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diff --git a/3975.txt b/3975.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0c5984 --- /dev/null +++ b/3975.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8577 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ink-Stain, Complete, by Rene Bazin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ink-Stain, Complete + +Author: Rene Bazin + +Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #3975] +Last Updated: March 3, 2009 +Last updated: May 2, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INK-STAIN, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE INK STAIN + +(Tache d'Encre) + +By RENE BAZIN + + +Preface by E. LAVISSE + + + + +RENE BAZIN + +RENE-NICHOLAS-MARIE BAZIN was born at Angers, December 26, 1853. 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'aujourd'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 + + + + +BOOK 1. + + + + +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 wide-eyed, 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, 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 gold-knobbed 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 we 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! + + + + +BOOK 2. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. JOY AND MADNESS + + May 1st. + +These four days have seemed as if they never would end--especially the +last. But now it wants only two minutes of noon. In two minutes, if +Lampron is not late-- + +Rat-a-tat-tat! + +"Come in." + +"It is twelve o'clock, my friend; are you coming?" + +It was Lampron. + +For the last hour I had had my hat on my head, my stick between my legs, +and had been turning over my essay with gloved hands. He laughed at me. +I don't care. We walked, for the day was clear and warm. All the world +was out and about. Who can stay indoors on May Day? As we neared the +Chamber of Deputies, perambulators full of babies in white capes came +pouring from all the neighboring streets, and made their resplendent way +toward the Tuileries. Lampron was in a talkative mood. He was pleased +with the hanging of his pictures, and his plan of campaign against +Mademoiselle Jeanne. + +"She is sure to have heard of it, Fabien, and perhaps is there already. +Who can tell?" + +"Oh, cease your humbug! Yes, very possibly she is there before us. I +have had a feeling that she would be for these last four days." + +"You don't say so!" + +"I have pictured her a score of times ascending the staircase on +her father's arm. We are at the foot, lost in the crowd. Her noble, +clear-cut profile stands out against the Gobelin tapestries which frame +it with their embroidered flowers; one would say some maiden of bygone +days had come to life, and stepped down from her tapestried panel." + +"Gentlemen!" said Lampron, with a sweep of his arm which took in the +whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the +intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every +inch of him a man of business!" + +We were getting near. Crowds were on their way to the exhibition from +all sides, women in spring frocks, many of the men in white waistcoats, +one hand in pocket, gayly flourishing their canes with the other, +as much as to say, "Look at me-well-to-do, jaunty, and out in fine +weather." The turnstiles were crowded, but at last we got through. We +made but one step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where +antique gods in every posture formed a mythological circle round the +modern busts in the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my +heart was elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor +unhonored by the crowd, and started up the staircase--no Jeanne to lead +the way. We came to the first room of paintings. Sylvestre beamed like a +man who feels at home. + +"Quick, Sylvestre, where is the sketch? Let's hurry to it." + +But he dragged me with him around several rooms. + +Have you ever experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the +uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues +impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle +together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed. +It hovers undecided like an insect in a meadow full of flowers. The +buzzing remarks of the crowd add to the feeling of intoxication. They +distract one's attention before it can settle anywhere, and carry it off +to where some group is gathered before a great name, a costly frame, an +enormous canvas, or an outrage on taste; twenty men on a gallows +against a yellow sky, with twenty crows hovering over them, or an aged +antediluvian, some mighty hunter, completely nude and with no property +beyond a loaded club. One turns away, and the struggle begins again +between the eye, attracted by a hundred subjects, and the brain, which +would prefer to study one. + +With Lampron this danger has no existence; he takes in a room at a +glance. He has the sportsman's eye which, in a covey of partridges, +marks its bird at a glance. He never hesitates. "That is the thing to +make for," he says, "come along"--and we make for it. He plants himself +right in front of the picture, with both hands in his overcoat pockets, +and his chin sunk in his collar; says nothing, but is quite happy +developing an idea which has occurred to him on his way to it; comparing +the picture before him with some former work by the same artist which +he remembers. His whole soul is concentrated on the picture. And when he +considers that I have understood and penetrated the meaning of the work, +he gives his opinion in few words, but always the right ones, summing up +a long sequence of ideas which I must have shared with him, since I see +exactly as he does. + +In this way we halted before the "Martyrdom of Saint Denis," by Bonnat, +the two "Adorations," by Bouguereau, a landscape of Bernier's, some +other landscapes, sea pieces, and portraits. + +At last we left the oil paintings. + +In the open gallery, which runs around the inside of the huge oblong and +looks on the court, the watercolors, engravings, and drawings slumbered, +neglected. Lampron went straight to his works. I should have awarded +them the medaille d'honneur; an etching of a man's head, a large +engraving of the Virgin and Infant Jesus from the Salon Carre at the +Louvre, and the drawing which represents-- + +"Great Heavens! Sylvestre, she's perfectly lovely; she will make a great +mistake if she does not come and see herself!" + +"She will come, my dear sir; but I shall not be there to see her." + +"Are you going?" + +"I leave you to stalk your game; be patient, and do not forget to come +and tell me the news this evening." + +"I promise." + +And Lampron vanished. + +The drawing was hung about midway between two doorways draped with +curtains, that opened into the big galleries. I leaned against the +woodwork of one of them, and waited. On my left stretched a solitude +seldom troubled by the few visitors who risk themselves in the realms of +pen and pencil. These, too, only came to get fresh air, or to look down +on the many-colored crowd moving among the white statues below. + +At my right, on the contrary, the battling currents of the crowd kept +passing and repassing, the provincial element easily distinguished by +its jaded demeanor. Stout, exhausted matrons, breathless fathers of +families, crowded the sofas, raising discouraged glances to the walls, +while around them turned and tripped, untiring as at a dance, legions +of Parisiennes, at ease, on their high heels, equally attentive to the +pictures, their own carriage, and their neighbors' gowns. + +O peaceful functionaries, you whose business it is to keep an eye upon +this ferment! unless the ceaseless flux of these human phenomena lull +you to a trance, what a quantity of silly speeches you must hear! I +picked up twenty in as many minutes. + +Suddenly there came a sound of little footsteps in the gallery. Two +little girls had just come in, two sisters, doubtless, for both had +the same black eyes, pink dresses, and white feathers in their hats. +Hesitating, with outstretched necks, like fawns on the border of a +glade, they seemed disappointed at the unexpected length of the gallery. +They looked at each other and whispered. Then both smiled, and turning +their backs on each other, they set off, one to the right, the other to +the left, to examine the drawings which covered the walls. They made a +rapid examination, with which art had obviously little to do; they were +looking for something, and I thought it might be for Jeanne's portrait. +And so it turned out; the one on my side soon came to a stop, pointed +a finger to the wall, and gave a little cry. The other ran up; they +clapped their hands. + +"Bravo, bravo!" + +Then off they went again through the farther door. + +I guessed what they were about to do. + +I trembled from head to foot, and hid myself farther behind the +curtains. + +Not a minute elapsed before they were back, not two this time, but +three, and the third was Jeanne, whom they were pulling along between +them. + +They brought her up to Lampron's sketch, and curtsied neatly to her. + +Jeanne bent down, smiled, and seemed pleased. Then, a doubt seizing her, +she turned her head and saw me. The smile died away; she blushed, a tear +seemed ready to start to her eyes. Oh, rapture! Jeanne, you are touched; +Jeanne, you understand! + +A deep joy surged across my soul, so deep that I never have felt its +like. + +Alas! at that instant some one called, "Jeanne!" + +She stood up, took the two little girls by the hand, and was gone. + +Far better had it been had I too fled, carrying with me that dream of +delight! + +But no, I leaned forward to look after them. In the doorway beyond I saw +M. Charnot. A young man was with him, who spoke to Jeanne. She answered +him. Three words reached me: + +"It's nothing, George." + +The devil! She loves another! + + May 2d. + +In what a state of mind did I set out this morning to face my examiners! +Downhearted, worn out by a night of misery, indifferent to all that +might befall me, whether for good or for evil. + +I considered myself, and indeed I was, very wretched, but I never +thought that I should return more wretched than I went. + +It was lovely weather when at half past eleven I started for the Law +School with an annotated copy of my essay under my arm, thinking more +of the regrets for the past and plans for the future with which I had +wrestled all night, than of the ordeal I was about to undergo. I met in +the Luxembourg the little girl whom I had kissed the week before. She +stopped her hoop and stood in my way, staring with wideopen eyes and +a coaxing, cunning look, which meant, "I know you, I do!" I passed by +without noticing. She pouted her lip, and I saw that she was thinking, +"What's the matter with him?" + +What was the matter? My poor little golden-locks, when you are grown a +fair woman I trust you may know as little of it as you do to-day. + +I went up the Rue Soufliot, and entered the stuffy courtyard on the +stroke of noon. + +The morning lectures were over. Beneath the arcades a few scattered +students were walking up and down. I avoided them for fear of meeting +a friend and having to talk. Several professors came running from their +lunch, rather red in the face, at the summons of the secretary. These +were my examiners. + +It was time to get into costume, for the candidate, like the criminal, +has his costume. The old usher, who has dressed me up I don't know how +many times in his hired gowns, saw that I was downcast, and thought I +must be suffering from examination fever, a peculiar malady, which is +like what a young soldier feels the first time he is under fire. + +We were alone in the dark robing-room; he walked round me, brushing and +encouraging me; doctors of law have a moral right to this touch of the +brush. + +"It will be all right, Monsieur Mouillard, never fear. No one has been +refused a degree this morning." + +"I am not afraid, Michu." + +"When I say 'no one,' there was one refused--you never heard the +like. Just imagine--a little to the right, please, Monsieur +Mouillard--imagine, I say, a candidate who knew absolutely nothing. That +is nothing extraordinary. But this fellow, after the examination was +over, recommended himself to mercy. 'Have compassion on me, gentlemen,' +he said, 'I only wish to be a magistrate!' Capital, isn't it?" + +"Yes, yes." + +"You don't seem to think so. You don't look like laughing this morning." + +"No, Michu, every one has his bothers, you know." + +"I said to myself as I looked at you just now, Monsieur Mouillard has +some bother. Button up all the way, if you please, for a doctor's essay; +if-you-please. It's a heartache, then?" + +"Something of the kind." + +He shrugged his shoulders and went before me, struggling with an +asthmatic chuckle, until we came to the room set apart for the +examination. + +It was the smallest and darkest of all, and borrowed its light from +a street which had little enough to spare, and spared as little as it +could. On the left against the wall is a raised desk for the candidate. +At the end, on a platform before a bookcase, sit the six examiners +in red robes, capes with three bands of ermine, and gold-laced caps. +Between the candidate's desk and the door is a little enclosure for +spectators, of whom there were about thirty when I entered. + +My performance, which had a chance of being brilliant, was only fair. + +The three first examiners had read my essay, especially M. Flamaran, who +knew it well and had enjoyed its novel and audacious propositions. He +pursed up his mouth preparatory to putting the first question, like an +epicure sucking a ripe fruit. And when at length he opened it, amid +the general silence, it was to carry the discussion at once up to +such heights of abstraction that a good number of the audience, not +understanding a word of it, stealthily made for the door. + +Each successive answer put fresh spirit into him. + +"Very good," he murmured, "very good; let us carry it a step farther. +Now supposing--" + +And, the demon of logic at his heels, we both went off like inspired +lunatics into a world of hypotheses where never man had set foot. He +was examining no longer, he was inventing and intoxicating himself with +deductions. No one was right or wrong. We were reasoning about chimeras, +he radiant, I cool, before his gently tickled colleagues. I never +realized till then what imagination a jurist's head could contain. + +Perspiring freely, he set down a white mark, having exceeded by ten +minutes the recognized time for examination. + +The second examiner was less enthusiastic. He made very few +suppositions, and devoted all his art to convicting me of a +contradiction between page seventeen and page seventy-nine. He +kept repeating, "It's a serious matter, sir, very serious." But, +nevertheless, he bestowed a second white mark on me. I only got half +white from the third. The rest of the examination was taken up in +matters extraneous to the subject of my essay, a commonplace trial +of strength, in which I replied with threadbare arguments to outworn +objections. + +And then it ended. Two hours had passed. + +I left the room while the examiners made up their minds. + +A few friends came up to me. + +"Congratulations, old man, I bet on six whites." + +"Hallo, Larive! I never noticed you." + +"I quite believe you; you didn't notice anybody, you still look +bewildered. Is it the emotion inseparable from--" + +"I dare say." + +"The candidate is requested to return to the examination room!" said the +usher. + +And old Michu added, in a whisper, "You have passed. I told you so. You +won't forget old Michu, sir." + +M. Flamaran conferred my degree with a paternal smile, and a few kind +words for "this conscientious study, full of fresh ideas on a difficult +subject." + +I bowed to the examiners. Larive was waiting for me in the courtyard, +and seized me by the arm. + +"Uncle Mouillard will be pleased." + +"I suppose so." + +"Better pleased than you." + +"That's very likely." + +"He might easily be that. Upon my word I can't understand you. These two +years you have been working like a gang of niggers for your degree, and +now you have got it you don't seem to care a bit. You have won a smile +from Flamaran and do not consider yourself a spoiled child of Fortune! +What more did you want? Did you expect that Mademoiselle Charnot would +come in person--" + +"Look here, Larive--" + +"To look on at your examination, and applaud your answers with her +neatly gloved hands? Surely you know, my dear fellow, that that is no +longer possible, and that she is going to be married." + +"Going to be married?" + +"Don't pretend you didn't know it." + +"I have suspected as much since yesterday; I met her at the Salon, and +saw a young man with her." + +"Fair?" + +"Yes." + +"Tall?" + +"Rather." + +"Good-looking?" + +"H'm--well" + +"Dufilleul, old chap, friend Dufilleul. Don't you know Dufilleul?" + +"No." + +"Oh, yes you do--a bit of a stockjobber, great at ecarte, studied law in +our year, and is always to be seen at the Opera with little Tigra of the +Bouffes." + +"Poor girl!" + +"You pity her?" + +"It's too awful." + +"What is?" + +"To see an unhappy child married to a rake who--" + +"She will not be the first." + +"A gambler!" + +"Yes, there is that, to be sure." + +"A fool, as it seems, who, in exchange for her beauty, grace, and youth, +can offer only an assortment of damaged goods! Yes, I do pity girls +duped thus, deceived and sacrificed by the very purity that makes them +believe in that of others." + +"You've some queer notions! It's the way of the world. If the innocent +victims were only to marry males of equal innocence, under the +guardianship of virtuous parents, the days of this world would be +numbered, my boy. I assure you that Dufilleul is a good match, handsome +for one thing--" + +"That's worth a deal!" + +"Rich." + +"The deuce he is!" + +"And then a name which can be divided." + +"Divided?" + +"With all the ease in the world. A very rare quality. At his marriage +he describes himself as Monsieur du Filleul. A year later he is Baron +du Filleul. At the death of his father, an old cad, he becomes Comte +du Filleul. If the young wife is pretty and knows how to cajole her +husband, she may even become a marquise." + +"Ugh!" + +"You are out of spirits, my poor fellow; I will stand you an absinthe, +the only beverage that will suit the bitterness of your heart." + +"No, I shall go home." + +"Good-by, then. You don't take your degree cheerfully." + +"Good-by." + +He spun round on his heels and went down the Boulevard St. Michel. + +So all is over forever between her and me, and, saddest of all, she is +even more to be pitied than I. Poor girl! I loved her deeply, but I did +it awkwardly, as I do everything, and missed my chance of speaking. The +mute declaration which I risked, or rather which a friend risked for me, +found her already engaged to this beast who has brought more skill to +the task, who has made no blots at the National Library, who has dared +all when he had everything to fear-- + +I have allowed myself to be taken by her maiden witchery. All the fault, +all the folly is mine. She has given me no encouragement, no sign of +liking me. If she smiled at St. Germain it was because she was surprised +and flattered. If she came near to tears at the Salon it was because she +pitied me. I have not the shadow of a reproach to make her. + +That is all I shall ever get from her--a tear, a smile. That's all; +never mind, I shall contrive to live on it. She has been my first love, +and I shall keep her a place in my heart from which no other shall drive +her. I shall now set to work to shut this poor heart which did so wrong +to open.... I thought to be happy to-night, and I am full of sorrow. +Henceforward I think I shall understand Sylvestre better. Our sorrows +will bring us nearer. I will go to see him at once, and will tell him +so. + +But first I must write to my uncle to tell him that his nephew is a +Doctor of Law. All the rest, my plans, my whole future can be put off +till to-morrow, or the day after, unless I get disgusted at the very +thought of a future and decide to conjugate my life in the present +indicative only. That is what I feel inclined to do. + + May 4th. + +Lampron has gone to the country to pass a fortnight in an out-of-the-way +place with an old relative, where he goes into hiding when he wishes to +finish an engraving. + +But Madame Lampron was at home. After a little hesitation I told her +all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart +just the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving +consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which +is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are +weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to +our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was +balm in the very way she said the words. I used to think she wanted +refinement; she does not, she only lacks reading, and lack of reading +may go with the most delicate and lofty feelings. No one ever taught her +certain turns of expression which she used. "If your mother was alive," +said she, "this is what she would say." And then she spoke to me of God, +who alone can determinate man's trials, either by the end He ordains, +or the resignation He inspires. I felt myself carried with her into +the regions where our sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon +broadens around them. And I remember she uttered this fine thought, "See +how my son has suffered! It makes one believe, Monsieur Fabien, that the +elect of the earth are the hardest tried, just as the stones that crown +the building are more deeply cut than their fellows." + +I returned from Madame Lampron's, softened, calmer, wiser. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. A VISIT FROM MY UNCLE + + May 5th. + +A letter from M. Mouillard breathing fire and fury. Were I not so low +spirited I could laugh at it. + +He would have liked me, after taking my degree at two in the afternoon, +to take the train for Bourges the same evening, where my uncle, his +practice, and provincial bliss awaited me. M. Mouillard's friends had +had due notice, and would have come to meet me at the station. In short, +I am an ungrateful wretch. At least I might have fixed the hour of my +imminent arrival, for I can not want to stop in Paris with nothing there +to detain me. But no, not a sign, not a word of returning; simply the +announcement that I have passed. This goes beyond the bounds of mere +folly and carelessness. M. Mouillard, his most elementary notions of +life shaken to their foundations, concludes in these words: + + "Fabien, I have long suspected it; some creature has you in bondage. + I am coming to break the bonds! + + "BRUTUS MOUILLARD." + +I know him well; he will be here tomorrow. + + May 6th. +No uncle as yet. + + May 7th. +No more uncle than yesterday. + + May 8th. +Total eclipse continues. No news of M. Mouillard. This is very strange. + + May 9th. +This evening at seven o'clock, just as I was going out to dine, I saw, +a few yards away, a tall, broad-brimmed hat surmounting a head of lank +white hair, a long neck throttled in a white neckcloth, a frock-coat +flapping about a pair of attenuated legs. I lifted up my voice: + +"Uncle!" + +He opened his arms to me and I fell into them. His first remark was: + +"I trust at least that you have not yet dined." + +"No, uncle." + +"To Foyot's, then!" + +When you expect to meet a man in his wrath and get an invitation to +dinner, you feel almost as if you had been taken in. You are heated, +your arguments are at your fingers' ends, your stock of petulance is +ready for immediate use; and all have to be stored in bond. + +When I had recovered from my surprise, I said: + +"I expected you sooner, from your letter." + +"Your suppositions were correct. I have been two days here, at the +Grand Hotel. I went there on account of the dining-room, for my friend +Hublette (you remember Hublette at Bourges) told me: 'Mouillard, you +must see that room before you retire from business.'" + +"I should have gone to see you there, uncle, if I had known it." + +"You would not have found me. Business before pleasure, Fabien. I had to +see three barristers and five solicitors. You know that business of that +kind can not wait. I saw them. Business over, I can indulge my feelings. +Here I am. Does Foyot suit you?" + +"Certainly, uncle." + +"Come on, then nephew, quick, march! Paris, makes one feel quite young +again!" + +And really Uncle Mouillard did look quite young, almost as young as he +looked provincial. His tall figure, and the countrified cut of his coat, +made all who passed him turn to stare, accustomed as Parisians are to +curiosities. He tapped the wood pavement with his stick, admired +the effects of Wallace's philanthropy, stopped before the enamelled +street-signs, and grew enthusiastic over the traffic in the Rue de +Vaugirard. + +The dinner was capital--just the kind a generous uncle will give to a +blameless nephew. M. Mouillard, who has a long standing affection for +chambertin, ordered two bottles to begin with. He drank the whole of one +and half of the other, eating in proportion, and talked unceasingly +and positively at the top of his voice, as his wont was. He told me the +story of two of his best actions this year, a judicial separation--my +uncle is very strong in judicial separations--and the abduction of a +minor. At first I looked out for personal allusions. But no, he told +the story from pure love of his art, without omitting an interlocutory +judgment, or a judgment reserved, just as he would have told the story +of Helen and Paris, if he had been employed in that well-known case. Not +a word about myself. I waited, yet nothing came but the successive steps +in the action. + +After the ice, M. Mouillard called for a cigar. + +"Waiter, what cigars have you got?" + +"Londres, conchas, regalias, cacadores, partagas, esceptionales. Which +would you like, sir?" + +"Damn the name! a big one that will take some time to smoke." + +Emile displayed at the bottom of a box an object closely resembling a +distaff with a straw through the middle, doubtless some relic of the +last International Exhibition, abandoned by all, like the Great Eastern, +on account of its dimensions. My uncle seized it, stuck it in the amber +mouthpiece that is so familiar to me, lighted it, and under the pretext +that you must always first get the tobacco to burn evenly, went out +trailing behind him a cloud of smoke, like a gunboat at full speed. + +We "did" the arcades round the Odeon, where my uncle spent an eternity +thumbing the books for sale. He took them all up one after another, from +the poetry of the decedents to the Veterinary Manual, gave a glance at +the author's name, shrugged his shoulders, and always ended by turning +to me with: + +"You know that writer?" + +"Why, yes, uncle." + +"He must be quite a new author; I can't recall that name." + +M. Mouillard forgot that it was forty-five years since he had last +visited the bookstalls under the Odeon. + +He thought he was a student again, loafing along the arcades after +dinner, eager for novelty, careless of draughts. Little by little he +lost himself in dim reveries. His cigar never left his lips. The ash +grew longer and longer yet, a lovely white ash, slightly swollen at the +tip, dotted with little black specks, and connected with the cigar by a +thin red band which alternately glowed and faded as he drew his breath. + +M. Mouillard was so lost in thought, and the ash was getting so long, +that a young student--of the age that knows no mercy-was struck by these +twin phenomena. I saw him nudge a friend, hastily roll a cigarette, and, +doffing his hat, accost my uncle. + +"Might I trouble you for a light, sir!" + +M. Mouillard emitted a sigh, turned slowly round, and bent two terrible +eyes upon the intruder, knocked off the ash with an angry gesture, and +held out the ignited end at arm's length. + +"With pleasure, sir!" + +Then he replaced the last book he had taken up--a copy of Musset--and +called me. + +"Come, Fabien." + +Arm in arm we strolled up the Rue de Medicis along the railings of the +Luxembourg. + +I felt the crisis approaching. My uncle has a pet saying: "When a thing +is not clear to me, I go straight to the heart of it like a ferret." + +The ferret began to work. + +"Now, Fabien, about these bonds I mentioned? Did I guess right?" + +"Yes, uncle, I have been in bondage." + +"Quite right to make a clean breast of it, my boy; but we must break +your bonds." + +"They are broken." + +"How long ago?" + +"Some days ago." + +"On your honor?" + +"Yes." + +"That's quite right. You'd have done better to keep out of bondage. But +there, you took your uncle's advice; you saw the abyss, and drew back +from it. Quite right of you." + +"Uncle, I will not deceive you. Your letter arrived after the event. The +cause of the rupture was quite apart from that." + +"And the cause was?" + +"The sudden shattering of my illusions." + +"Men still have illusions about these creatures?" + +"She was a perfect creature, and worthy of all respect." + +"Come, come!" + +"I must ask you to believe me. I thought her affections free." + +"And she was--" + +"Betrothed." + +"Really now, that's very funny!" + +"I did not find it funny, uncle. I suffered bitterly, I assure you." + +"I dare say, I dare say. The illusions you spoke of anyhow, it's all +over now?" + +"Quite over." + +"Well, that being the case, Fabien, I am ready to help you. Confess +frankly to me. How much is required?" + +"How much?" + +"Yes, you want something, I dare say, to close the incident. You know +what I mean, eh? to purchase what I might call the veil of oblivion. How +much?" + +"Why, nothing at all, uncle." + +"Don't be afraid, Fabien; I've got the money with me." + +"You have quite mistaken the case, uncle; there is no question of +money. I must tell you again that the young lady is of the highest +respectability." + +My uncle stared. + +"I assure you, uncle. I am speaking of Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot." + +"I dare say." + +"The daughter of a member of the Institute." + +"What!" + +My uncle gave a jump and stood still. + +"Yes, of Mademoiselle Charnot, whom I was in love with and wished to +marry. Do you understand?" + +He leaned against the railing and folded his arms. + +"Marry! Well, I never! A woman you wanted to marry?" + +"Why, yes; what's the matter?" + +"To marry! How could I have imagined such a thing? Here were matters of +the utmost importance going on, and I knew nothing about them. +Marry! You might be announcing your betrothal to me at this moment if +you'd-Still you are quite sure she is betrothed?" + +"Larive told me so." + +"Who's Larive?" + +"A friend of mine." + +"Oh, so you have only heard it through a friend?" + +"Yes, uncle. Do you really think there may still be hope, that I still +have a chance?" + +"No, no; not the slightest. She is sure to be betrothed, very much +betrothed. I tell you I am glad she is. The Mouillards do not come to +Paris for their wives, Fabien--we do not want a Parisienne to carry on +the traditions of the family, and the practice. A Parisienne! I shudder +at the thought of it. Fabien, you will leave Paris with me to-morrow. +That's understood." + +"Certainly not, uncle." + +"Your reasons?" + +"Because I can not leave my friends without saying goodby, and because +I have need to reflect before definitely binding myself to the legal +profession." + +"To reflect! You want to reflect before taking over a family practice, +which has been destined for you since you were an infant, in view of +which you have been working for five years, and which I have nursed for +you, I, your uncle, as if you had been my son?" + +"Yes, uncle." + +"Don't be a fool! You can reflect at Bourges quite as well as here. Your +object in staying here is to see her again." + +"It is not." + +"To wander like a troubled spirit up and down her street. By the way, +which is her street?" + +"Rue de l'Universite." + +My uncle took out his pocketbook and made a note, "Charnot, Rue de +l'Universite." Then all his features expanded. He gave a snort, which +I understood, for I had often heard it in court at Bourges, where it +meant, "There is no escape now. Old Mouillard has cornered his man." + +My uncle replaced his pencil in its case, and his notebook in his +pocket, and merely added: + +"Fabien, you're not yourself to-night. We'll talk of the matter another +time. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten." He was counting on his +fingers. "These return tickets are very convenient; I need not leave +before to-morrow evening. And, what's more, you'll go with me, my boy." + +M. Mouillard talked only on indifferent subjects during our brief walk +from the Rue Soufflot to catch the omnibus at the Odeon. There he shook +me by the hand and sprang nimbly into the first bus. A lady in black, +with veil tightly drawn over a little turned up nose, seeing my uncle +burst in like a bomb, and make for the seat beside her, hurriedly drew +in the folds of her dress, which were spread over the seat. My uncle +noticed her action, and, fearing he had been rude, bent over toward her +with an affable expression. "Do not disturb yourself, Madame. I am +not going all the way to Batignolles; no farther, indeed, than the +Boulevards. I shall inconvenience you for a few moments only, a very few +moments, Madame." I had time to remark that the lady, after giving her +neighbor a glance of Juno-like disdain, turned her back upon him, and +proceeded to study the straps hanging from the roof. + +The brake was taken off, the conductor whistled, the three horses, their +hoofs hammering the pavement, strained for an instant amid showers of +sparks, and the long vehicle vanished down the Rue de Vaugirard, bearing +with it Brutus and his fortunes. + + + + +CHAPTER X. A FAMILY BREACH + +May 10th. + +It is an awful fate to be the nephew of M. Mouillard! I always knew he +was obstinate, capable alike of guile and daring, but I little imagined +what his intentions were when he left me! + +My refusal to start, and my prayer for a respite before embarking in his +practice, drove him wild. He lost his head, and swore to drag me off, +'per fas et nefas'. He has mentally begun a new action--Mouillard v. +Mouillard, and is already tackling the brief; which is as much as to say +that he is fierce, unbridled, heartless, and without remorse. + +Some might have bent. I preferred to break. + +We are strangers for life. I have just seen him to the landing of my +staircase. + +He came here about a quarter of an hour ago, proud, and, I may say, +swaggering, as he does over his learned friends when he has found a flaw +in one of their pleadings. + +"Well, nephew?" + +"Well, uncle?" + +"I've got some news for you." + +"Indeed?" + +M. Mouillard banged his hat down furiously upon my table. + +"Yes, you know my maxim: when anything does not seem quite clear to +me--" + +"You ferret it out." + +"Quite so; I have always found it answer. Your business did not seem +clear to me. Was Mademoiselle Charnot betrothed, or was she not? To what +extent had she encouraged your attentions? You never would have told me +the story correctly, and I never should have known. That being so, I put +my maxim into practice, and went to see her father." + +"You did that?" + +"Certainly I did." + +"You have been to see Monsieur Charnot?" + +"In the Rue de l'Universite. Wasn't it the simplest thing to do? +Besides, I was not sorry to make the acquaintance of a member of the +Institute. And I must admit that he behaved very nicely to me--not a bit +stuck up." + +"And you told him?" + +"My name to begin with: Brutus Mouillard. He reflected a bit, just a +moment, and recalled your appearance: a shy youth, a bachelor of arts, +wearing an eyeglass." + +"Was that all his description?" + +"Yes, he remembered seeing you at the National Library, and once at his +house. I said to him, 'That is my nephew, Monsieur Charnot.' He replied, +'I congratulate you, sir; he seems a youth of parts.'--'That he is, but +his heart is very inflammable.'--'At his age, sir, who is not liable to +take fire?' That was how we began. Your friend Monsieur Charnot has a +pretty wit. I did not want to be behindhand with him, so I answered, +'Well, sir, it caught fire in your house.' He started with fright +and looked all round the room. I was vastly amused. Then we came to +explanations. I put the case before him, that you were in love with his +daughter, without my consent, but with perfectly honorable intentions; +that I had guessed it from your letters, from your unpardonable neglect +of your duties to your family, and that I hurried hither from Bourges +to take in the situation. With that I concluded, and waited for him to +develop. There are occasions when you must let people develop. I could +not jump down his throat with, 'Sir, would you kindly tell me whether +your daughter is betrothed or not?' You follow me? He thought, no doubt, +I had come to ask for his daughter's hand, and passing one hand over his +forehead, he replied, 'Sir, I feel greatly flattered by your proposal, +and I should certainly give it my serious attention, were it not that my +daughter's hand is already sought by the son of an old schoolfellow +of mine, which circumstance, as you will readily understand, does not +permit of my entertaining an offer which otherwise should have received +the most mature consideration.' I had learned what I came for without +risking anything. Well, I didn't conceal from him that, so far as I was +concerned, I would rather you took your wife from the country than that +you brought home the most charming Parisienne; and that the Mouillards +from father to son had always taken their wives from Bourges. He entered +perfectly into my sentiments, and we parted the best of friends. Now, my +boy, the facts are ascertained: Mademoiselle Charnot is another's; +you must get your mourning over and start with me to-night. To-morrow +morning we shall be in Bourges, and you'll soon be laughing over your +Parisian delusions, I warrant you!" + +I had heard my uncle out without interrupting him, though wrath, +astonishment, and my habitual respect for M. Mouillard were struggling +for the mastery within me. I needed all my strength of mind to answer, +with apparent calm. + +"Yesterday, uncle, I had not made up my mind; today I have." + +"You are coming?" + +"I am not. Your action in this matter, uncle--I do not know if you are +aware of it--has been perfectly unheard-of. I can not acknowledge your +right to act thus. It puts between you and me two hundred miles of rail, +and that forever. Do you understand me? You have taken the liberty of +disclosing a secret which was not yours to tell; you have revealed +a passion which, as it was hopeless, should not have been further +mentioned, and certainly not exposed to such humiliation. You went to +see Monsieur Charnot without reflecting whether you were not bringing +trouble into his household; without reflecting, further, whether +such conduct as yours, which may perhaps be usual among your business +acquaintances, was likely to succeed with me. Perhaps you thought it +would. You have merely completed an experiment, begun long ago, which +proves that we do not understand life in the same way, and that it +will be better for both of us if I continue to live in Paris, and you +continue to live at Bourges." + +"Ha! that's how you take it, young man, is it? You refuse to come? you +try to bully me?" + +"Yes." + +"Consider carefully before you let me leave here alone. You know the +amount of your fortune--fourteen hundred francs a year, which means +poverty in Paris." + +"Yes, I do." + +"Well, then, attend to what I am about to say. For years past I have +been saving my practice for you--that is, an honorable and lucrative +position all ready for you to step into. But I am tired at length of +your fads and your fancies. If you do not take up your quarters at +Bourges within a fortnight from now, the Mouillard practice will change +its name within three weeks!" My uncle sniffed with emotion as he looked +at me, expecting to see me totter beneath his threats. I made no +answer for a moment; but a thought which had been harassing me from the +beginning of our interview compelled me to say: + +"I have only one thing to ask you, Monsieur Mouillard." + +"Further respite, I suppose? Time to reflect and fool me again? No, a +hundred times no! I've had enough of you; a fortnight, not a day more!" + +"No, sir; I do not ask for respite." + +"So much the better, for I should refuse it. What do you want?" + +"Monsieur Mouillard, I trust that Jeanne was not present at the +interview, that she heard none of it, that she was not forced to +blush--" + +My uncle sprang to his feet, seized his gloves, which lay spread out +on the table, bundled them up, flung them passionately into his hat, +clapped the whole on his head, and made for the door with angry strides. + +I followed him; he never looked back, never made answer to my "Good-by, +uncle." But, at the sixth step, just before turning the corner, he +raised his stick, gave the banisters a blow fit to break them, and went +on his way downstairs exclaiming: + +"Damnation!" + + May 20th. + +And so we have parted with an oath, my uncle and I! That is how I have +broken with the only relative I possess. It is now ten days since then. +I now have five left in which to mend the broken thread of the family +tradition, and become a lawyer. But nothing points to such conversion. +On the contrary, I feel relieved of a heavy weight, pleased to be free, +to have no profession. I feel the thrill of pleasure that a fugitive +from justice feels on clearing the frontier. Perhaps I was meant for a +different course of life than the one I was forced to follow. As a child +I was brought up to worship the Mouillard practice, with the fixed idea +that this profession alone could suit me; heir apparent to a lawyer's +stool--born to it, brought up to it, without any idea, at any rate for a +long time, that I could possibly free myself from the traditions of the +law's sacred jargon. + +I have quite got over that now. The courts, where I have been a frequent +spectator, seem to me full of talented men who fine down and belittle +their talents in the practice of law. Nothing uses up the nobler +virtues more quickly than a practice at the bar. Generosity, enthusiasm, +sensibility, true and ready sympathy--all are taken, leaving the man, +in many instances nothing but a skilful actor, who apes all the emotions +while feeling none. And the comedy is none the less repugnant to me +because it is played through with a solemn face, and the actors are +richly recompensed. + +Lampron is not like this. He has given play to all the noble qualities +of his nature. I envy him. I admire his disinterestedness, his broad +views of life, his faith in good in spite of evil, his belief in poetry +in spite of prose, his unspoiled capacity for receiving new impressions +and illusions--a capacity which, amid the crowds that grow old in mind +before they are old in body, keeps him still young and boyish. I think +I might have been devoted to his profession, or to literature, or to +anything but law. + +We shall see. For the present I have taken a plunge into the unknown. My +time is all my own, my freedom is absolute, and I am enjoying it. + +I have hidden nothing from Lampron. As my friend he is pleased, I can +see, at a resolve which keeps me in Paris; but his prudence cries out +upon it. + +"It is easy enough to refuse a profession," he said; "harder to find +another in its place. What do you intend to do?" + +"I don't know." + +"My dear fellow, you seem to be trusting to luck. At sixteen that might +be permissible, at twenty-four it's a mistake." + +"So much the worse, for I shall make the mistake. If I have to live on +little--well, you've tried that before now; I shall only be following +you." + +"That's true; I have known want, and even now it attacks me sometimes; +it's like influenza, which does not leave its victims all at once; but +it is hard, I can tell you, to do without the necessaries of life; as +for its luxuries--" + +"Oh, of course, no one can do without its luxuries." + +"You are incorrigible," he answered, with a laugh. Then he said no more. +Lampron's silence is the only argument which struggles in my heart in +favor of the Mouillard practice. Who can guess from what quarter the +wind will blow? + + + + +CHAPTER XI. IN THE BEATEN PATH + + June 5th. + +The die is cast; I will not be a lawyer. + +The tradition of the Mouillards is broken for good, Sylvestre is +defeated for good, and I am free for good--and quite uncertain of my +future. + +I have written my uncle a calm, polite, and clearly worded letter to +confirm my decision. He has not answered it, nor did I expect an answer. + +I expected, however, that he would be avenged by some faint regret on my +part, by one of those light mists that so often arise and hang about our +firmest resolutions. But no such mist has arisen. + +Still, Law has had her revenge. Abandoned at Bourges, she has recaptured +me at Paris, for a time. I realized that it was impossible for me +to live on an income of fourteen hundred francs. The friends whom I +discreetly questioned, in behalf of an unnamed acquaintance, as to +the means of earning money, gave me various answers. Here is a fairly +complete list of their expedients: + +"If your friend is at all clever, he should write a novel." + +"If he is not, there is the catalogue of the National Library: ten hours +of indexing a day." + +"If he has ambition, let him become a wine-merchant." + +"No; 'Old Clo,' and get his hats gratis." + +"If he is very plain, and has no voice, he can sing in the chorus at the +opera." + +"Shorthand writer in the Senate is a peaceful occupation." + +"Teacher of Volapuk is the profession of the future." + +"Try 'Hallo, are you there?' in the telephones." + +"Wants to earn money? Advise him first not to lose any!" + +The most sensible one, who guessed the name of the acquaintance I was +interested in, said: + +"You have been a managing clerk; go back to it." + +And as the situation chanced to be vacant, I went back to my old master. +I took my old seat and den as managing clerk between the outer office +and Counsellor Boule's glass cage. I correct the drafts of the inferior +clerks; I see the clients and instruct them how to proceed. They often +take me for the counsellor himself. I go to the courts nearly every day, +and hang about chief clerks' and judges' chambers; and go to the theatre +once a week with the "paper" supplied to the office. + +Do I call this a profession? No, merely a stop-gap which allows me to +live and wait for something to turn up. I sometimes have forebodings +that I shall go on like this forever, waiting for something which +will never turn up; that this temporary occupation may become only too +permanent. + +There is an old clerk in the office who has never had any other +occupation, whose appearance is a kind of warning to me. He has a red +face--the effect of the office stove, I think--straight, white hair, +the expression when spoken to of a startled sheep-gentle, astonished, +slightly flurried. His attenuated back is rounded off with a stoop +between the neck and shoulders. He can hardly keep his hands from +shaking. His signature is a work of art. He can stick at his desk for +six hours without stirring. While we lunch at a restaurant, he consumes +at the office some nondescript provisions which he brings in the morning +in a paper bag. On Sundays he fishes, for a change; his rod takes the +place of his pen, and his can of worms serves instead of inkstand. + +He and I have already one point of resemblance. The old clerk was once +crossed in love with a flowergirl, one Mademoiselle Elodie. He has told +me this one tragedy of his life. In days gone by I used to think this +thirty-year-old love-story dull and commonplace; to-day I understand +M. Jupille; I relish him even. He and I have become sympathetic. I no +longer make him move from his seat by the fire when I want to ask him a +question: I go to him. On Sundays, on the quays by the Seine, I pick him +out from the crowd intent upon the capture of tittlebats, because he is +seated upon his handkerchief. I go up to him and we have a talk. + +"Fish biting, Monsieur Jupille?" + +"Hardly at all." + +"Sport is not what it used to be?" + +"Ah! Monsieur Mouillard, if you could have seen it thirty years ago!" + +This date is always cropping up with him. Have we not all our own date, +a few months, a few days, perhaps a single hour of full-hearted joy, for +which half our life has been a preparation, and of which the other half +must be a remembrance? + + June 5th. + +"Monsieur Mouillard, here is an application for leave to sign judgment +in a fresh matter." + +"Very well, give it me." + +"To the President of the Civil Court: + +"Monsieur Plumet, of 27 Rue Hauteville, in the city of Paris, by +Counsellor Boule, his advocate, craves leave--" + +It was a proceeding against a refractory debtor, the commonest thing in +the world. + +"Monsieur Massinot!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Who brought these papers?" + +"A very pretty little woman brought them this morning while you were +out, sir." + +"Monsieur Massinot, whether she was pretty or not, it is no business of +yours to criticise the looks of the clients." + +"I did not mean to offend you, Monsieur Mouillard." + +"You have not offended me, but you have no business to talk of a 'pretty +client.' That epithet is not allowed in a pleading, that's all. The lady +is coming back, I suppose?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Little Madame Plumet soon called again, tricked out from head to foot in +the latest fashion. She was a little flurried on entering a room full of +jocular clerks. Escorted by Massinot, both of them with their eyes fixed +on the ground, she reached my office. I closed the door after her. She +recognized me. + +"Monsieur Mouillard! What a pleasant surprise!" + +She held out her hand to me so frankly and gracefully that I gave her +mine, and felt sure, from the firm, expressive way in which she clasped +it, that Madame Plumet was really pleased to see me. Her ruddy cheeks +and bright eyes recalled my first impression of her, the little +dressmaker running from the workshop to the office, full of her love for +M. Plumet and her grievances against the wicked cabinetmaker. + +"What, you are back again with Counsellor Boule? I am surprised!" + +"So am I, Madame Plumet, very much surprised. But such is life! How is +Master Pierre progressing?" + +"Not quite so well, poor darling, since I weaned him. I had to wean him, +Monsieur Mouillard, because I have gone back to my old trade." + +"Dressmaking?" + +"Yes, on my own account this time. I have taken the flat opposite to +ours, on the same floor. Plumet makes frames, while I make gowns. I have +already three workgirls, and enough customers to give me a start. I do +not charge them very dear to begin with. + +"One of my customers was a very nice young lady--you know who! I have +not talked to her of you, but I have often wanted to. By the way, +Monsieur Mouillard, did I do my errand well?" + +"What errand?" + +"The important one, about the portrait at the Salon." + +"Oh, yes; very well indeed. I must thank you." + +"She came?" + +"Yes, with her father." + +"She must have been pleased! The drawing was so pretty. Plumet, who is +not much of a talker, is never tired of praising it. I tell you, he and +I did not spare ourselves. He made a bit of a fuss before he would take +the order; he was in a hurry--such a hurry; but when he saw that I was +bent on it he gave in. And it is not the first time he has given in. +Plumet is a good soul, Monsieur Mouillard. When you know him better +you will see what a good soul he is. Well, while he was cutting out the +frame, I went to the porter's wife. What a business it was! I am glad my +errand was successful!" + +"It was too good of you, Madame Plumet; but it was useless, alas! she is +to marry another." + +"Marry another? Impossible!" + +I thought Madame Plumet was about to faint. Had she heard that her son +Pierre had the croup, she could not have been more upset. Her +bosom heaved, she clasped her hands, and gazed at me with sorrowful +compassion. + +"Poor Monsieur Mouillard!" + +And two tears, two real tears, coursed down Madame Plumet's cheeks. I +should have liked to catch them. They were the only tears that had been +shed for me by a living soul since my mother died. + +I had to tell her all, every word, down to my rival's name. When she +heard that it was Baron Dufilleul, her indignation knew no bounds. She +exclaimed that the Baron was an awful man; that she knew all sorts of +things about him! Know him? she should think so! That such a union was +impossible, that it could never take place, that Plumet, she knew, would +agree with her: + +"Madame Plumet," I said, "we have strayed some distance from the +business which brought you here. Let us return to your affairs; mine are +hopeless, and you can not remedy them." + +She got up trembling, her eyes red and her feelings a little hurt. + +"My action? Oh, no! I can't attend to it to-day. I've no heart to talk +about my business. What you've told me has made me too unhappy. Another +day, Monsieur Mouillard, another day." + +She left me with a look of mystery, and a pressure of the hand which +seemed to say: "Rely on me!" + +Poor woman! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. I GO TO ITALY + +June 10th. + +In the train. We have passed the fortifications. The stuccoed houses of +the suburbs, the factories, taverns, and gloomy hovels in the debatable +land round Paris are so many points of sunshine in the far distance. +The train is going at full speed. The fields of green or gold are being +unrolled like ribbons before my eyes. Now and again a metallic sound and +a glimpse of columns and advertisements show that we are rushing through +a station in a whirlwind of dust. A flash of light across our path is +a tributary of the river. I am off, well on my way, and no one can stop +me--not Lampron, nor Counsellor Boule, nor yet Plumet. The dream of +years is about to be realized. I am going to see Italy--merely a corner +of it; but what a pleasure even that is, and what unlooked-for luck! + +A few days ago, Counsellor Boule called me into his office. + +"Monsieur Mouillard, you speak Italian fluently, don't you?" + +"Yes, sir." "Would you like a trip at a client's expense?" + +"With pleasure, wherever you like." + +"To Italy?" + +"With very great pleasure." + +"I thought so, and gave your name to the court without asking your +consent. It's a commission to examine documents at Milan, to prove some +copies of deeds and other papers, put in by a supposititious Italian +heir to establish his rights to a rather large property. You remember +the case of Zampini against Veldon and others?" + +"Quite well." + +"It is Zampini's copies of the deeds on which he bases his claim which +you will have to compare with the originals, with the help of a clerk +from the Record Office and a sworn translator. You can go by Switzerland +or by the Corniche route, as you please. You will be allowed six hundred +francs and a fortnight's holiday. Does that suit you?" + +"I should think so!" + +"Then pack up and be off. You must be at Milan by the morning of the +eighteenth." + +I ran to tell the news to Lampron, who was filled with surprise and not +a little emotion at the mention of Italy. And here I am flying along +in the Lyons express, without a regret for Paris. All my heart leaps +forward toward Switzerland, where I shall be to-morrow. I have chosen +this green route to take me to the land of blue skies. Up to the last +moment I feared that some obstacle would arise, that the ill-luck which +dogs my footsteps would keep me back, and I am quite surprised that it +has let me off. True, I nearly lost the train, and the horse of cab +No. 7382 must have been a retired racer to make up for the loss of time +caused by M. Plumet. + +Counsellor Boule sent me on a business errand an hour before I started. +On my way back, just as I was crossing the Place de l'Opera in the +aforesaid cab, a voice hailed me: + +"Monsieur Mouillard!" + +I looked first to the right and then to the left, till, on a refuge, I +caught sight of M. Plumet struggling to attract my attention. I +stopped the cab, and a smile of satisfaction spread over M. Plumet's +countenance. He stepped off the refuge. I opened the cab-door. But a +brougham passed, and the horse pushed me back into the cab with his +nose. I opened the door a second time; another brougham came by; then a +third; finally two serried lines of traffic cut me off from M. Plumet, +who kept shouting something to me which the noise of the wheels and the +crowd prevented me from hearing. I signalled my despair to M. Plumet. He +rose on tiptoe. I could not hear any better. + +Five minutes lost! Impossible to wait any longer! Besides, who could +tell that it was not a trap to prevent my departure, though in friendly +guise? I shuddered at the thought and shouted: + +"Gare de Lyon, cabby, as fast as you can drive!" + +My orders were obeyed. We got to the station to find the train made up +and ready to start, and I was the last to take a ticket. + +I suppose M. Plumet managed to escape from his refuge. + + GENEVA. + +On my arrival I found, keeping order on the way outside the station, the +drollest policeman that ever stepped out of a comic opera. At home +we should have had to protect him against the boys; here he protects +others. + +Well, it shows that I am really abroad. + +I have only two hours to spare in this town. What shall I see? The +country; that is always beautiful, whereas many so-called "sights" are +not. I will make for the shores of the lake, for the spot where the +Rhone leaves it, to flow toward France. The Rhone, which is so muddy at +Avignon, is clean here; deep and clear as a creek of the sea. It rushes +along in a narrow blue torrent compressed between a quay and a line of +houses. + +The river draws me after it. We leave the town together, and I am soon +in the midst of those market-gardens where the infant Topffer lost +himself, and, overtaken by nightfall, fell to making his famous analysis +of fear. The big pumping wheels still overtop the willows, and cast +their shadows over the lettuce-fields. In the distance rise slopes of +woodland, on Sundays the haunt of holiday-makers. The Rhone leaps and +eddies, singing over its gravel beds. Two trout-fishers are taxing all +their strength to pull a boat up stream beneath the shelter of the bank. + +Perhaps I was wrong in not waiting to hear what M. Plumet had to tell +me. He is not the kind of man to gesticulate wildly without good reason. + + ON THE LAKE. + +The steamer is gaining the open water and Geneva already lies far +behind. Not a ripple on the blue water that shades into deep blue behind +us. Ahead the scene melts into a milky haze. A little boat, with idle +sails embroidered with sunlight, vanishes into it. On the right rise +the mountains of Savoy, dotted with forests, veiled in clouds which cast +their shadows on the broken slopes. The contrast is happy, and I can +not help admiring Leman's lovely smile at the foot of these rugged +mountains. + +At the bend in the banks near St. Maurice-en-Valais, the wind catches +us, quite a squall. The lake becomes a sea. At the first roll an +Englishwoman becomes seasick. She casts an expiring glance upon Chillon, +the ancient towers of which are being lashed by the foam. Her husband +does not think it worth his while to cease reading his guide-book or +focusing his field-glass for so trifling a matter. + + ON THE DILIGENCE + +I am crossing the Simplon at daybreak, with rosepink glaciers on every +side. We are trotting down the Italian slope. How I have longed for the +sight of Italy! Hardly had the diligence put on the brake, and begun +bowling down the mountain-side, before I discovered a change on the +face of all things. The sky turned to a brighter blue. At the very first +glance I seemed to see the dust of long summers on the leaves of the +firs, six thousand feet above the sea, in the virgin atmosphere of the +mountain-tops: and I was very near taking the creaking of my loosely +fixed seat for the southern melody of the first grasshopper. + + BAVENO + +No one could be mistaken; this shaven, obsequious, suavely jovial +innkeeper is a Neapolitan. He takes his stand in his mosaic-paved +hall, and is at the service of all who wish for information about Lago +Maggiore, the list of its sights; in a word, the programme of the piece. + + ISOLA BELLA, ISOLA MADRE. + +Yes, they are scraped clean, carefully tended, pretty, all a-blowing and +a-growing; but unreal. The palm trees are unhomely, the tropical plants +seem to stand behind footlights. Restore them to their homes, or give me +back Lake Leman, so simply grand. + + MENAGGIO. + +After the sky-blue of Maggiore and the vivid green of Lugano, comes the +violet-blue of Como, with its luminous landscape, its banks covered with +olives, Roman ruins, and modern villas. Never have I felt the air so +clear. Here for the first time I said to myself: "This is the spot where +I would choose to dwell." I have even selected my house; it peeps out +from a mass of pomegranates, evergreens, and citrons, on a peninsula +around which the water swells with gentle murmur, and whence the view is +perfect across lake, mountain, and sky. + +A nightingale is singing, and I can not help reflecting that his fellows +here are put to death in thousands. Yes, the reapers, famed in poems +and lithographs, are desperate bird-catchers. At the season of migration +they capture thousands of these weary travellers with snares or limed +twigs; on Maggiore alone sixty thousand meet their end. We have but +those they choose to leave us to charm our summer nights. + +Perhaps they will kill my nightingale in the Carmelite garden. The idea +fills me with indignation. + +Then my thoughts run back to my rooms in the Rue de Rennes, and I see +Madame Menin, with a dejected air, dusting my slumbering furniture; +Lampron at work, his mother knitting; the old clerk growing sleepy with +the heat and lifting his pen as he fancies he has got a bite; Madame +Plumet amid her covey of workgirls, and M. Plumet blowing away with +impatient breath the gold dust which the gum has failed to fix on the +mouldings of a newly finished frame. + +M. Plumet is pensive. He is burdened with a secret. I am convinced I did +wrong in not waiting longer on the Place de L'Opera. + + MILAN. + +At last I am in Milan, an ancient city, but full of ideas and energy, my +destination, and the cradle of the excellent Porfirio Zampini, suspected +forger. The examination of documents does not begin till the day after +to-morrow, so I am making the best of the time in seeing the sights. + +There are four sights to see at Milan if you are a musician, and three +if you are not: the Duomo, 'vulgo', cathedral; "The Marriage of the +Virgin," by Raphael; "The Last Supper," by Leonardo; and, if it suits +your tastes, a performance at La Scala. + +I began with the Duomo, and on leaving it I received the news that still +worries me. + +But first of all I must make a confession. When I ascended through the +tropical heat to the marble roof of the cathedral, I expected so much +that I was disappointed. Surprise goes for so much in what we admire. +Neither this mountain of marble, nor the lacework and pinnacles which +adorn the enormous mass, nor the amazing number of statues, nor the +sight of men smaller than flies on the Piazza del Duomo, nor the vast +stretch of flat country which spreads for miles on every side of the +city--none of these sights kindled the spark of enthusiasm within me +which has often glowed for much less. No, what pleased me was something +quite different, a detail not noticed in the guide-books, I suppose. + +I had come down from the roof and was wandering in the vast nave from +pillar to pillar, when I found myself beneath the lantern. I raised +my eyes, but the flood of golden light compelled me to close them. +The sunlight passing through the yellow glass of the windows overhead +encircled the mighty vault of the lantern with a fiery crown, and played +around the walls of its cage in rays which, growing fainter as they +fell, flooded the floor with their expiring flames, a mysterious +dayspring, a diffused glory, through which litany and sacred chant +winged their way up toward the Infinite. + +I left the cathedral tired out, dazed with weariness and sunlight, and +fell asleep in a chair as soon as I got back to my room, on the fifth +floor of the Albergo dell' Agnello. + +I had been asleep for about an hour, perhaps, when I thought I heard a +voice near me repeating "Illustre Signore!" + +I did not wake. The voice continued with a murmur of sibilants: + +"Illustrissimo Signore!" + +This drew me from my sleep, for the human ear is very susceptible to +superlatives. + +"What is it?" + +"A letter for your lordship. As it is marked 'Immediate,' I thought I +might take the liberty of disturbing your lordship's slumbers." + +"You did quite right, Tomaso." + +"You owe me eight sous, signore, which I paid for the postage." + +"There's half a franc, keep the change." + +He retired calling me Monsieur le Comte; and all for two sous--O +fatherland of Brutus! The letter was from Lampron, who had forgotten to +put a stamp on it. + + "MY DEAR FRIEND: + + "Madame Plumet, to whom I believe you have given no instructions so + to do, is at present busying herself considerably about your + affairs. I felt I ought to warn you, because she is all heart and + no brains, and I have often seen before the trouble into which an + overzealous friend may get one, especially if the friend be a woman. + + "I fear some serious indiscretion has been committed, for the + following reasons. + + "Yesterday evening Monsieur Plumet came to see me, and stood pulling + furiously at his beard, which I know from experience is his way of + showing that the world is not going around the right way for him. + By means of questions, I succeeded, after some difficulty, in + dragging from him about half what he had to tell me. The only thing + which he made quite clear was his distress on finding that Madame + Plumet was a woman whom it was hard to silence or to convince by + argument. + + "It appears that she has gone back to her old trade of dress-making, + and that one of her first customers--God knows how she got there!-- + was Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot. + + "Well, last Monday Mademoiselle Jeanne was selecting a hat. She was + blithe as dawn, while the dressmaker was gloomy as night. + + "'Is your little boy ill, Madame Plumet?' + + "'No, Mademoiselle.' + + "'You look so sad.' + + "Then, according to her husband's words, Madame Plumet took her + courage in her two hands, and looking her pretty customer in the + face, said: + + "'Mademoiselle, why are you marrying?' + + "'What a funny question! Why, because I am old enough; because I + have had an offer; because all young girls marry, or else they go + into convents, or become old maids. Well, Madame Plumet, I never + have felt a religious vocation, and I never expected to become an + old maid. Why do you ask such a question?' + + "'Because, Mademoiselle, married life may be very happy, but it may + be quite the reverse!' + + "After giving expression to this excellent aphorism, Madame Plumet, + unable to contain herself any longer, burst into tears. + + "Mademoiselle Jeanne, who had been laughing before, was now amazed + and presently grew rather anxious. + + "Still, her pride kept her from asking any further questions, and + Madame Plumet was too much frightened to add a word to her answer. + But they will meet again the day after to-morrow, on account of the + hat, as before. + + "Here the story grew confused, and I understood no more of it. + + "Clearly there is more behind this. Monsieur Plumet never would + have gone out of his way merely to inform me that his wife had given + him a taste of her tongue, nor would he have looked so upset about + it. But you know the fellow's way; whenever it's important for him + to make himself clear he loses what little power of speech he has, + becomes worse than dumb-unintelligible. He sputtered inconsequent + ejaculations at me in this fashion: + + "'To think of it, to-morrow, perhaps! And you know what a + business! Oh, damnation! Anyhow, that must not be! Ah! Monsieur + Lampron, how women do talk!' + + "And with this Monsieur Plumet left me. + + "I must confess, old fellow, that I am not burning with desire to + get mixed up in this mess, or to go and ask Madame Plumet for the + explanation which her husband was unable to give me. I shall bide + my time. If anything turns up to-morrow, they are sure to tell me, + and I will write you word. + + "My mother sends you her love, and begs you to wrap up warmly in the + evening; she says the twilight is the winter of hot climates. + + "The dear woman has been a little out of sorts for the last two + days. Today she is keeping her bed. I trust it is nothing but a + cold. + + "Your affectionate friend, + + "SYLVESTRE LAMPRON." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. STARTLING NEWS FROM SYLVESTRE + + MILAN, June 18th. + +The examination of documents began this morning. I never thought we +should have such a heap to examine, nor papers of such a length. The +first sitting passed almost entirely in classifying, in examining +signatures, in skirmishes of all kinds around this main body. + +My colleagues and I are working in a room in the municipal Palazzo del +Marino, a vast deserted building used, I believe, as a storehouse. Our +leathern armchairs and the table on which the documents are arranged +occupy the middle of the room. Along the walls are several cupboards, +nests of registers and rats; a few pictures with their faces to the +wall; some carved wood scutcheons, half a dozen flagstaffs and a +triumphal arch in cardboard, now taken to pieces and rotting--gloomy +apparatus of bygone festivals. + +The persons taking part in the examination besides the three Frenchmen, +are, in the first place, a little Italian judge, with a mean face, +wrinkled like a winter apple, whose eyelids always seem heavy with +sleep; secondly, a clerk, shining with fat, his dress, hair, and +countenance expressive of restrained jollity, as he dreams voluptuous +dreams of the cool drinks he means to absorb through a straw when the +hour of deliverance shall sound from the frightful cuckoo clock, a relic +of the French occupation, which ticks at the end of the room; thirdly, +a creature whose position is difficult to determine--I think he must +be employed in some registry; he is here as a mere manual laborer. This +third person gives me the idea of being very much interested in the +fortunes of Signore Porfirio Zampini, for on each occasion, when his +duties required him to bring us documents, he whispered in my ear: + +"If you only knew, my lord, what a man Zampini is! what a noble heart, +what a paladin!" + +Take notice that this "paladin" is a macaroni-seller, strongly suspected +of trying to hoodwink the French courts. + +Amid the awful heat which penetrated the windows, the doors, even the +sun-baked walls, we had to listen to, read, and compare documents. +Gnats of a ferocious kind, hatched by thousands in the hangings of this +hothouse, flew around our perspiring heads. Their buzzing got the upper +hand at intervals when the clerk's voice grew weary and, diminishing in +volume, threatened to fade away into snores. + +The little judge rapped on the table with his paperknife and urged the +reader afresh upon his wild career. My colleague from the Record +Office showed no sign of weariness. Motionless, attentive, classing the +smallest papers in his orderly mind, he did not even feel the' gnats +swooping upon the veins in his hands, stinging them, sucking them, and +flying off red and distended with his blood. + +I sat, both literally and metaphorically, on hot coals. Just as I came +into the room, the man from the Record Office handed me a letter which +had arrived at the hotel while I was out at lunch. It was a letter from +Lampron, in a large, bulky envelope. Clearly something important must +have happened. + +My fate, perhaps, was settled, and was in the letter, while I knew it +not. I tried to get it out of my inside pocket several times, for to me +it was a far more interesting document than any that concerned Zampini's +action. I pined to open it furtively, and read at least the first few +lines. A moment would have sufficed for me to get at the point of this +long communication. But at every attempt the judge's eyes turned slowly +upon me between their half-closed lids, and made me desist. No--a +thousand times no! This smooth-tongued, wily Italian shall have no +excuse for proving that the French, who have already such a reputation +for frivolity, are a nation without a conscience, incapable of +fulfilling the mission with which they are charged. + +And yet.... there came a moment when he turned his back and began to +sort a fresh bundle with the man of records. Here was an unlooked-for +opportunity. I cut open the envelope, unfolded the letter, and found +eight pages! Still I began: + + "MY DEAR FRIEND: + + "In spite of my anxiety about my mother, and the care her illness + demands (to-day it is found to be undoubted congestion of the + lungs), I feel bound to tell you the story of what has happened in + the Rue Hautefeuille, as it is very important--" + +"Excuse me, Monsieur Mou-il-ard," said the little judge, half +turning toward me, "does the paper you have there happen to be number +twenty-seven, which we are looking for?" + +"Oh, dear, no; it's a private letter." + +"A private letter? I ask pardon for interrupting you." + +He gave a faint smile, closed his eyes to show his pity for such +frivolity, and turned away again satisfied, while the other members of +the Zampini Commission looked at me with interest. + +The letter was important. So much the worse, I must finish it: + + "I will try to reconstruct the scene for you, from the details which + I have gathered. + + "The time is a quarter to ten in the morning. There is a knock at + Monsieur Plumet's door. The door opposite is opened half-way and + Madame Plumet looks out. She withdraws in a hurry, 'with her heart + in her mouth,' as she says; the plot she has formed is about to + succeed or fail, the critical moment is at hand; the visitor is her + enemy, your rival Dufilleul. + + "He is full of self-confidence and comes in plump and flourishing, + with light gloves, and a terrier at his heels. + + "'My portrait framed, Plumet?' + + "'Yes, my lord-yes, to be sure.' + + "'Let's see it.' + + "I have seen the famous portrait: a miniature of the newly created + baron, in fresh butter, I think, done cheap by some poor girl who + gains her living by coloring photographs. It is intended for + Mademoiselle Tigra of the Bouffes. A delicate attention from + Dufilleul, isn't it? While Jeanne in her innocence is dreaming of + the words of love he has ventured to utter to her, and cherishes but + one thought, one image in her heart, he is exerting his ingenuity to + perpetuate the recollection of that image's adventures elsewhere. + + "He is pleased with the elaborate and costly frame which Plumet has + made for him. + + "'Very nice. How much?' + + "'One hundred and twenty francs.' + + "'Six louis? very dear.' + + "'That's my price for this kind of work, my lord; I am very + busy just now, my lord.' + + "'Well, let it be this once. I don't often have a picture framed; + to tell the truth, I don't care for pictures.' + + "Dufilleul admires and looks at himself in the vile portrait + which he holds outstretched in his right hand, while his left hand + feels in his purse. Monsieur Plumet looks very stiff, very unhappy, + and very nervous. He evidently wants to get his customer off the + premises. + + "The rustling of skirts is heard on the staircase. Plumet turns + pale, and glancing at the half-opened door, through which the + terrier is pushing its nose, steps forward to close it. It is too + late. + + "Some one has noiselessly opened it, and on the threshold stands + Mademoiselle Jeanne in walking-dress, looking, with bright eyes and + her most charming smile, at Plumet, who steps back in a fright, and + Dufilleul, who has not yet seen her. + + "'Well, sir, and so I've caught you!' + + "Dufilleul starts, and involuntarily clutches the portrait to his + waistcoat. + + "'Mademoiselle--No, really, you have come--?' + + "'To see Madame Plumet. What wrong is there in that?' + + "'None whatever--of course not.' + + "'Not the least in the world, eh? Ha, ha! What a trifle flurries + you. Come now, collect yourself. There is nothing to be frightened + at. As I was coming upstairs, your dog put his muzzle out; I + guessed he was not alone, so I left my maid with Madame Plumet, and + came in at the right-hand door instead of the left. Do you think it + improper?' + + "'Oh, no, Mademoiselle.' + + "'However, I am inquisitive, and I should like to see what you are + hiding there.' + + "'It's a portrait.' + + "'Hand it to me.' + + "'With pleasure; unfortunately it's only a portrait of myself.' + + "'Why unfortunately? On the contrary, it flatters you--the nose is + not so long as the original; what do you say, Monsieur Plumet?' + + "'Do you think it good?' + + "'Very.' + + "'How do you like the frame?' + + "'It's very pretty.' + + "'Then I make you a present of it, Mademoiselle.' + + "'Why! wasn't it intended for me?' + + "'I mean--well! to tell the truth, it wasn't; it's a wedding + present, a souvenir--there's nothing extraordinary in that, is + there?' + + "'Nothing whatever. You can tell me whom it's for, I suppose?' + + "'Don't you think that you are pushing your curiosity too far?' + + "'Well, really!' + + "'Yes, I mean it.' + + "'Since you make such a secret of it, I shall ask Monsieur Plumet to + tell me. Monsieur Plumet, for whom is this portrait?' + + "Plumet, pale as death, fumbled at his workman's cap, like a naughty + child. + + "'Why, you see, Mademoiselle--I am only a poor framemaker.' + + "'Very well! I shall go to Madame Plumet, who is sure to know, and + will not mind telling me.' + + "Madame Plumet, who must have been listening at the door, came in at + that moment, trembling like a leaf, and prepared to dare all. + + "I beg you won't, Mademoiselle,' broke in Dufilleul; 'there is no + secret. I only wanted to tease you. The portrait is for a friend + of mine who lives at Fontainebleau.' + + "'His name?' + + "'Gonin--he's a solicitor.' + + "'It was time you told me. How wretched you both looked. Another + time tell me straight out, and frankly, anything you have no reason + to conceal. Promise you won't act like this again.' + + "'I promise.' + + "'Then, let us make peace.' + + "She held out her hand to him. Before he could grasp it, Madame + Plumet broke in: + + "'Excuse me, Mademoiselle, I can not have you deceived like this in + my house. Mademoiselle, it is not true!' + + "'What is not true, Madame?' + + "'That this portrait is for Monsieur Gonin, or anybody else at + Fontainebleau.' + + "Mademoiselle Charnot drew back in surprise. + + "'For whom, then?' + + "'An actress.' + + "'Take care what you are saying, Madame.' + + "'For Mademoiselle Tigra of the Bouffes.' + + "'Lies!' cried Dufilleul. 'Prove it, Madame; prove your story, + please!' + + "'Look at the back,' answered Madame Plumet, quietly. + + "Mademoiselle Jeanne, who had not put down the miniature, turned it + over, read what was on the back, grew deathly pale, and handed it to + her lover. + + "'What does it say?' said Dufilleul, stooping over it. + + "It said: 'From Monsieur le Baron D-----to Mademoiselle T-----, + Boulevard Haussmann. To be delivered on Thursday.' + + "'You can see at once, Mademoiselle, that this is not my writing. + It's an abominable conspiracy. Monsieur Plumet, I call upon you to + give your wife the lie. She has written what is false; confess it!' + + "The frame-maker hid his face in his hands and made no reply. + + "'What, Plumet, have you nothing to say for me?' + + "Mademoiselle Charnot was leaving the room. + + "'Where are you going, Mademoiselle? Stay, you will soon see that + they lie!' + + "She was already half-way across the landing when Dufilleul caught + her and seized her by the hand. + + "'Stay, Jeanne, stay!' + + "'Let me go, sir!' + + "'No, hear me first; this is some horrible mistake. I swear' + + "At this moment a high-pitched voice was heard on the staircase. + + "'Well, George, how much longer are you going to keep me?' + + "Dufilleul suddenly lost countenance and dropped Mademoiselle + Charnot's hand. + + "The young girl bent over the banisters, and saw, at the bottom of + the staircase, exactly underneath her, a woman looking up, with head + thrown back and mouth still half-opened. Their eyes met. Jeanne at + once turned away her gaze. + + "Then, turning to Madame Plumet, who leaned motionless against the + wall: + + "'Come, Madame,' she said, 'we must go and choose a hat.' And she + closed the dressmaker's door behind her. + + "This, my friend, is the true account of what happened in the Rue + Hautefeuille. I learned the details from Madame Plumet in person, + who could not contain herself for joy as she described the success + of her conspiracy, and how her little hand had guided old Dame + Fortune's. For, as you will doubtless have guessed, the meeting + between Jeanne and her lover, so dreaded by the framemaker, had been + arranged by Madame Plumet unknown to all, and the damning + inscription was also in her handwriting. + + "I need not add that Mademoiselle Charnot, upset by the scene, had a + momentary attack of faintness. However, she soon regained her usual + firm and dignified demeanor, which seems to show that she is a woman + of energy. + + "But the interest of the story does not cease here. I think the + betrothal is definitely at an end. A betrothal is always a + difficult thing to renew, and after the publicity which attended the + rupture of this one, I do not see how they can make it up again. + One thing I feel sure of is, that Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot will + never change her name to Madame Dufilleul. + + "Do not, however, exaggerate your own chances. They will be less + than you think for some time yet. I do not believe that a young + girl who has thus been wounded and deceived can forget all at once. + There is even the possibility of her never forgetting--of living + with her sorrow, preferring certain peace of mind, and the simple + joys of filial devotion, to all those dreams of married life by + which so many simple-hearted girls have been cruelly taken in. + + "In any case do not think of returning yet, for I know you are + capable of any imprudence. Stay where you are, examine your + documents, and wait. + + "My mother and I are passing through a bitter trial. She is ill, I + may say seriously ill. I would sooner bear the illness than my + present anxiety. + + "Your friend, + + "SYLVESTRE LAMPRON. + + "P. S.--Just as I was about to fasten up this letter, I got a note + from Madame Plumet to tell me that Monsieur and Mademoiselle Charnot + have left Paris. She does not know where they have gone." + +I became completely absorbed over this letter. Some passages I read a +second time; and the state of agitation into which it threw me did not +at once pass away. I remained for an indefinite time without a notion +of what was going on around me, entirely wrapped up in the past or the +future. + +The Italian attendant brought me back to the present with a jerk of his +elbow. He was replacing the last register in the huge drawers of the +table. He and I were alone. My colleagues had left, and our first +sitting had come to an end without my assistance, though before my +eyes. They could not have gone far, so, somewhat ashamed of my want of +attention, I put on my hat, and went to find them and apologize. The +little attendant caught me by the sleeve, and gave a knowing smile at +the letter which I was slipping into my pocketbook. + +"E d'una donna?" he asked. + +"What's that to you?" + +"I am sure of it; a letter from a man would never take so long to read; +and, 'per Bacco', you were a time about it! 'Oh, le donne, illustre +signore, le downe!'" + +"That's enough, thank you." + +I made for the door, but he threw himself nimbly in my way, grimacing, +raising his eyebrows, one finger on his ribs. "Listen, my lord, I can +see you are a true scholar, a man whom fame alone can tempt. I could +get your lordship such beautiful manuscripts--Italian, Latin, German +manuscripts that never have been edited, my noble lord!" + +"Stolen, too!" I replied, and pushed past him. + +I went out, and in the neighboring square, amicably seated at the same +table, under the awning of a cafe, I found my French colleagues and the +Italian judge. At a table a little apart the clerk was sucking something +through a straw. And they all laughed as they saw me making my way +toward them through the still scorching glare of the sun. + + MILAN, June 25th. + +Our mission was concluded to-day. Zampini is a mere rogue. Brought face +to face with facts he could not escape from, he confessed that he had +intended to "have a lark" with the French heirs by claiming to be the +rightful heir himself, though he lacked two degrees of relationship to +establish his claim. + +We explained to him that this little "lark" was a fraudulent act which +exposed him at least to the consequence of having to pay the costs of +the action. He accepted our opinion in the politest manner possible. I +believe he is hopelessly insolvent. He will pay the usher in macaroni, +and the barrister in jests. + +My colleagues, the record man and the translator, leave Milan to-morrow. +I shall go with them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. A SURPRISING ENCOUNTER + + MILAN, June 26th. + +I have just had another letter from Sylvestre. My poor friend is very +miserable; his mother is dead--a saint if ever there was one. I was +very deeply touched by the news, although I knew this lovable woman very +slightly--too slightly, indeed, not having been a son, or related in any +way to her, but merely a passing stranger who found his way within the +horizon of her heart, that narrow limit within which she spread abroad +the treasures of her tenderness and wisdom. How terribly her son must +feel her loss! + +He described in his letter her last moments, and the calmness with which +she met death, and added: + + "One thing, which perhaps you will not understand, is the remorse + which is mingled with my sorrow. I lived with her forty years, and + have some right to be called 'a good son.' But, when I compare the + proofs of affection I gave her with those she gave me, the + sacrifices I made for her with those she made for me; when I think + of the egoism which found its way into our common life, on which I + founded my claims to merit, of the wealth of tenderness and sympathy + with which she repaid a few walks on my arm, a few kind words, and + of her really great forbearance in dwelling beneath the same roof + with me--I feel that I was ungrateful, and not worthy of the + happiness I enjoyed. + + "I am tortured by the thought that it is impossible for me to repair + all my neglect, to pay a debt the greatness of which I now recognize + for the first time. She is gone. All is over. My prayers alone + can reach her, can tell her that I loved her, that I worshipped her, + that I might have been capable of doing all that I have left undone + for her. + + "Oh, my friend, what pleasant duties have I lost! I mean, at least, + to fulfil her last wishes, and it is on account of one of them that + I am writing to you. + + "You know that my mother was never quite pleased at my keeping at + home the portrait of her who was my first and only love. She would + have preferred that my eyes did not recall so often to my heart the + recollection of my long-past sorrows. I withstood her. On her + death-bed she begged me to give up the picture to, those who should + have had it long ago. 'So long as I was here to comfort you in the + sorrows which the sight of it revived in you,' she said, 'I did not + press this upon you; but soon you will be left alone, with no one to + raise you when your spirits fail you. They have often begged you to + give up the picture to them. The time is come for you to grant + their prayers.' + + "I promised. + + "And now, dear friend, help me to keep my promise. I do not wish to + write to them. My hand would tremble, and they would tremble when + they saw my writing. Go and see them. + + "They live about nine miles from Milan, on the Monza road, but + beyond that town, close to the village of Desio. The villa is + called Dannegianti, after its owners. It used to be hidden among + poplars, and its groves were famous for their shade. You must send + in your card to the old lady of the house together with mine. They + will receive you. Then you must break the news to them as you think + best, that, in accordance with the dying wish of Sylvestre Lampron's + mother, the portrait of Rafaella is to be given in perpetuity to the + Villa Dannegianti. Given, you understand. + + "You may even tell them that it is on its way. I have just arranged + with Plumet about packing it. He is a good workman, as you know. + To-morrow all will be ready, and my home an absolute void. + + "I intend to take refuge in hard work, and I count upon you to + alleviate to some extent the hardships of such a method of + consolation. + + "SYLVESTRE LAMPRON." + +When I got Lampron's letter, at ten in the morning, I went at once to +see the landlord of the Albergo dell' Agnello. + +"You can get me a carriage for Desio, can't you?" + +"Oh, your lordship thinks of driving to Desio? That is quite right. It +is much more picturesque than going by train. A little way beyond Monza. +Monza, sir, is one of our richest jewels; you will see there--" + +"Yes," said I, repeating my Baedeker as accurately as he, "the Villa +Reale, and the Iron Crown of the Emperors of the West." + +"Exactly so, sir, and the cathedral built--" + +"By Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, A.D. 595, restored in the +sixteenth century. I know; I only asked whether you could get me a +decent carriage." + +"A matchless one! At half-past three, when the heat is less intense, +your lordship will find the horses harnessed. You will have plenty of +time to get to Desio before sunset, and be back in time for supper." + +At the appointed time I received notice. My host had more than kept his +word, for the horses sped through Milan at a trot which they did not +relinquish when we got into the Como road, amid the flat and fertile +country which is called the garden of Italy. + +After an hour and a half, including a brief halt at Monza, the coachman +drew up his horses before the first house in Desio--an inn. + +It was a very poor inn, situated at the corner of the main street and +of a road which branched off into the country. In front of it a few +plane-trees, trained into an arbor, formed an arch of shade. A few feet +of vine clambered about their trunks. The sun was scorching the leaves +and the heavy bunches of grapes which hung here and there. The shutters +were closed, and the little house seemed to have been lulled to sleep by +the heat and light of the atmosphere and the buzzing of the gnats. + +"Oh, go in; they'll wake up at once," said the coachman, who had divined +my thoughts. + +Then, without waiting for my answer, like a man familiar with the +customs of the country, he took his horses down the road to the stable. + +I went in. A swarm of bees and drones were buzzing like a whirlwind +beneath the plane-trees; a frightened white hen ran cackling from her +nest in the dust. No one appeared. I opened the door; still nobody was +to be seen. Inside I found a passage, with rooms to right and left and +a wooden staircase at the end. The house, having been kept well closed, +was cool and fresh. As I stood on the threshold striving to accustom my +eyes to the darkness of the interior, I heard the sound of voices to my +right: + +"Picturesque as you please, but the journey has been a failure! These +people are no better than savages; introductions, distinctions, and I +may say even fame, had no effect upon them!" + +"Do you think they have even read your letters?" "That would be still +worse, to refuse to read letters addressed to them! No, I tell you, +there's no excuse." + +"They have suffered great trouble, I hear, and that is some excuse for +them, father." + +"No, my dear, there is no possible excuse for their keeping hidden +treasures of such scientific interest. I do not consider that even an +Italian nobleman, were he orphan from his cradle, and thrice a widower, +has any right to keep locked up from the investigation of scholars an +unequalled collection of Roman coins, and a very presentable show +of medallions and medals properly so-called. Are you aware that this +boorish patrician has in his possession the eight types of medal of the +gens Attilia?" + +"Really?" + +"I am certain of it, and he has the thirty-seven of the gens Cassia, one +hundred and eighteen to one hundred and twenty-one of the gens Cornelia, +the eleven Farsuleia, and dozens of Numitoria, Pompeia, and Scribonia, +all in perfect condition, as if fresh from the die. Besides these, he +has some large medals of the greatest rarity; the Marcus Aurelius with +his son on the reverse side, Theodora bearing the globe, and above +all the Annia Faustina with Heliogabalus on the reverse side, an +incomparable treasure, of which there is only one other example, and +that an imperfect one, in the world--a marvel which I would give a day +of my life to see; yes, my dear, a day of my life!" + +Such talk as this, in French, in such an inn as this! + +I felt a presentiment, and stepped softly to the right-hand door. + +In the darkened room, lighted only by a few rays filtered between the +slats of the shutters, sat a young girl. Her hat was hung upon a nail +above her head; one arm rested on a wretched white wood table; her +head was bent forward in mournful resignation. On the other side of the +table, her father was leaning back in his chair against the whitewashed +wall, with folded arms, heightened color, and every sign of extreme +disgust. Both rose as I entered--Jeanne first, M. Charnot after her. +They were astonished at seeing me. + +I was no less astounded than they. + +We stood and stared at each other for some time, to make sure that we +were not dreaming. + +M. Charnot was the first to break the silence. He did not seem +altogether pleased at my appearance, and turned to his daughter, whose +face had grown very red and yet rather chilling: + +"Jeanne, put your hat on; it is time to go to the station." Then he +addressed me: + +"We shall leave you the room to yourself, sir; and since the most +extraordinary coincidence"--he emphasized the words--"has brought you to +this damnable village, I hope you will enjoy your visit." + +"Have you been here long, Monsieur?" + +"Two hours, Monsieur, two mortal hours in this inn, fried by the sun, +bored to death, murdered piecemeal by flies, and infuriated by the want +of hospitality in this out-of-the-way hole in Lombardy." + +"Yes, I noticed that the host was nowhere to be seen, and that is the +reason why I came in here; I had no idea that I should have the honor of +meeting you." + +"Good God! I'm not complaining of him! He's asleep in his barn over +there. You can wake him up; he doesn't mind showing himself; he even +makes himself agreeable when he has finished his siesta." + +"I only wish to ask him one question, which perhaps you could answer, +Monsieur; then I need not waken him. Could you tell me the way to the +Villa Dannegianti?" + +M. Charnot walked up to me, looked me straight in the eyes, shrugged his +shoulders, and burst out laughing. + +"The Villa Dannegianti!" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"Are you going to the Villa Dannegianti?" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"Then you may as well turn round and go home again." + +"Why?" + +"Because there's no admission." + +"But I have a letter of introduction." + +"I had two, Monsieur, without counting the initials after my name, which +are worth something and have opened the doors of more than one foreign +collection for me; yet they denied me admission! Think of it! The porter +of that insolent family denied me admission! Do you expect to succeed +after that?" + +"I do, Monsieur." + +My words seemed to him the height of presumption. + +"Come, Jeanne," he said, "let us leave this gentleman to his youthful +illusions. They will soon be shattered--very soon." + +He gave me an ironical smile and made for the door. + +At this moment Jeanne dropped her sunshade. I picked it up for her. + +"Thank you, Monsieur," she said. + +Of course these words were no more than ordinarily polite. She would +have said the same to the first comer. Nothing in her attitude or her +look displayed any emotion which might put a value on this common form +of speech. But it was her voice, that music I so often dream of. Had it +spoken insults, I should have found it sweet. It inspired me with the +sudden resolution of detaining this fugitive apparition, of resting, if +possible, another hour near her to whose side an unexpected stroke of +fortune had brought me. + +M. Charnot had already left the room; his rotund shadow rested on the +wall of the passage. He held a travelling-bag in his hand. + +"Monsieur," said I, "I am sorry that you are obliged to return already +to Milan. I am quite certain of admission to the Villa Dannegianti, and +it would have given me pleasure to repair a mistake which is clearly due +only to the stupidity of the servants." + +He stopped; the stroke had told. + +"It is certainly quite possible that they never looked at my card or my +letters. But allow me to ask, since my card did not reach the host, what +secret you possess to enable yours to get to him?" + +"No secret at all, still less any merit of my own. I am the bearer of +news of great importance to the owners of the villa, news of a purely +private nature. They will be obliged to see me. My first care, when +I had fulfilled my mission, would have been to mention your name. You +would have been able to go over the house, and inspect a collection of +medals which, I have heard, is a very fine one." + +"Unique, Monsieur!" + +"Unfortunately you are going away, and to-morrow I have to leave Milan +myself, for Paris." + +"You have been some time in Italy, then?" + +"Nearly a fortnight." + +M. Charnot gave his daughter a meaning look, and suddenly became more +friendly. + +"I thought you had just come. We have not been here so long," he added; +"my daughter has been a little out of sorts, and the doctor advised us +to travel for change of air. Paris is not healthful in this very hot +weather." + +He looked hard at me to see whether his fib had taken me in. I replied, +with an air of the utmost conviction, "That is putting it mildly. Paris, +in July, is uninhabitable." + +"That's it, Monsieur, uninhabitable; we were forced to leave it. We soon +made up our minds, and, in spite of the time of the year, we turned our +steps toward the home of the classics, to Italy, the museum of Europe. +And you really think, then, that by means of your good offices we should +have been admitted to the villa?" + +"Yes, Monsieur, but owing only to the missive with which I am +entrusted." + +M. Charnot hesitated. He was probably thinking of the blot of ink, +and certainly of M. Mouillard's visit. But he doubtless reflected that +Jeanne knew nothing of the old lawyer's proceedings, that we were far +from Paris, that the opportunity was not to be lost; and in the end his +passion for numismatics conquered at once his resentment as a bookworm +and his scruples as a father. + +"There is a later train at ten minutes to eight, father," said Jeanne. + +"Well, dear, do you care to try your luck again, and return to the +assault of that Annia Faustina?" + +"As you please, father." + +We left the inn together by the by-road down the hill. I could not +believe my eyes. This old man with refined features who walked on my +left, leaning on his malacca cane, was M. Charnot. The same man who +received me so discourteously the day after I made my blot was now +relying on me to introduce him to an Italian nobleman; on me, a lawyer's +clerk. I led him on with confidence, and both of us, carried away by our +divers hopes, he dreaming of medals, I of the reopened horizon full of +possibilities, conversed on indifferent subjects with a freedom hitherto +unknown between us. + +And this charming Parisienne, whose presence I divined rather than saw, +whom I dared not look in the face, who stepped along by her father's +side, light of foot, her eyes seeking the vault of heaven, her ear +attentive though her thoughts were elsewhere, catching her Parisian +sunshade in the hawthorns of Desio, was Jeanne, Jeanne of the +flower-market, Jeanne whom Lampron had sketched in the woods of St. +Germain! It did not seem possible. + +Yet it was so, for we arrived together at the gates of the Villa +Dannegianti, which is hardly a mile from the inn. + +I rang the bell. The fat, idle, insolent Italian porter was beginning +to refuse me admission, with the same words and gestures which he had so +often used. But I explained, in my purest Tuscan, that I was not of the +ordinary kind of importunate tourist. I told him that he ran a serious +risk if he did not immediately hand my card and my letter--Lampron's +card in an envelope--to the Comtesse Dannegianti. + +From his stony glare I could not tell whether I had produced any +impression, nor even whether he had understood. He turned on his heel +with his keys in one hand and the letter in the other, and went on his +way through the shady avenue, rolling his broad back from side to side, +attired in a jacket which might have fitted in front, but was all too +short behind. + +The shady precincts of which Lampron wrote did not seem to have been +pruned. The park was cool and green. At the end of the avenue of +plane-trees, alternating with secular hawthorns cut into pyramids, we +could see the square mass of the villa just peeping over the immense +clumps of trees. Beyond it the tops and naked trunks of a group of +umbrella pines stood silhouetted against the sky. + +The porter returned, solemn and impassive. He opened the gate without +a word. We all passed through--M. Charnot somewhat uneasy at entering +under false pretenses, as I guessed from the way he suddenly drew up his +head. Jeanne seemed pleased; she smoothed down a fold which the wind had +raised in her frock, spread out a flounce, drew herself up, pushed back +a hairpin which her fair tresses had dragged out of its place, all +in quick, deft, and graceful movements, like a goldfinch preening its +feathers. + +We reached the terrace, and arranged that M. and Mademoiselle Charnot +should wait in an alley close at hand till I received permission to +visit the collections. + +I entered the house, and following a lackey, crossed a large +mosaic-paved hall, divided by columns of rare marbles into panels filled +with mediocre frescoes on a very large scale. At the end of this hall +was the Countess's room, which formed a striking contrast, being small, +panelled with wood, and filled with devotional knick-knacks that gave it +the look of a chapel. + +As I entered, an old lady half rose from an armchair, which she could +have used as a house, the chair was so large and she was so small. At +first I could distinguish only two bright, anxious eyes. She looked at +me like a prisoner awaiting a verdict. I began by telling her of the +death of Lampron's mother. Her only answer was an attentive nod. She +guessed something else was coming and stood on guard, so to speak. I +went on and told her that the portrait of her daughter was on its way +to her. Then she forgot everything--her age, her rank, and the mournful +reserve which had hitherto hedged her about. Her motherly heart alone +spoke within her; a ray of light had come to brighten the incurable +gloom which was killing her; she rushed toward me and fell into my arms, +and I felt against my heart her poor aged body shaking with sobs. She +thanked me in a flood of words which I did not catch. Then she drew back +and gazed at me, seeking to read in my eyes some emotion responsive to +her own, and her eyes, red and swollen and feverishly bright, questioned +me more clearly than her words. + +"How good are you, sir! and how generous is he! What life does he lead? +Has he ever lived down the sorrow which blasted his youth here? Men +forget more easily, happily for them. I had given up all hope of +obtaining the portrait. Every year I sent him flowers which meant, +'Restore to us all that is left of our dead Rafaella.' Perhaps it was +unkind. I did reproach myself at times for it. But I was her mother, you +know; the mother of that peerless girl! And the portrait is so good, so +like! He has never altered it? tell me; never retouched it? Time has not +marred the lifelike coloring? I shall now have the mournful consolation +I have so long desired; I shall always have before me the counterpart +of my lost darling, and can gaze upon that face which none could depict +save he who loved her; for, dreadful though it be to think of, the image +of the best beloved will change and fade away even in a mother's heart, +and at times I doubt whether my old memory is still faithful, and +recalls all her grace and beauty as clearly as it used to do when the +wound was fresh in my heart and my eyes were still filled with the +loveliness of her. Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur! to think that I shall see +that face once more!" + +She left me as quickly as she had come, and went to open a door on the +left, into an adjoining room, whose red hangings threw a ruddy glow upon +the polished floor. + +"Cristoforo!" she cried, "Cristoforo! come and see a French gentleman +who brings us great news. The portrait of our Rafaella, Cristoforo, the +portrait we have so long desired, is at last to be given to us!" + +I heard a chair move, and a slow footstep. Cristoforo appeared, with +white hair and black moustache, his tall figure buttoned up in an +old-fashioned frockcoat, the petrified, mummified remains of a once +handsome man. He walked up to me, took both my hands and shook them +ceremoniously. His face showed no traces of emotion; his eyes were dry, +and he had not a word to say. Did he understand? I really do not know. +He seemed to think the affair was an ordinary introduction. As I looked +at him his wife's words came back to me, "Men forget sooner." She gazed +at him as if she would put blood into his veins, where it had long +ceased to flow. + +"Cristoforo, I know this will be a great joy to you, and you will join +with me in thanking Monsieur Lampron for his generosity. You, sir, +will express to him all the Count's gratitude and my own, and also the +sympathy we feel for him in his recent loss. Besides, we shall write to +him. Is Monsieur Lampron rich?" + +"I had forgotten to tell you, Madame, that my friend will accept nothing +but thanks." + +"Ah, that is truly noble of him, is it not, Cristoforo?" + +All the answer the old Count made was to take my hands and shake them +again. + +I used the opportunity to put forward my request in behalf of M. +Charnot. He listened attentively. + +"I will give orders. You shall see everything--everything." + +Then, considering our interview at an end, he bowed and withdrew to his +own apartments. + +I looked for the Countess Dannegianti. She had sunk into her great +armchair, and was weeping hot tears. + +Ten minutes later, M. Charnot and Jeanne entered with me into the +jealously guarded museum. + +Museum was the only name to give to a collection of such artistic value, +occupying, as it did, the whole of the ground floor to the right of +the hall. Two rooms ran parallel to each other, filled with pictures, +medals, and engravings, and were connected by a narrow gallery devoted +to sculpture. + +Hardly was the door opened when M. Charnot sought the famous medals with +his eye. There they were in the middle of the room in two rows of cases. +He was deeply moved. I thought he was about to make a raid upon them, +attracted after his kind by the 'auri sacra fames', by the yellow gleam +of those ancient coins, the names, family, obverse and reverse of which +he knew by heart. But I little understood the enthusiast. + +He drew out his handkerchief and spectacles, and while he was wiping the +glasses he gave a rapid and impatient glance at the works that adorned +the walls. None of them could charm the numismatist's heart. After he +had enjoyed the pleasure of proving how feeble in comparison were the +charms of a Titian or a Veronese, then only did M. Charnot walk step by +step to the first case and bend reverently over it. + +Yet the collection of paintings was unworthy of such disdain. The +pictures were few, but all were signed with great names, most of them +Italian, a few Dutch, Flemish, or German. I began to work systematically +through them, pleased at the want of a catalogue and the small number of +inscriptions on the frames. To be your own guide doubles your pleasure; +you can get your impression of a picture entirely at first hand; you +are filled with admiration without any one having told you that you +are bound to go into ecstasies. You can work out for yourself from a +picture, by induction and comparison, its subject, its school, and +its author, unless it proclaims, in every stroke of the brush, "I am a +Hobbema," "a Perugino," or "a Giotto." + +I was somewhat distracted, however, by the voice of the old numismatist, +as he peered into the cases, and constrained his daughter to share in +the exuberance of his learned enthusiasm. + +"Jeanne, look at this; crowned head of Cleopatra, Mark Antony on the +reverse; in perfect condition, isn't it? See, an Italian 'as-Iguvium +Umbriae', which my friend Pousselot has sought these thirty years! Oh, +my dear, this is important: Annius Verus on the reverse of Commodus, +both as children, a rare example--yet not as rare as--Jeanne, you must +engrave this gold medal in your heart, it is priceless: head of Augustus +with laurel, Diana walking on the reverse. You ought to take an interest +in her. Diana the fair huntress. + +"This collection is heavenly! Wait a minute; we shall soon come to the +Annia Faustina." + +Jeanne made no objection, but smiled softly upon the Cleopatra, the +Umbrian 'as', and the fair huntress. + +Little by little her father's enthusiasm expanded over the vast +collection of treasures. He took out his pocketbook and began to make +notes. Jeanne raised her eyes to the walls, took one glance, then a +second, and, not being called back to the medals, stepped softly up to +the picture at which I had begun. + +She went quickly from one to another having evidently no more than a +child's untutored taste for pictures. As I, on the contrary, was getting +on very slowly, she was bound to overtake me. You may be sure I took no +steps to prevent it, and so in a very short time we were both standing +before the same picture, a portrait of Holbein the younger. A subject of +conversation was ready to hand. + +"Mademoiselle," said I, "do you like this Holbein?" + +"You must admit, sir, that the old gentleman is exceedingly plain." + +"Yes, but the painting is exquisite. See how powerful is the drawing +of the head, how clear and deep the colors remain after more than three +hundred years. What a good likeness it must have been! The subject tells +his own story: he must have been a nobleman of the court of Henry VIII, +a Protestant in favor with the King, wily but illiterate, and wishing +from the bottom of his heart that he were back with the companions of +his youth at home in his country house, hunting and drinking at his +ease. It is really the study of a man's character. Look at this Rubens +beside it, a mere mass of flesh scarcely held together by a spirit, a +style that is exuberantly material, all color and no expression. +Here you have spirituality on one side and materialism on the other, +unconscious, perhaps, but unmistakable. Compare, again, with these two +pictures this little drawing, doubtless by Perugino, just a sketch of +an angel for an Annunciation; notice the purity of outline, the ideal +atmosphere in which the painter lives and with which he impregnates his +work. You see he comes of a school of poets and mystics, gifted with +a second sight which enabled them to beautify this world and raise +themselves above it." + +I was pleased with my little lecture, and so was Jeanne. I could tell +it by her surprised expression, and by the looks she cast toward her +father, who was still taking notes, to see whether she might go on with +her first lesson in art. + +He smiled in a friendly way, which meant: + +"I'm happy here, my dear, thank you; 'va piano va sano'." + +This was as good as permission. We went on our way, saluting, as we +passed, Tintoretto and Titian, Veronese and Andrea Solari, old Cimabue, +and a few early paintings of angular virgins on golden backgrounds. + +Jeanne was no longer bored. + +"And is this," she would say, "another Venetian, or a Lombard, or a +Florentine?" + +We soon completed the round of the first room, and made our way into the +gallery beyond, devoted to sculpture. The marble gods and goddesses, +the lovely fragments of frieze or cornice from the excavations at +Rome, Pompeii, or Greece, had but a moderate interest for Mademoiselle +Charnot. She never gave more than one glance to each statue, to some +none at all. + +We soon came to the end of the gallery, and the door which gave access +into the second room of paintings. + +Suddenly Jeanne gave an exclamation of surprise. + +"What is that?" she said. + +Beneath the large and lofty window, fanned on the outside by leafy +branches, a wooden panel, bearing an inscription, stood upright against +the wall. The words were painted in black on a white ground, and +arranged with considerable skill, after the style of the classic +epitaphs which the Italians still cultivate. + +I drew aside the folds of a curtain: + +"It is one of those memorial tablets, Mademoiselle, such as people hang +up in this part of the country upon the church doors on the day of the +funeral. It means: + +"To thee, Rafaella Dannegianti--who, aged twenty years and few +months--having fully experienced the sorrows and illusions of this +world--on January 6--like an angel longing for its heavenly home--didst +wing thy way to God in peace and happiness--the clergy of Desioand the +laborers and artificers of the noble house of Dannegianti--tender these +last solemn offices." + +"This Rafaella, then, was the Count's daughter?" + +"His only child, a girl lovely and gracious beyond rivalry." + +"Oh, of course, beyond rivalry. Are not all only daughters lovely and +perfect when once they are dead?" she replied with a bitter smile. "They +have their legend, their cult, and usually a flattering portrait. I +am surprised that Rafaella's is not here. I imagine her portrait as +representing a tall girl, with long, well-arched eyebrows, and brown +eyes--" + +"Greenish-brown." + +"Green, if you prefer it; a small nose, cherry lips, and a mass of light +brown hair." + +"Golden brown would be more correct." + +"Have you seen it, then? Is there one?" + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, and it lacks no perfection that you could imagine, +not even that smile of happy youth which was a falsehood ere the paint +had yet dried on the canvas. Here, before this relic, which recalls it +to my thoughts, I must confess that I am touched." + +She looked at me in astonishment. + +"Where is the portrait? Not here?" + +"No, it is at Paris, in my friend Lampron's studio." + +"O--oh!" She blushed slightly. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, it is at once a masterpiece and a sad reminder. The +story is very simple, and I am sure my friend would not mind my telling +it to you--to you if to no other--before these relics of the past. + +"When Lampron was a young man travelling in Italy he fell in love with +this young girl, whose portrait he was painting. He loved her, perhaps +without confessing it to himself, certainly without avowing it to her. +Such is the way of timid and humble men of heart, men whose love is +nearly always misconstrued when it ceases to be unnoticed. My friend +risked the happiness of his life, fearlessly, without calculation--and +lost it. A day came when Rafaella Dannegianti was carried off by her +parents, who shuddered at the thought of her stooping to a painter, even +though he were a genius." + +"So she died?" + +"A year later. He never got over it. Even while I speak to you, he in +his loneliness is pondering and weeping over these very lines which you +have just read without a suspicion of the depth of their bitterness." + +"He has known bereavement," said she; "I pity him with all my heart." + +Her eyes filled with tears. She repeated the words, whose meaning was +now clear to her, "A to Rafaella." Then she knelt down softly before the +mournful inscription. I saw her bow her head. Jeanne was praying. + +It was touching to see the young girl, whom chance had placed before +this simple testimony of a sorrow now long past, deeply moved by the sad +tale of love, filled with tender pity for the dead Rafaella, her fellow +in youth and beauty and perhaps in destiny, finding in her heart the +tender impulse to kneel without a word, as if beside the grave of +a friend. The daylight's last rays streaming in through the window +illumined her bowed head. + +I drew back, with a touch of awe. + +M. Charnot appeared. + +He went up to his daughter and tapped her on the shoulder. She rose with +a blush. + +"What are you doing there?" he said. + +Then he adjusted his glasses and read the Italian inscription. + +"You really take unnecessary trouble in kneeling down to decipher a +thing like that. You can see at once that it's a modern panel, and of +no value. Monsieur," he added, turning to me, "I do not know what your +plans are, but unless you intend to sleep at Desio, we must be off, for +the night is falling." + +We left the villa. + +Out of doors it was still light, but with the afterglow. The sun was out +of sight, but the earth was still enveloped, as it were, in a haze of +luminous dust. + +M. Charnot pulled out his watch. + +"Seven minutes past eight. What time does the last train start, Jeanne?" + +"At ten minutes to eight." + +"Confusion! we are stranded in Desio! The mere thought of passing the +night in that inn gives me the creeps. I see no way out of it unless +Monsieur Mouillard can get us one of the Count's state coaches. There +isn't a carriage to be got in this infernal village!" + +"There is mine, Monsieur, which luckily holds four, and is quite at your +service." + +"Upon my word, I am very much obliged to you. The drive by moonlight +will be quite romantic." + +He drew near to Jeanne and whispered in her ear: + +"Are you sure you've wraps enough? a shawl, or a cape, or some kind of +pelisse?" + +She gave a merry nod of assent. + +"Don't worry yourself, father; I am prepared for all emergencies." + +At half-past eight we left Desio together, and I silently blessed the +host of the Albergo dell' Agnello, who had assured me that the carriage +road was "so much more picturesque." I found it so, indeed. + +M. Charnot and Jeanne faced the horses. I sat opposite to M. Charnot, +who was in the best of spirits after all the medals he had seen. +Comfortably settled in the cushions, careless of the accidents of the +road, with graphic and untiring forefinger, he undertook to describe his +travels in Greece, whither he had been sent on some learned enterprise +by the Minister of Education, and had carried an imagination already +prepossessed and dazzled with Homeric visions. He told his story well +and with detail, combining the recollections of the scholar with the +impressions of an artist. The pediment of the Parthenon, the oleanders +of the Ilissus, the stream "that runs in rain-time," the naked peak of +Parnassus, the green slopes of Helicon, the blue gulf of Argus, the +pine forest beside Alpheus, where the ancients worshipped "Death the +Gentle"--all of them passed in recount upon his learned lips. + +I must acknowledge, to my shame, that I did not listen to all he said, +but, in a favorite way I have, reserved some of my own freedom of +thought, while I gave him complete freedom of speech. And I am bound +to say he did not abuse it, but consented to pause at the frontiers +of Thessaly. Then followed silence. I gave him room to stretch. Soon, +lulled by the motion of the carriage, the stream of reminiscence ran +more slowly--then ran dry. M. Charnot slept. + +We bowled at a good pace, without jolting, over the white road. A warm +mist rose around us laden with the smell of vegetation, ripe corn, and +clover from the overheated earth and the neighboring fields, which had +drunk their full of sunlight. Now and again a breath of fresh air was +blown to us from the mountains. As the darkness deepened the country +grew to look like a vast chessboard, with dark and light squares of +grass and corn land, melting at no great distance into a colorless and +unbroken horizon. But as night blotted out the earth, the heaven lighted +up its stars. Never have I seen them so lustrous nor in such number. +Jeanne reclined with her eyes upturned toward those limitless fields of +prayer and vision; and their radiance, benignly gentle, rested on her +face. Was she tired or downcast, or merely dreaming? I knew not. But +there was something so singularly poetic in her look and attitude that +she seemed to me to epitomize in herself all the beauty of the night. + +I was afraid to speak. Her father's sleep, and our consequent isolation, +made me ill at ease. She, too, seemed so careless of my presence, so far +away in dreamland, that I had to await opportunity, or rather her leave, +to recall her from it. + +Finally she broke the silence herself. A little beyond Monza she drew +closer her shawl, that the night wind had ruffled, and bent over toward +me: + +"You must excuse my father; he is rather tired this evening, for he has +been on his feet since five o'clock." + +"The day has been so hot, too, Mademoiselle, and the medals 'came not +in single spies, but in battalions'; he has a right to sleep after the +battle." + +"Dear old father! You gave him a real treat, for which he will always be +obliged to you." + +"I trust the recollection of to-day will efface that of the blot of ink, +for which I am still filled with remorse." + +"Remorse is rather a serious word." + +"No, Mademoiselle, I really mean remorse, for I wounded the feelings +of a gentleman who has every claim on my respect. I never have dared to +speak of this before. But if you would be kind enough to tell Monsieur +Charnot how sorry I have been for it, you would relieve me of a burden." + +I saw her eyes fixed upon me for a moment with a look of attention not +previously granted to me. She seemed pleased. + +"With all my heart," she said. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Was this Rafaella, whose story you have told me, worthy of your +friend's long regret?" + +"I must believe so." + +"It is a very touching story. Are you fond of Monsieur Lampron?" + +"Beyond expression, Mademoiselle; he is so openhearted, so true a +friend, he has the soul of the artist and the seer. I am sure you would +rate him very highly if you knew him." + +"But I do know him, at least by his works. Where am I to be seen now, by +the way? What has become of my portrait?" + +"It's at Lampron's house, in his mother's room, where Monsieur Charnot +can go and see it if he likes." + +"My father does not know of its existence," she said, with a glance at +the slumbering man of learning. + +"Has he not seen it?" + +"No, he would have made so much ado about nothing. So Monsieur Lampron +has kept the sketch? I thought it had been sold long ago." + +"Sold! you did not think he would sell it!" + +"Why not? Every artist has the right to sell his works." + +"Not work of that kind." + +"Just as much as any other kind." + +"No, he could not have done that. He would no more sell it than he would +sell the portrait of Rafaella Dannegianti. They are two similar relics, +two precious reminiscences." + +Mademoiselle Charnot turned, without a reply, to look at the country +which was flying past us in the darkness. + +I could just see her profile, and the nervous movement of her eyelids. + +As she made no attempt to speak, her silence emboldened me. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, two similar relics, yet sometimes in my hours of +madness--as to-day, for instance, here, with you near me--I dare to +think that I might be less unfortunate than my friend--that his dream is +gone forever--but that mine might return to me--if you were willing." + +She quickly turned toward me, and in the darkness I saw her eyes fixed +on mine. + +Did the darkness deceive me as to the meaning of this mute response? Was +I the victim of a fresh delusion? I fancied that Jeanne looked sad, that +perhaps she was thinking of the oaths sworn only to be broken by her +former lover, but that she was not quite displeased. + +However, it lasted only for a second. When she spoke, it was in a higher +key: + +"Don't you think the breeze is very fresh this evening?" + +A long-drawn sigh came from the back part of the carriage. M. Charnot +was waking up. + +He wished to prove that he had only been meditating. + +"Yes, my dear, it's a charming evening," he replied; "these Italian +nights certainly keep up their reputation." + +Ten minutes later the carriage drew up, and M. Charnot shook hands with +me before the door of his hotel. + +"Many thanks, my dear young sir, for this delightful drive home! I hope +we shall meet again. We are off to Florence to-morrow; is there anything +I can do for you there?" + +"No, thank you." + +Mademoiselle Charnot gave me a slight bow. I watched her mount the first +few steps of the staircase, with one hand shading her eyes from the +glare of the gaslights, and the other holding up her wraps, which had +come unfolded and were falling around her. + + + + +BOOK 3. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. BACK TO PARIS + + MILAN, June 27th. Before daybreak. + +He asked me whether there was anything he could do for me at Florence. +There is something, but he would refuse to do it; for I wish him to +inform his charming daughter that my thoughts are all of her; that I +have spent the night recalling yesterday's trip--now the roads of Desio +and the galleries of the villa, now the drive back to Milan. M. Charnot +only figured in my dreams as sleeping. I seemed to have found my tongue, +and to be pouring forth a string of well-turned speeches which I never +should have ready at real need. If I could only see her again now that +all my plans are weighed and thought out and combined! Really, it is +hard that one can not live one's life over twice--at least certain +passages in it-this episode, for instance.... + +What is her opinion of me? When her eyes fixed themselves on mine I +thought I could read in their depths a look of inquiry, a touch of +surprise, a grain of disquiet. But her answer? She is going to Florence +bearing with her the answer on which my life depends. They are leaving +by the early express. Shall I take it, too? Florence, Rome, Naples--why +not? Italy is free to all, and particularly to lovers. I will toss my +cap over the mill for the second time. I will get money from somewhere. +If I am not allowed to show myself, I will look on from a distance, +hidden in the crowd. At a pinch I will disguise myself--as a guide at +Pompeii, a lazzarone at Naples. She shall find a sonnet in the bunch of +fresh flowers offered her by a peasant at the door of her hotel. And at +least I shall bask in her smile, the sound of her voice, the glints of +gold about her temples, and the pleasure of knowing that she is near +even when I do not see her. + +On second thoughts; no; I will not go to Florence. As I always distrust +first impulses, which so often run reason to a standstill, I had +recourse to a favorite device of mine. I asked myself: What would +Lampron advise? And at once I conjured up his melancholy, noble face, +and heard his answer: "Come back, my dear boy." + + PARIS, July 2d. + +When you arrive by night, and from the windows of the flying train, as +it whirls past the streets at full speed, you see Paris enveloped in +red steam, pierced by starry lines of gas-lamps crisscrossing in every +direction, the sight is weird, and almost beautiful. You might fancy it +the closing scene of some gigantic gala, where strings upon strings +of colored lanterns brighten the night above a moving throng, passing, +repassing, and raising a cloud of dust that reddens in the glow of +expiring Bengal lights. + +Moreover, the illusion is in part a reality, for the great city is in +truth lighted for its nightly revel. Till one o'clock in the morning it +is alight and riotous with the stir and swing of life. + +But the dawn is bleak enough. + +That, delicious hour which puts a spirit of joy into green field +and hedgerow is awful to look upon in Paris. You leave the train +half-frozen, to find the porters red-eyed from their watch. The customs +officials, in a kind of stupor, scrawl cabalistic signs upon your trunk. +You get outside the station, to find a few scattered cabs, their drivers +asleep inside, their lamps blinking in the mist. + +"Cabby, are you disengaged?" + +"Depends where you want to go." + +"No. 91 Rue de Rennes." + +"Jump in!" + +The blank streets stretch out interminably, gray and silent; the shops +on either hand are shuttered; in the squares you will find only a dog +or a scavenger; theatre bills hang in rags around the kiosks, the wind +sweeps their tattered fragments along the asphalt in yesterday's dust, +with here and there a bunch of faded flowers. The Seine washes around +its motionless boats; two great-coated policemen patrol the bank and +wake the echoes with their tramp. The fountains have ceased to play, and +their basins are dry. The air is chilly, and sick with evil odors. The +whole drive is like a bad dream. Such was my drive from the Gare de Lyon +to my rooms. When I was once at home, installed in my own domains, this +unpleasant impression gradually wore off. There was friendliness in my +sticks of furniture. I examined those silent witnesses, my chair, my +table, and my books. What had happened while I was away? Apparently +nothing important. The furniture had a light coating of dust, which +showed that no one had touched it, not even Madame Menin. It was funny, +but I wished to see Madame Menin. A sound, and I heard my opposite +neighbor getting to work. He is a hydrographer, and engraves maps for a +neighboring publisher. I never could get up as early as he. The willow +seemed to have made great progress during the summer. I flung up the +window and said "Good-morning!" to the wallflowers, to the old wall of +the Carmelites, and the old black tower. Then the sparrows began. What +o'clock could it be? They came all together with a rush, chirping, the +hungry thieves, wheeling about, skirting the walls in their flight, +quick as lightning, borne on their pointed wings. They had seen the +sun--day had broken! + +And almost immediately I heard a cart pass, and a hawker crying: + +"Ground-SEL! Groundsel for your dickey-birds!" + +To think that there are people who get up at that unearthly hour to buy +groundsel for their canaries! I looked to see whether any one had +called in my absence; their cards should be on my table. Two were +there: "Monsieur Lorinet, retired solicitor, town councillor, of +Bourbonnoux-les-Bourges, deputy-magistrate"; "Madame Lorinet, nee +Poupard." + +I was surprised not to find a third card: "Berthe Lorinet, of no +occupation, anxious to change her name." Berthe will be difficult to +get rid of. I presume she didn't dare to leave a card on a young man, it +wouldn't have been proper. But I have no doubt she was here. I scent a +trick of my uncle's, one of those Atlantic cables he takes for spider's +threads and makes his snares of. The Lorinet family have been here, with +the twofold intention of taking news of me to my "dear good uncle," and +discreetly recalling to my forgetful heart the charms of Berthe of the +big feet. + +"Good-morning, Monsieur Mouillard!" + +"Hallo! Madame Menin! Good-morning, Madame Menin!" + +"So you are back at last, sir! How brown you have got--quite sunburnt. +You are quite well, I hope, sir?" + +"Very well, thank you; has any one been here in my absence?" + +"I was going to tell you, sir; the plumber has been here, because the +tap of your cistern came off in my hand. It wasn't my fault; there had +been a heavy rain that morning. So--" + +"Never mind, it's only a tap to pay for. We won't say any more about it. +But did any one come to see me?" + +"Ah, let me see--yes. A big gentleman, rather red-faced, with his wife, +a fat lady, with a small voice; a fine woman, rather in my style, and +their daughter--but perhaps you know her, sir?" + +"Yes, Madame Menin, you need not describe her. You told them that I was +away, and they said they were very sorry." + +"Especially the lady. She puffed and panted and sighed: 'Dear Monsieur +Mouillard! How unlucky we are, Madame Menin; we have just come to Paris +as he has gone to Italy. My husband and I would have liked so much to +see him! You may think it fanciful, but I should like above all things +to look round his rooms. A student's rooms must be so interesting. +Stay there, Berthe, my child.' I told them there was nothing very +interesting, and that their daughter might just as well come in too, and +then I showed them everything." + +"They didn't stay long, I suppose?" + +"Quite long enough. They were an age looking at your photograph album. +I suppose they haven't got such things where they come from. Madame +Lorinet couldn't tear herself away from it. 'Nothing but men,' she said, +'have you noticed that, Jules?'--'Well, Madame,' I said, 'that's just +how it is here; except for me, and I don't count, only gentlemen come +here. I've kept house for bachelors where--well, there are not many--' + +"That will do, Madame Menin; that will do. I know you always think too +highly of me. Hasn't Lampron been here?" + +"Yes, sir; the day before yesterday. He was going off for a fortnight +or three weeks into the country to paint a portrait of some priest--a +bishop, I think." + + July 15th. + +"Midi, roi des etes." I know by heart that poem by "Monsieur le Comte +de l'Isle," as my Uncle Mouillard calls him. Its lines chime in my ears +every day when I return from luncheon to the office I have left an +hour before. Merciful heaven, how hot it is! I am just back from a hot +climate, but it was nothing compared to Paris in July. The asphalt melts +underfoot; the wood pavement is simmering in a viscous mess of tar; the +ideal is forced to descend again and again to iced lager beer; the walls +beat back the heat in your face; the dust in the public gardens, ground +to atoms beneath the tread of many feet, rises in clouds from under +the water-cart to fall, a little farther on, in white showers upon the +passers-by. I wonder that, as a finishing stroke, the cannon in the +Palais Royal does not detonate all day long. + +To complete my misery, all my acquaintances are out of town: the Boule +family is bathing at Trouville; the second clerk has not returned from +his holiday; the fourth only waited for my arrival to get away himself; +Lampron, detained by my Lord Bishop and the forest shades, gives no sign +of his existence; even Monsieur and Madame Plumet have locked up their +flat and taken the train for Barbizon. + +Thus it happens that the old clerk Jupille and I have been thrown +together. I enjoy his talk. He is a simplehearted, honorable man, with a +philosophy that I am sure can not be in the least German, because I can +understand it. I have gradually told him all my secrets. I felt the need +of a confidant, for I was stifling, metaphorically as well as literally. +Now, when he hands me a deed, instead of saying "All right," as I used +to, I say, "Take a chair, Monsieur Jupille"; I shut the door, and we +talk. The clerks think we're talking law, but the clerks are mistaken. + +Yesterday, for instance, he whispered to me: + +"I have come down the Rue de l'Universite. They will soon be back." + +"How did you learn that?" + +"I saw a man carrying coals into the house, and asked for whom they +were, that's all." + +Again, we had a talk, just now, which shows what progress I have made in +the old clerk's heart. He had just submitted a draft to me. I had read +it through and grunted my approval, yet M. Jupille did not go. + +"Anything further, Monsieur Jupille?" + +"Something to ask of you--to do me a kindness, or, rather, an honor." + +"Let's hear what it is." + +"This weather, Monsieur Mouillard, is very good for fishing, though +rather warm." + +"Rather warm, Monsieur Jupille!" + +"It is not too warm. It was much hotter than this in 1844, yet the +fish bit, I can tell you! Will you join us next Sunday in a fishing +expedition? I say 'us,' because one of your friends is coming, a great +amateur of the rod who honors me with his friendship, too." + +"Who is he?" + +"A secret, Monsieur Mouillard, a little secret. You will be surprised. +It is settled then--next Sunday?" + +"Where shall I meet you?" + +"Hush, the office-boy is listening. That boy is too sharp; I'll tell you +some other time." + +"As you please, Monsieur Jupille; I accept the invitation +unconditionally." + +"I am so glad you will come, Monsieur Mouillard. I only wish we could +have a little storm between this and then." + +He spoke the truth; his satisfaction was manifest, for I never have seen +him rub the tip of his nose with the feathers of his quill pen so often +as he did that afternoon, which was with him the sign of exuberant joy, +all his gestures having subdued themselves long since to the limits of +his desk. + + July 20th. + +I have seen Lampron once more. He bears his sorrow bravely. We spoke for +a few moments of his mother. I spoke some praise of that humble soul for +the good she had done me, which led him to enlarge upon her virtues. + +"Ah," he said, "if you had only seen more of her! My dear fellow, if I +am an honest man; if I have passed without failing through the trials +of my life and my profession; if I have placed my ideal beyond worldly +success; in a word, if I am worth anything in heart or brain, it is +to her I owe it. We never had been parted before; this is our first +separation, and it is the final one. I was not prepared for it." + +Then he changed the subject brusquely: + +"What about your love-affair?" + +"Fresher than ever." + +"Did it survive half an hour's conversation?" + +"It grew the stronger for it." + +"Does she still detest you?" + +I told him the story of our trip to Desio, and our conversation in the +carriage, without omitting a detail. + +He listened in silence. At the end he said: + +"My dear Fabien, there must be no delay. She must hear your proposal +within a week." + +"Within a week! Who is to make it for me?" + +"Whoever you like. That's your business. I have been making inquiries +while you were away; she seems a suitable match for you. Besides, your +present position is ridiculous; you are without a profession; you have +quarrelled, for no reason, with your only relative; you must get out of +the situation with credit, and marriage will compel you to do so." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. A FISHING-TRIP AND AN OLD FRIEND + +July 21st. + +M. Jupille had written to tell me where I was to meet him on the Sunday, +giving me the most minute directions. I might take the train to Massy, +or to Bievres. However, I preferred to take the train to Sceaux and walk +from there, leaving Chatenay on my left, striking across the woods +of Verrieres toward the line of forts, coming out between Igny and +Amblainvilliers, and finally reaching a spot where the Bievre broadens +out between two wooded banks into a pool as clear as a spring and as +full of fish as a nursery-pond. + +"Above all things, tell nobody where it is!" begged Jupille. "It is our +secret; I discovered it myself." + +When I left Sceaux to meet Jupille, who had started before daybreak, the +sun was already high. There was not a cloud nor a breath of wind; the +sway of summer lay over all things. But, though the heat was broiling, +the walk was lovely. All about me was alive with voice or perfume. +Clouds of linnets fluttered among the branches, golden beetles crawled +upon the grass, thousands of tiny whirring wings beat the air--flies, +gnats, gadflies, bees--all chorusing the life--giving warmth of the day +and the sunshine that bathed and penetrated all nature. I halted from +time to time in the parched glades to seek my way, and again pushed +onward through the forest paths overarched with heavy-scented leafage, +onward over the slippery moss up toward the heights, below which the +Bievre stole into view. + +There it lay, at my feet, gliding between banks of verdure which seemed +a season younger than the grass I stood on. I began to descend the +slope, knowing that M. Jupille was awaiting me somewhere in the valley. +I broke into a run. I heard the murmur of water in the hollows, and +caught glimpses of forget-me-not tufts in low-lying grassy corners. +Suddenly a rod outlined itself against the sky, between two trees. It +was he, the old clerk; he nodded to me and laid down his line. + +"I thought you never were coming." + +"That shows you don't know me. Any sport?" + +"Not so loud! Yes, capital sport. I'll bait a line for you." + +"And where is your friend, Monsieur Jupille?" + +"There he is." + +"Where?" + +"Staring you in the face; can't you see him?". + +Upon my word, I could see nobody, until he directed my gaze with his +fishing-rod, when I perceived, ten yards away, a large back view of +white trousers and brown, unbuckled waistcoat, a straw hat which seemed +to conceal a head, and a pair of shirt-sleeves hanging over the water. + +This mass was motionless. + +"He must have got a bite," said Jupille, "else he would have been here +before now. Go and see him." + +Not knowing whom I was about to address, I gave a warning cough as I +came near him. + +The unknown drew a loud breath, like a man who wakes with a start. + +"That you, Jupille?" he said, turning a little way; "are you out of +bait?" + +"No, my dear tutor, it is I." + +"Monsieur Mouillard, at last!" + +"Monsieur Flamaran! Jupille told the truth when he said I should be +surprised. Are you fond of fishing?" + +"It's a passion with me. One must keep one or two for one's old age, +young man." + +"You've been having sport, I hear." + +"Well, this morning, between eight and nine, there were a few nibbles; +but since then the sport has been very poor. However, I'm very glad to +see you again, Mouillard. That essay of yours was extremely good." + +The eminent professor had risen, displaying a face still red from his +having slept with his head on his chest, but beaming with good-will. He +grasped my hand with heartiness and vigor. + +"Here's rod and line for you, Monsieur Mouillard, all ready baited," +broke in Jupille. "If you'll come with me I'll show you a good place." + +"No, no, Jupille, I'm going to keep him," answered M. Flamaran; "I +haven't uttered a syllable for three hours. I must let myself out a +little. We will fish side by side, and chat." + +"As you please, Monsieur Flamaran; but I don't call that fishing." + +He handed me the implement, and sadly went his way. + +M. Flamaran and I sat down together on the bank, our feet resting on the +soft sand strewn with dead branches. Before us spread the little pool +I have mentioned, a slight widening of the stream of the Bievre, once a +watering-place for cattle. The sun, now at high noon, massed the trees' +shadow close around their trunks. The unbroken surface of the water +reflected its rays back in our eyes. The current was barely indicated +by the gentle oscillation of a few water-lily leaves. Two big blue +dragonflies poised and quivered upon our floats, and not a fish seemed +to care to disturb them. + +"Well," said M. Flamaran, "so you are still managing clerk to Counsellor +Boule?" + +"For the time." + +"Do you like it?" + +"Not particularly." + +"What are you waiting for?" + +"For something to turn up." + +"And carry you back to Italy, I suppose?" + +"Then you know I have just been there?" + +"I know all about it. Charnot told me of your meeting, and your romantic +drive by moonlight. By the way, he's come back with a bad cold; did you +know that?" + +I assumed an air of sympathy: + +"Poor man! When did he get back?" + +"The day before yesterday. Of course I was the first to hear of it, and +we spent yesterday evening together. It may surprise you, Mouillard, and +you may think I exaggerate, but I think Jeanne has come back prettier +than she went." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I really do. That southern sun--look out, my dear Mouillard, your line +is half out of water--has brought back her roses (they're brighter than +ever, I declare), and the good spirits she had lost, too, poor girl. She +is cheerful again now, as she used to be. I was very anxious about her +at one time. You know her sad story?" + +"Yes." + +"The fellow was a scoundrel, my dear Mouillard, a regular scoundrel! I +never was in favor of the match, myself. Charnot let himself be drawn +into it by an old college friend. I told him over and over again, 'It's +Jeanne's dowry he's after, Charnot--I'm convinced of it. He'll treat +Jeanne badly and make her miserable, mark my words.' But I wasted my +breath; he wouldn't listen to a word. Anyhow, it's quite off now. But +it was no slight shock, I can tell you; and it gave me great pain to +witness the poor child's sufferings." + +"You are so kind-hearted, Monsieur Flamaran!" + +"It's not that, Mouillard; but I have known Jeanne ever since she was +born. I watched her grow up, and I loved her when she was still a little +mite; she's as good as my adoptive daughter. You understand me when I +say adoptive. I do not mean that there exists between us that legal +bond in imitation of nature which is permitted by our codes--'adoptio +imitatur naturam'; not that, but that I love her like a +daughter--Sidonie never having presented me with a daughter, nor with a +son either, for that matter." + +A cry from Jupille interrupted M. Flamaran: + +"Can't you hear it rattle?" + +The good man was tearing to us, waving his arms like a madman, the folds +of his trousers flapping about his thin legs like banners in the wind. + +We leaped to our feet, and my first idea, an absurd one enough, was that +a rattlesnake was hurrying through the grass to our attack. + +I was very far from the truth. The matter really was a new line, +invented by M. Jupille, cast a little further than an ordinary one, and +rigged up with a float like a raft, carrying a little clapper. The fish +rang their own knell as they took the hook. + +"It's rattling like mad!" cried Jupille, "and you don't stir! I couldn't +have thought it of you, Monsieur Flamaran." + +He ran past us, brandishing a landing-net as a warrior his lance; he +might have been a youth of twenty-five. We followed, less keen and also +less confident than he. He was right, though; when he drew up his line, +the float of which was disappearing in jerks, carrying the bell along +with it beneath the water, he brought out a fair-sized jack, which he +declared to be a giant. + +He let it run for some time, to tire it, and to prolong the pleasure of +playing it. + +"Gentlemen," he cried, "it is cutting my finger off!" + +A stroke from the landing-net laid the monster at our feet, its strength +all spent. It weighed rather under four pounds. Jupille swore to six. + +My learned tutor and I sat down again side by side, but the thread of +our conversation had been broken past mending. I tried to talk of her, +but M. Flamaran insisted on talking of me, of Bourges, of his election +as professor, and of the radically distinct characteristics by which you +can tell the bite of a gudgeon from that of a stickleback. + +The latter part of this lecture was, however, purely theoretical, for he +got up two hours before sunset without having hooked a fish. + +"A good day, all the same," he said. "It's a good place, and the fish +were biting this morning. We'll come here again some day, Jupille; with +an east wind you ought to catch any quantity of gudgeons." He kept pace +beside me on our way home, but wearied, no doubt, with long sitting, +with the heat, and the glare from the water, fell into a reverie, from +which the incidents of the walk were unable to rouse him. + +Jupille trotted before us, carrying his rod in one hand, a +luncheon-basket and a fish-bag in the other. He turned round and gave us +a look at each cross-road, smiled beneath his heavy moustache, and went +on faster than before. I felt sure that something out of the way was +about to happen, and that the silent quill-driver was tasting a quiet +joke. + +I had not guessed the whole truth. + +At a turn of the road M. Flamaran suddenly pulled up, looked all around +him, and drew a deep breath. + +"Hallo, Jupille! My good sir, where are you taking us? If I can believe +my eyes, this is the Chestnut Knoll, down yonder is Plessis Piquet, and +we are two miles from the station and the seven o'clock train!" + +There was no denying it. A donkey emerged from the wood, hung with +tassels and bells, carrying in its panniers two little girls, whose +parents toiled behind, goad in hand. The woods had become shrubberies, +through which peeped the thatched roofs of rustic summerhouses, mazes, +artificial waterfalls, grottoes, and ruins; all the dread handiwork +of the rustic decorator burst, superabundant, upon our sight, with shy +odors of beer and cooking. Broken bottles strewed the paths; the bushes +all looked weary, harassed, and overworked; a confused murmur of voices +and crackers floated toward us upon the breeze. I knew full well from +these signs that we were nearing "ROBINSON CRUSOE," the land of rustic +inns. And, sure enough, here they all were: "THE OLD ROBINSON," "THE NEW +ROBINSON," "THE REAL ORIGINAL ROBINSON," "THE ONLY GENUINE ROBINSON," +"ROBINSON's CHESTNUT GROVE," "ROBINSON'S PARADISE," each unique and each +authentic. All alike have thatched porches, sanded paths, transparencies +lighted with petroleum lamps, tinsel stars, summerhouses, arrangements +for open-air illumination and highly colored advertisements, in which +are set forth all the component elements of a "ROBINSON," such as +shooting-galleries, bowling-alleys, swings, private arbors, Munich beer, +and dinner in a tree. + +"Jupille!" exclaimed M. Flamaran, "you have shipwrecked us! This is +Crusoe's land; and what the dickens do you mean by it?" + +The old clerk, utterly discomfited, and wearing that hangdog look which +he always assumed at the slightest rebuke from Counsellor Boule, pulled +a face as long as his arm, went up to M. Flamaran and whispered a word +in his ear. + +"Upon my word! Really, Jupille, what are you thinking of? And I a +professor, too! Thirty years ago it would have been excusable, but +to-day! Besides, Sidonie expects me home to dinner--" + +He stopped for a moment, undecided, looking at his watch. + +Jupille, who was eying him intently, saw his distinguished friend +gradually relax his frown and burst into a hearty laugh. + +"By Jove! it's madness at my age, but I don't care. We'll renew our +youth for an hour or so. My dear Mouillard, Jupille has ordered dinner +for us here. Had I been consulted I should have chosen any other place. +Yet what's to be done? Hunger, friendship, and the fact that I can't +catch the train, combine to silence my scruples. What do you say?" + +"That we are in for it now." + +"So be it, then." And led by Jupille, still carrying his catch, we +entered THE ONLY GENUINE ROBINSON. + +M. Flamaran, somewhat ill at ease, cast inquiring glances on the +clearings in the sgrubberies. I thought I heard stifled laughter behind +the trees. + +"You have engaged Chestnut Number Three, gentlemen," said the +proprietor. "Up these stairs, please." + +We ascended a staircase winding around the trunk. Chestnut Number 3 is +a fine old tree, a little bent, its sturdy lower branches supporting a +platform surrounded by a balustrade, six rotten wooden pillars, and a +thatched roof, shaped like a cocked hat, to shelter the whole. All +the neighboring trees contain similar constructions, which look from a +little distance like enormous nests. They are greatly in demand at +the dinner hour; you dine thirty feet up in the air, and your food is +brought up by a rope and pulley. + +When M. Flamaran appeared on the platform he took off his hat, and +leaned with both hands on the railing to give a look around. The +attitude suggested a public speaker. His big gray head was conspicuous +in the light of the setting sun. + +"He's going to make a speech!" cried a voice. "Bet you he isn't," +replied another. + +This was the signal. A rustling was heard among the leaves, and numbers +of inquisitive faces peeped out from all corners of the garden. A +general rattling of glasses announced that whole parties were leaving +the tables to see what was up. The waiters stopped to stare at Chestnut +Number 3. The whole population of Juan Fernandez was staring up at +Flamaran without in the least knowing the reason why. + +"Gentlemen," said a voice from an arbor, "Professor Flamaran will now +begin his lecture." + +A chorus of shouts and laughter rose around our tree. + +"Hi, old boy, wait till we're gone!" + +"Ladies, he will discourse to you on the law of husband and wife!" + +"No, on the foreclosure of mortgages!" + +"No, on the payment of debts!" + +"Oh, you naughty old man! You ought to be shut up!" + +M. Flamaran, though somewhat put out of countenance for the moment, was +seized with a happy inspiration. He stretched out an arm to show that he +was about to speak. He opened his broad mouth with a smile of fatherly +humor, and the groves, attentive, heard him thunder forth these words: + +"Boys, I promise to give you all white marks if you let me dine in +peace!" + +The last words were lost in a roar of applause. + +"Three cheers for old Flamaran!" + +Three cheers were given, followed by clapping of hands from various +quarters, then all was silence, and no one took any further notice of +our tree. + +M. Flamaran left the railing and unfolded his napkin. + +"You may be sure of my white marks, young men," he said, as he sat down. + +He was delighted at his success as an orator, and laughed gayly. +Jupille, on the other hand, was as pale as if he had been in a street +riot, and seemed rooted to the spot where he stood. + +"It's all right, Jupille; it's all right, man! A little ready wit is all +you need, dash my wig!" + +The old clerk gradually regained his composure, and the dinner grew +very merry. Flamaran's spirits, raised by this little incident, never +flagged. He had a story for every glass of wine, and told them all with +a quiet humor of his own. + +Toward the end of dinner, by the time the waiter came to offer us +"almonds and raisins, pears, peaches, preserves, meringues, brandy +cherries," we had got upon the subject of Sidonie, the pearl of Forez. +M. Flamaran narrated to us, with dates, how a friend of his one day +depicted to him a young girl at Montbrison, of fresh and pleasing +appearance, a good housekeeper, and of excellent family; and how he--M. +Flamaran--had forthwith started off to find her, had recognized her +before she was pointed out to him, fell in love with her at first sight, +and was not long in obtaining her affection in return. The marriage had +taken place at St. Galmier. + +"Yes, my dear Mouillard," he added, as if pointing a moral, "thirty +years ago last May I became a happy man; when do you think of following +my example?" + +At this point, Jupille suddenly found himself one too many, and vanished +down the corkscrew stair. + +"We once spoke of an heiress at Bourges," M. Flamaran went on. + +"Apparently that's all off?" + +"Quite off." + +"You were within your rights; but now, why not a Parisienne?" + +"Yes, indeed; why not?" + +"Perhaps you are prejudiced in some way against Parisiennes?" + +"I? Not the least." + +"I used to be, but I've got over it now. They have a charm of their own, +a certain style of dressing, walking, and laughing which you don't find +outside the fortifications. For a long time I used to think that these +qualities stood them in lieu of virtues. That was a slander; there are +plenty of Parisiennes endowed with every virtue; I even know a few who +are angels." + +At this point, M. Flamaran looked me straight in the eyes, and, as I +made no reply, he added: + +"I know one, at least: Jeanne Charnot. Are you listening?" + +"Yes, Monsieur Flamaran." + +"Isn't she a paragon?" + +"She is." + +"As sensible as she is tender-hearted?" + +"So I believe." + +"And as clever as she is sensible?" + +"That is my opinion." + +"Well, then, young man, if that's your opinion--excuse my burning my +boats, all my boats--if that's your opinion, I don't understand why--Do +you suppose she has no money?" + +"I know nothing about her means." + +"Don't make any mistake; she's a rich woman. Do you think you're too +young to marry?" + +"No." + +"Do you fancy, perhaps, that she is still bound by that unfortunate +engagement?" + +"I trust she is not." + +"I'm quite sure she is not. She is free, I tell you, as free as you. +Well, why don't you love her?" + +"But I do love her, Monsieur Flamaran!" + +"Why, then, I congratulate you, my boy!" + +He leaned across the table and gave me a hearty grasp of the hand. He +was so agitated that he could not speak--choking with joyful emotion, as +if he had been Jeanne's father, or mine. + +After a minute or so, he drew himself up in his chair, reached out, put +a hand on each of my shoulders and kept it there as if he feared I might +fly away. + +"So you love her, you love her! Good gracious, what a business I've had +to get you to say so! You are quite right to love her, of course, of +course--I could not have understood your doing otherwise; but I must say +this, my boy, that if you tarry too long, with her attractions, you know +what will happen." + +"Yes, I ought to ask for her at once." + +"To be sure you ought." + +"Alas! Monsieur Flamaran, who is there that I can send on such a mission +for me? You know that I am an orphan." + +"But you have an uncle." + +"We have quarrelled." + +"You might make it up again, on an occasion like this." + +"Out of the question; we quarrelled on her account; my uncle hates +Parisiennes." + +"Damn it all, then! send a friend--a friend will do under the +circumstances." + +"There's Lampron." + +"The painter?" + +"Yes, but he doesn't know Monsieur Charnot. It would only be one +stranger pleading for another. My chances would be small. What I want--" + +"Is a friend of both parties, isn't it? Well, what am I?" + +"The very man!" + +"Very well. I undertake to ask for her hand! I shall ask for the hand +of the charming Jeanne for both of us; for you, who will make her happy; +and for myself, who will not entirely lose her if she marries one of my +pupils, one of my favorite graduates--my friend, Fabien Mouillard. And I +won't be refused--no, damme, I won't!" + +He brought down his fist upon the table with a tremendous blow which +made the glasses ring and the decanters stagger. + +"Coming!" cried a waiter from below, thinking he was summoned. + +"All right, my good fellow!" shouted M. Flamaran, leaning over the +railings. "Don't trouble. I don't want anything." + +He turned again toward me, still filled with emotion, but somewhat +calmer than he had been. + +"Now," said he, "let us talk, and do you tell me all." + +And we began a long and altogether delightful talk. + +A more genuine, a finer fellow never breathed than this professor let +loose from school and giving his heart a holiday--a simple, tender +heart, preserved beneath the science of the law like a grape in sawdust. +Now he would smile as I sang Jeanne's praises; now he would sit and +listen to my objections with a truculent air, tightening his lips till +they broke forth in vehement denial. "What! You dare to say! Young man, +what are you afraid of?" His overflowing kindness discharged itself in +the sincerest and most solemn asseverations. + +We had left Juan Fernandez far behind us; we were both far away in that +Utopia where mind penetrates mind, heart understands heart. We heard +neither the squeaking of a swing beneath us, nor the shouts of laughter +along the promenades, nor the sound of a band tuning up in a neighboring +pavilion. Our eyes, raised to heaven, failed to see the night descending +upon us, vast and silent, piercing the foliage with its first stars. Now +and again a warm breath passed over us, blown from the woods; I tasted +its strangely sweet perfume; I saw in glimpses the flying vision of a +huge dark tulip, striped with gold, unfolding its petals on the moist +bank of a dyke, and I asked myself whether a mysterious flower had +really opened in the night, or whether it was but a new feeling, slowly +budding, unfolding, blossoming within my heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. PLEASURES OF EAVESDROPPING + + July 22d. + +At two o'clock to-day I went to see Sylvestre, to tell him all the great +events of yesterday. We sat down on the old covered sofa in the shadow +of the movable curtain which divides the studio, as it were, into two +rooms, among the lay figures, busts, varnish-bottles, and paint-boxes. +Lampron likes this chiaroscuro. It rests his eyes. + +Some one knocked at the door. + +"Stay where you are," said Sylvestre; "it's a customer come for the +background of an engraving. I'll be with you in two minutes. Come in!" +As he was speaking he drew the curtain in front of me, and through the +thin stuff I could see him going toward the door, which had just opened. + +"Monsieur Lampron?" + +"I am he, Monsieur." + +"You don't recognize me, Monsieur?" + +"No, Monsieur." + +"I'm surprised at that." + +"Why so? I have never seen you." + +"You have taken my portrait!" + +"Really!" + +I was watching Lampron, who was plainly angered at this brusque +introduction. He left the chair which he had begun to push forward, +let it stand in the middle of the studio, and went and sat down on +his engraving-stool in the corner, with a somewhat haughty look, and a +defiant smile lurking behind his beard. He rested his elbow on the table +and began to drum with his fingers. + +"What I have had the honor to inform you is the simple truth, Monsieur. +I am Monsieur Charnot of the Institute." + +Lampron gave a glance in my direction, and his frown melted away. + +"Excuse me, Monsieur; I only know you by your back. Had you shown me +that side of you I might perhaps have recognized--" + +"I have not come here to listen to jokes, Monsieur; and I should have +come sooner to demand an explanation, but that it was only this morning +I heard of what I consider a deplorable abuse of your talents. But +picture-shows are not in my line. I did not see myself there. My +friend Flamaran had to tell me that I was to be seen at the last Salon, +together with my daughter, sitting on a tree-trunk in the forest of +Saint-Germain. Is it true, Monsieur, that you drew me sitting on a +trunk?" + +"Quite true." + +"That's a trifle too rustic for a man who does not go outside of +Paris three times a year. And my daughter you drew in profile--a good +likeness, I believe." + +"It was as like as I could make it." + +"Then you confess that you drew both my daughter and myself?" + +"Yes, I do, Monsieur." + +"It may not be so easy for you to explain by what right you did so; I +await your explanation, Monsieur." + +"I might very well give you no explanation whatever," replied Lampron, +who was beginning to lose patience. "I might also reply that I no more +needed to ask your permission to sketch you than to ask that of the +beeches, oaks, elms, and willows. I might tell you that you formed part +of the landscape, that every artist who sketches a bit of underwood has +the right to stick a figure in--" + +"A figure, Monsieur! do you call me a figure?" + +"A gentleman, I mean. Artists call it figure. Well, I might give you +this reason, which is quite good enough for you, but it is not the real +one. I prefer to tell you frankly what passed. You have a very beautiful +daughter, Monsieur." + +M. Charnot made his customary bow. + +"One of my friends is in love with her. He is shy, and dares not tell +his love. We met you by chance in the wood, and I was seized with the +idea of making a sketch of Mademoiselle Jeanne, so like that she could +not mistake it, and then exhibiting it with the certainty of her seeing +it and guessing its meaning. I trusted she would recall to her mind, not +myself, for my youth is past, but a young friend of mine who is of the +age and build of a lover. If this was a crime, Monsieur, I am ready to +take the blame for it upon myself, for I alone committed it." + +"It certainly was criminal, Monsieur; criminal in you, at any +rate--you who are a man of weight, respected for your talent and your +character--to aid and abet in a frivolous love-affair." + +"It was the deepest and most honorable sentiment, Monsieur." + +"A blaze of straw!" + +"Nothing of the sort!" + +"Don't tell me! Your friend's a mere boy." + +"So much the better for him, and for her, too! If you want a man of +middle age for your son-in-law, just try one and see what they are +worth. You may be sorry that you ever refused this boy, who, it is true, +is only twenty-four, has little money, no decided calling, nor yet that +gift of self-confidence which does instead of merit for so many people; +but who is a brave and noble soul, whom I can answer for as for myself. +Go, Monsieur, you will find your daughter great names, fat purses, +gold lace, long beards, swelling waistbands, reputations, pretensions, +justified or not, everything, in short, in which he is poor; but him you +will never find again! That is all I have to tell you." + +Lampron had become animated and spoke with heat. There was the slightest +flash of anger in his eyes. + +I saw M. Charnot get up, approach him, and hold out his hand. + +"I did not wish you to say anything else, Monsieur; that is enough for +me. Flamaran asked my daughter's hand for your friend only this morning. +Flamaran loses no time when charged with a commission. He, too, told me +much that was good of your friend. I also questioned Counsellor Boule. +But however flattering characters they might give him, I still needed +another, that of a man who had lived in complete intimacy with Monsieur +Mouillard, and I could find no one but you." + +Lampron stared astonished at this little thin-lipped man who had just +changed his tone and manner so unexpectedly. + +"Well, Monsieur," he answered, "you might have got his character from me +with less trouble; there was no need to make a scene." + +"Excuse me. You say I should have got his character; that is exactly +what I did not want; characters are always good. What I wanted was a cry +from the heart of a friend outraged and brought to bay. That is what I +got, and it satisfies me. I am much obliged to you, Monsieur, and beg +you will excuse my conduct." + +"But, since we are talking sense at present, allow me to put you a +question in my turn. I am not in the habit of going around the point. Is +my friend's proposal likely to be accepted or not?" + +"Monsieur Lampron, in these delicate matters I have decided for the +future to leave my daughter entirely free. Although my happiness is at +stake almost as entirely as hers, I shall not say a word save to advise. +In accordance with this resolve I communicated Flamaran's proposal to +her." + +"Well?" + +"I expected she would refuse it." + +"But she said 'Yes'?" + +"She did not say 'No;' if she had, you can guess that I should not be +here." + +At this reply I quite lost my head, and was very near tearing aside the +curtain, and bursting forth into the studio with a shout of gratitude. + +But M. Charnot added: + +"Don't be too sure, though. There are certain serious, and, perhaps, +insurmountable obstacles. I must speak to my daughter again. I will +let your friend know of our final decision as soon as I can. Good-by, +Monsieur." + +Lampron saw him to the street, and I heard their steps grow distant in +the passage. A moment later Sylvestre returned and held out both hands +to me, saying: + +"Well, are you happy now?" + +"Of course I am, to a certain extent." + +"'To a certain extent'! Why, she loves you." + +"But the obstacles, Sylvestre!" + +"Nonsense!" + +"Perhaps insurmountable--those were his words." + +"Why, obstacles are the salt of all our joys. What a deal you young men +want before you can be called happy! You ask Life for certainties, as if +she had any to give you!" + +And he began to discuss my fears, but could not quite disperse them, for +neither of us could guess what the obstacles could be. + + August 2d. + +After ten days of waiting, during which I have employed Lampron and M. +Flamaran to intercede for me, turn and turn about; ten days passed in +hovering between mortal anguish and extravagant hopes, during which I +have formed, destroyed, taken up again and abandoned more plans than +I ever made in all my life before, yesterday, at five o'clock, I got a +note from M. Charnot, begging me to call upon him the same evening. + +I went there in a state of nervous collapse. He received me in his +study, as he had done seven months before, at our first interview, but +with a more solemn politeness; and I noticed that the paper-knife, which +he had taken up from the table as he resumed his seat, shook between his +fingers. I sat in the same chair in which I had felt so ill at ease. +To tell the truth, I felt very much the same, yesterday. M. Charnot +doubtless noticed it, and wished to reassure me. + +"Monsieur," said he, "I receive you as a friend. Whatever may be the +result of our interview, you may be assured of my esteem. Therefore do +not fear to answer me frankly." + +He put several questions to me concerning my family, my tastes, and my +acquaintance in Paris. Then he requested me to tell the simple story of +my boyhood and my youth, the recollections of my home, of the college at +La Chatre, of my holidays at Bourges, and of my student life. + +He listened without interruption, playing with the ivory paperknife. +When I reached the date--it was only last December--when I saw Jeanne +for the first time-- + +"That's enough," said he, "I know or guess the rest. Young man, I +promised you an answer; this is it--" + +For the moment, I ceased to breathe; my very heart seemed to stop +beating. + +"My daughter," went on M. Charnot, "has at this moment several proposals +of marriage to choose from. You see I hide nothing from you. I have +left her time to reflect; she has weighed and compared them all, and +communicated to me yesterday the result of her reflections. To richer +and more brilliant matches she prefers an honest man who loves her for +herself, and you, Monsieur, are that honest man." + +"Oh, thank you, thank you, Monsieur!" I cried. + +"Wait a moment, there are two conditions." + +"Were there ten, I would accept them without question!" + +"Don't hurry. You will see; one is my daughter's, the other comes from +both of us." + +"You wish me to have some profession, perhaps?" + +"No, that's not it. Clearly my son-in-law will never sit idle. Besides, +I have some views on that subject, which I will tell you later if I have +the chance. No, the first condition exacted by my daughter, and dictated +by a feeling which is very pleasant to me, is that you promise never to +leave Paris." + +"That I swear to, with all the pleasure in life!" + +"Really? I feared you had some ties." + +"Not one." + +"Or dislike for Paris." + +"No, Monsieur; only a preference for Paris, with freedom to indulge it. +Your second condition?" + +"The second, to which my daughter and I both attach importance, is that +you should make your peace with your uncle. Flamaran tells me you have +quarrelled." + +"That is true." + +"I hope it is not a serious difference. A mere cloud, isn't it?" + +"Unfortunately not. My uncle is very positive--" + +"But at the same time his heart is in the right place, so far as I could +judge from what I saw of him--in June, I think it was." + +"Yes." + +"You don't mind taking the first step?" + +"I will take as many as may be needed." + +"I was sure you would. You can not remain on bad terms with your +father's brother, the only relative you have left. In our eyes this +reconciliation is a duty, a necessity. You should desire it as much as, +and even more than, we." + +"I shall use every effort, Monsieur, I promise you." + +"And in that case you will succeed, I feel sure." + +M. Charnot, who had grown very pale, held out his hand to me, and tried +hard to smile. + +"I think, Monsieur Fabien, that we are quite at one, and that the hour +has come--" + +He did not finish the sentence, but rose and went to open a door between +two bookcases at the end of the room. + +"Jeanne," he said, "Monsieur Fabien accepts the two conditions, my +dear." + +And I saw Jeanne come smiling toward me. + +And I, who had risen trembling, I, who until then had lost my head at +the mere thought of seeing her, I, who had many a time asked myself in +terror what I should say on meeting her, if ever she were mine, I felt +myself suddenly bold, and the words rushed to my lips to thank her, to +express my joy. + +My happiness, however, was evident, and I might have spared my words. + +For the first half-hour all three of us talked together. + +Then M. Charnot pushed back his armchair, and we two were left to +ourselves. + +He had taken up a newspaper, but I am pretty sure he held it upside +down. In any case he must have been reading between the lines, for he +did not turn the page the whole evening. + +He often cast a glance over the top of the paper, folded in four, to the +corner where we were sitting, and from us his eyes travelled to a pretty +miniature of Jeanne as a child, which hung over the mantelpiece. + +What comparisons, what memories, what regrets, what hopes were +struggling in his mind? I know not, but I know he sighed, and had not we +been there I believe he would have wept. + +To me Jeanne showed herself simple as a child, wise and thoughtful as +a woman. A new feeling was growing every instant within me, of perfect +rest of heart; the certainty of happiness for all my life to come. + +Yes, my happiness travelled beyond the present, as I looked into the +future and saw along series of days passed by her side; and while she +spoke to me, tranquil, confident, and happy too, I thought I saw the +great wings of my dream closing over and enfolding us. + +We spoke in murmurs. The open window let in the warm evening air and the +confused roar of the city. + +"I am to be your friend and counsellor?" said she. + +"Always." + +"You promise that you will ask my advice in all things, and that we +shall act in concert?" + +"I do." + +"If this very first evening I ask you for a proof of this, you won't be +angry?" + +"On the contrary." + +"Well, from what you have told me of your uncle, you seem to have +accepted the second condition, of making up your quarrel, rather +lightly." + +"I have only promised to do my best." + +"Yes, but my father counts upon your success. How do you intend to act?" + +"I haven't yet considered." + +"That's just what I foresaw, and I thought it would perhaps be a good +thing if we considered it together." + +"Mademoiselle, I am listening; compose the plan of campaign, and I will +criticise it." + +Jeanne clasped her hands over her knees and assumed a thoughtful look. + +"Suppose you wrote to him." + +"There is every chance that he would not answer." + +"Reply paid?" + +"Mademoiselle, you are laughing; you are no counsellor any longer." + +"Yes, I am. Let us be serious. Suppose you go to see him." + +"That's a better idea. He may perhaps receive me." + +"In that case you will capture him. If you can only get a man to +listen--" + +"Not my uncle, Mademoiselle. He will listen, and do you know what his +answer will be?" + +"What?" + +"This, or something like it: 'My worthy nephew, you have come to tell +me two things, have you not? First, that you are about to marry a +Parisienne; secondly, that you renounce forever the family practice. +You merely confirm and aggravate our difference. You have taken a step +further backward. It was not worth while your coming out of your way to +tell me this, and you may return as soon as you please.'" + +"You surprise me. There must be some way of getting at him, if he is +really good-hearted, as you say. If I could see your uncle I should soon +find out a way." + +"If you could see him! Yes, that would be the best way of all; it +couldn't help succeeding. He imagines you as a flighty Parisienne; he is +afraid of you; he is more angry with me for loving you than for refusing +to carry on his practice. If he could only see you, he would soon +forgive me." + +"You think so?" + +"I'm sure of it." + +"Do you think that if I were to look him in the face, as I now look at +you, and to say to him: 'Monsieur Mouillard, will you not consent to my +becoming your niece?' do you think that then he would give in?" + +"Alas! Mademoiselle, why can not it be tried?" + +"It certainly is difficult, but I won't say it can not." + +We explained, or rather Jeanne explained, the case to M. Charnot, who is +assuredly her earliest and most complete conquest. At first he cried out +against the idea. He said it was entirely my business, a family matter +in which he had no right to interfere. She insisted. She carried his +scruples by storm. She boldly proposed a trip to Bourges, and a visit to +M. Mouillard. She overflowed with reasons, some of them rather weak, but +all so prettily urged! A trip to Bourges would be delightful--something +so novel and refreshing! Had M. Charnot complained on the previous +evening, or had he not, of having to stop in Paris in the heat of +August? Yes, he had complained, and quite right too, for his colleagues +did not hesitate to leave their work and rush off to the country. Then +she cited examples: one off to the Vosges, another at Arcachon, yet +another at Deauville. And she reminded him, too, that a certain old +lady, one of his old friends of the Faubourg St. Germain, lived only a +few miles out of Bourges, and had invited him to come and see her, she +didn't know how many times, and that he had promised and promised and +never kept his word. Now he could take the opportunity of going on from +Bourges to her chateau. Finally, as M. Charnot continued to urge the +singularity of such behavior, she replied: + +"My dear father! not at all; in visiting Monsieur Mouillard you will be +only fulfilling a social duty." + +"How so, I should like to know?" + +"He paid you a visit, and you will be returning it!" + +M. Charnot tossed his head, like a father who, though he may not be +convinced, yet admits that he is beaten. + +As for me, Jeanne, I'm beginning to believe in the fairies again. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. A COOL RECEPTION + +August 3d. + +I have made another visit to the Rue de l'Universite. They have decided +to make the trip. I leave for Bourges tomorrow, a day in advance of M. +and Mademoiselle Charnot, who will arrive on the following morning. + +I am sent on first to fulfil two duties: to engage comfortable rooms at +the hotel--first floor with southern aspect--and then to see my uncle +and prepare him for his visitors. + +I am to prepare him without ruffling him. Jeanne has sketched my plan +of campaign. I am to be the most affectionate of nephews, though he show +himself the crustiest of uncles; to prevent him from recurring to the +past, to speak soberly of the present, to confess that Mademoiselle +Charnot is aware of my feelings for her, and shows herself not entirely +insensible to them; but I am to avoid giving details, and must put off a +full explanation until later, when we can study the situation together. +M. Mouillard can not fail to be appeased by such deference, and to +observe a truce while I hint at the possibility of a family council. +Then, if these first advances are well received, I am to tell him that +M. Charnot is actually travelling in the neighborhood, and, without +giving it as certain, I may add that if he stops at Bourges he may like +to return my uncle's visit. + +There my role ends. Jeanne and M. Charnot will do the rest. It is with +Jeanne, by the light of her eyes and her smile, that M. Mouillard is "to +study the situation;" he will have to struggle against the redoubtable +arguments of her youth and beauty. Poor man! + +Jeanne is full of confidence. Her father, who has learned his lesson +from her, feels sure that my uncle will give in. Even I, who can not +entirely share this optimism, feel that I incline to the side of hope. + +When I reached home, the porter handed me two cards from Larive. On the +first I read: + + CH. LARIVE, + Managing Clerk. + P. P. C. + +The second, on glazed cardboard, announced, likewise in initials, +another piece of news: + + CH. LARIVE, + Formerly Managing Clerk. + P. F. P. M. + +So the Parisian who swore he could not exist two days in the country +is leaving Paris. That was fated. He is about to be married; I'm sure +I don't object. The only consequence to me is that we never shall meet +again, and I shall not weep over that. + + BOURGES, August 4th. + +If you have ever been in Bourges, you may have seen the little Rue +Sous-les-Ceps, the Cours du Bat d'Argent and de la Fleur-de-lys, the +Rues de la Merede-Dieu, des Verts-Galants, Mausecret, du Moulin-le-Roi, +the Quai Messire-Jacques, and other streets whose ancient names, +preserved by a praiseworthy sentiment or instinctive conservatism, +betoken an ancient city still inhabited by old-fashioned people, by +which I mean people attached to the soil, strongly marked with the stamp +of the provincial in manners as in language; people who understand all +that a name is to a street--its honor, its spouse if you will, from +which it must not be divorced. + +My Uncle Mouillard, most devoted and faithful citizen of Bourges, +naturally lives in one of these old streets, the Rue du Four, within the +shadow of the cathedral, beneath the swing of its chimes. + +Within fifteen minutes after my arrival at Bourges I was pulling the +deer's foot which hangs, depilated with long use, beside his door. It +was five o'clock, and I knew for certain that he would not be at home. +When the courts rise, one of the clerks carries back his papers to +the office, while he moves slowly off, his coat-tails flapping in the +breeze, either to visit a few friends and clients, respectable dames who +were his partners in the dance in the year 1840, or more often to take +a "constitutional" along the banks of the Berry Canal, where, in the +poplar shade, files of little gray donkeys are towing string after +string of big barges. + +So I was sure not to meet him. + +Madeleine opened the door to me, and started as if shot. + +"Monsieur Fabien!" + +"Myself, Madeleine. My uncle is not at home?" + +"No, Monsieur. Do you really mean to come in, Monsieur?" + +"Why not?" + +"The master's so changed since his visit to Paris, Monsieur Fabien!" + +Madeleine stood still, with one hand holding up her apron, the other +hanging, and gazed at me with reproachful anxiety. + +"I must come in, Madeleine. I have a secret to tell you." + +She made no answer, but turned and walked before me into the house. + +It was not thus that I used to be welcomed in days gone by! Then +Madeleine used to meet me at the station. She used to kiss me, and tell +me how well I looked, promising the while a myriad sweet dishes which +she had invented for me. Hardly did I set foot in the hall before my +uncle, who had given up his evening walk for my sake, would run out of +his study, heart and cravat alike out of their usual order at seeing +me--me, a poor, awkward, gaping schoolboy: Today that is ancient +history. To-day I am afraid to meet my uncle, and Madeleine is afraid to +let me in. + +She told me not a word of it, but I easily guessed that floods of tears +had streamed from her black eyes down her thin cheeks, now pale as wax. +Her face is quite transparent, and looks as if a tiny lamp were lighting +it from within. There are strong feelings, too, beneath that impassive +mask. Madeleine comes from Bayonne, and has Spanish blood in her. I have +heard that she was lovely as a girl of twenty. With age her features +have grown austere. She looks like a widow who is a widow indeed, and +her heart is that of a grandmother. + +She glided before me in her slippers to that realm of peace and silence, +her kitchen. I followed her in. Two things that never found entrance +there are dust and noise. A lonely goldfinch hangs in a wicker cage from +the rafters, and utters from time to time a little shrill call. His note +and the metallic tick-tick of Madeleine's clock alone enliven the silent +flight of time. She sat down in the low chair where she knits after +dinner. + +"Madeleine, I am about to be married; did you know it?" + +She slowly shook her head. + +"Yes, in Paris, Monsieur Fabien; that's what makes the master so +unhappy." + +"You will soon see her whom I have chosen, Madeleine." + +"I do not think so, Monsieur Fabien." + +"Yes, yes, you will; and you will see that it is my uncle who is in the +wrong." + +"I have not often known him in the wrong." + +"That has nothing to do with it. My marriage is fully decided upon, and +all I want is to get my uncle's consent to it. Do you understand? I want +to make friends with him." + +Madeleine shook her head again. + +"You won't succeed." + +"My dear Madeleine!" + +"No, Monsieur Fabien, you won't succeed." + +"He must be very much changed, then!" + +"So much that you could hardly believe it; so much that I can hardly +keep myself from changing too. He, who had such a good appetite, now has +nothing but fads. It's no good my cooking him dainties, or buying him +early vegetables; he never notices them, but looks out of the window as +I come in at the door with a surprise for him. In the evening he often +forgets to go out in the garden, and sits at table, his elbows on his +rumpled napkin, his head between his hands, and what he thinks of he +keeps to himself. If I try to talk of you--and I have tried, Monsieur +Fabien--he gets up in a rage, and forbids me to open my mouth on the +subject. The house is not cheerful, Monsieur Fabien. Every one notices +how he has changed; Monsieur Lorinet and his lady never enter the doors; +Monsieur Hublette and Monsieur Horlet come and play dummy, looking all +the time as if they had come for a funeral, thinking it will please the +master. Even the clients say that the master treats them like dogs, and +that he ought to sell his practice." + +"Then it isn't sold?" + +"Not yet, but I think it will be before long." + +"Listen to me, Madeleine; you have always been good and devoted to me; +I am sure you still are fond of me; do me one last service. You must +manage to put me up here without my uncle knowing it." + +"Without his knowing it, Monsieur Fabien!" + +"Yes, say in the library; he never goes in there. From there I can study +him, and watch him, without his seeing me, since he is so irritable and +so easily upset, and as soon as you see an opportunity I shall make use +of it. A sign from you, and down I come." + +"Really, Monsieur Fabien--" + +"It must be done, Madeleine; I must manage to speak to him before ten +o'clock to-morrow morning, for my bride is coming." + +"The Parisienne? She coming here!" + +"Yes, with her father, by the train which gets in at six minutes past +nine to-morrow." + +"Good God! is it possible?" + +"To see you, Madeleine; to see my uncle, to make my peace with him. +Isn't it kind of her?" + +"Kind? Monsieur Fabien! I tremble to think of what will happen. All the +same, I shall be glad to have a sight of your young lady, of course." + +And so we settled that Madeleine was not to say a word to my uncle about +my being in Bourges, within a few feet of him. If she perceived any +break in the gloom which enveloped M. Mouillard, she was to let me know; +if I were obliged to put off my interview to the morrow, and to pass the +night on the sofa-bed in the library, she was to bring me something to +eat, a rug, and "the pillow you used in your holidays when you were a +boy." + +I was installed then in the big library on the first-floor, adjoining +the drawing-room, its other door opening on the passage opposite M. +Mouillard's door, and its two large windows on the garden. What a look +of good antique middle-class comfort there was about it, from the +floor of bees'-waxed oak, with its inequalities of level, to the +four bookcases with glass doors, surmounted by four bronzed busts of +Herodotus, Homer, Socrates, and Marmontel! Nothing had been moved; the +books were still in the places where I had known them for twenty years; +Voltaire beside Rousseau, the Dictionary of Useful Knowledge, +and Rollin's Ancient History, the slim, well bound octavos of the +Meditations of St. Ignatius, side by side with an enormous quarto on +veterinary surgery. + +The savage arrows, said to be poisoned, which always used to frighten +me so much, were still arranged like a peacock's tail over the +mantel-shelf, each end of which was adorned by the same familiar lumps +of white coral. The musical-box, which I was not allowed to touch till +I was eighteen, still stood in the left-hand corner, and on the +writing-table, near the little blotting-book that held the note-paper, +rose, still majestic, still turning obedient to the touch within its +graduated belts, the terrestrial globe "on which are marked the three +voyages of Captain Cook, both outward and homeward." Ah, captain, how +often have we sailed those voyages together! What grand headway we +made as we scoured the tropics in the heel of the trade-wind, our ship +threading archipelagoes whose virgin forests stared at us in wonder, all +their strange flowers opening toward us, seeking to allure us and put us +to sleep with their dangerous perfumes. But we always guessed the snare, +we saw the points of the assegais gleaming amid the tall grasses; you +gave the word in your full, deep voice, and our way lay infinite before +us; we followed it, always on the track of new lands, new discoveries, +until we reached the fatal isle of Owhyhee, the spot where this +terrestrial globe is spotted with a tear--for I wept over you, my +captain, at the age when tears unlock themselves and flow easily from a +heart filled with enchantment! + +Seven o'clock sounded from the cathedral; the garden door slammed to; my +uncle was returning. + +I saw him coming down the winding path, hat in hand, with bowed head. +He did not stop before his graftings; he passed the clump of petunias +without giving them that all-embracing glance I know so well, the +glance of the rewarded gardener. He gave no word of encouragement to the +Chinese duck which waddled down the path in front of him. + +Madeleine was right. The time was not ripe for reconciliation; and more, +it would need a great deal of sun to ripen it. O Jeanne, if only you +were here! + +"Any one called while I've been out?" + +This, by the way, is the old formula to which my uncle has always been +faithful. I heard Madeleine answer, with a quaver in her voice: + +"No, nobody for you, sir." + +"Someone for you, then? A lover, perhaps, my faithful Madeleine? The +world is so foolish nowadays that even you might take it into your +head to marry and leave me. Come, serve my dinner quickly, and if the +gentleman with the decoration calls--you know whom I mean?" + +"The tall, thin gentleman?" + +"Yes. Show him into the drawing-room." + +"A gentleman by himself into the drawing-room? + +"No, sir, no. The floor was waxed only yesterday, and the furniture's +not yet in order." + +"Very well! I'll see him in here." + +My uncle went into the dining-room underneath me, and for twenty minutes +I heard nothing more of him, save the ring of his wineglass as he struck +on it to summon Madeleine. + +He had hardly finished dinner when there came a ring at the street door. +Some one asked for M. Mouillard, the gentleman with the decoration, I +suppose, for Madeleine showed him in, and I could tell by the noise of +his chair that my uncle had risen to receive his visitor. + +They sat down and entered into conversation. An indistinct murmur +reached me through the ceiling. Occasionally a clearer sound struck my +ear, and I thought I knew that high, resonant voice. It was no doubt +delusion, still it beset me there in the silence of the library, +haunting my thoughts as they wandered restlessly in search of +occupation. I tried to recollect all the men with fluty voices that I +had ever met in Bourges: a corn-factor from the Place St. Jean; Rollet, +the sacristan; a fat manufacturer, who used to get my uncle to draw up +petitions for him claiming relief from taxation. I hunted feverishly in +my memory as the light died away from the windows, and the towers of St. +Stephen's gradually lost the glowing aureole conferred on them by the +setting sun. + +After about an hour the conversation grew heated. + +My uncle coughed, the flute became shrill. I caught these fragments of +their dialogue. + +"No, Monsieur!" + +"Yes, Monsieur!" + +"But the law?" + +"Is as I tell you." + +"But this is tyranny!" + +"Then our business is at an end." + +Apparently it was not, though; for the conversation gradually sank down +the scale to a monotonous murmur. A second hour passed, and yet a third. +What could this interminable visit portend? + +It was near eleven o'clock. A ray from the rising moon shone between the +trees in the garden. A big black cat crept across the lawn, shaking its +wet paws. In the darkness it looked like a tiger. In my mind's eye I saw +Madeleine sitting with her eyes fixed on her dead hearth, telling her +beads, her thoughts running with mine: "It is years since Monsieur +Mouillard was up at such an hour." Still she waited, for never had any +hand but hers shot the bolt of the street door; the house would not be +shut if shut by any other than herself. + +At last the dining-room door opened. "Let me show you a light; take care +of the stairs." + +Then followed the "Good-nights" of two weary voices, the squeaking of +the big key turning in the lock, a light footstep dying away in the +distance, and my uncle's heavy tread as he went up to his bedroom. The +business was over. + +How slowly my uncle went upstairs! The burden of sorrow was no +metaphor in his case. He, who used to be as active as a boy, could now +hardly-support his own weight. + +He crossed the landing and went into his room. I thought of following, +him; only a few feet lay between us. No doubt it was late, but his +excited state might have predisposed him in my favor. Suddenly I heard +a sigh--then a sob. He was weeping; I determined to risk all and rush to +his assistance. + +But just as I was about to leave the library a skirt rustled against the +wall, though I had heard no sound of footsteps preceding it. At the same +instant a little bit of paper was slipped in under the door--a letter +from the silent Madeleine. I unfolded the paper and saw the following +words written across from one corner to the other, with a contempt for +French spelling, which was thoroughly Spanish: + + "Ni allais pat ceux soire." + +Very well, Madeleine, since that's your advice, I'll refrain. + +I lay down to sleep on the sofa. Yet I was very sorry for the delay. I +hated to let the night go by without being reconciled to the poor old +man, or without having attempted it at least. He was evidently very +wretched to be affected to tears, for I had never known him to weep, +even on occasions when my own tears had flowed freely. Yet I followed my +old and faithful friend's advice, for I knew that she had the peace of +the household as much at heart as I; but I felt that I should seek long +and vainly before I could discover what this latest trouble was, and +what part I had in it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. JEANNE THE ENCHANTRESS + + BOURGES, August 5th. + +I woke up at seven; my first thought was for M. Mouillard. Where could +he be? I listened, but could hear no sound. I went to the window; the +office-boy was lying flat on the lawn, feeding the goldfish in the +fountain. This proved beyond a doubt that my uncle was not in. + +I went downstairs to the kitchen. + +"Well, Madeleine, has he gone out?" + +"He went at six o'clock, Monsieur Fabien." + +"Why didn't you wake me?" + +"How could I guess? Never, never does he go out before breakfast. I +never have seen him like this before, not even when his wife died." + +"What can be the matter with him?" + +"I think it's the sale of the practice. He said to me last night, at +the fool of the staircase: 'I am a brokenhearted man, Madeleine, a +broken-hearted man. I might have got over it, but that monster +of ingratitude, that cannibal'--saving your presence, Monsieur +Fabien--'would not have it so. If I had him here I don't know what I +should do to him.'" + +"Didn't he tell you what he would do to the cannibal?" + +"No. So I slipped a little note under your door when I went upstairs." + +"Yes. I am much obliged to you for it. Is he any calmer this morning?" + +"He doesn't look angry any longer, only I noticed that he had been +weeping." + +"Where is he?" + +"I don't know at all. Besides, you might as well try to catch up with a +deer as with him." + +"That's true. I'd better wait for him. When will he be in?" + +"Not before ten. I can tell you that it's not once a year that he goes +out like this in the morning." + +"But, Madeleine, Jeanne will be here by ten!" + +"Oh, is Jeanne her name?" + +"Yes. Monsieur Charnot will be here, too. And my uncle, whom I was to +have prepared for their visit, will know nothing about it, nor even that +I slept last night beneath his roof." + +"To tell the truth, Monsieur Fabien, I don't think you've managed well. +Still, there is Dame Fortune, who often doesn't put in her word till the +last moment." + +"Entreat her for me, Madeleine, my dear." + +But Dame Fortune was deaf to prayers. My uncle did not return, and I +could find no fresh expedient. As I made my way, vexed and unhappy, to +the station, I kept asking myself the question that I had been turning +over in vain for the last hour: + +"I have said nothing to Monsieur Mouillard. Had I better say anything +now to Monsieur Charnot?" + +My fears redoubled when I saw Jeanne and M. Charnot at the windows of +the train, as it swept past me into the station. + +A minute later she stepped on to the platform, dressed all in gray, with +roses in her cheeks, and a pair of gull's wings in her hat. + +M. Charnot shook me by the hand, thoroughly delighted at having escaped +from the train and being able to shake himself and tread once more the +solid earth. He asked after my uncle, and when I replied that he was in +excellent health, he went to get his luggage. + +"Well!" said Jeanne. "Is all arranged?" + +"On the contrary, nothing is." + +"Have you seen him?" + +"Not even that. I have been watching for a favorable opportunity without +finding one. Yesterday evening he was busy with a visitor; this morning +he went out at six. He doesn't even know that I am in Bourges." + +"And yet you were in his house?" + +"I slept on a sofa in his library." + +She gave me a look which was as much as to say, "My poor boy, how very +unpractical you are!" + +"Go on doing nothing," she said; "that's the best you can do. If my +father didn't think he was expected he would beat a retreat at once." + +At this instant, M. Charnot came back to us, having seen his two trunks +and a hatbox placed on top of the omnibus of the Hotel de France. + +"That is where you have found rooms for us?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"It is now twelve minutes past nine; tell Monsieur Mouillard that we +shall call upon him at ten o'clock precisely." + +I went a few steps with them, and saw them into the omnibus, which was +whirled off at a fast trot by its two steeds. + +When I had lost them from my sight I cast a look around me, and noticed +three people standing in line beneath the awning, and gazing upon me +with interest. I recognized Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Lorinet. +They were all smiling with the same look of contemptuous mockery. +I bowed. The man alone returned my salute, raising his hat. By some +strange freak of fate, Berthe was again wearing a blue dress. + +I went back in the direction of the Rue du Four, happy, though at +my wits' end, forming projects that were mutually destructive; now +expatiating in the seventh heaven, now loading myself with the most +appalling curses. I slipped along the streets, concealed beneath my +umbrella, for the rain was falling; a great storm-cloud had burst over +Bourges, and I blessed the rain which gave me a chance to hide my face. + +From the banks of the Voizelle to the old quarter around the cathedral +is a rather long walk. When I turned from the Rue Moyenne, the Boulevard +des Italiens of Bourges, into the Rue du Four, a blazing sun was +drying the rain on the roofs, and the cuckoo clock at M. Festuquet's--a +neighbor of my uncle--was striking the hour of meeting. + +I had not been three minutes at the garden door, a key to which had been +given me by Madeleine, when M. Charnot appeared with Jeanne on his arm. + +"To think that I've forgotten my overshoes, which I never fail to take +with me to the country!" + +"The country, father?" said Jeanne, "why, Bourges is a city!--" + +"To be sure--to be sure," answered M. Charnot, who feared he had hurt my +feelings. + +He put on his spectacles and began to study the old houses around him. + +"Yes, a city; really quite a city." + +I do not remember what commonplace I stammered. + +Little did I care for M. Charnot's overshoes or the honor of Bourges at +that moment! On the other side of the wall, a few feet off, I felt the +presence of M. Mouillard. I reflected that I should have to open the +door and launch the Academician, without preface, into the presence +of the lawyer, stake my life's happiness, perhaps, on my uncle's first +impressions, play at any rate the decisive move in the game which had +been so disastrously opened. + +Jeanne, though she did her best to hide it, was extremely nervous. I +felt her hand tremble in mine as I took it. + +"Trust in God!" she whispered, and aloud: "Open the door." + +I turned the key in the lock. I had arranged that Madeleine should go at +once to M. Mouillard and tell him that there were some strangers waiting +in the garden. But either she was not on the lookout, or she did not at +once perceive us, and we had to wait a few minutes at the bottom of the +lawn before any one came. + +I hid myself behind the trees whose leafage concealed the wall. + +M. Charnot was evidently pleased with the view before him, and turned +from side to side, gently smacking his lips like an epicure. And, in +truth, my uncle's garden was perfection; the leaves, washed by the +rain, were glistening in the fulness of their verdure, great drops were +falling from the trees with a silvery tinkle, the petunias in the beds +were opening all their petals and wrapping us in their scent; the +birds, who had been mute while the shower lasted, were now fluttering, +twittering, and singing beneath the branches. I was like one bewitched, +and thought these very birds were discussing us. The greenfinch said: + +"Old Mouillard, look! Here's Princess Goldenlocks at your garden gate." + +The tomtit said: + +"Look out, old man, or she'll outwit you." + +The blackbird said: + +"I have heard of her from my grandfather, who lived in the Champs +Elysees. She was much admired there." + +The swallow said: + +"Jeanne will have your heart in the time it takes me to fly round the +lawn." + +The rook, who was a bit of a lawyer, came swooping down from the +cathedral tower, crying: + +"Caw, caw, caw! Let her show cause--cause!" + +And all took up the chorus: + +"If you had our eyes, Monsieur Mouillard, you would see her looking at +your study; if you had our ears, you would hear her sigh; if you had our +wings, you would fly to Jeanne." + +No doubt it was this unwonted concert which attracted Madeleine's +attention. We saw her making her way, stiffly and slowly, toward the +study, which stood in the corner of the garden. + +M. Mouillard's tall figure appeared on the threshold, filling up the +entire doorway. + +"In the garden, did you say? Whatever is your idea in showing clients +into the garden? Why did you let them in?" + +"I didn't let them in; they came in of themselves." + +"Then the door can't have been shut. Nothing is shut here. I'll have +them coming in next by the drawing-room chimney. What sort of people are +they?" + +"There's a gentleman and a young lady whom I don't know." + +"A young lady whom you don't know--a judicial separation, I'll +warrant--it's indecent, upon my word it is. To think that there are +people who come to me about judicial separations and bring their young +ladies with them!" + +As Madeleine fled before the storm and found shelter in her kitchen, +my uncle smoothed back his white hair with both his hands--a surviving +touch of personal vanity--and started down the walk around the +grass-plot. + +I effaced myself behind the trees. M. Charnot, thinking I was just +behind him, stepped forward with airy freedom. + +My uncle came down the path with a distracted air, like a man +overwhelmed with business, only too pleased to snatch a moment's leisure +between the parting and the coming client. He always loved to pass for +being overwhelmed with work. + +On his way he flipped a rosebud covered with blight, kicked off a snail +which was crawling on the path; then, halfway down the path, he suddenly +raised his head and gave a look at his disturber. + +His bent brows grew smooth, his eyes round with the stress of surprise. + +"Is it possible? Monsieur Charnot of the Institute!" + +"The same, Monsieur Mouillard." + +"And this is Mademoiselle Jeanne?" + +"Just so; she has come with me to repay your kind visit." + +"Really, that's too good of you, much too good, to come such a way to +see me!" + +"On the contrary, the most natural thing in the world, considering what +the young people are about." + +"Oh! is your daughter about to be married?" + +"Certainly, that's the idea," said M. Charnot, with a laugh. + +"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle!" + +"I have brought her here to introduce her to you, Monsieur Mouillard, as +is only right." + +"Right! Excuse me, no." + +"Indeed it is." + +"Excuse me, sir. Politeness is all very well in its way, but frankness +is better. I went to Paris chiefly to get certain information which you +were good enough to give me. But, really, it was not worth your while to +come from Paris to Bourges to thank me, and to bring your daughter too." + +"Excuse me in my turn! There are limits to modesty, Monsieur Mouillard, +and as my daughter is to marry your nephew, and as my daughter was in +Bourges, it was only natural that I should introduce her to you." + +"Monsieur, I have no longer a nephew." + +"He is here." + +"And I never asked for your daughter." + +"No, but you have received your nephew beneath your roof, and +consequently--" + +"Never!" + +"Monsieur Fabien has been in your house since yesterday; he told you we +were coming." + +"No, I have not seen him; I never should have received him! I tell you I +no longer have a nephew! I am a broken man, a--a--a--" + +His speech failed him, his face became purple, he staggered and +fell heavily, first in a sitting posture, then on his back, and lay +motionless on the sanded path. + +I rushed to the rescue. + +When I got up to him Jeanne had already returned from the little +fountain with her handkerchief dripping, and was bathing his temples +with fresh water. She was the only one who kept her wits about her. +Madeleine had raised her master's head and was wailing aloud. + +"Alas!" she said, "it's that dreadful colic he had ten years ago which +has got him again. Dear heart! how ill he was! I remember how it came +on, just like this, in the garden." + +I interrupted her lamentations by saying: + +"Monsieur Charnot, I think we had better take Monsieur Mouillard up to +bed." + +"Then why don't you do it?" shouted the numismatist, who had completely +lost his temper. "I didn't come here to act at an ambulance; but, since +I must, do you take his head." + +I took his head, Madeleine walked in front, Jeanne behind. My uncle's +vast proportions swayed between M. Charnot and myself. M. Charnot, who +had skilfully gathered up the legs, looked like a hired pallbearer. + +As we met with some difficulty in getting upstairs, M. Charnot said, +with clenched teeth: + +"You've managed this trip nicely, Monsieur Fabien; I congratulate you +sincerely!" + +I saw that he intended to treat me to several variations on this theme. + +But there was no time for talk. A moment later my uncle was laid, still +unconscious, upon his bed, and Jeanne and Madeleine were preparing a +mustard-plaster together, in perfect harmony. M. Charnot and I waited +in silence for the doctor whom we had sent the office-boy to fetch. +M. Charnot studied alternately my deceased aunt's wreath of +orange-blossoms, preserved under a glass in the centre of the +chimney-piece, and a painting of fruit and flowers for which it would +have been hard to find a buyer at an auction. Our wait for the doctor +lasted ten long minutes. We were very anxious, for M. Mouillard showed +no sign of returning consciousness. Gradually, however, the remedies +began to act upon him. The eyelids fluttered feebly; and just as the +doctor opened the door, my uncle opened his eyes. + +We rushed to his bedside. + +"My old friend," said the doctor, "you have had plenty of people to look +after you. Let me feel your pulse--rather weak; your tongue? Say a word +or two." + +"A shock--rather sudden--" said my uncle. + +The doctor, following the direction of the invalid's eyes, which were +fixed on Jeanne, upright at the foot of the bed, bowed to the young +girl, whom he had not at first noticed; turned to me, who blushed like +an idiot; then looked again at my uncle, only to see two big tears +running down his cheeks. + +"Yes, I understand; a pretty stiff shock, eh? At our age we should only +be stirred by our recollections, emotions of bygone days, something +we're used to; but our children take care to provide us with fresh ones, +eh?" + +M. Mouillard's breast heaved. + +"Come, my dear fellow," proceeded the doctor; "I give you leave to give +your future niece one kiss, and that in my presence, that I may be quite +sure you don't abuse the license. After that you must be left quite +alone; no more excitement, perfect rest." + +Jeanne came forward and raised the invalid's head. + +"Will you give me a kiss, uncle?" + +She offered him her rosy cheek. + +"With all my heart," said my uncle as he kissed her; "good girl--dear +girl." + +Then he melted into tears, and hid his face in his pillow. + +"And now we must be left alone," said the doctor. + +He came down himself in a moment, and gave us an encouraging account of +the patient. + +Hardly had the street door closed behind him when we heard the lawyer's +powerful voice thundering down the stairs. + +"Charnot!" + +The old numismatist flew up the flight of stairs. + +"Did you call me, Monsieur?" + +"Yes, to invite you to dinner. I couldn't say the words just now, but it +was in my mind." + +"It is very kind of you, but we leave at nine o'clock." + +"I dine at seven; that's plenty of time." + +"It will tire you too much." + +"Tire me? Why, don't you think I dine everyday?" + +"I promise to come and inquire after you before leaving." + +"I can tell you at once that I am all right again. No, no, it shall +never be said that you came all the way from Paris to Bourges only to +see me faint. I count upon you and Mademoiselle Jeanne." + +"On all three of us?" + +"That makes three, with me; yes, sir." + +"Excuse me, four." + +"I hope the fourth will have the sense to go and dine elsewhere." + +"Come, come, Monsieur Mouillard; your nephew, your ward--" + +"I ceased to be his guardian four years ago, and his uncle three weeks +ago." + +"He longs to put an end to this ill feeling--" + +"Allow me to rest a little," said M. Mouillard, "in order that I may be +in a better condition to receive my guests." + +He lay down again, and showed clearly his intention of saying not +another word on the subject. + +During the conversation between M. Charnot and my uncle, to which we had +listened from the foot of the staircase, Jeanne, who had a moment before +been rejoicing over the completeness of the victory which she thought +she had achieved, grew quite downhearted. + +"I thought he had forgiven you when he kissed me," she said. "What can +we do now? Can't you help us, Madeleine?" + +Madeleine, whose heart was beginning to warm to Jeanne, sought vainly +for an expedient, and shook her head. + +"Ought he to go and see his uncle?" asked Jeanne. + +"No," said Madeleine. + +"Well, suppose you write to him, Fabien?" + +Madeleine nodded approval, and drew from the depths of her cupboard a +little glass inkstand, a rusty penholder, and a sheet of paper, at the +top of which was a dove with a twig in its beak. + +"My cousin at Romorantin died just before last New Year's Day," she +explained; "so I had one sheet more than I needed." + +I sat down at the kitchen table with Jeanne leaning over me, reading +as I wrote. Madeleine stood upright and attentive beside the clock, +forgetting all about her kitchen fire as she watched us with her black +eyes. + +This is what I wrote beneath the dove: + + "MY DEAR UNCLE: + + "I left Paris with the intention of putting an end to the + misunderstanding between us, which has lasted only too long, and + which has given me more pain than you can guess. I had no possible + opportunity of speaking to you between five o'clock yesterday + afternoon, when I arrived here, and ten o'clock this morning. If I + had been able to speak with you, you would not have refused to + restore me to your affection, which, I confess, I ought to have + respected more than I have. You would have given your consent to + my, union, on which depends your own happiness, my dear uncle, and + that of your nephew, + + "FABIEN." + +"Rather too formal," said Jeanne. "Now, let me try." + +And the enchantress added, with ready pen: + +"It is I, Monsieur Mouillard, who am chiefly in need of forgiveness. +Mine is the greater fault by far. You forbade Monsieur Fabien to love +me, and I took no steps to prevent his doing so. Even yesterday, when +he came to your house, it was my doing. I had assured him that your kind +heart would not be proof against his loving confession. + +"Was I really wrong in that? + +"The words that you spoke just now have led me to hope that I was not. + +"But if I was wrong, visit your anger on me alone. Forgive your nephew, +invite him to dinner instead of us, and let me depart, regretting only +that I was not judged worthy of calling you uncle, which would have been +so pleasant and easy a name to speak. + + "JEANNE." + +I read the two letters over aloud. Madeleine broke into sobs as she +listened. + +A smile flickered about the corners of Jeanne's mouth. + +We left the house, committing to Madeleine the task of choosing a +favorable moment to hand M. Mouillard our joint entreaty. + +And here I may as well confess that from the instant we got out of the +house, all through breakfast at the hotel, and for a quarter of an hour +after it, M. Charnot treated me, in his best style, to the very hottest +"talking-to" that I had experienced since my earliest youth. He ended +with these words: "If you have not made your peace with your uncle by +nine o'clock this evening, Monsieur, I withdraw my consent, and we shall +return to Paris." + +I strove in vain to shake his decision. Jeanne made a little face at me, +which warned me I was on the wrong track. + +"Very well," I said to her, "I leave the matter in your hands." + +"And I leave it in the hands of God," she answered. "Be a man. If +trouble awaits us, hope will at any rate steal us a happy hour or two." + +We were just then in front of the gardens of the Archbishop's palace, so +M. Charnot walked in. The current of his reflections was soon changed +by the freshness of the air, the groups of children playing around their +mothers--whom he studied ethnologically and with reference to the +racial divisions of ancient Gaul--by the beauty of the landscape--its +foreground of flowers, the Place St. Michel beyond, and further yet, +above the barrack-roofs, the line of poplars lining the Auron. He ceased +to be a father-in-law, and became a tourist again. + +Jeanne stepped with airy grace among the groups of strollers, and the +murmurs which followed her path, though often envious, sounded none the +less sweetly in my ears for that. I hoped to meet Mademoiselle Lorinet. + +After we had seen the gardens, we had to visit the Place Seraucourt, the +Cours Chanzy, the cathedral, Saint-Pierrele-Guillard, and the house of +Jacques-Coeur. It was six o'clock by the time we got back to the Hotel +de France. + +A letter was waiting for us in the small and badly furnished +entrance--hall. It was addressed to Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot. + +I recognized at once the ornate hand of M. Mouillard, and grew as white +as the envelope. + +M. Charnot cried, excitedly: + +"Read it, Jeanne. Read it, can't you!" + +Jeanne alone of us three kept a brave face. + +She read: + + "MY DEAR CHILD: + + "I treated you perhaps with undue familiarity this morning, at a + moment when I was not quite myself. Nevertheless, now that I have + regained my senses, I do not withdraw the expressions of which I + made use--I love you with all my heart; you are a dear girl. + + "You will not get an old stager like me to give up his prejudices + against the capital. Let it suffice that I have surrendered to a + Parisienne. My niece, I forgive him for your sake. + + "Come this evening, all three of you. + + "I have several things to tell you, and several questions to ask + you. My news is not all good. But I trust that all regrets will be + overwhelmed in the gladness you will bring to my old heart. + + "BRUTUS MOUILLARD." + +When we rang at M. Mouillard's door, it was opened to us by Baptiste, +the office-boy, who waits at table on grand occasions. + +My uncle received us in the large drawing-room, in full dress, with his +whitest cravat and his most camphorous frock-coat: "not a moth in ten +years," is Madeleine's boast concerning this garment. + +He saluted us all solemnly, without his usual effusiveness; bearing +himself with simple and touching dignity. Strong emotion, which excites +most natures, only served to restrain his. He said not a word of the +past, nor of our marriage. This, the decisive engagement, opened with +polite formalities. + +I have often noticed this phenomenon; people meeting to "have it out" +usually begin by saying nothing at all. + +M. Mouillard offered his arm to Jeanne, to escort her to the +dining-room. Jeanne was in high spirits. She asked him question after +question about Bourges, its dances, fashions, manufactures, even about +the procedure of its courts. + +"I am sure you know that well, uncle," she said. + +"Uncle" smiled at each question, his face illumined with a glow like +that upon a chimney-piece when someone is blowing the fire. He answered +her questions, but presently fell into a state of dejection, which even +his desire to do honor to his guests could not entirely conceal. His +thoughts betrayed themselves in the looks he kept casting upon me, no +longer of anger, but of suffering, almost pleading, affection. + +M. Charnot, who was rather tired, and also absorbed in Madeleine's feats +of cookery, cast disjointed remarks and ejaculations into the gaps in +the conversation. + +I knew my uncle well enough to feel sure that the end of the dinner +would be quite unlike the beginning. + +I was right. During dessert, just as the Academician was singing the +praises of a native delicacy, 'la forestine', my uncle, who had been +revolving a few drops of some notable growth of Medoc in his glass for +the last minute or two, stopped suddenly, and put down his glass on the +table. + +"My dear Monsieur Charnot," said he, "I have a painful confession to +make to you." + +"Eh? What? My dear friend, if it's painful to you, don't make it." + +"Fabien," my uncle went on, "has behaved badly to me on certain +occasions. But I say no more of it. His faults are forgotten. But I have +not behaved to him altogether as I should." + +"You, uncle?" + +"Alas! It is so, my dear child. My practice, the family practice, which +I faithfully promised your father to keep for you--" + +"You have sold it?" + +My uncle buried his face in his hands. + +"Last night, my poor child, only last night!" + +"I thought so." + +"I was weak I listened to the prompting of anger; I have compromised +your future. Fabien, forgive me in your turn." + +He rose from the table, and came and put a trembling hand on my +shoulder. + +"No, uncle, you've not compromised anything, and I've nothing to forgive +you." + +"You wouldn't take the practice if I could still offer it to you?" + +"No, uncle." + +"Upon your word?" + +"Upon my word!" + +M. Mouillard drew himself up, beaming: + +"Ah! Thank you for that speech, Fabien; you have relieved me of a great +weight." + +With one corner of his napkin he wiped away two tears, which, having +arisen in time of war, continued to flow in time of peace. + +"If Mademoiselle Jeanne, in addition to all her other perfections, +brings you fortune, Fabien, if your future is assured--" + +"My dear Monsieur Mouillard," broke in the Academician with +ill-concealed satisfaction. "My colleagues call me rich. They slander +me. Works on numismatics do not make a man rich. Monsieur Fabien, who +made some investigations into the subject, can prove it to you. No; I +possess no more than an honorable competence, which does not give me +everything, but lets me lack nothing." + +"Aurea mediocritas," exclaimed my uncle, delighted with his quotation. +"Oh, that Horace! What a fellow he was!" + +"He was indeed. Well, as I was saying, our daily bread is assured; but +that's no reason why my son-in-law should vegetate in idleness which I +do not consider my due, even at my age." + +"Quite right." + +"So he must work." + +"But what is he to work at?" + +"There are other professions besides the law, Monsieur Mouillard. I +have studied Fabien. His temperament is somewhat wayward. With special +training he might have become an artist. Lacking that early moulding +into shape, he never will be anything more than a dreamer." + +"I should not have expressed it so well, but I have often thought the +same." + +"With a temperament like your nephew's," continued M. Charnot, "the best +he can do is to enter upon a career in which the ideal has some part; +not a predominant, but a sufficient part, something between prose and +poetry." + +"Let him be a notary, then." + +"No, that's wholly prose; he shall be a librarian." + +"A librarian?" + +"Yes, Monsieur Mouillard; there are a few little libraries in Paris, +which are as quiet as groves, and in which places are to be got that are +as snug as nests. I have some influence in official circles, and that +can do no harm, you know." + +"Quite so." + +"We will put our Fabien into one of those nests, where he will be +protected against idleness by the little he will do, and against +revolutions by the little he will be. It's a charming profession; the +very smell of books is improving; merely by breathing it you live an +intellectual life." + +"An intellectual life!" exclaimed my uncle with enthusiasm. "Yes, an +intellectual life!" + +"And cataloguing books, Monsieur Mouillard, looking through them, +preserving them as far as possible from worms and readers. Don't you +think that's an enviable lot?" + +"Yes, more so than mine has been, or my successor's will be." + +"By the way, uncle, you haven't told us who your successor is to be." + +"Haven't I, really? Why, you know him; it's your friend Larive." + +"Oh! That explains a great deal." + +"He is a young man who takes life seriously." + +"Very seriously, uncle. Isn't he about to be married?" + +"Why, yes; to a rich wife." + +"To whom?" + +"My dear boy, he is picking up all your leavings; he is going to marry +Mademoiselle Lorinet." + +"He was always enterprising! But, uncle, it wasn't with him you were +engaged yesterday evening?" + +"Why not, pray?" + +"You told Madeleine to admit a gentleman with a decoration." + +"He has one." + +"Good heavens! What is it?" + +"The Nicham Iftikar, if it please you." + + [A Tunisian order, which can be obtained for a very moderate sum.] + +"It doesn't displease me, uncle, and surprises me still less. Larive +will die with his breast more thickly plastered with decorations than +an Odd Fellow's; he will be a member of all the learned societies in the +department, respected and respectable, the more thoroughly provincial +for having been outrageously Parisian. Mothers will confide their +anxieties to him, and fathers their interests; but when his old +acquaintances pass this way they will take the liberty of smiling in his +face." + +"What, jealous? Are you jealous of his bit of ribbon?" + +"No, uncle, I regret nothing; not even Larive's good fortune." + +M. Mouillard fixed his eyes on the cloth, and began again, after a +moment's silence: + +"I, Fabien, do regret some things. It will be mournful at times, growing +old alone here. Yet, after all, it will be some consolation to me to +think that you others are satisfied with life, to welcome you here for +your holidays." + +"You can do better than that," said M. Charnot. "Come and grow old +among us. Your years will be the lighter to bear, Monsieur Mouillard. +Doubtless we must always bear them, and they weigh upon us and bend our +backs. But youth, which carries its own burden so lightly, can always +give us a little help in bearing ours." + +I looked to hear my uncle break out with loud objections. + +"It is a fine night," he said, simply; "let us go into the garden, and +do you decide whether I can leave roses like mine." + +M. Mouillard took us into the garden, pleased with himself, with me, +with Jeanne, with everybody, and with the weather. + +It was too dark to see the roses, but we could smell them as we passed. +I had taken Jeanne's arm in mine, and we went on in front, in the cool +dusk, choosing all the little winding paths. + +The birds were all asleep. But the grasshoppers, crickets, and all +manner of creeping things hidden in the grass, or in the moss on the +trees, were singing and chattering in their stead. + +Behind us, at some distance--in fact, as far off as we could manage--the +gravel crackled beneath the equal tread of the two elders, and in a +murmur we could catch occasional scraps of sentences: + +"A granddaughter like Jeanne, Monsieur Charnot...." + +"A grandson like Fabien, Monsieur Mouillard...." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. A HAPPY FAMILY + + PARIS, September 18th. + +We are married. We are just back from the church. We have said good-by +to all our friends, not without a quick touch or two of sadness, as +quickly swallowed up in the joy which for the first time in the history +of my heart is surging there at full tide, and widening to a limitless +horizon. In the two hours I have to spare before starting for Italy, I +am writing the last words in this brown diary, which I do not intend to +take with me. + +Jeanne, my own Jeanne, is leaning upon me and reading over my shoulder, +which distracts the flow of my recollections. + +There were crowds at the church. The papers had put us down among the +fashionable marriages of the week. The Institute, the army, men of +letters, public officials, had come out of respect for M. Charnot; +lawyers of Bourges and Paris had come out of respect for my uncle. But +the happiest, the most radiant, next to ourselves, were the people +who came only for Jeanne's sake and mine; Sylvestre Lampron, +painter-in-ordinary to Mademoiselle Charnot, bringing his pretty sketch +as a wedding-present; M. Flamaran and Sidonie; Jupille, who wept as he +used to "thirty years ago;" and M. and Madame Plumet, who took it in +turns to carry their white-robed infant. + +Jeanne and I certainly shook hands with a good many persons, but not +with nearly as many as M. Mouillard. Clean-shaven, his cravat tied with +exquisite care, he spun round in the crowd like a top, always dragging +with him some one who was to introduce him to some one else. "One should +make acquaintances immediately on arrival," he kept saying. + +Yes, Uncle Mouillard has just arrived in Paris; he has settled down near +us on the Quai Malaquais, in a pretty set of rooms which Jeanne chose +for him. He thinks them perfect because she thought they would do. The +tastes and interests of old student days have suddenly reawakened within +him, and will not be put to sleep again. He already knows the omnibus +and tramway lines better than I; he talks of Bourges as if it were +twenty years since he left it: "When I used to live in the country, +Fabien--" + +My father-in-law has found in him a whole-hearted admirer, perhaps even +a future pupil in numismatics. Their friendship makes me think of that-- + + ["You don't mind, Jeanne?" + + "Of course not, my dear; the brown diary is for our two selves + alone." J.] +--of that of the town mouse and the country mouse. Just now, on their +way back to the house, they had a conversation, by turns pathetic and +jovial, in which their different temperaments met in the same feeling, +but at opposite ends of the scale of its shades. + +I caught this fragment of their talk: + +"My dear Charnot, can you guess what I'm thinking about?" + +"No, I haven't the least idea." + +"I think it is very queer." + +"What is queer?" + +"To see a librarian begin his career with a blot of ink. For you can not +deny that Fabien's marriage and situation, and my return to the capital, +are all due to that. It must have been sympathetic ink--eh?" + +"'Felix culpa', as you say, Monsieur Mouillard. There are some blunders +that are lucky; but you can't tell which they are, and that's never any +excuse for committing them." + +I could hardly get hold of Lampron for a moment in the crowd he so +dislikes. He was more uncouth and more devoted than ever. + +"Well, are you happy?" he said. + +"Quite." + +"When you're less happy, come and see me." + +"We shall always be just as happy as we are now," said Jeanne. + +And I think she is right. + +Lampron smiled. + +"Yes, I am quite happy, Sylvestre, and I owe my happiness to you, to +her, and to others. I have done nothing myself to deserve happiness +beyond letting myself drift on the current of life. Whenever I tried to +row a stroke the boat nearly upset. Everything that others tried to do +for me succeeded. I can't get over it. Just think of it yourself. I owed +my introduction to Jeanne to Monsieur Flamaran, who drove me to call on +her father; his friend; you courted her for me by painting her portrait; +Madame Plumet told her you had done so, and also removed the obstacle +in my path. I met her in Italy, thanks entirely to you; and you clinched +the proposal which had been begun by Flamaran. To crown all, the very +situation I desired has been obtained for me by my father-in-law. What +have I had to do? I have loved, sorrowed, and suffered, nothing more; +and now I tremble at the thought that I owe my happiness to every one I +know except myself." + +"Cease to tremble, my friend; don't be surprised at it, and don't alter +your system in the least. Your happiness is your due; what matter how +God chooses to grant it? Suppose it is an income for life paid to you +by your relatives, your friends, the world in general, and the natural +order of things? Well, draw your dividends, and don't bother about where +they come from." + +Since Lampron said so, and he is a philosopher, I think I had better +follow his advice. If you don't mind, Jeanne, I will cherish no ambition +beyond your love, and refrain from running after any increase in wealth +or reputation which might prove a decrease in happiness. If you agree, +Jeanne, we shall see little of society, and much of our friends; we +shall not open our windows wide enough for Love, who is winged, to fly +out of them. If such is your pleasure, Jeanne, you shall direct the +household of your own sweet will--I should say, of your sweet wisdom; +you shall be queen in all matters of domestic economy, you shall rule +our goings-out and our comings-in, our visits, our travels. I shall +leave you to guide me, as a child, along the joyous path in which I +follow your footsteps. I am looking up at Jeanne. She has not said "No." + + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + All that a name is to a street--its honor, its spouse + Came not in single spies, but in battalions + Distrust first impulse + Felix culpa + Happy men don't need company + Hard that one can not live one's life over twice + He always loved to pass for being overwhelmed with work + I don't call that fishing + If trouble awaits us, hope will steal us a happy hour or two + Lends--I should say gives + Men forget sooner + Natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves + Obstacles are the salt of all our joys + One doesn't offer apologies to a man in his wrath + People meeting to "have it out" usually say nothing at first + Silence, alas! is not the reproof of kings alone + Skilful actor, who apes all the emotions while feeling none + Sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon broadens + Surprise goes for so much in what we admire + The very smell of books is improving + The looks of the young are always full of the future + There are some blunders that are lucky; but you can't tell + To be your own guide doubles your pleasure + You a law student, while our farmers are in want of hands + You must always first get the tobacco to burn evenly + You ask Life for certainties, as if she had any to give you + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ink-Stain, Complete, by Rene Bazin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INK-STAIN, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 3975.txt or 3975.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/3975/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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