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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3972.txt b/3972.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1dc44b --- /dev/null +++ b/3972.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2981 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ink-Stain by Rene Bazin, v1 +#59 in our series French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy +#1 in our series by Rene Bazin + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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He +studied for the bar, became a lawyer and professor of jurisprudence at +the Catholic University in his native city, and early contributed to 'Le +Correspondant, L'Illustration, Journal des Debats, Revue du Deux Mondes,' +etc. Although quietly writing fiction for the last fifteen years or so, +he was not well known until the dawn of the twentieth century, when his +moral studies of provincial life under the form of novels and romances +became appreciated. He is a profound psychologist, a force in +literature, and his style is very pure and attractive. He advocates +resignation and the domestic virtues, yet his books are neither dull, nor +tiresome, nor priggish; and as he has advanced in years and experience M. +Bazin has shown an increasing ambition to deal with larger problems than +are involved for instance, in the innocent love-affairs of 'Ma Tante +Giron' (1886), a book which enraptured Ludovic Halevy. His novel, 'Une +Tache d'Encre' (1888), a romance of scholarly life, was crowned by the +French Academy, to which he was elected in 1903. + +It is safe to say that Bazin will never develop into an author dangerous +to morals. His works may be put into the hands of cloistered virgins, +and there are not, to my knowledge, many other contemporary French +imaginative writers who could endure this stringent test. Some critics, +indeed, while praising him, scoff at his chaste and surprising optimism; +but it is refreshing to recommend to English readers, in these days of +Realism and Naturalism, the works of a recent French writer which do not +require maturity of years in the reader. 'Une Tache d'Encre', as I have +said, was crowned by the French Academy; and Bazin received from the same +exalted body the "Prix Vitet" for the ensemble of his writings in 1896, +being finally admitted a member of the Academy in June, 1903. He +occupies the chair of Ernest Legouve. + +Bazin's first romance, 'Stephanette', was published under the pseudonym +"Bernard Seigny," in 1884; then followed 'Victor Pavie (1887); Noellet +(1890); A l'Aventure (1891) and Sicile (1892)', two books on Italy, of +which the last mentioned was likewise crowned by the French Academy; 'La +Legende de Sainte-Bega (1892); La Sarcelle Bleue (1892); Madame Corentine +(1893); Les Italiens d'aujousd'hui (1894); Humble Amour (1894); En +Province (1896); De toute son Ame (1897)', a realistic but moderate +romance of a workingman's life; 'Les Contes de Perrette (1898); La Terre +qui Meurt (1899); Le Guide de l'Empereur (1901); Les Oberle (1902), a +tale from Alsace of to-day, sketching the political situation, +approximately correct, and lately adapted for the stage; 'Donatienne' +(1903). + +With Bazin literary life does not become a mirage obscuring the vision of +real life. Before being an author Rene Bazin is a man, with a family +attached to the country, rooted in the soil; a guaranty of the dignity of +his work as well as of the writer, and a safeguard against many +extravagances. He has remained faithful to his province. He lives in +the attractive city of Angers. When he leaves it, it is for a little +tour through France, or a rare journey-once to Sicily and once to Spain. +He is seldom to be met on the Parisian boulevards. Not that he has any +prejudice against Paris, or fails to appreciate the tone of its society, +or the quality of its diversions; but he is conscious that he has nothing +to gain from a residence in the capital, but, on the contrary, would run +a risk of losing his intense originality and the freshness of his genius. + + E. LAVISSE + de l'Academie Francaise. + + + + + +THE INK-STAIN + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ACCIDENT + +All I have to record of the first twenty-three years of my life is the +enumeration of them. A simple bead-roll is enough; it represents their +family likeness and family monotony. + +I lost my parents when I was very young. I can hardly recall their +faces; and I should keep no memories of La Chatre, our home, had I not +been brought up quite close to it. It was sold, however, and lost to me, +like all the rest. Yes, fate is hard, sometimes. I was born at La +Chatre; the college of La Chatre absorbed eighteen years of my life. +Our head master used to remark that college is a second home; whereby I +have always fancied he did some injustice to the first. + +My school-days were hardly over when my uncle and guardian, M. Brutus +Mouillard, solicitor, of Bourges, packed me off to Paris to go through +my law course. I took three years over it: At the end of that time, +just eighteen months ago, I became a licentiate, and "in the said +capacity"--as my uncle would say took an oath that transformed me into +a probationary barrister. Every Monday, regularly, I go to sign my name +among many others on an attendance list, and thereby, it appears, I am +establishing a claim upon the confidence of the widow and the orphan. + +In the intervals of my legal studies I have succeeded in taking my Arts +Degree. At present I am seeking that of Doctor of Law. My examinations +have been passed meritoriously, but without brilliance; my tastes run too +much after letters. My professor, M. Flamaran, once told me the truth of +the matter: "Law, young man, is a jealous mistress; she allows no divided +affection." Are my affections divided? I think not, and I certainly do +not confess any such thing to M. Mouillard, who has not yet forgotten +what he calls "that freak" of a Degree in Arts. He builds some hopes +upon me, and, in return, it is natural that I should build a few upon +him. + +Really, that sums up all my past: two certificates! A third diploma in +prospect and an uncle to leave me his money--that is my future. Can +anything more commonplace be imagined? + +I may add that I never felt any temptation at all to put these things on +record until to-day, the tenth of December, 1884. Nothing had ever +happened to me; my history was a blank. I might have died thus. But who +can foresee life's sudden transformations? Who can foretell that the +skein, hitherto so tranquilly unwound, will not suddenly become tangled? +This afternoon a serious adventure befell me. It agitated me at the +time, and it agitates me still more upon reflection. A voice within me +whispers that this cause will have a series of effects, that I am on the +threshold of an epoch, or, as the novelists say, a crisis in my +existence. It has struck me that I owe it to myself to write my Memoirs, +and that is the reason why I have just purchased this brown memorandum- +book in the Odeon Arcade. I intend to make a detailed and particular +entry of the event, and, as time goes on, of its consequences, if any +should happen to flow from it. + +"Flow from it" is just the phrase; for it has to do with a blot of ink. + +My blot of ink is hardly dry. It is a large one, too; of abnormal shape, +and altogether monstrous, whether one considers it from the physical side +or studies it in its moral bearings. It is very much more than an +accident; it has something of the nature of an outrage. It was at the +National Library that I perpetrated it, and upon-- But I must not +anticipate. + +I often work in the National Library; not in the main hall, but in that +reserved for literary men who have a claim, and are provided with a +ticket, to use it. I never enter it without a gentle thrill, in which +respect is mingled with satisfied vanity. For not every one who chooses +may walk in. I must pass before the office of the porter, who retains my +umbrella, before I make my way to the solemn beadle who sits just inside +the doorway--a double precaution, attesting to the majesty of the place. +The beadle knows me. He no longer demands my ticket. To be sure, I am +not yet one of those old acquaintances on whom he smiles; but I am no +longer reckoned among those novices whose passport he exacts. An +inclination of his head makes me free of the temple, and says, as plainly +as words, "You are one of us, albeit a trifle young. Walk in, sir." + +And in I walk, and admire on each occasion the vast proportions of the +interior, the severe decoration of the walls, traced with broad foliated +pattern and wainscoted with books of reference as high as hand can reach; +the dread tribunal of librarians and keepers in session down yonder, on a +kind of judgment-seat, at the end of the avenue whose carpet deadens all +footsteps; and behind again, that holy of holies where work the doubly +privileged--the men, I imagine, who are members of two or three +academies. To right and left of this avenue are rows of tables and +armchairs, where scatters, as caprice has chosen and habit consecrated, +the learned population of the library. Men form the large majority. +Viewed from the rear, as they bend over their work, they suggest +reflections on the ravages wrought by study upon hair-clad cuticles. +For every hirsute Southerner whose locks turn gray without dropping off, +heavens, what a regiment of bald heads! Visitors who look in through the +glass doors see only this aspect of devastation. It gives a wrong +impression. Here and there, at haphazard, you may find a few women among +these men. George Sand used to come here. I don't know the names of +these successors of hers, nor their business; I have merely observed that +they dress in sober colors, and that each carries a number of shawls and +a thick veil. You feel that love is far from their thoughts. They have +left it outside, perhaps--with the porter. + +Several of these learned folk lift their heads as I pass, and follow me +with the dulled eye of the student, an eye still occupied with the +written thought and inattentive to what it looks on. Then, suddenly, +remorse seizes them for their distraction, they are annoyed with me, a +gloomy impatience kindles in their look, and each plunges anew into his +open volume. But I have had time to guess their secret ejaculations: +"I am studying the Origin of Trade Guilds!" "I, the Reign of Louis the +Twelfth!" "I, the Latin Dialects!" "I, the Civil Status of Women under +Tiberius!" "I am elaborating a new translation of Horace!" "I am +fulminating a seventh article, for the Gazette of Atheism and Anarchy, on +the Russian Serfs!" And each one seems to add, "But what is thy business +here, stripling? What canst thou write at thy age? Why troublest thou +the peace of these hallowed precincts?" My business, sirs? Alas! it is +the thesis for my doctor's degree. My uncle and venerated guardian, M. +Brutus Mouillard, solicitor, of Bourges, is urging me to finish it, +demands my return to the country, grows impatient over the slow toil of +composition. "Have done with theories," he writes, "and get to business! +If you must strive for this degree, well and good; but what possessed you +to choose such a subject?" + +I must own that the subject of my thesis in Roman law has been +artistically chosen with a view to prolonging my stay in Paris: "On the +'Latini Juniani.'" Yes, gentle reader, a new subject, almost incapable +of elucidation, having no connection--not the remotest--with the exercise +of any profession whatsoever, entirely devoid of practical utility. The +trouble it gives me is beyond conception. + +It is true that I intersperse my researches with some more attractive +studies, and one or two visits to the picture-galleries, and more than an +occasional evening at the theatre. My uncle knows nothing of this. To +keep him soothed I am careful to get my reader's ticket renewed every +month, and every month to send him the ticket just out of date, signed by +M. Leopold Delisle. He has a box full of them; and in the simplicity of +his heart Monsieur Mouillard has a lurking respect for this nephew, this +modern young anchorite, who spends his days at the National Library, his +nights with Gaius, wholly absorbed in the Junian Latins, and indifferent +to whatsoever does not concern the Junian Latins in this Paris which my +uncle still calls the Modern Babylon. + +I came down this morning in the most industrious mood, when the +misfortune befell. Close by the sanctum where the librarians sit are two +desks where you write down the list of the books you want. I was doing +so at the right-hand desk, on which abuts the first row of tables. Hence +all the mischief. Had I written at the left-hand desk, nothing would +have happened. But no; I had just set down as legibly as possible the +title, author, and size of a certain work on Roman Antiquities, when, in +replacing the penholder, which is attached there by a small brass chain, +some inattentiveness, some want of care, my ill-luck, in short, led me to +set it down in unstable equilibrium on the edge of the desk. It tumbled- +I heard the little chain rattle-it tumbled farther-then stopped short. +The mischief was done. The sudden jerk, as it pulled up, had detached an +enormous drop of ink from the point of the pen, and that drop--Ah! I can +see him yet, as he rose from the shadow of the desk, that small, white- +haired man, so thin and so very angry! + +"Clumsy idiot! To blot an Early Text!" + +I leaned over and looked. Upon the page of folio, close to an +illuminated capital, the black drop had flattened itself. Around the +original sphere had been shed splashes of all conceivable shapes-rays, +rockets, dotted lines, arrowheads, all the freakish impromptu of chaos. +Next, the slope lending its aid, the channels had drained into one, and +by this time a black rivulet was crawling downward to the margin. One or +two readers near had risen, and now eyed me like examining magistrates. +I waited for an outbreak, motionless, dazed, muttering words that did not +mend the case at all. "What a pity! Oh, I'm so sorry! If I had only +known--" The student of the Early Text stood motionless as I. Together +we watched the ink trickle. Suddenly, summoning his wits together, he +burrowed with feverish haste in his morocco writing-case, pulled out a +sheet of blotting-paper, and began to soak up the ink with the +carefulness of a Sister of Mercy stanching a wound. I seized the +opportunity to withdraw discreetly to the third row of tables, where the +attendant had just deposited my books. Fear is so unreasoning. Very +likely by saying no more about it, by making off and hiding my head in my +hands, like a man crushed by the weight of his remorse, I might disarm +this wrath. I tried to think so. But I knew well enough that there was +more to come. I had hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see +between my fingers the little man standing up and gesticulating beside +one of the keepers. At one moment he rapped the damning page with his +forefinger; the next, he turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; +and I divined, without hearing a word, all the bitterness of his +invective. The keeper appeared to take it seriously. I felt myself +blushing. "There must be," thought I, "some law against ink-stains, some +decree, some regulation, something drawn up for the protection of Early +Texts. And the penalty is bound to be terrible, since it has been +enacted by the learned; expulsion, no doubt, besides a fine--an enormous +fine. They are getting ready over there to fleece me. That book of +reference they are consulting is of course the catalogue of the sale +where this treasure was purchased. I shall have to replace the Early +Text! O Uncle Mouillard!" + +I sat there, abandoned to my sad reflections, when one of the attendants, +whom I had not seen approaching, touched me on the shoulder. + +"The keeper wishes to speak to you." + +I rose up and went. The terrible reader had gone back to his seat. + +"It was you, sir, I believe, who blotted the folio just now?" + +"It was, sir." + +"You did not do so on purpose?" + +"Most certainly not, sir! I am indeed sorry for he accident." + +"You ought to be. The volume is almost unique; and the blot, too, for +that matter. I never saw such a blot! Will you, please, leave me your +Christian name, surname, profession, and address?" + +I wrote down, "Fabien Jean Jacques Mouillard, barrister, 91 Rue de +Rennes." + +"Is that all?" I asked. + +"Yes, sir, that is all for the present. But I warn you that Monsieur +Charnot is exceedingly annoyed. It might be as well to offer him some +apology." + +"Monsieur Charnot?" + +"Yes. It is Monsieur Charnot, of the Institute, who was reading the +Early Text." + +"Merciful Heavens!" I ejaculated, as I went back to my seat; "this must +be the man of whom my tutor spoke, the other day! Monsieur Flamaran +belongs to the Academy of Moral and Political Science, the other to the +Institute of Inscriptions and the Belles-Lettres. Charnot? Yes, I have +those two syllables in my ear. The very last time I saw Monsieur +Flamaran he let fall 'my very good friend Charnot, of the +'Inscriptions.' They are friends. And I am in a pretty situation; +threatened with I don't know what by the Library--for the keeper told me +positively that this was all 'for the present'--but not for the future; +threatened to be disgraced in my tutor's eyes; and all because this +learned man's temper is upset. + +"I must apologize. Let me see, what could I say to Monsieur Charnot? As +a matter of fact, it's to the Early Text that I ought to apologize. I +have spilled no ink over Monsieur Charnot. He is spotless, collar and +cuffs; the blot, the splashes, all fell on the Text. I will say to him, +'Sir, I am exceedingly sorry to have interrupted you so unfortunately in +your learned studies.! 'Learned studies' will tickle his vanity, and +should go far to appease him." + +I was on the point of rising. M. Charnot anticipated me. + +Grief is not always keenest when most recent. As he approached I saw he +was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above +his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. +The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy +and went on his way. + +Well, well; go your way, M. Charnot! One doesn't offer apologies to a +man in his wrath. You shall have them by-and-bye, when we meet again. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE JUNIAN LATINS + + December 28, 1884. + +This afternoon I paid M. Flamaran a visit. I had been thinking about it +for the last week, as I wanted him to help my Junian Latins out of a +mess. I am acquiring a passion for that interesting class of freedmen. +And really it is only natural. These Junian Latins were poor slaves, +whose liberation was not recognized by the strict and ancient laws of +Rome, because their masters chose to liberate them otherwise than by +'vindicta, census, or testamentum'. On this account they lost their +privileges, poor victims of the legislative intolerance of the haughty +city. You see, it begins to be touching, already. Then came on the +scene Junius Norbanus, consul by rank, and a true democrat, who brought +in a law, carried it, and gave them their freedom. In exchange, they +gave him immortality. Henceforward, did a slave obtain a few kind words +from his master over his wine? he was a Junian Latin. Was he described +as 'filius meus' in a public document? Junian Latin. Did he wear the +cap of liberty, the pileus, at his master's funeral? Junian Latin. Did +he disembowel his master's corpse? Junian Latin, once more, for his +trouble. + +What a fine fellow this Norbanus must have been! What an eye for +everything, down to the details of a funeral procession, in which he +could find an excuse for emancipation! And that, too, in the midst of +the wars of Marius and Sylla in which he took part. I can picture him +seated before his tent, the evening after the battle. Pensive, he +reclines upon his shield as he watches the slave who is grinding notches +out of his sword. His eyes fill with tears, and he murmurs, "When peace +is made, my faithful Stychus, I shall have a pleasant surprise for you. +You shall hear talk of the Lex Junia Norband, I promise you!" + +Is not this a worthy subject for picture or statue in a competition for +the Prix de Rome? + +A man so careful of details must have assigned a special dress to these +special freedmen of his creation; for at Rome even freedom had its +livery. What was this dress? Was there one at all? No authority that +I know of throws any light on the subject. Still one hope remains: +M. Flamaran. He knows so many things, he might even know this. + +M. Flamaran comes from the south-Marseilles, I think. He is not a +specialist in Roman law; but he is encyclopedic, which comes to the same +thing. He became known while still young, and deservedly; few lawyers +are so clear, so safe, so lucid. He is an excellent lecturer, and his +opinions are in demand. Yet he owes much of his fame to the works which +he has not written. Our fathers, in their day, used to whisper to one +another in the passages of the Law School, "Have you heard the news? +Flamaran is going to bring out the second volume of his great work. He +means to publish his lectures. He has in the press a treatise which will +revolutionize the law of mortgages; he has been working twenty years at +it; a masterpiece, I assure you." Day follows day; no book appears, no +treatise is published, and all the while M. Flamaran grows in reputation. +Strange phenomenon! like the aloe in the Botanical Gardens. The +blossoming of the aloe is an event. "Only think!" says the gaping +public, "a flower which has taken twenty springs, twenty summers, twenty +autumns, and twenty winters to make up its mind to open!" And meanwhile +the roses bloom unnoticed by the town. But M. Flamaran's case is still +more strange. Every year it is whispered that he is about to bloom +afresh; he never does bloom; and his reputation flourishes none the less. +People make lists of the books he might have written. Lucky author! + +M. Flamaran is a professor of the old school, stern, and at examination a +terror to the candidates. Clad in cap and gown, he would reject his own +son. Nothing will serve. Recommendations defeat their object. An +unquestioned Roumanian ancestry, an extraction indisputably Japanese, +find no more favor in his eyes than an assumed stammer, a sham deafness, +or a convalescent pallor put on for the occasion. East and west are +alike in his sight. The retired registrar, the pensioned usher aspiring +late in life to some petty magistrature, are powerless to touch his +heart. For him in vain does the youthful volunteer allow his uniform to +peep out beneath his student's gown: he will not profit by the patriotic +indulgence he counted on inspiring. His sayings in the examination-room +are famous, and among them are some ghastly pleasantries. Here is one, +addressed to a victim: "And you, sir, are a law student, while our +farmers are in want of hands!" + +For my own part I won his favor under circumstances that I never shall +forget. I was in for my first examination. We were discussing, or +rather I was allowing him to lecture on, the law of wardship, and nodding +my assent to his learned elucidations. Suddenly he broke off and asked, +"How many opinions have been formulated upon this subject?" + +"Two, sir." + +"One is absurd. Which? Beware how you give the wrong answer!" + +I considered for three agonizing seconds, and hazarded a guess. "The +first, sir." I had guessed right. We were friends. At bottom the +professor is a capital fellow; kindly, so long as the dignity of the Code +is not in question, or the extent of one's legal knowledge; proverbially +upright and honorable in his private life. + +At home he may be seen at his window tending his canaries, which, he +says, is no change of occupation. To get to his house I have only to go +by my favorite road through the Luxembourg. I am soon at his door. + +"Is Monsieur Flamaran at home?" + +The old servant who opened the door eyed me solemnly. So many young +freshmen come and pester her master under the pretext of paying their +respects. Their respects, indeed! They would bore him to death if he +had to see them all. The old woman inferred, probably from my moustache, +that I had taken at least my bachelor's degree. + +"I think he is." + +He was very much at home in his overheated study, where he sat wrapped up +in a dressing-gown and keeping one eye shut to strengthen the other. + +After a moment's hesitation he recognized me, and held out his hand. + +"Ah! my Junian Latin. How are you getting on?" + +"I am all right, sir; it's my Junian Latins who are not getting on." + +"You don't say so. We must look into that. But before we begin-- +I forget where you come from. I like to know where people come from." + +"From La Chatre. But I spend my vacations at Bourges with my Uncle +Mouillard." + +"Yes, yes, Mouillart with a t, isn't it?" + +"No, with a d." + +"I asked, you know, because I once knew a General Mouillart who had been +through the Crimea, a charming man. But he can not have been a relative, +for his name ended with a t." + +My good tutor spoke with a delightful simplicity, evidently wishing to be +pleasant and to show some interest in me. + +"Are you married, young man?" + +"No, sir; but I have no conscientious objections." + +"Marry young. Marriage is the salvation of young men. There must be +plenty of pretty heiresses in Bourges." + +"Heiresses, yes. As to their looks, at this distance--" + +"Yes, I understand, at this distance of course you can't tell. You +should do as I did; make inquiries, go and see. I went all the way to +Forez myself to look for my wife." + +"Madame Flamaran comes from Forez?" + +"Just so; I stayed there a fortnight, fourteen days exactly, in the +middle of term-time, and brought back Sidonie. Bourges is a nice town." + +"Yes, in summer." + +"Plenty of trees. I remember a grand action I won there. One of my +learned colleagues was against me. We had both written opinions, +diametrically opposed, of course. But I beat him--my word, yes!" + +"I dare say." + +"My boy, there was nothing left of him. Do you know the case?" + +"No." + +"A magnificent case! My notes must be somewhere about; I will get them +out for you." + +The good man beamed. Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt +he must expand and let himself out to somebody. I appeared in the nick +of time, and came in for all his honey. He rose, went to a bookcase, ran +his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone: +"'Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete society relies to +extricate itself from its swaddling-clothes and take a loftier flight.' +Tut, tut! What stuff is this? I beg your pardon. I was reading from a +work on moral philosophy. Where the deuce is my opinion?" + +He found it and, text in hand, began a long account of the action, with +names, dates, moments of excitement, and many quotations in extenso. + +"Yes, my young friend, two hundred and eighteen thousand francs did I win +in that action for Monsieur Prebois, of Bourges; you know Prebois, the +manufacturer?" + +"By name." + +At last he put the note-book back on its shelf, and deigned to remember +that I had come about the Junian Latins. + +"In which of the authorities do you find a difficulty?" + +"My difficulty lies in the want of authorities, sir, I wish to find out +whether the Junian Latins had not a special dress." + +"To be sure." He scratched his head. "Gaius says nothing on the point?" + +"No." + +"Papinian?" + +"No." + +"Justinian?" + +"No." + +"Then I see only one resource." + +"What is that?" + +"Go to see Charnot." + +I felt myself growing pale, and stammered, with a piteous look: + +"Monsieur Charnot, of the Acad--" + +"The Academy of Inscriptions; an intimate friend of mine, who will +welcome you like a son, for he has none himself, poor man!" + +"But perhaps the question is hardly important enough for me to trouble +him like this--" + +"Hey? Not important enough? All new questions are important. Charnot +specializes on coins. Coins and costumes are all one. I will write to +tell him you are coming." + +"I beg, sir--" + +"Nonsense; Nonsense; I'll write him this very evening. He will be +delighted to see you. I know him well, you understand. He is like me; +he likes industrious young men." + +M. Flamaran held out his hand. + +"Good-by, young man. Marry as soon as you have taken your degree." + +I did not recover from the shock till I was halfway across the Luxembourg +Gardens, near the Tennis Court, when I sat down, overcome. See what +comes of enthusiasm and going to call on your tutor! Ah, young three- +and-twenty, when will you learn wisdom? + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN APOLOGY + + 9 P.M. + +I have made up my mind. I shall go to see M. Charnot. But before that +I shall go to his publisher's and find out something about this famous +man's works, of which I know nothing whatever. + + + December 31st + +He lives in the Rue de l'Universite. + +I have called. I have seen him. I owe this to an accident, to the +servant's forgetting her orders. + +As I entered, on the stroke of five, he was spinning a spiral twist of +paper beneath the lamplight to amuse his daughter--he a member of the +Institute, she a girl of eighteen. So that is how these big-wigs employ +their leisure moments! + +The library where I found them was full of book cases-open bookcases, +bookcases with glass doors, tall bookcases, dwarf bookcases, bookcases +standing on legs, bookcases standing on the floor--of statuettes yellow +with smoke, of desks crowded with paper-weights, paper-knives, pens, and +inkstands of "artistic" pat terns. He was seated at the table, with his +back to the fire, his arm lifted, and a hairpin between his finger and +thumb--the pivot round which his paper twist was spinning briskly. +Across the table stood his daughter, leaning forward with her chin on her +hands and her white teeth showing as she laughed for laughing's sake, to +give play to her young spirits and gladden her old father's heart as he +gazed on her, delighted. + +I must confess it made a pretty picture; and M. Charnot at that moment +was extremely unlike the M. Charnot who had confronted me from behind the +desk. + +I was not left long to contemplate. + +The moment I lifted the 'portiere' the girl jumped up briskly and +regarded me with a touch of haughtiness, meant, I think, to hide a slight +confusion. To compare small things with great, Diana must have worn +something of that look at sight of Actaeon. M. Charnot did not rise, +but hearing somebody enter, turned half-round in his armchair, while his +eyes, still dazzled with the lamplight, sought the intruder in the +partial shadow of the room. + +I felt myself doubly uneasy in the presence of this reader of the Early +Text and of this laughing girl. + +"Sir," I began, "I owe you an apology--" + +He recognized me. The girl moved a step. + +"Stay, Jeanne, stay. We shall not take long. This gentleman has come to +offer an apology." + +This was a cruel beginning. + +She thought so, too, perhaps, and withdrew discreetly into a dim corner, +near the bookcase at the end of the room. + +"I have felt deep regret, sir, for that accident the other day--I set +down the penholder clumsily, in equilibrium--unstable equilibrium-- +besides, I had no notion there was a reader behind the desk. Of course, +if I had been aware, I should--I should have acted differently." + +M. Charnot allowed me to flounder on with the contemplative satisfaction +of an angler who has got a fish at the end of his line. He seemed to +find me so very stupid, that as a matter of fact I became stupid. And +then, there was no answer--not a word. Silence, alas! is not the +reproof of kings alone. It does pretty well for everybody. I stumbled +on two or three more phrases quite as flatly infelicitous, and he +received them with the same faint smile and the same silence. + +To escape from my embarrassment: + +"Sir," I said, "I came also to ask for a piece of information." + +"I am at your service, sir." + +"Monsieur Flamaran has probably written to you on the matter?" + +"Flamaran?" + +"Yes, three days ago." + +"I have received no letter; have I, Jeanne?" + +"No, father." + +"This is not the first time that my excellent colleague has promised to +write a letter and has not written it. Never mind, sir; your own +introduction is sufficient." + +"Sir, I am about to take my doctor's degree." + +"In arts?" + +"No, in law; but I have a bachelor's degree in arts." + +"You will follow it up with a degree in medicine, no doubt?" + +"Really, sir--" + +"Why--Why not, since you are collecting these things? You have, then, a +bent toward literature?" + +"So I have been told." + +"A pronounced inclination--hey? to scribble verse." + +"Ah, yes!" + +"The old story; the family driving a lad into law; his heart leaning +toward letters; the Digest open on the table, and the drawers stuffed +with verses! Isn't that so?" + +I bowed. He glanced toward his daughter. + +"Well, sir, I confess to you that I don't understand--don't understand at +all--this behavior of yours. Why not follow your natural bent? You +youngsters nowadays--I mean no offence--you youngsters have no longer any +mind of your own. Take my case; I was seventeen when I began to take an +interest in numismatics. My family destined me for the Stamp Office; +yes, sir, the Stamp Office. I had against me two grandfathers, two +grandmothers, my father, my mother, and six uncles--all furious. I held +out, and that has led me to the Institute. Hey, Jeanne?" + +Mademoiselle Jeanne had returned to the table, where she was standing +when I entered, and seemed, after a moment, to busy herself in arranging +the books scattered in disarray on the green cloth. But she had a secret +object--to regain possession of the paper spiral that lay there +neglected, its pin sticking up beside the lamp-stand. Her light hand, +hovering hither and thither, had by a series of cunning manoeuvres got +the offending object behind a pile of duodecimos, and was now withdrawing +it stealthily among the inkstands and paperweights. + +M. Charnot interrupted this little stratagem. + +She answered very prettily, with a slight toss of the head: + +"But, father, not everybody can be in the Institute." + +"Far from it, Jeanne. This gentleman, for instance, devotes himself to +one method of inking parchment that never will make him my colleague. +Doctor of Laws and Master of Arts,--I presume, sir, you are going to be a +notary?" + +"Excuse me, an advocate." + +"I was sure of it. Jeanne, my dear, in country families it is a standing +dilemma; if not a notary, then an advocate; if not an advocate, then a +notary." + +M. Charnot spoke with an exasperating half-smile. + +I ought to have laughed, to be sure; I ought to have shown sense enough +at any rate to hold my tongue and not to answer the gibes of this +vindictive man of learning. Instead, I was stupid enough to be nettled +and to lose my head. + +"Well," I retorted, "I must have a paying profession. That one or +another--what does it matter? Not everybody can belong to the Institute, +as your daughter remarked; not everybody can afford himself the luxury of +publishing, at his own expense, works that sell twenty-seven copies or +so." + +I expected a thunderbolt, an explosion. Not a bit of it. M. Charnot +smiled outright with an air of extreme geniality. + +"I perceive, sir, that you are given to gossiping with the booksellers." + +"Why, yes, sir, now and then." + +"It's a very pretty trait, at your age, to be already so strong in +bibliography. You will permit me, nevertheless, to add something to your +present stock of notions. A large sale is one thing to look at, but not +the right thing. Twenty-seven copies of a book, when read by twenty- +seven men of intelligence, outweigh a popular success. Would you believe +that one of my friends had no more than eight copies printed of a +mathematical treatise? Three of these he has given away. The other five +are still unsold. And that man, sir, is the first mathematician in +France!" + +Mademoiselle Jeanne had taken it differently. With lifted chin and +reddened cheek she shot this sentence at me from the edge of a lip +disdainfully puckered: + +"There are such things as 'successes of esteem,' sir!" + +Alas! I knew that well, and I had no need of this additional lesson to +teach me the rudeness of my remark, to make me feel that I was a brute, +an idiot, hopelessly lost in the opinion of M. Charnot and his daughter. +It was cruel, all the same. Nothing was left for me but to hurry my +departure. I got up to go. + +"But," said M. Charnot in the smoothest of tones, "I do not think we have +yet discussed the question that brought you here." + +"I should hesitate, sir, to trespass further on your time." + +"Never mind that. Your question concerns?" + +"The costume of the Latini Juniani." + +"Difficult to answer, like most questions of dress. Have you read the +work, in seventeen volumes, by the German, Friedchenhausen?" + +"No." + +"You must have read, at any rate, Smith, the Englishman, on ancient +costume?" + +"Nor that either. I only know Italian." + +"Well, then, look through two or three treatises on numismatics, the +'Thesaurus Morellianus', or the 'Praestantiora Numismata', of Valliant, +or Banduri, or Pembrock, or Pellerin. You may chance upon a scent." + +"Thank you, thank you, sir!" + +He saw me to the door. + +As I turned to go I noticed that his daughter was standing motionless +still, with the face of an angry Diana. She held between her fingers the +recovered spiral. + +I found myself in the street. + +I could not have been more clumsy, more ill-bred, or more unfortunate. +I had come to make an apology and had given further offence. Just like +my luck! And the daughter, too--I had hurt her feelings. Still, she had +stood up for me; she had said to her father, "Not every one can be in the +Institute," evidently meaning, "Why are you torturing this poor young +man? He is bashful and ill at ease. I feel sorry for him." Sorry--yes; +no doubt she felt sorry for me at first. But then I came out with that +impertinence about the twenty-seven copies, and by this time she hates me +beyond a doubt. Yes, she hates me. It is too painful to think of. + +Mademoiselle Charnot will probably remain but a stranger to me, a +fugitive apparition in my path of life; yet her anger lies heavy upon me, +and the thought of those disdainful lips pursues me. + +I had rarely been more thoroughly disgusted with myself, and with all +about me. I needed something to divert me, to distract me, to make me +forget, and so I set off for home by the longest way, going down the Rue +de Beaune to the Seine. + +I declare, we get some perfect winter days in Paris! Just now, the folks +who sit indoors believe that the sun is down and have lighted their +lamps; but outside, the sky--a pale, rain-washed blue--is streaked with +broad rays of rose-pink. It is freezing, and the frost has sprinkled +diamonds everywhere, on the trees, the roofs, the parapets, even on the +cabmen's hats, that gather each a sparkling cockade as they pass along +through the mist. The river is running in waves, white-capped here and +there. On the penny steamers no one but the helmsman is visible. But +what a crowd on the Pont de Carrousel! Fur cuffs and collars pass and +repass on the pavements; the roadway trembles beneath the endless line of +Batignolles--Clichy omnibuses and other vehicles. Every one seems in a +hurry. The pedestrians are brisk, the drivers dexterous. Two lines of +traffic meet, mingle without jostling, divide again into fresh lines and +are gone like a column of smoke. Although slips are common in this +crowd, its intelligent agility is all its own. Every face is ruddy, and +almost all are young. The number of young men, young maidens, young +wives, is beyond belief, Where are the aged? At home, no doubt, by the +chimney-corner. All the city's youth is out of doors. + +Its step is animated; that is the way of it. It is wideeyed, and in its +eyes is the sparkle of life. The looks of the young are always full of +the future; they are sure of life. Each has settled his position, his +career, his dream of commonplace well-being. They are all alike; and +they might all be judges, so serious they appear about it. They walk in +pairs, bolt upright, looking neither right nor left, talking little as +they hurry along toward the old Louvre, and are soon swallowed out of +sight in the gathering mist, out of which the gaslights glimmer faintly. + +They are all on their way to dine on the right bank. + +I am going to dine on the left bank, at Carre's, where one sees many odd +customers. Farewell, river! Good night, old Charnot! Blessings on you, +Mademoiselle Jeanne! + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STORY OF SYLVESTRE + + 8 P.M. + +I am back in my study. It is very cold; Madame Menin, my housekeeper, +has let the fire out. Hallo! she has left her duster, too, lying on the +manuscript of my essay. + +Is it an omen, a presage of that dust which awaits my still unfinished +work? Who can fathom Dame Fortune's ironic humor? + +Eight o'clock.... Counsellor Mouillard has finished his pleadings and +must be sitting down to a game of whist with Counsellors Horlet and +Hublette, of the Court of Bourges. They wait for me to make up the four. +Perish the awful prospect! + +And M. Charnot? He, I suppose, is still spinning the paper spiral. +How easily serious people are amused! Perhaps I am a serious person. +The least thing amuses me. By the way, is Mademoiselle Jeanne fair or +dark? Let me try to recollect. Why, fair, of course. I remember the +glint of gold in the little curls about her temples, as she stood by the +lamp. A pleasant face, too; not exactly classic, but rosy and frank; and +then she has that animation which so many pretty women lack. + +Madame Menin has forgotten something else. She has forgotten to shut my +window. She has designs upon my life! + +I have just shut the window. The night is calm, its stars twinkling +through a haze. The year ends mournfully. + +I remember at school once waking suddenly on such a night as this, to +find the moonlight streaming into my eyes. At such a moment it is always +a little hard to collect one's scattered senses, and take in the midnight +world around, so unhomely, so absolutely still. First I cast my eyes +along the two rows of beds that stretched away down the dormitory--two +parallel lines in long perspective; my comrades huddled under their +blankets in shapeless masses, gray or white according as they lay near or +far from the windows; the smoky glimmer of the oil lamp half-way down the +room; and at the end, in the deeper shadows, the enclosure of yellow +curtains surrounding the usher's bed. + +Not a sound about me; all was still. But without, my ear, excited and +almost feverishly awake, caught the sound of a strange call, very sweet, +again and again repeated--fugitive notes breathing appeal, tender and +troubled. Now they grew quite distant, and I heard no more than a +phantom of sound; now they came near, passed over my head, and faded +again into the distance. The moon's clear rays invited me to clear up +the mystery. I sprang from my bed, and ran in my nightshirt to open the +window. It was about eleven o'clock. Together the keen night-air and +the moonlight wrapped me round, thrilling me with delight. The large +courtyard lay deserted with its leafless poplars and spiked railings. +Here and there a grain of sand sparkled. I raised my eyes, and from one +constellation to another I sought the deep blue of heaven in vain; not a +shadow upon it, not one dark wing outlined. Yet all the while the same +sad and gentle cry wandered and was lost in air, the chant of an +invisible soul which seemed in want of me, and had perhaps awakened me. + +The thought came upon me that it was the soul of my mother calling to me +--my mother, whose voice was soft and very musical. + +"I am caring for thee," said the voice. "I am caring for thee; I can see +thee," it said, "I can see thee. I love thee! I love thee!" + +"Reveal thyself!" I called back. "Oh, mother, reveal thyself!" And I +strove feverishly to catch sight of her, following the voice as it swept +around in circles; and seeing nothing, I burst into tears. + +Suddenly I was seized roughly by the ear. + +"What are you doing here, you young rascal? Are you mad? The wind is +blowing right on to my bed. Five hundred lines!" + +The usher, in nightdress and slippers, was rolling his angry eyes on me. + +"Yes, sir; certainly, sir! But don't you hear her?" + +"Who is it?" + +"My mother." + +He looked to see whether I were awake; cocked his head to one side and +listened; then shut the window angrily and went off shrugging his +shoulders. + +"It's only the plovers flying about the moon," said he. "Five hundred +lines!" + +I did my five hundred lines. They taught me that dreaming was illegal +and dangerous, but they neither convinced nor cured me. + +I still believe that there are scattered up and down in nature voices +that speak, but which few hear; just as there are millions of flowers +that bloom unseen by man. It is sad for those who catch a hint of it. +Perforce they come back and seek the hidden springs. They waste their +youth and vigor upon empty dreams, and in return for the fleeting +glimpses they have enjoyed, for the perfect phrase half caught and lost +again, will have given up the intercourse of their kind, and even +friendship itself. Yes, it is sad for the schoolboys who open their +windows to gaze at the moon, and never drop the habit! They will find +themselves, all too soon, solitaries in the midst of life, desolate as I +am desolate tonight, beside my dead fire. + +No friend will come to knock at my door; not one. I have a few comrades +to whom I give that name. We do not loathe one another. At need they +would help me. But we seldom meet. What should they do here? Dreamers +make no confidences; they shrivel up into themselves and are caught away +on the four winds of heaven. Politics drive them mad; gossip fails to +interest them; the sorrows they create have no remedy save the joys that +they invent; they are natural only when alone, and talk well only to +themselves. + +The only man who can put up with this moody contrariety of mine is +Sylvestre Lampron. He is nearly twenty years older than I. That +explains his forbearance. Besides, between an artist like him and a +dreamer like myself there is only the difference of handiwork. He +translates his dreams. I waste mine; but both dream. Dear old Lampron! +Kindly, stalwart heart! He has withstood that hardening of the moral and +physical fibre which comes over so many men as they near their fortieth +year. He shows a brave front to work and to life. He is cheerful, with +the manly cheerfulness of a noble heart resigned to life's disillusions. + +When I enter his home, I nearly always find him sitting before a small +ground-glass window in the corner of his studio, bent over some +engraving. I have leave to enter at all hours. He is free not to stir +from his work. "Good-day," he calls out, without raising his head, +without knowing for certain who has come in, and goes on with the +engraving he has in hand. I settle down at the end of the room, on the +sofa with the faded cover, and, until Lampron deigns to grant me +audience, I am free to sleep, or smoke, or turn over the wonderful +drawings that lean against the walls. Among them are treasures beyond +price; for Lampron is a genius whose only mistake is to live and act with +modesty, so that as yet people only say that he has "immense talent." +No painter or engraver of repute--and he is both--has served a more +conscientious apprenticeship, or sets greater store on thoroughness in +his art. His drawing is correct beyond reproach--a little stiff, like +the early painters. You can guess from his works his partiality for the +old masters--Perugino, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Memling, Holbein--who, +though not the masters in fashion, will always be masters in vigor of +outline, directness, in simple grace, and genuine feeling. He has copied +in oils, water-colors, pen, or pencil, nearly all the pictures of these +masters in the Louvre, in Germany, in Holland, and especially in Italy, +where he lived for many years. With tastes such as his came the habit, +or rather the fixed determination, never to paint or engrave any but +sacred subjects. Puffs and cliques are his abomination. His ideal is +the archaic rendered by modern methods. An artist of this type can but +obtain the half-grudging esteem of his own profession, and of the few +critics who really understand something about art. Gladly, and with +absolute disdain, he leaves to others the applause of the mob, the gilded +patronage of American purchasers, and the right to wear lace cuffs. In +short, in an age when the artist is often half a manufacturer and half a +charlatan, he is an artist only. + +Now and then he is rich, but never for long. Half of his earnings goes +in alms; half into the pockets of his mendicant brethren. They hear the +gold jingle before it is counted, and run with outstretched palms. Each +is in the depths of misfortune; on the eve of ascending the fatal slope; +lost, unless the helpful hand of Lampron will provide, saved if he will +lend wherewithal to buy a block of marble, to pay a model, to dine that +evening. He lends--I should say gives; the words mean the same in many +societies. Of all that he has gained, fame alone remains, and even this +he tries to do without--modest, retiring, shunning all entertainments. +I believe he would often be without the wherewithal to live were it +not for his mother, whom he supports, and who does him the kindness to +need something to live on. Madame Lampron does not hoard; she only fills +the place of those dams of cut turf which the peasants build in the +channels of the Berry in spring; the water passes over them, beneath +them, even through them, but still a little is left for the great +droughts. + +I love my friend Lampron, though fully aware of his superiority. His +energy sets me up, his advice strengthens me, he peoples for me the vast +solitude of Paris. + +Suppose I go to see him? A lonely watch to-night would be gloomier than +usual. The death of the year brings gloomy thoughts, the thirty-first of +December, St. Sylvester's day--St. Sylvester! Why, that is his birthday! +Ungrateful friend, to give no thought to it! Quick! my coat, my stick, +my hat, and let me run to see these two early birds before they seek +their roost. + +When I entered the studio, Lampron was so deep in his work that he did +not hear me. The large room, lighted only in one corner, looked weird +enough. Around me, and among the medley of pictures and casts and the +piles of canvases stacked against the wall, the eye encountered only a +series of cinder-gray tints and undetermined outlines casting long +amorphous shadows half-way across the ceiling. A draped lay figure +leaning against a door seemed to listen to the whistling of the wind +outside; a large glass bay opened upon the night. Nothing was alive in +this part of the room, nothing alight except a few rare glints upon the +gold of the frames, and the blades of two crossed swords. Only +in a corner, at the far end, at a distance exaggerated by the shadows, +sat Lampron engraving, solitary, motionless, beneath the light of a lamp. +His back was toward me. The lamp's rays threw a strong light on his +delicate hand, on the workmanlike pose of his head, which it surrounded +with a nimbus, and on a painting--a woman's head--which he was copying. +He looked superb like that, and I thought how doubly tempted Rembrandt +would have been by the deep significance as well as by the chiaroscuro of +this interior. + +I stamped my foot. Lampron started, and turned half around, narrowing +his eyes as he peered into the darkness. + +"Ah, it's you," he said. He rose and came quickly toward me, as if to +prevent me from approaching the table. + +"You don't wish me to look?" + +He hesitated a moment. + +"After all, why not?" he answered. + +The copper plate was hardly marked with a few touches of the needle. He +turned the reflector so as to throw all its rays upon the painting. + +"O Lampron, what a charming head!" + +It was indeed a lovely head; an Italian girl, three quarter face, painted +after the manner of Leonardo, with firm but delicate touches, and lights +and shades of infinite subtlety, and possessing, like all that master's +portraits of women, a straightforward look that responds to the gazer's, +but which he seeks to interrogate in vain. The hair, brown with golden +lights, was dressed in smooth plaits above the temples. The neck, 1351 +somewhat long, emerged from a dark robe broadly indicated. + +"I do not know this, Sylvestre?" + +"No, it's an old thing." + +"A portrait, of course?" + +"My first." + +"You never did better; line, color, life, you have got them all." + +"You need not tell me that! In one's young days, look you, there are +moments of real inspiration, when some one whispers in the ear and guides +the hand; a lightness of touch, the happy audacity of the beginner, a +wealth of daring never met with again. Would you believe that I have +tried ten times to reproduce that in etching without success?" + +"Why do you try?" + +"Yes, that is the question. Why? It's a bit foolish." + +"You never could find such a model again; that is one reason." + +"Ah, no, you are right. I never could find her again." + +"An Italian of rank? a princess, eh?" + +"Something like it." + +"What has become of her?" + +"Ah, no doubt what becomes of all princesses. Fabien, my young friend, +you who still see life through fairy-tales, doubtless you imagine her +happy in her lot--wealthy, spoiled, flattered, speaking with disdainful +lips at nightfall, on the terrace of her villa among the great pines, of +the barbarian from across the Alps who painted her portrait twenty years +since; and, in the same sentence, of her--last new frock from Paris?" + +"Yes, I see her so--still beautiful." + +"You are good at guessing, Fabien. She is dead, my friend, and that +ideal beauty is now a few white bones at the bottom of a grave." + +"Poor girl!" + +Sylvestre had used a sarcastic tone which was not usual with him. +He was contemplating his work with such genuine sadness that I was awed. +I divined that in his past, of which I knew but little, Lampron kept a +sorrow buried that I had all unwittingly revived. + +"My friend," said I, "let that be; I come to wish you many happy +returns." + +"Many happy returns? Ah, yes, my poor mother wished me that this +morning; then I set to work and forgot all about it. I am glad you came. +She would feel hurt, dear soul, if I forgot to pass a bit of this evening +with her. Let us go and find her." + +"With all my heart, Sylvestre, but I, too, have forgotten something." + +"What?" + +"I have brought no flowers." + +"Never mind, she has plenty; strong-scented flowers of the south, a whole +basketful, enough to keep a hive of bees or kill a man in his sleep, +which you will. It is a yearly attention from an unhappy creditor." + +"Debtor, you mean." + +"I mean what I say--a creditor." + +He lifted the lamp. The shadows shifted and ran along the walls like +huge spiders, the crossed swords flashed, the Venus of Milo threw us a +lofty glance, Polyhymnia stood forth pensive and sank back into shadow. +At the door I took the draped lay figure in my arms. "Excuse me," I said +as I moved it--and we left the studio for Madame Lampron's little +sitting-room. + +She was seated near a small round table, knitting socks, her feet on a +hot-water bottle. Her kind old rough and wrinkled face beamed upon us. +She thrust her needles under the black lace cap she always wore, and drew +them out again almost immediately. + +"It needed your presence, Monsieur Mouillard," said she, "to drag him +from his work." + +"Saint Sylvester's day, too. It is fearful! Love for his art has +changed your son's nature, Madame Lampron." + +She gave him a tender look, as on entering the room he bent over the fire +and shook out his half-smoked pipe against the bars, a thing he never +failed to do the moment he entered his mother's room. + +"Dear child!" said she. + +Then turning to me: + +"You are a good friend, Monsieur Fabien. Never have we celebrated a +Saint Sylvester without you since you came to Paris." + +"Yet this evening, Madame, I have failed in my traditions, I have no +flowers. But Sylvestre tells me that you have just received flowers from +the south, from an unfortunate creditor." + +My words produced an unusual effect upon her. She, who never stopped +knitting to talk or to listen, laid her work upon her knees, and fixed +her eyes upon me, filled with anxiety. + +"Has he told you?" + +Lampron who was poking the fire, his slippered feet stretched out toward +the hearth, turned his head. + +"No, mother, I merely told him that we had received a basket of flowers. +Not much to confide. Yet why should he not know all? Surely he is our +friend enough to know all. He should have known it long since were it +not cruel to share between three a burden that two can well bear." + +She made no answer, and began again to twist the wool between her +needles, but nervously and as if her thoughts were sad. + +To change the conversation I told them the story of my twofold mishap at +the National Library and at M. Charnot's. I tried to be funny, and +fancied I succeeded. The old lady smiled faintly. Lampron remained +grave, and tossed his head impatiently. I summed my story thus: + +"Net gain: two enemies, one of them charming." + +"Oh, enemies!" said Sylvestre, "they spring up like weeds. One can not +prevent them, and great sorrows do not come from them. Still, beware of +charming enemies." + +"She hates me, I swear. If you could have seen her!" + +"And you?" + +"Me? She is nothing to me." + +"Are you sure?" + +He put the question gravely, without looking in my face, as he twisted a +paper spill. + +I laughed. + +"What is the matter with you to-day, misanthrope? I assure you that she +is absolutely indifferent to me. But even were it otherwise, Sylvestre, +where would be the wrong?" + +"Wrong? No wrong at all; but I should be anxious for you; I should be +afraid. See here, my friend. I know you well. You are a born man of +letters, a dreamer, an artist in your way. You have to help you on +entering the redoubtable lists of love neither foresight, nor a cool +head, nor determination. You are guided solely by your impressions; by +them you rise or fall. You are no more than a child." + +"I quite agree. What next?" + +"What next?" He had risen, and was speaking with unusual vehemence. +"I once knew some one like you, whose first passion, rash, but deep as +yours would be, broke his heart forever. The heart, my friend, is liable +to break, and can not be mended like china." + +Lampron's mother interrupted him afresh, reproachfully. + +"He came to wish you a happy birthday, my child." + +"One day, mother, is as good as another to listen to good advice. +Besides, I am only talking of one of my friends. 'Tis but a short story, +Fabien, and instructive. I will give it you in very few words. My +friend was very young and enthusiastic. He was on his way through the +galleries of Italy, brush in hand, his heart full of the ceaseless song +of youth in holiday. The world never had played him false, nor balked +him. He made the future bend to the fancy of his dreams. He seldom +descended among common men from those loftier realms where the +contemplation of endless masterpieces kept his spirit as on wings. +He admired, copied, filled his soul with the glowing beauty of Italian +landscape and Italian art. But one day, without reflection, without +knowledge, without foresight, he was rash enough to fall in love with a +girl of noble birth whose portrait he was painting; to speak to her and +to win her love. He thought then, in the silly innocence of his youth, +that art abridges all distance and that love effaces it. Crueller +nonsense never was uttered, my poor Fabien. He soon found this; he tried +to struggle against the parent's denial, against himself, against her, +powerless in all alike, beaten at every point.... The end was-- Do you +care to learn the end? The girl was carried off, struck down by a brief +illness, soon dead; the man, hurled out of heaven, bruised, a fugitive +also, is still so weak in presence of his sorrow that even after these +long years he can not think of it without weeping." + +Lampron actually was weeping, he who was so seldom moved. Down his brown +beard, tinged already with gray, a tear was trickling. I noticed that +Madame Lampron was stooping lower and lower over her needles. He went +on: + +"I have kept the portrait, the one you saw, Fabien. They would like to +have it over yonder. They are old folk by now. Every year they ask me +for this relic of our common sorrow; every year they send me, about this +time a basket of white flowers, chiefly lilacs, the dead girl's flower, +and their meaning is, 'Give up to us what is left of her, the masterpiece +built up of your youth and hers.' But I am selfish, Fabien. I, like +them, am jealous of all the sorrows this portrait recalls to me, and I +deny them. Come, mother, where are the flowers? I have promised Fabien +to show them to him." + +But his old mother could not answer. Having no doubt bewept this sorrow +too often to find fresh tears, her eyes followed her son with restless +compassion. He, beside the window, was hunting among the chairs and +lounges crowded in this corner of the little sitting-room. + +He brought us a box of white wood. "See," said he, "'tis my wedding +bouquet." + +And he emptied it on the table. Parma violets, lilacs, white camellias +and moss rolled out in slightly faded bunches, spreading a sweet smell in +which there breathed already a vague scent of death and corruption. A +violet fell on my knees. I picked it up. + +He looked for a moment at the heap on the table. + +"I keep none," said he: "I have too many reminders without them. Cursed +flowers!" + +With one motion of his arm he swept them all up and cast them upon the +coals in the hearth. They shrivelled, crackled, grew limp and +discolored, and vanished in smoke. + +"Now I am going back to my etching. Good-by, Fabien. Good-night, +mother." + +Without turning his head, he left the room and went back to his studio. + +I made a movement to follow him and bring him back. + +Madame Lampron stopped me. "I will go myself," said she, "later--much +later." + +We sat awhile in silence. When she saw me somewhat recovered from the +shock of my feelings she went on: + +"You never have seen him like this, but I have seen it often. It is so +hard! I knew her whom he loved almost as soon as he, for he never hid +anything from me. You can judge from her portrait whether hers was not +the face to attract an artist like Sylvestre. I saw at once that it was +a trial, in which I could do nothing. They were very great people; +different from us, you know." + +"They refused to let them marry?" + +"Oh, no! Sylvestre did not ask; they never had the opportunity of +refusing. No, no; it was I. I said to him: 'Sylvestre, this can never +be-never!' He was convinced against his will. Then she spoke to her +parents on her own account. They carried her off, and there was an end +of it." + +"He never saw her again." + +"Never; he would not have wished it; and then she lived a very little +time. I went back there two years later, when they wanted to buy the +picture. We were still living in Italy. That was one of the hardest +hours of my life. I was afraid of their reproaches, and I did not feel +sure of myself. But no, they suffered for their daughter as I for my +son, and that brought us together. Still, I did not give up the +portrait; Sylvestre set too great store by it. He insists on keeping it, +feeding his eyes on it, reopening his wound day by day. Poor child! +Forget all this, Monsieur Fabien; you can do nothing to help. Be true to +your youth, and tell us next time of Monsieur Charnot and Mademoiselle +Jeanne." + +Dear Madame Lampron! I tried to console her; but as I never knew my +mother, I could find but little to say. All the same, she thanked me and +assured me I had done her good. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A FRUITLESS SEARCH + + January 1, 1885. + +The first of January! When one is not yet an uncle and no longer a +godson, if one is in no government employ and goes out very little, the +number of one's calls on New Year's Day is limited. I shall make five or +six this afternoon. It will be "Not at home" in each case; and that will +be all my compliments of the season. + +No, I am wrong. I have received the compliments of the season. +My porter's wife came up just now, wreathed in smiles. + +"Monsieur Mouillard, I wish you a Happy New Year, good health, and Heaven +to end your days." She had just said the same to the tenants on the +first, second, and third floors. My answer was the same as theirs. +I slipped into her palm (with a "Many thanks!" of which she took no +notice) a piece of gold, which brought another smile, a curtsey, and she +is gone. + +This smile comes only once a year; it is not reproduced at any other +period, but is a dividend payable in one instalment. This, and a tear on +All Souls' Day, when she has been to place a bunch of chrysanthemums on +her baby's grave, are the only manifestations of sensibility that I have +discovered in her. From the second of January to the second of November +she is a human creature tied to a bell-rope, with an immovably stolid +face and a monosyllabic vocabulary in which politer terms occur but +sparsely. + +This morning, contrary to her habits, she has brought up by post two +letters; one from my Uncle Mouillard (an answer), and the other--I don't +recognize the other. Let's open it first: big envelope, ill-written +address, Paris postmark. Hallo! a smaller envelope inside, and on it: + + ANTOINE AND MARIE PLUMET. + +Poor souls! they have no visiting-cards. But kind hearts are more than +pasteboard. + +Ten months ago little Madame Plumet, then still unmarried, was in a +terrible bother. I remember our first meeting, on a March day, at the +corner of the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue Richelieu. I was +walking along quickly, with a bundle of papers under my arm, on my way +back to the office where I was head clerk. Suddenly a dressmaker's +errand-girl set down her great oilcloth-covered box in my way. I nearly +went head first over it, and was preparing to walk around it, when the +little woman, red with haste and blushes, addressed me. "Excuse me, sir, +are you a lawyer?" + +"No, Mademoiselle, not yet." + +"Perhaps, sir, you know some lawyers?" + +"To be sure I do; my master, to begin with, Counsellor Boule. He is +quite close, if you care to follow me." + +"I am in a terrible hurry, but I can spare a minute or two. Thank you +very much, Monsieur." + +And thus I found myself escorted by a small dressmaker and a box of +fashions. I remember that I walked a little ahead for fear of being seen +in such company by a fellow-clerk, which would have damaged my +reputation. + +We got to the office. Down went the box again. The little dressmaker +told me that she was engaged to M. Plumet, frame-maker. She told her +tale very clearly; a little money put by, you see, out of ten years' +wages; one may be careful and yet be taken in; and, alas! all has been +lent to a cousin in the cabinetmaking trade, who wanted to set up shop; +and now he refuses to pay up. The dowry is in danger, and the marriage +in suspense. + +"Do not be alarmed, Mademoiselle; we will summons this atrocious cabinet- +maker, and get a judgment against him. We shall not let him go until he +has disgorged, and you shall be Madame Plumet." + +We kept our word. Less than two months later--thanks to my efforts--the +dowry was recovered; the banns were put up; and the little dressmaker +paid a second visit to the office, this time with M. Plumet, who was even +more embarrassed than she. + +"See, Antoine! this is Monsieur Mouillard, who undertook our case! +Thank you again and again, Monsieur Mouillard, you really have been too +kind! What do I owe you for your trouble?" + +"You must ask my master what his fees come to, Mademoiselle." + +"Yes, but you? What can I do for you?" + +The whole office, from the messenger to the clerk who came next to me, +had their eyes upon me. I rose to the occasion, and in my uncle's best +manner I replied: + +"Be happy, Mademoiselle, and remember me." + +We laughed over it for a week. + +She has done better, she has remembered it after eight months. But she +has not given her address. That is a pity. I should have liked to see +them both again. These young married folk are like the birds; you hear +their song, but that does not tell you the whereabouts of their nest. + +Now, uncle, it's your turn. + +Here it is again, your unfailing letter anticipated, like the return of +the comets, but less difficult to analyze than the weird substance of +which comets are composed. Every year I write to you on December 28th, +and you answer me on the 31st in time for your letter to reach me on New +Year's morning. You are punctual, dear uncle; you are even attentive; +there is something affectionate in this precision. But I do not know why +your letters leave me unmoved. The eighteen to twenty-five lines of +which each is composed are from your head, rather than your heart. Why +do you not tell me of my parents, whom you knew; of your daily life; of +your old servant Madeleine, who nursed me as a baby; of the Angora cat +almost as old as she; of the big garden, so green, so enticing, which you +trim with so much care, and which rewards your attention with such +luxuriance. It would be so nice, dear uncle, to be a shade more +intimate. + +Ah, well! let us see what he writes: + + "BOURGES, December 31, 1884. + + "MY DEAR NEPHEW: + + "The approach of the New Year does not find me with the same + sentiments with which it leaves you. I make up my yearly accounts + from July 31st, so the advent of the 31st of December finds me as + indifferent as that of any other day of the said month. Your + repinings appear to me the expressions of a dreamer. + + "It would, however, not be amiss if you made a start in practical + life. You come of a family not addicted to dreaming. Three + Mouillards have, if I may say so, adorned the legal profession at + Bourges. You will be the fourth. + + "As soon as you have taken your doctor's degree-which I presume + should not be long--I shall expect you the very next day, or the day + after that at the furthest; and I shall place you under my + supervision. + + "The practice is not falling off, I can assure you. In spite of + age, I still possess good eyes and good teeth, the chief + qualifications for a lawyer. You will find everything ready and in + good order here. + + "I am obliged to you for your good wishes, which I entirely + reciprocate. + + "Your affectionate uncle, + "BRUTUS MOUILLARD." + + "P. S.--The Lorinet family have been to see me. Mademoiselle Berthe + is really quite pretty. They have just inherited 751,351 francs. + + "I was employed by them in an action relating thereto." + + +Yes, my dear uncle, you were employed, according to the formula, "in +virtue of these and subsequent engagements," and among the "subsequent +engagements" you are kind enough to reckon one between Mademoiselle +Berthe Lorinet, spinster, of no occupation, and M. Fabien Mouillard, +lawyer. "Fabien Mouillard, lawyer"--that I may perhaps endure, but +"Fabien Mouillard, son-in-law of Lorinet," never! One pays too dear for +these rich wives. Mademoiselle Berthe is half a foot taller than I, who +am moderately tall, and she has breadth in proportion. Moreover, I have +heard that her wit is got in proportion. I saw her when she was +seventeen, in a short frock of staring blue; she was very thin then, and +was escorted by a brother, squeezed inside a schoolboy's suit; they were +out for their first walk alone, both red-faced, flurried, shuffling along +the sidewalks of Bourges. That was enough. For me she will always wear +that look, that frock, that clumsy gait. Recollections, my good uncle, +are not unlike instantaneous photographs; and this one is a distinct +negative to your designs. + + + March 3d. + +The year is getting on. My essay is growing. The Junian Latin emerges +from the fogs of Tiber. + +I have had to return to the National Library. My first visits were not +made without trepidation. I fancied that the beadle was colder, and that +the keepers were shadowing me like a political suspect. I thought it +wise to change my side, so now I make out my list of books at the left- +hand desk and occupy a seat on the left side of the room. + +M. Charnot remains faithful to his post beneath the right-hand inkstand. + +I have been watching him. He is usually one of the first to arrive, with +nimble, almost springy, step. His hair, which he wears rather long, is +always carefully parted in the middle, and he is always freshly shaven. +His habit of filling the pockets of his frock-coat with bundles of notes +has made that garment swell out at the top into the shape of a basket. +He puts on a pair of spectacles mounted in very thin gold, and reads +determinedly, very few books it is true, but they are all bound in +vellum, and that fixes their date. In his way of turning the leaves +there is something sacerdotal. He seems popular with the servants. Some +of the keepers worship him. He has very good manners toward every one. +Me he avoids. Still I meet him, sometimes in the cloakroom, oftener in +the Rue Richelieu on his way to the Seine. He stops, and so do I, near +the Fontaine Moliere, to buy chestnuts. We have this taste in common. +He buys two sous' worth, I buy one; thus the distinctions of rank are +preserved. If he arrives after me, I allow him the first turn to be +served; if he is before me, I await my turn with a patience which +betokens respect. Yet he never seems to notice it. Once or twice, +certainly, I fancied I caught a smile at the corners of his mouth, and a +sly twinkle in the corners of his eyes; but these old scholars smile so +austerely. + +He must have guessed that I wish to meet him. For I can not deny it. I +am looking out for an opportunity to repair my clumsy mistake and show +myself in a less unfavorable light than I did at that ill-starred visit. +And she is the reason why I haunt his path! + +Ever since M. Mouillard threatened me with Mademoiselle Berthe Lorinet, +the graceful outlines of Mademoiselle Jeanne have haunted me with a +persistence to which I have no objection. + +It is not because I love her. It does not go as far as that. I am +leaving her and leaving Paris forever in a few months. No; the height of +my desire is to see her again--in the street, at the theatre, no matter +where--to show her by my behavior and, if possible, by my words that I am +sorry for the past, and implore her forgiveness. Then there will no +longer be a gulf betwixt her and me, I shall be able to meet her without +confusion, to invoke her image to put to flight that of Mademoiselle +Lorinet without the vision of those disdainful lips to dash me. She will +be for me at once the type of Parisian grace and of filial affection. +I will carry off her image to the country like the remembered perfume of +some rare flower; and if ever I sing 'Hymen Hymnaee'! it shall be with +one who recalls her face to me. + +I do not think my feelings overpass these bounds. Yet I am not quite +sure. I watch for her with a keenness and determination which surprise +me, and the disappointment which follows a fruitless search is a shade +too lively to accord with cool reason. + +After all, perhaps my reason is not cool. + +Let me see, I will make up the account of my ventures. + +One January afternoon I walked up and down the Rue de l'Universite eight +times in succession, from No. 1 to No. 107, and from No. 107 to No. 1. +Jeanne did not come out in spite of the brilliancy of the clear winter +day. + +On the nineteenth of the same month I went to see Andromache, although +the classic writers, whom I swear by, are not the writers I most care to +hear. I renewed this attempt on the twenty-seventh. Neither on the +first nor on the second occasion did I see Mademoiselle Charnot. + +And yet if the Institute does not escort its daughters in shoals to +applaud Andromache, where on earth does it take them? + +Perhaps nowhere. + +Every time I cross the Tuileries Garden I run my eyes over the groups +scattered among the chestnut-trees. I see children playing and falling +about; nursemaids who leave them crying; mothers who pick them up again; +a vagrant guardsman. No Jeanne. + +To wind up, yesterday I spent five hours at the Bon Marche. + +The spring show was on, one of the great occasions of the year; and I +presumed, not without an apparent foundation of reason, that no young or +pretty Parisian could fail to be there. When I arrived, about one +o'clock, the crowd already filled the vast bazaar. It was not easy to +stand against certain currents that set toward the departments +consecrated to spring novelties. Adrift like a floating spar I was swept +away and driven ashore amid the baby-linen. There it flung me high and +dry among the shop-girls, who laughed at the spectacle of an +undergraduate shipwrecked among the necessaries of babyhood. I felt shy, +and attaching myself to the fortunes of an Englishwoman, who worked her +elbows with the vigor of her nation, I was borne around nearly twenty +counters. At last, wearied, mazed, dusty as with a long summer walk, +I took refuge in the reading-room. + +Poor simpleton! I said to myself, you are too early; you might have +known that. She can not come with her father before the National Library +closes. Even supposing they take an omnibus, they will not get here +before a quarter past four. + +I had to find something to fill up the somewhat long interval which +separated me from that happy moment. I wrote a letter to my Uncle +Mouillard, taking seven minutes over the address alone. I had not shown +such penmanship since I was nine years old. When the last flourish was +completed I looked for a paper; they were all engaged. The directory was +free. I took it, and opened it at Ch. I discovered that there were many +Charnots in Paris without counting mine: Charnot, grocer; Charnot, +upholsterer; Charnot, surgical bandage-maker. I built up a whole family +tree for the member of the Institute, choosing, of course, those persons +of the name who appeared most worthy to adorn its branches. Of what +followed I retain but a vague recollection. I only remember that I felt +twice as if some inquisitive individual were looking over my shoulder. +The third time I woke up with a start. + +"Sir," said a shopwalker, with the utmost politeness, "a gentleman has +been waiting three quarters of an hour for the directory. Would you +kindly hand it to him if you have quite finished with it?" + +It was a quarter to six. I still waited a little while, and then I left, +having wasted my day. + +O Jeanne! where do you hide yourself? Must I, to meet you, attend mass +at St. Germain des Pres? Are you one of those early birds who, before +the world is up, are out in the Champs Elysees catching the first rays of +the morning, and the country breeze before it is lost in the smoke of +Paris? Are you attending lectures at the Sorbonne? Are you learning to +sing? and, if so, who is your teacher? + +You sing, Jeanne, of course. You remind me of a bird. You have all the +quick and easy graces of the skylark. Why should you not have the +skylark's voice? + +Fabien, you are dropping into poetry! + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE FLOWER-SHOW + + April 3d. + +For a month I have written nothing in this brown notebook. But to-day +there is plenty to put down, and worth the trouble too. + +Let me begin with the first shock. This morning, my head crammed with +passages from Latin authors, I leaned my brow against the pane of my +window which looks on the garden. The garden is not mine, of course, +since I live on the fourth floor; but I have a view of the big weeping- +willow in the centre, the sanded path that runs around it, and the four +walls lined with borders, one of which separates it from the huge +premises of the Carmelites. It is an almost deserted garden. The first- +floor tenant hardly ever walks there. His son, a schoolboy of seventeen, +was there this morning. He stood two feet from the street wall, +motionless, with head thrown back, whistling a monotonous air, which +seemed to me like a signal. Before him, however, was nothing but the +moss on the old wall gleaming like golden lights. People do not whistle +to amuse stones nor yet moss. Farther off, on the other side of the +street, the windows of the opposite houses stretched away in long +straight lines, most of them standing open. + +I thought: "The bird is somewhere there. Some small Abigail with her +white cap will look out in a moment." + +The suspicion was stupid and ill-natured. How rash are our lightest +judgments! Suddenly the school-boy took one step forward, swept his hand +quickly along the moss as if he were trying to catch a fly, and ran off +to his mother triumphant, delighted, beside himself, with an innocent +gray lizard on the tips of his fingers. + +"I've got him! I've got him! He was basking in the sun and I charmed +him!" + +"Basking in the sun!" This was a revelation to me. I flung up the +window. Yes, it was true. Warmth and light lay everywhere: on the roofs +still glistening with last night's showers; across the sky, whose gay +blue proclaimed that winter was done. I looked downward and saw what I +had not seen before: the willow bursting into bud; the hepatica in flower +at the foot of the camellias, which had ceased to bloom; the pear-trees +in the Carmelites' garden flushing red as the sap rose within them; and +upon the dead trunk of a fig-tree was a blackbird, escaped from the +Luxembourg, who, on tiptoe, with throat outstretched, drunk with delight, +answered some far-off call that the wind brought to him, singing, as if +in woodland depths, the rapturous song of the year's new birth. Then, +oh! then, I could contain myself no longer. I ran down the stairs four +at a time, cursing Paris and the Junian Latins who had been cheating me +of the spring. What! live there cut off from the world which was +created for me, tread an artificial earth of stone or asphalt, live with +a horizon of chimneys, see only the sky chopped into irregular strips by +roofs smirched with smoke, and allow this exquisite spring to fleet by +without drinking in her bountiful delight, without renewing in her +youthfulness our youth, always a little staled and overcast by winter! +No, that can not be; I mean to see the spring. + +And I have seen it, in truth, though cut and tied into bouquets, for my +aimless steps led me to the Place St. Sulpice, where the flower-sellers +were. There were flowers in plenty, but very few people; it was already +late. None the less did I enjoy the sight of all the plants arranged by +height and kind, from the double hyacinths, dear to hall-porters, to the +first carnations, scarcely in bud, whose pink or white tips just peeped +from their green sheaths; then the bouquets, bundles of the same kinds +and same shades of flowers wrapped up in paper: lilies-of-the-valley, +lilacs, forget-me-nots, mignonette, which being grown under glass has +guarded its honey from the bees to scent the air here. Everyone had a +look of welcome for those exiles. The girls smiled at them without +knowing the reason why. The cabdrivers in line along the sidewalk seemed +to enjoy their neighborhood. I heard one of them, with a face like a +halfripened strawberry, red, with a white nose, say to a comrade, "Hallo, +Francis! that smells good, doesn't it!" + +I was walking along slowly, looking into every stall, and when I came to +the end I turned right about face. + +Great Heavens! Not ten feet off! M. Flamaran, M. Charnot, and +Mademoiselle Jeanne! + +They had stopped before one of the stalls that I had just left. +M. Flamaran was carrying under his arm a pot of cineraria, which made his +stomach a perfect bower. M. Charnot was stooping, examining a superb +pink carnation. Jeanne was hovering undecided between twenty bunches of +flowers, bending her pretty head in its spring hat over each in turn. + +"Which, father?" + +"Whichever you like; but make up your mind soon; Flamaran is waiting." + +A moment more, and the elective affinities carried the day. + +"This bunch of mignonette," she said. + +I would have wagered on it. She was sure to choose the mignonette-- +a fair, well-bred, graceful plant like herself. Others choose their +camellias and their hyacinths; Jeanne must have something more refined. + +She put down her money, caught up the bunch, looked at it for a moment, +and held it close to her breast as a mother might hold her child, while +all its golden locks drooped over her arm. Then off she ran after her +father, who had only changed one carnation for another. They went on +toward St. Sulpice--M. Flamaran on the right, M. Charnot in the middle, +Jeanne on the left. She brushed past without seeing me. I followed them +at a distance. All three were laughing. At what? I can guess; she +because she was eighteen, they for joy to be with her. At the end of the +marketplace they turned to the left, followed the railings of the church, +and bent their steps toward the Rue St. Sulpice, doubtless to take home +M. Flamaran, whose cineraria blazed amid the crowd. I was about to turn +in the same direction when an omnibus of the Batignolles-Clichy line +stopped my way. In an instant I was overwhelmed by the flood of +passengers which it poured on the pavements. + +"Hallo, you here! How goes it? What are you staring at? My stovepipe? +Observe it well, my dear fellow--the latest invention of Leon; the patent +ventilating, anti-sudorific, and evaporating hat!" + +It was Larive who had just climbed down from the knifeboard. + +Every one knows Larive, head clerk in Machin's office. He is to be seen +everywhere--a tall, fair man, with little closetrimmed beard, and +moustache carefully twisted. He is always perfectly dressed, always in a +tall hat and new gloves, full of all the new stories, which he tells as +his own. If you believe him, he is at home in all the ministries, +whatever party is in power; he has cards for every ball, and tickets for +every first night. With all that he never misses a funeral, is a good +lawyer, and as solemn when in court as a dozen old mandarins. + +"Come, Fabien, will you answer? What are you staring at?" + +He turned his head. + +"Oh, I see--pretty Mademoiselle Charnot." + +"You know her?" + +"Of course I do, and her father, too. A pretty little thing!" + +I blushed with pleasure. + +"Yes, a very pretty little thing; but wants style--dances poorly." + +"An admirable defect." + +"A little big, too, for her eyes." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Her eyes are a little too small, you understand me?" + +"What matters that if they are bright and loving?" + +"No matter at all to me; but it seems to have some effect on you. Might +you be related?" + +"No." + +"Or connected by marriage?" + +"No." + +"So much the better--eh, my boy? And how's uncle? Still going strong?" + +"Yes; and longing to snatch me from this Babylon." + +"You mean to succeed him?" + +"As long hence as possible." + +"I had heard you were not enthusiastic. A small practice, isn't it?" + +"Not exactly. A matter of a thousand a year!" + +"Clear profit?" + +"Yes." + +"That's good enough. But in the country, my poor fellow, in the +country!" + +"It would be the death of you, wouldn't it?" + +"In forty-eight hours." + +"However did you manage to be born there, Larive? I'm surprised at you." + +"So am I. I often think about it. Good-by. I must be off." + +I caught him by the hand which he held out to me. + +"Larive, tell me where you have met Mademoiselle Charnot?" + +"Oh, come!--I see it's serious. My dear fellow, I am so sorry I did not +tell you she was perfection. If I had only known!" + +"That's not what I asked you. Where have you seen her?" + +"In society, of course. Where do you expect me to see young girls except +in society? My dear Fabien!" + +He went off laughing. When he was about ten yards off he turned, and +making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, he shouted through them: + +"She's perfection!" + +Larive is decidedly an ass. His jokes strike you as funny at first; but +there's nothing in him, he's a mere hawker of stale puns; there's nothing +but selfishness under his jesting exterior. I have no belief in him. +Yet he is an old school friend; the only one of my twenty-eight +classmates whose acquaintance I have kept up. Four are dead, twenty- +three others are scattered about in obscure country places; lost for want +of news, as they say at the private inquiry offices. Larive makes up the +twenty-eight. I used to admire him, when we were low in the school, +because of his long trousers, his lofty contempt of discipline, and his +precocious intimacy with tobacco. I preferred him to the good, well- +behaved boys. Whenever we had leave out I used to buy gum-arabic at the +druggist's in La Chatre, and break it up with a small hammer at the far +end of my room, away from prying eyes. I used there to distribute it +into three bags ticketed respectively: "large pieces," "middle-sized +pieces," "small pieces." When I returned to school with the three bags +in my pocket, I would draw out one or the other to offer them to my +friends, according to the importance of the occasion, or the degrees of +friendship. Larive always had the big bits, and plenty of them. Yet he +was none the more grateful to me, and even did not mind chaffing me about +these petty attentions by which he was the gainer. He used to make fun +of everything, and I used to look up to him. He still makes fun of +everything; but for me the age of gumarabic is past and my faith in +Larive is gone. + +If he believes that he will disparage this charming girl in my eyes by +telling me that she is a bad dancer, he is wrong. Of great importance it +is to have a wife who dances well! She does not dance in her own house, +nor with her husband from the wardrobe to the cradle, but at others' +houses, and with other men. Besides, a young girl who dances much has a +lot of nonsense talked to her. She may acquire a taste for Larive's +buffooneries, for a neat leg, or a sharp tongue. In that case what +welcome can she give to simple, timid affection? She will only laugh at +it. But you would not laugh, Jeanne, were I to tell you that I loved +you. No, I am quite convinced that you would not laugh. And if you +loved me, Jeanne, we should not go into society. That would just suit +me. I should protect you, yet not hide you. We should have felicity at +home instead of running after it to balls and crushes, where it is never +to be found. You could not help being aware of the fascination you +exert; but you would not squander it on a mob of dancers, and bring home +only the last remnants of your good spirits, with the last remnants of +your train. Jeanne, I am delighted to hear that you dance badly. + +Whither away, Fabien, my friend, whither away? You are letting your +imagination run away with you again. A hint from it, and off you go. +Come, do use your reason a little. You have seen this young lady again, +that is true. You admired her; that was for the second time. But she, +whom you so calmly speak of as "Jeanne," as if she were something to you, +never even noticed you. You know nothing about her but what you suspect +from her maiden grace and a dozen words from her lips. You do not know +whether she is free, nor how she would welcome the notions you entertain +if you gave them utterance, yet here you are saying, "We should go here," +"We should do this and that." Keep to the singular, my poor fellow. The +plural is far away, very far away, if not entirely beyond your reach. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A WOODLAND SKETCH + +April 27th. + +The end of April. Students, pack and be off! The first warm breezes +burst the buds. Meudon is smiling; Clamart breaks into song;, the air in +the valley of Chevreuse is heavy with violets; the willows shower their +catkins on the banks of the Yvette; and farther yet, over yonder beneath +the green domes of the forest of Fontainebleau, the deer prick their ears +at the sound of the first riding-parties. Off with you! Flowers line +the pathways, the moors are pink with bloom, the undergrowth teems with +darting wings. All the town troops out to see the country in its gala +dress. The very poorest have a favorite nook, a recollection of the +bygone year to be revived and renewed; a sheltered corner that invited +sleep, a glade where the shade was grateful, a spot beside the river's +brink where the fish used to bite. Each one says, "Don't you remember?" +Each one seeks his nest like a home-coming swallow. Does it still hold +together? What havoc has been made by the winter's winds, and the rain, +and the frost? Will it welcome us, as of old? + +I, too, said to Lampron, "Don't you remember?" for we, too, have our +nest, and summer days that smile to us in memory. He was in the mood for +work, and hesitated. I added in a whisper, "The blackbird's pool!" He +smiled, and off we went. + +Again, as of old, our destination was St. Germain--not the town, nor the +Italian palace, nor yet the terrace whence the view spreads so wide over +the Seine, the country dotted with villas, to Montmartre blue in the +distance--not these, but the forest. "Our forest," we call it; for we +know all its young shoots, all its giant trees, all its paths where +poachers and young lovers hide. With my eyes shut I could find the +blackbird's pool, the way to which was first shown us by a deer. + +Imagine at thirty paces from an avenue, a pool--no, not a pool (the word +is incorrect), nor yet a pond--but a fountain hollowed out by the removal +of a giant oak. Since the death of this monarch the birches which its +branches kept apart have never closed together, and the fountain forms +the centre of a little clearing where the moss is thick at all seasons +and starred in August with wild pinks. The water, though deep, is +deliciously clear. At a depth of more than six feet you can distinguish +the dead leaves at the bottom, the grass, the twigs, and here and there a +stone's iridescent outline. They all lie asleep there, the waste of +seasons gone by, soon to be covered by others in their turn. From time +to time out of the depths of these submerged thickets an eft darts up. +He comes circling up, quivering his yellowbanded tail, snatches a +mouthful of air, and goes down again head first. Save for these alarms +the pool is untroubled. It is guarded from the winds by a juniper, which +an eglantine has chosen for its guardian and crowns each year with a +wreath of roses. Each year, too, a blackbird makes his nest here. We +keep his secret. He knows we shall not disturb him. And when I come +back to this little nook in the woods, which custom has endeared to us, +merely by looking in the water I feel my very heart refreshed. + +"What a spot to sleep in!" cried Lampron. "Keep sentry, Fabien; I am +going to take a nap." + +We had walked fast. It was very hot. He took off his coat, rolled it +into a pillow, and placed it beneath his head as he lay down on the +grass. I stretched myself prone on a velvety carpet of moss, and gave +myself up to a profound investigation of the one square foot of ground +which lay beneath my eyes. The number of blades of grass was prodigious. +A few, already awned, stood above their fellows, waving like palms- +meadowgrass, fescue, foxtail, brome-grass--each slender stalk crowned +with a tuft. Others were budding, only half unfolded, amid the darker +mass of spongy moss which gave them sustenance. Amid the numberless +shafts thus raised toward heaven a thousand paths crisscrossed, each full +of obstacles-chips of bark, juniper-berries, beech-nuts, tangled roots, +hills raised by burrowing insects, ravines formed by the draining off of +the rains. Ants and beetles bustled along them, pressing up hill and +down to some mysterious goal. Above them a cunning red spider was tying +a blade of grass to an orchid leaf, the pillars it had chosen for its +future web; and. when the wind shook the leaves and the sun pierced +through to this spot, I saw the delicate roof already mapped out. + +I do not know how long my contemplation lasted. The woods were still. +Save for a swarm of gnats which hummed in a minor key around the sleeping +Lampron, nothing stirred, not a leaf even. All nature was silent as it +drank in the full sunshine. + +A murmur of distant voices stole on my ear. I rose, and crept through +the birches and hazels to the edge of the glade. + +At the top of the slope, on the green margin of the glade, shaded by the +tall trees, two pedestrians were slowly advancing. At the distance they +still were I could distinguish very little except that the man wore a +frock-coat, and that the girl was dressed in gray, and was young, to +judge by the suppleness of her walk. Nevertheless I felt at once that it +was she! + +I hid at they came near, and saw her pass on her father's arm, chatting +in low tones, full of joy to have escaped from the Rue de l'Universite. +She was looking before her with wide-open eyes. M. Charnot kept his eyes +on his daughter, more interested in her than in all the wealth of spring. +He kept well to the right of the path as the sun ate away the edge of the +shadows; and asked, from time to time: + +"Are you tired?" + +"Oh, no!" + +"As soon as you are tired, my dear, we will sit down. I am not walking +too fast?" + +She answered "No" again, and laughed, and they went on. + +Soon they left the avenue and were lost in a green alley. Then a sudden +twilight seemed to have closed down on me, an infinite sadness swelled in +my heart. I closed my eyes, and--God forgive my weakness, but the tears +came. + +"Hallo! What part do you intend me to play in all this?" said Lampron +behind me. + +"'What part'?" + +"Yes. It's an odd notion to invite me to your trysting-place." + +"Trysting-place? I haven't one." + +"You mean to tell me, perhaps, that you came here by chance?" + +"Certainly." + +"And chanced upon the very moment and the spot where she was passing?" + +"Do you want a proof? That young lady is Mademoiselle Charnot." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I never have said another word to her since my one visit to her +father; I have only seen her once, for a moment, in the street. You see +there can be no question of trysting-places in this case. I was +wondering at her appearance when you awoke. It is luck, or a friendly +providence, that has used the beauty of the sunlight, the breeze, and all +the sweets of April to bring her, as it brought us, to the forest." + +"And that is what fetched the tears?" + +"Well, no." + +"What, then?" + +"I don't know." + +"My full-grown baby, I will tell you. You are in love with her!" + +"Indeed, Sylvestre, I believe you're right. I confess it frankly to you +as to my best friend. It is an old story already; as old, perhaps, as +the day I first met her. At first her figure would rise in my +imagination, and I took pleasure in contemplating it. Soon this phantom +ceased to satisfy; I longed to see her in person. I sought her in the +streets, the shops, the theatre. I still blinded myself, and pretended +that I only wanted to ask her pardon, so as to remove, before I left +Paris, the unpleasant impression I had made at our first meeting. But +now, Sylvestre, all these false reasons have disappeared, and the true +one is clear. I love her!" + +"Not a doubt of it, my friend, not a doubt of it. I have been through it +myself." + +He was silent, and his eyes wandered away to the faroff woods, perhaps +back to those distant memories of his. A shadow rested on his strong +face, but only for an instant. He shook off his depression, and his old +smile came back as he said: + +"It's serious, then?" + +"Yes, very serious." + +"I'm not surprised; she is a very pretty girl." + +"Isn't she lovely?" + +"Better than that, my friend; she is good. What do you know about her?" + +"Only that she is a bad dancer." + +"That's something, to be sure." + +"But it isn't all." + +"Well, no. But never mind, find out the rest, speak to her, declare your +passion, ask for her hand, and marry her." + +"Good heavens, Sylvestre, you are going ahead!" + +"My dear fellow, that is the best and wisest plan; these vague idyls +ought to be hurried on, either to a painless separation or an honorable +end in wedlock. In your place I should begin to-morrow." + +"Why not to-day?" + +"How so?" + +"Let's catch them up, and see her again at least." + +He began to laugh. + +"Run after young girls at my age! Well, well, it was my advice. Come +along!" + +We crossed the avenue, and plunged into the forest. + +Lampron had formerly acquired a reputation for tireless agility among the +fox-hunters of the Roman Campagna. He still deserves it. In twenty +strides he left me behind. I saw him jumping over the heather, knocking +off with his cane the young shoots on the oaks, or turning his head to +look at me as I struggled after, torn by brambles and pricked by gorse. +A startled pheasant brought him to a halt. The bird rose under his feet +and soared into the full light. + +"Isn't it beautiful?" said he. "Look out, we must be more careful; we +are scaring the game. We should come upon the path they took, about +sixty yards ahead." + +Five minutes later he was signalling to me from behind the trunk of a +great beech. + +"Here they are." + +Jeanne and M. Charnot were seated on a fallen trunk beside the path, +which here was almost lost beneath the green boughs. Their backs were +toward us. The old man, with his shoulders bent and his goldknobbed cane +stuck into the ground beside him, was reading out of a book which we +could not see, while Jeanne, attentive, motionless, her face half turned +toward him, was listening. Her profile was outlined against a strip of +clear sky. The deep silence of the wood wrapped us round, and we could +hear the old scholar's voice; it just reached us. + +"Straightway the godlike Odysseus spake these cunning words to the fair +Nausicaa: 'Be thou goddess or mortal, O queen, I bow myself before thee! +If thou art one of the deities who dwell in boundless heaven, by thy +loveliness and grace and height I guess thee to be Artemis, daughter of +high Zeus. If thou art a mortal dwelling upon earth, thrice blessed thy +father and thy queenly mother, thrice blessed thy dear brothers! Surely +their souls ever swell with gladness because of thee, when they see a +maiden so lovely step into the circle of the dance. But far the most +blessed of all is he who shall prevail on thee with presents and lead +thee to his home!'" + +I turned to Lampron, who had stopped a few steps in front of me, a little +to the right. He had got out his sketch-book, and was drawing hurriedly. +Presently he forgot all prudence, and came forth from the shelter of a +beech to get nearer to his model. In vain I made sign upon sign, and +tried to remind him that we were not thereto paint or sketch. It was +useless; the artist within him had broken loose. Sitting down at the +required distance on a gnarled root, right in the open, he went on with +his work with no thought but for his art. + +The inevitable happened. Growing impatient over some difficulty in his +sketch, Lampron shuffled his feet; a twig broke, some leaves rustled- +Jeanne turned round and saw me looking at her, Lampron sketching her. + +What are the feelings of a young girl who in the middle of a forest +suddenly discovers that two pairs of eyes are busy with her? A little +fright at first; then--when the idea of robbers is dismissed, and a +second glance has shown her that it is her beauty, not her life, they +want--a touch of satisfied vanity at the compliment, not unmixed with +confusion. + +This is exactly what we thought we saw. At first she slightly drew back, +with brows knitted, on the verge of an exclamation; then her brows +unbent, and the pleasure of finding herself admired, confusion at being +taken unawares, the desire of appearing at ease, all appeared at once on +her rosy cheeks and in her faintly troubled smile. + +I bowed. Sylvestre pulled off his cap. + +M. Charnot never stirred. + +"Another squirrel?" he said. + +"Two this time, I think, father," she answered, in a low voice. + +He went on reading. + +"'My guest,' made answer the fair Nausicaa, 'for I call thee so since +thou seemest not base nor foolish, it is Zeus himself that giveth weal to +men--'" + +Jeanne was no longer listening. She was thinking. Of what? Of several +things, perhaps, but certainly of how to beat a retreat. I guessed it by +the movement of her sunshade, which was nervously tracing figures in the +turf. I signalled to Lampron. We retired backward. Yet it was in vain; +the charm was broken, the peace had been disturbed. + +She gave two coughs--musical little coughs, produced at will. + +M. Charnot broke off his reading. + +"You are cold, Jeanne?" + +"Why, no, father." + +"Yes, yes, you're cold. Why did you not say so before? Lord, Lord, +these children! Always the same--think of nothing!" + +He rose without delay, put his book in his pocket, buttoned up his coat, +and, leaning on his stick, glanced up a moment at the tree-tops. Then, +side by side, they disappeared down the path, Jeanne stepping briskly, +upright and supple, between the young branches which soon concealed her. + +Still Lampron continued to watch the turning in the path down which she +had vanished. + +"What are you thinking about?" said I. + +He stroked his beard, where lurked a few gray hairs. + +"I am thinking, my friend, that youth leaves us in this same way, at the +time when we love it most, with a faint smile, and without a word to tell +us whither. Mine played me this trick." + +"What a good idea of yours to sketch them both. Let me see the sketch." + +"No!" + +"Why not?" + +"It can scarcely be called a sketch; it's a mere scratch." + +"Show it, all the same." + +"My good Fabien, you ought to know that when I am obstinate I have my +reasons, like Balaam's ass. You will not see my sketch-book to-day, nor +to-morrow, nor the day after." + +I answered with foolish warmth: + +"Please yourself; I don't care." + +Really I was very much annoyed, and I was rather cool with Lampron when +we parted on the platform. + +What has come to the fellow? To refuse to show me a sketch he had made +before my eyes, and a sketch of Jeanne, too! + + + April 28th, 9 A.M. + +Hide your sketches, Sylvestre; stuff them away in your portfolios, or +your pockets; I care little, for I bear Jeanne's image in my heart, and +can see it when I will, and I love her, I love her, I love her! + +What is to become of her and of me I can not tell. I hope without +knowing what or why, or when, and hope alone is comforting. + + + 9 P.M. + +This afternoon, at two o'clock, I met Lampron in the Boulevard St. +Michel. He was walking fast with a portfolio under his arm. I went up +to him. He looked annoyed, and hardly seemed pleased when I offered to +accompany him. I grew red and angry. + +"Oh, very well," I said; "good-by, then, since you don't care to be seen +with me." + +He pondered a moment. + +"Oh, come along if you like; I am going to my framemaker's." + +"A picture?" + +"Something of the kind." + +"And that's all the mystery! Yesterday it was a sketch I mustn't look +at; to-day it's a picture. It is not nice of you, Sylvestre; no, +decidedly it is not nice." + +He gave me a look of friendly compassion. + +"Poor little chap!" said he. + +Then, in his usual clear, strong voice: + +"I am in a great hurry; but come if you like. I would rather it were +four days later; but as it is, never mind; it is never too soon to be +happy." + +When Lampron chooses to hold his tongue it is useless to ask him +questions. I gave myself up to meditating on the words, "It is never too +soon to be happy." + +We went down the boulevard, past the beer-houses. There is distinction +in my friend's walk; he is not to be confused with the crowd through +which he passes. You can tell, from the simple seriousness of the man, +his indifference to the noise and petty incidents of the streets, that he +is a stout and noble soul. Among the passers-by he is a somebody. I +heard from a group of students seated before a cafe the following words, +which Sylvestre did not seem to notice: + +"Look, do you see the taller of those two there? That's Sylvestre +Lampron." + +"Prix du Salon two years ago?" + +"A great gun, you know." + +"He looks it." + +"To the left," said Lampron. + +We turned to the left, and found ourselves in the Rue Hautefeuille, +before a shabby house, within the porch of which hung notices of +apartments to let; this was the framemaker's. The passage was dark, the +walls were chipped by the innumerable removals of furniture they had +witnessed. We went upstairs. On the fourth floor a smell of glue and +sour paste on the landing announced the tenant's profession. To make +quite certain there was a card nailed to the door with "Plumet, Frame- +Maker." + +"Plumet? A newly-married couple?" + +But already Madame Plumet is at the door. It is the same little woman +who came to Boule's office. She recognizes me in the dim light of the +staircase. + +"What, Monsieur Lampron, do you know Monsieur Mouillard?" + +"As you apparently do, too, Madame Plumet." + +"Oh, yes! I know him well; he won my action, you know." + +"Ah, to be sure-against the cabinet-maker. Is your husband in?" + +"Yes, sir, in the workshop. Plumet!" + +Through the half-opened door giving access to an inner room w e could +see-in the midst of his molders, gilders, burnishers, and framers--a +little dark man with a beard, who looked up and hurriedly undid the +strings of his working-apron. + +"Coming, Marie!" + +Little Madame Plumet was a trifle upset at having to receive us in +undress, before she had tidied up her rooms. I could see it by her +blushes and by the instinctive movement she made to smooth her disordered +curls. + +The husband had hardly answered her call before she left us and went off +to the end of the room, into the obscure recesses of an alcove +overcrowded with furniture. There she bent over an oblong object, which +I could not quite see at first, and rocked it with her hand. + +"Monsieur Mouillard," said she, looking up to me--"Monsieur Mouillard, +this is my son, Pierre!" + +What tender pride in those words, and the smile which accompanied them! +With a finger she drew one of the curtains aside. Under the blue muslin, +between the pillow and the white coverlet, I discovered two little black +eyes and a tuft of golden hair. + +"Isn't he a little rogue!" she went on, and began to caress the waking +baby. + +Meanwhile Sylvestre had been talking to Plumet at the other end of the +room. + +"Out of the question," said the frame-maker; "we are up to our knees in +arrears; twenty orders waiting." + +"I ask you to oblige me as a friend." + +"I wish I could oblige you, Monsieur Lampron; but if I made you a +promise, I should not be able to keep it." + +"What a pity! All was so well arranged, too. The sketch was to have +been hung with my two engravings. Poor Fabien! I was saving up a +surprise for you. Come and look here." + +I went across. Sylvestre opened his portfolio. + +"Do you recognize it?" + +At once I recognized them. M. Charnot's back; Jeanne's profile, exactly +like her; a forest nook; the parasol on the ground; the cane stuck into +the grass; a bit of genre, perfect in truth and execution. + +"When did you do that?" + +"Last night." + +"And you want to exhibit it?" + +"At the Salon." + +"But, Sylvestre, it is too late to send in to the Salon. The Ides of +March are long past." + +"Yes, for that very reason I have had the devil of a time, intriguing all +the morning. With a large picture I never should have succeeded; but +with a bit of a sketch, six inches by nine--" + +"Bribery of officials, then?" + +"Followed by substitution, which is strictly forbidden. I happened to +have hung there between two engravings a little sketch of underwoods not +unlike this; one comes down, the other is hung instead--a little bit of +jobbery of which I am still ashamed. I risked it all for you, in the +hope that she would come and recognize the subject." + +"Of course she will recognize it, and understand; how on earth could she +help it? My dear Sylvestre, how can I thank you?" + +I seized my friend's hand and begged his forgiveness for my foolish haste +of speech. + +He, too, was a little touched and overcome by the pleasure his surprise +had given me. + +"Look here, Plumet," he said to the frame-maker, who had taken the sketch +over to the light, and was studying it with a professional eye. "This +young man has even a greater interest than I in the matter. He is a +suitor for the lady's hand, and you can be very useful to him. If you do +not frame the picture his happiness is blighted." + +The frame-maker shook his head. + +"Let's see, Antoine," said a coaxing little voice, and Madame Plumet left +the cradle to come to our aid. + +I considered our cause as won. Plumet repeated in vain, as he pulled his +beard, that it was impossible; she declared it was not. He made a move +for his workshop; she pulled him back by the sleeve, made him laugh and +give his consent. + +"Antoine," she insisted, "we owe our marriage to Monsieur Mouillard; you +must at least pay what you owe." + +I was delighted. Still, a doubt seized me. + +"Sylvestre," I said to Lampron, who already had his hand upon the door- +handle, "do you really think she will come?" + +"I hope so; but I will not answer for it. To make certain, some one must +send word to her: 'Mademoiselle Jeanne, your portrait is at the Salon.' +If you know any one who would not mind taking this message to the Rue de +l'Universite--" + +"I'm afraid I don't." + +"Come on, then, and trust to luck." + +"Rue de l'Universite, did you say?" broke in little Madame Plumet, who +certainly took the liveliest interest in my cause. + +"Yes; why?" + +"Because I have a friend in the neighborhood, and perhaps--" + +I risked giving her the number and name under the seal of secrecy; and it +was a good thing I did so. + +In three minutes she had concocted a plan. It was like this: her friend +lived near the hotel in the Rue de l'Universite, a porter's wife of +advanced years, and quite safe; by means of her it might be possible to +hint to Mademoiselle Jeanne that her portrait, or something like it, was +to be seen at the Salon--discreetly, of course, and as if it were the +merest piece of news. + +What a plucky, clever little woman it is! Surely I was inspired when I +did her that service. I never thought I should be repaid. And here I am +repaid both capital and interest. + +Yet I hesitated. She snatched my consent. + +"No, no," said she, "leave me to act. I promise you, Monsieur Mouillard, +that she shall hear of it, and you, Monsieur Lampron, that the picture +shall be framed." + +She showed us to the top of the stairs, did little Madame Plumet, pleased +at having won over her husband, at having shown herself so cunning, and +at being employed in a conspiracy of love. In the street Lampron shook +me by the hand. "Good-by, my friend," he said; "happy men don't need +company. Four days hence, at noon, I shall come to fetch you, and we +will pay our first visit to the Salon together." + +Yes, I was a happy man! I walked fast, without seeing anything, my eyes +lost in day dreams, my ears listening to celestial harmonies. I seemed +to wear a halo. It abashed me somewhat; for there is something insolent +in proclaiming on the housetops: "Look up at me, my heart is full, Jeanne +is going to love me!" Decidedly, my brain was affected. + +Near the fountain in the Luxembourg, in front of the old palace where the +senate sits, two little girls were playing. One pushed the other, who +fell down crying, + +"Naughty Jeanne, naughty girl!" I rushed to pick her up, and kissed her +before the eyes of her astonished nurse, saying, "No, Mademoiselle, she +is the most charming girl in the world!" + +And M. Legrand! I still blush when I think of my conversation with M. +Legrand. He was standing in a dignified attitude at the door of his shop + + "ITALIAN WAREHOUSE; DRESSED PROVISIONS; + SPECIALTY IN COLONIAL PRODUCE." + +He and I are upon good terms; I buy oranges, licorice from him, and rum +when I want to make punch. But there are distinctions. Well, to-day I +called him "Dear Monsieur Legrand;" I addressed him, though I had nothing +to buy; I asked after his business; I remarked to him, "What a heavenly +day, Monsieur Legrand! We really have got fine weather at last!" + +He looked up to the top of the street, and looked down again at me, but +refrained from differing, out of respect. + +And, as a matter of fact, I noticed afterward that there was a most +unpleasant drizzle. + +To wind up with, just now as I was coming home after dinner, I passed a +workman and his family in the Rue Bonaparte, and the man pointed after +me, saying: + +"Look! there goes a poet." + +He was right. In me the lawyer's clerk is in abeyance, the lawyer of to- +morrow has disappeared, only the poet is left--that is to say, the +essence of youth freed from the parasitic growths of everyday life. I +feel it roused and stirring. How sweet life is, and what wonderful +instruments we are, that Hope can make us thus vibrate by a touch of her +little finger! + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Happy men don't need company +Lends--I should say gives +Natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves +One doesn't offer apologies to a man in his wrath +Silence, alas! is not the reproof of kings alone +The looks of the young are always full of the future +You a law student, while our farmers are in want of hands + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ink Stain, v1 +by Rene Bazin + diff --git a/3972.zip b/3972.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9303979 --- /dev/null +++ b/3972.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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