their heads.
+
+Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the
+sick man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which
+the poor are subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the
+familiar tread of his faithful Belisaire, who occasionally took his hand
+to prove to him that he was not completely deserted.
+
+The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered.
+It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden,
+on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove,
+were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five
+or six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos
+to inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if
+frightened.
+
+The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin,
+decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of
+the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which
+seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:
+
+"Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no
+bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are
+waiting, we will put him on a couch."
+
+This couch was placed close to the bed "that would soon be empty," from
+whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a
+thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they
+were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack
+was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Belisaire's "_au
+revoir_" nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor
+a whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue.
+Suddenly a woman's voice, calm and clear, said, "Let us pray."
+
+He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain
+did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The
+concluding sentence reached him, however.
+
+"Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and
+travellers, the sick and the dying."
+
+Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture
+of prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over
+endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like
+that of Etiolles; Cecile and his mother were before him refusing to wait
+until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of
+enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste,
+and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack
+determined to pass between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn
+and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took
+refuge in the Foret de Senart, amid the freshness of which Jack became
+once more a child and was on his way to the forester's; but there at the
+cross-road stood mother Sale; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with
+the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt
+her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her
+weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized
+the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He
+dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body,
+something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses
+ran, and lifted Something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the
+curtains round it closely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.~~DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
+
+"Come, wake up! Visitors are here."
+
+Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the
+curtains of the next bed,--they hung in such straight and motionless
+folds to the very ground.
+
+"Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in
+the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were
+terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you.
+But you are very weak."
+
+The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat
+and a white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the
+sick man's pulse and asks him some questions.
+
+"What is your trade?"
+
+"A machinist."
+
+"Do you drink?"
+
+"Not now; I did at one time."
+
+Then a long silence.
+
+"What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?"
+
+Jack saw in the physician's face the same sympathetic interest that he
+had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the
+doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were
+at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some
+curiosity to the words "inspiration," "expiration," "phthisis," &c., and
+at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,--so
+critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister
+approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in
+Paris, and if he could send to them.
+
+His family! Who were they? A man and a woman who were already there at
+the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no
+other friends than these, no other relatives.
+
+"And how are we to-day?" said Belisaire, cheerily, though he kept his
+tears back with difficulty. Madame Belisaire lays on the table two fine
+oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in
+silence.
+
+Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he
+thinking?
+
+"Jack," said the good woman, suddenly, "I am going to find your mother;"
+and she smiled encouragingly.
+
+Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he
+forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
+
+But Belisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in
+utter contempt "the fine lady," as she calls Jack's mother, that she
+detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and
+perhaps--who knows but the police may be called in?
+
+"No," she said, "that is all nonsense;" but finally yielded to the
+persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
+
+"I will bring her this time, never fear!" he said, with an air of
+confidence.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of
+the staircase.
+
+"To M. D'Argenton's."
+
+"Are you the man who was here last night?"
+
+"Precisely," answered Belisaire, innocently.
+
+"Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to
+the country, and will not return for some time."
+
+In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In
+vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady's son was very
+ill--dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and
+would not permit Belisaire to go one step further.
+
+The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea
+struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had
+taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the
+fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had
+often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could
+only be induced to come to Jack's bedside, so that the poor boy could
+have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started
+for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!
+
+During all this time, his wife sat at their friend's side, and knew not
+what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation
+into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his
+mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that
+always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the
+doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother.
+The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the
+patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging
+them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were
+dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges
+filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by
+the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had
+not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
+
+With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the
+slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach
+itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into
+the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of
+Ida de Barancy.
+
+The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased
+surprise at their father's emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered
+exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar.
+But Jack's mother did not appear. Madame Belisaire knows not what to
+say. She has hinted that M. D'Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is
+driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her
+knees and pares an orange.
+
+"She will not come!" said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that
+little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender
+care. But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its
+accents. "She will not come!" he repeated; and the poor boy closed
+his eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of Cecile. The sister heard his
+sighs, and said to Madame Belisaire, whose large face was shining with
+tears,--
+
+"What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more."
+
+"It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled
+that she does not come."
+
+"But she must be sent for."
+
+"My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won't come to a
+hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts."
+
+Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
+
+"Don't cry, dear," said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her
+little child; "I am going for your mother."
+
+Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still
+continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, "She will not come!
+she will not come!"
+
+The sister tried to soothe him. "Calm yourself, my child."
+
+Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. "I tell you she will not come.
+You do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my
+miserable life has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the
+gashes she has cut in it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to
+him on wings, and would never again leave him; and I am dying, and she
+refuses to come to me. What a cruel mother! it is she who has killed me,
+and she does not wish to see me die!"
+
+Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow, and
+the sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter's day
+ended in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
+
+Charlotte and D'Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just
+returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in
+velvet and furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of spirits.
+Remember that she had just shown herself in public with her poet, and
+had shown herself, too, to be as pretty as she was ten years before. The
+complexion was heightened by the sharp wintry air, and the soft wraps
+in which she was enveloped added to her beauty as does the satin and
+quilted lining of a casket enhance the brilliancy of the gems within. A
+woman of the people stood on the sidewalk, and rushed forward on seeing
+her.
+
+"Madame, madame! come at once!"
+
+"Madame Belisaire!" cried Charlotte, turning pale.
+
+"Your child is very ill; he asks for you!"
+
+"But this is a persecution," said D'Argenton. "Let us pass. If the
+gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician."
+
+"He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the hospital."
+
+"At the hospital!"
+
+"Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you
+wish to see him you must hurry."
+
+"Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap
+laid ready for you;" and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
+
+"Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can
+have a heart like this!"
+
+Charlotte turned toward her. "Show me where he is," she said; and the
+two women hurried through the streets, leaving D'Argenton in a state of
+rage, convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
+
+Just as Madame Belisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in,--a
+young girl and an old man.
+
+A divine face bent over Jack. "It is I, my love, it is Cecile."
+
+It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by reason
+of her tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was the
+slender one that had already brought the youth such happiness, and yet
+did its part in bringing him where we now see him; for fate is often
+cruel enough to strike you through your dearest and best. The sick youth
+opens his weary eyes to see that he is not dreaming. Cecile is really
+there; she implores his pardon, and explains why she gave him such pain.
+Ah, if she had but known that their destinies were so similar!
+
+As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness
+and anger of the past weeks.
+
+"Then you love me?" he whispered.
+
+"Yes, Jack; I have always loved you."
+
+Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word
+love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had
+taken refuge there.
+
+"How good you are to come, Cecile! Now I shall not utter another murmur.
+I am ready to die, with you at my side."
+
+"Die! Who is talking of dying?" said the old doctor in his heartiest
+voice. "Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look
+like the same person you were when we came."
+
+This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed
+Cecile's hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of
+tenderness.
+
+"All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have
+been friend and sister, wife and mother."
+
+But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color
+to frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly
+visible. Cecile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full
+of shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more
+sombre, more mysterious than Night.
+
+Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: "I hear her," he whispered; "she is
+coming!"
+
+But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the
+corridors, the steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and
+the distant noises in the street. He listened a moment, said a few
+unintelligible words, then his head fell back and his eyes closed.
+But he was right. Two women were running up the stairs. They had been
+allowed to enter, though the hour for the admittance of visitors had
+long since passed. But it was one of those occasions where rules may be
+broken and set aside.
+
+When they arrived at the outer door, Charlotte stopped. "I cannot go
+on," she said, "I am frightened."
+
+"Come on," the other answered, roughly; "you must. Ah, to such women as
+you, God should never give children!"
+
+And she pushed Charlotte toward the staircase. The large room, the
+shaded lamps, the kneeling forms, the mother saw at one glance; and
+farther on, at the end of the apartment, were two men bending over a
+bed, and Cecile Rivals, pale as death, supporting a head on her breast.
+
+"Jack, my child!"
+
+M. Rivals turned. "Hush," he said, sternly.
+
+Then came a sigh--a long, shivering sigh.
+
+Charlotte crept nearer, with failing limbs and sinking heart. It was
+Jack indeed, with arms stiffly falling at his side, and eyes fixed on
+vacancy.
+
+The doctor bent over him. "Jack, my friend; it is your mother, she is
+here!"
+
+And she, unhappy woman, stretched out her arms toward him. "Jack, it is
+I! I am here!"
+
+Not a movement.
+
+The mother cried in a tone of horror, "Dead?"
+
+"No," said old Rivals; "no,--_Delivered_."
+
+
+      THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jack, by Alphonse Daudet
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK ***
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