From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way towards a nymph of the vicinity.

"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the park keeper does not surprise them."

Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped him on the shoulder.

"It is closing time, sir," said he.

"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances."

And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was for him the Marseillaise of love.

Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend.

"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in love."

"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad toothache in the heart."

"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander.

"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers."

"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are chaffing me."

"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say, no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see, Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love her."

"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his magnificent nasal bass.

"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and sometimes even the denouement; I never know how to begin."

"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her."

"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue eyes."

"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no—but gloves—you know that we can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic regions."

"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a corner.

"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary to put in an appearance I will call you."

For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your advocate has won the cause."

"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with."

"You have no need to recommend me to do that."

"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside her."

"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet."

"That is because he is a musician."

Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house in the Rue St. Denis.

"It is here that I live," said the girl.

"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?"

"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening."

"For sure?"

"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health.

Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated.

"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like that, I must write some verses."

The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line—

"Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth."

That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and although he had slept very little, he got up at once.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?"

And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as though intending to say to him "Work."

"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of ink."

He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet any friends.

"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for me in advance."

After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray.

Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature, and only returned to Paris at nightfall.

After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature, Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being able to dress in white.

From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about her neck.

"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him.

But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves.

At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two timid taps were given at the door.

Rodolphe went and opened it. It was Louise.

"You see I have kept my word," said she.

Rodolphe drew the curtain and lit a fresh candle.

During this operation the girl had removed her bonnet and shawl, which she went and placed on the bed. The dazzling whiteness of the sheets caused her to smile, and almost to blush.

Louise was rather pleasing than pretty; her fresh colored face presented an attractive blending of simplicity and archness. It was something like an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple, attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly shod feet were of satisfactory smallness, even for a romantic lover smitten by Andalusian or Chinese miniatures. As to her hands, their softness attested idleness. In fact, for six months past she had no longer any reason to fear needle pricks. In short, Louise was one of those fickle birds of passage who from fancy, and often from necessity, make for a day, or rather a night, their nest in the garrets of the students' quarter, and remain there willingly for a few days, if one knows how to retain them by a whim or by some ribbons.

After having chatted for an hour with Louise, Rodolphe showed her, as an example, the group of Cupid and Psyche.

"Isn't it Paul and Virginia?"

"Yes," replied Rodolphe, who did not want to vex her at the outset by contradicting her.

"They are very well done," said Louise.

"Alas!" thought Rodolphe, gazing at her, "the poor child is not up to much as regards literature. I am sure that her only orthography is that of the heart. I must buy her a dictionary."

However, as Louise complained of her boots incommoding her, he obligingly helped her to unlace them.

All at once the light went out.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who has blown the candle out?"

A joyful burst of laughter replied to him.

A few days later Rodolphe met one of his friends in the street.

"What are you up to?" said the latter. "One no longer sees anything of you."

"I am studying the poetry of intimacy," replied Rodolphe.

The poor fellow spoke the truth. He sought from Louise more than the poor girl could give him. An oaten pipe, she had not the strains of a lyre. She spoke to, so to say, the jargon of love, and Rodolphe insisted upon speaking the classic language. Thus they scarcely understood each other.

A week later, at the same ball at which she had found Rodolphe, Louise met a fair young fellow, who danced with her several times, and at the close of the entertainment took her home with him.

He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket.

Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter couched as follows:—

"Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time. Good bye.

Louise."

As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his light suddenly went out.

"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the evening that Louise came—it was bound to finish with our union. If I had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer, which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves.

One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting and the orthography of Louise.

"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that she loved me better than you?"

"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and shoulders have no need of grammar."



CHAPTER IV

ALI RODOLPHE; OR, THE TURK PERFORCE

Ostracized by an inhospitable proprietor, Rodolphe had for some time been leading a life compared with which the existence of a cloud is rather stationary. He practiced assiduously the arts of going to bed without supper, and supping without going to bed. He often dined with Duke Humphrey, and generally slept at the sign of a clear sky. Still, amid all these crosses and troubles, two things never forsook him; his good humor and the manuscript of "The Avenger," a drama which had gone the rounds of all the theaters in Paris.

One day Rodolphe, who had been jugged for some slight choreographic extravagances, stumbled upon an uncle of his, one Monetti, a stove maker and smokey chimney doctor, and sargeant of the National Guard, whom he had not seen for an age. Touched by his nephew's misfortunes, Uncle Monetti promised to ameliorate his position. We shall see how, if the reader is not afraid of mounting six stories.

Take note of the banister, then, and follow. Up we go! Whew! One hundred and twenty-five steps! Here we are at last. One more step, and we are in the room; one more yet, and we should be out of it again. It's little, but high up, with the advantages of good air and a fine prospect.

The furniture is composed of two French stoves, several German ditto, some ovens on the economic plan, (especially if you never make fire in them,) a dozen stove pipes, some red clay, some sheet iron, and a whole host of heating apparatus. We may mention, to complete the inventory, a hammock suspended from two nails inserted in the wall, a three-legged garden chair, a candlestick adorned with its bobeche, and some other similar objects of elegant art. As to the second room—that is to say, the balcony—two dwarf cypresses, in pots, make a park of it for fine weather.

At the moment of our entry, the occupant of the premises, a young man, dressed like a Turk of the Comic Opera, is finishing a repast, in which he shamelessly violates the law of the Prophet. Witness a bone that was once a ham, and a bottle that has been full of wine. His meal over, the young Turk stretches himself on the floor in true Eastern style, and begins carelessly to smoke a narghile. While abandoning himself to this Asiatic luxury, he passes his hand from time to time over the back of a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who would doubtless respond to its caresses where he not also in terra cotta, to match the rest of the furniture.

Suddenly a noise was heard in the entry, and the door opened, admitting a person who, without saying a word, marched straight to one of the stoves, which served the purpose of a secretary, opened the stove-door, and drew out a bundle of papers.

"Hallo!" cried the new-comer, after examining the manuscript attentively, "the chapter on ventilators not finished yet!"

"Allow me to observe, uncle," replied the Turk, "the chapter on ventilators is one of the most interesting in your book, and requires to be studied with care. I am studying it."

"But you miserable fellow, you are always saying that same thing. And the chapter on stoves—where are you in that?"

"The stoves are going on well, but, by the way, uncle, if you could give me a little wood, it wouldn't hurt me. It is a little Siberia here. I am so cold, that I make a thermometer go down below zero by just looking at it."

"What! you've used up one faggot already?"

"Allow me to remark again, uncle, there are different kinds of faggots, and yours was the very smallest kind."

"I'll send you an economic log—that keeps the heat."

"Exactly, and doesn't give any."

"Well," said the uncle as he went off, "you shall have a little faggot, and I must have my chapter on stoves for tomorrow."

"When I have fire, that will inspire me," answered the Turk as he heard himself locked in.

Were we making a tragedy, this would be the time to bring in a confidant. Noureddin or Osman he should be called, and he should advance towards our hero with an air at the same time discreet and patronizing, to console him for his reverses, by means of these three verses:

'What saddening grief, my Lord, assails you now? Why sits this pallor on your noble brow? Does Allah lend your plans no helping hand? Or cruel Ali, with severe command, Remove to other shores the beauteous dame, Who charmed your eyes and set your heart on flame!'

But we are not making a tragedy, so we must do without our confidant, though he would be very convenient.

Our hero is not what he appears to be. The turban does not make the Turk. This young man is our friend Rodolphe, entertained by his uncle, for whom he is drawing up a manual of "The Perfect Chimney Constructor." In fact, Monsieur Monetti, an enthusiast for his art, had consecrated his days to this science of chimneys. One day he formed the idea of drawing up, for the benefit of posterity, a theoretic code of the principles of that art, in the practice of which he so excelled, and he had chosen his nephew, as we have seen, to frame the substance of his ideas in an intelligible form. Rodolphe was found in board, lodging, and other contingencies, and at the completion of the manual was to receive a recompense of three hundred francs.

In the beginning, to encourage his nephew, Monetti had generously made him an advance of fifty francs. But Rodolphe, who had not seen so much silver together for nearly a year, half crazy, in company with his money, stayed out three days, and on the fourth came home alone! Thereupon the uncle, who was in haste to have his "Manual" finished inasmuch as he hoped to get a patent for it, dreading some new diversion on his nephew's part, determined to make him work by preventing him from going out. To this end he carried off his garments, and left him instead the disguise under which we have seen him. Nevertheless, the famous "Manual" continued to make very slow progress, for Rodolphe had no genius whatever for this kind of literature. The uncle avenged himself for this lazy indifference on the great subject of chimneys by making his nephew undergo a host of annoyances. Sometimes he cut short his commons, and frequently stopped the supply of tobacco.

One Sunday, after having sweated blood and ink upon the great chapter of ventilators, Rodolphe broke the pen, which was burning his fingers, and went out to walk—in his "park." As if on purpose to plague him, and excite his envy the more, he could not cast a single look about him without perceiving the figure of a smoker on every window.

On the gilt balcony of a new house opposite, an exquisite in his dressing gown was biting off the end of an aristocratic "Pantellas" cigar. A story above, an artist was sending before him an odorous cloud of Turkish tobacco from his amber-mouthed pipe. At the window of a brasserie, a fat German was crowning a foaming tankard, and emitting, with the regularity of a machine, the dense puffs that escaped from his meershaum. On the other side, a group of workmen were singing as they passed on their way to the barriers, their "throat-scorchers" between their teeth. Finally, all the other pedestrians visible in the street were smoking.

"Woe is me!" sighed Rodolphe, "except myself and my uncle's chimneys, all creation is smoking at this hour!" And he rested his forehead on the bar of the balcony, and thought how dreary life was.

Suddenly, a burst of long and musical laughter parted under his feet. Rodolphe bent forward a little, to discover the source of this volley of gaiety, and perceived that he had been perceived by the tenant of the story beneath him, Mademoiselle Sidonia, of the Luxembourg Theater. The young lady advanced to the front of her balcony, rolling between her fingers, with the dexterity of a Spaniard, a paper-full of light-colored tobacco, which she took from a bag of embroidered velvet.

"What a sweet cigar girl it is!" murmured Rodolphe, in an ecstacy of contemplation.

"Who is this Ali Baba?" thought Mademoiselle Sidonia on her part. And she meditated on a pretext for engaging in conversation with Rodolphe, who was himself trying to do the very same.

"Bless me!" cried the lady, as if talking to herself, "what a bore! I've no matches!"

"Allow me to offer you some, mademoiselle," said Rodolphe, letting fall on the balcony two or three lucifers rolled up in paper.

"A thousand thanks," replied Sidonia, lighting her cigarette.

"Pray, mademoiselle," continued Rodolphe, "in exchange for the trifling service which my good angel has permitted me to render you, may I ask you to do me a favor?"

"Asking already," thought the actress, as she regarded Rodolphe with more attention. "They say these Turks are fickle, but very agreeable. Speak sir," she continued, raising her head towards the young man, "what do you wish?"

"The charity of a little tobacco, mademoiselle, only one pipe. I have not smoked for two whole days."

"Most willingly, but how? Will you take the trouble to come downstairs?"

"Alas! I can't! I am shut up here, but am still free to employ a very simple means." He fastened his pipe to a string, and let it glide down to her balcony, where Sidonia filled it profusely herself. Rodolphe then proceeded, with much ease and deliberation, to remount his pipe, which arrived without accident. "Ah, mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, "how much better this pipe would have seemed, if I could have lighted it at your eyes!"

It was at least the hundredth edition of this amiable pleasantry, but Sidonia found it superb for all that, and thought herself bound to reply, "You flatter me."

"I assure you, mademoiselle, in right-down earnest, I think you handsomer than all the Three Graces together."

"Decidedly, Ali Baba is very polite," thought Sidonia. "Are you really a Turk?" she asked Rodolphe.

"Not by profession," he replied, "but by necessity. I am a dramatic author."

"I am an artist," she replied, then added, "My dear sir and neighbor, will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?"

"Alas!" answered Rodolphe, "though your invitation is like opening heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and chimney doctor, whose secretary I am now."

"You shall dine with me for all that," replied Sidonia. "Listen, I shall re-enter my room, and tap on the ceiling. Look where I strike and you will find the traces of a trap which used to be there, and has since been fastened up. Find the means of removing the piece of wood which closes the hole, and then, although we are each in our own room, we shall be as good as together."

Rodolphe went to work at once. In five minutes a communication was established between the two rooms.

"It is a very little hole," said he, "but there will always be room enough to pass you my heart."

"Now," said Sidonia, "we will go to dinner. Set your table, and I will pass you the dishes."

Rodolphe let down his turban by a string, and brought it back laden with eatables, then the poet and the actress proceeded to dine—on their respective floors. Rodolphe devoured the pie with his teeth, and Sidonia with his eyes.

"Thanks to you, mademoiselle," he said, when their repast was finished, "my stomach is satisfied. Can you not also satisfy the void of my heart, which has been so long empty?"

"Poor fellow!" said Sidonia, and climbing on a piece of furniture, she lifted up her hand to Rodolphe's lips, who gloved it with kisses.

"What a pity," he exclaimed, "you can't do as St. Denis, who had the privilege of carrying his head in his hands!"

To the dinner succeeded a sentimental literary conversation. Rodolphe spoke of "The Avenger," and Sidonia asked him to read it. Leaning over the hole, he began declaiming his drama to the actress, who, to hear better, had put her arm chair on the top of a chest of drawers. She pronounced "The Avenger" a masterpiece, and having some influence at the theater, promised Rodolphe to get his piece received.

But at the most interesting moment a step was heard in the entry, about as light as that of the Commander's ghost in "Don Juan." It was Uncle Monetti. Rodolphe had only just time to shut the trap.

"Here," said Monetti to his nephew, "this letter has been running after you for a month."

"Uncle! Uncle!" cried Rodolphe, "I am rich at last! This letter informs me that I have gained a prize of three hundred francs, given by an academy of floral games. Quick! my coat and my things! Let me go to gather my laurels. They await me at the Capitol!"

"And my chapter on ventilators?" said Monetti, coldly.

"I like that! Give me my things, I tell you; I can't go out so!"

"You shall go out when my 'Manual' is finished," quoth the uncle, shutting up his nephew under lock and key.

Rodolphe, when left alone, did not hesitate on the course to take. He transformed his quilt into a knotted rope, which he fastened firmly to his own balcony, and in spite of the risk, descended by this extempore ladder upon Mademoiselle Sidonia's.

"Who is there?" she cried, on hearing Rodolphe knock at her window.

"Hush!" he replied, "open!"

"What do you want? Who are you?"

"Can you ask? I am the author of 'The Avenger,' come to look for my heart, which I dropped through the trap into your room."

"Rash youth!" said the actress, "you might have killed yourself!"

"Listen, Sidonia," continued Rodolphe, showing her the letter he just received. "You see, wealth and glory smile on me, let love do the same!"

* * * * *

The following morning, by means of a masculine disguise, which Sidonia procured for him, Rodolphe was enabled to escape from his uncle's lodging. He ran to the secretary of the academy of floral games, to receive a crown of gold sweetbrier, worth three hundred francs, which lived

"—as live roses the fairest— The space of a day."

A month after, Monsieur Monetti was invited by his nephew to assist at the first representation of "The Avenger." Thanks to the talent of Mademoiselle Sidonia, the piece had a run of seventeen nights, and brought in forty francs to its author.

Some time later—it was in the warm season—Rodolphe lodged in the Avenue St. Cloud, third tree as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, on the fifth branch.



CHAPTER V

THE CARLOVINGIAN COIN

Towards the end of December the messengers of Bidault's agency were entrusted with the distribution of about a hundred copies of a letter of invitation, of which we certify that the following to be a true and genuine copy:—

——-

M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on Saturday next, Christmas Eve. Fun!

P.S. Life is short!

PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENT

PART I

7 o'clock—Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation.

8.—Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," comedy refused at the Odeon Theater.

8:30.—M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play his imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the piano.

9.—First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."

9:30.—Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened.

10.—M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early loves, accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard.

10:30.—Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy."

11.—Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince.

PART II

Midnight.—M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his eyes bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of Voltaire and Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also improvise a parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of Austerlitz.

12:30.—M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an imitation of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad.

1.—Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one day find themselves out of employment.

2.—Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last until morning.

6.—Sunrise and final chorus.

During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action.

N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally requested not to help themselves to the candle ends.

Two days later, copies of this invitation were circulating among the lower depths of art and literature, and created a profound sensation.

There were, however, amongst the invited guests, some who cast doubt upon the splendor of the promises made by the two friends.

"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a little filtered water in eclectic pottery."

"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical."

"Will there be any ladies?"

"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard is to bring some ladies of position."

This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above.

"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that are indispensable to do the thing properly."

"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel.

And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the way, the way of impossibility.

However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon themselves.

And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item "liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs.

The problem was simplified, but not yet solved.

"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must now have recourse to strong measures, we cannot cry off this time."

"No, that is impossible," replied Marcel.

"How long is it since I have heard the story of the Battle of Studzianka?"

"About two months."

"Two months, good, that is a decent interval; my uncle will have no ground for grumbling. I will go tomorrow and hear his account of that engagement, that will be five francs for certain."

"I," said Marcel, "will go and sell a deserted manor house to old Medicis. That will make another five francs. If I have time enough to put in three towers and a mill, it will perhaps run to ten francs, and our budget will be complete."

And the two friends fell asleep dreaming that the Princess Belgiojoso begged them to change their reception day, in order not to rob her of her customary guests.

Awake at dawn, Marcel took a canvas and rapidly set to work to build up a deserted manor house, an article which he was in the habit of supplying to a broker of the Place de Carrousel. On his side, Rodolphe went to pay a visit to his Uncle Monetti, who shone in the story of the Retreat from Moscow, and to whom Rodolphe accorded five or six times in course of the year, when matters were really serious, the satisfaction of narrating his campaigns, in return for a small loan which the veteran stove maker did not refuse too obstinately when due enthusiasm was displayed in listening to his narrations.

About two o'clock, Marcel with hanging head and a canvas under his arm, met on the Place de Carrousel Rodolphe, who was returning from his uncle's, and whose bearing also presaged ill news.

"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?"

"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?"

"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers."

"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing."

And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness.

At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four.

"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly.

"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?"

"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?"

"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?"

"This is mere comedy," replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was mingled with indulgence.

Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph.

"We are saved!" he exclaimed. "I was sure that there was money here. Behold!" and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and half eaten away by rust and verdigris.

It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily intact, showed the date of Charlemagne's reign.

"That, that's worth thirty sous," said Rodolphe, with a contemptuous glance at his friend's find.

"Thirty sous well employed will go a great way," replied Marcel. "With twelve hundred men Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians lay down their arms. Skill can replace numbers. I will go and swap the Carlovingian crown at Daddy Medicis'. Is there not anything else saleable here? Suppose I take the plaster cast of the tibia of Jaconowski, the Russian drum major."

"Take the tibia. But it is a nuisance, there will not be a single ornament left here."

During Marcel's absence, Rodolphe, his mind made up that that party should be given in any case, went in search of his friend Colline, the hyperphysical philosopher, who lived hard by.

"I have come," said he, "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; lend me yours."

"But," said Colline hesitating, "as a guest I shall want my black swallow-tail too."

"I will allow you to come in a frock coat."

"That won't do. You know very well I have never had a frock coat."

"Well, then, it can be settled in another way. If needs be, you need not come to my party, and can lend me your swallow-tail."

"That would be unpleasant. I am on the program, and must not be lacking."

"There are plenty of other things that will be lacking," said Rodolphe. "Lend me your black swallow-tail, and if you will come, come as you like; in your shirt sleeves, you will pass for a faithful servant."

"Oh no!" said Colline, blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. There are some odds and ends in the pockets."

Colline's swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place it was of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men could go and refer to the skirts of Colline's swallow-tail—a library always open.

That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline's swallow-tail only contained a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope's "Essay on Man." When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed Rodolphe to clothe himself in it.

"Hallo!" said the latter, "the left pocket still feels very heavy; you have left something in it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Colline, "that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign languages pocket."

And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a stock breeder's manual in Chinese, his favorite reading.

When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with three five franc pieces. At first Rodolphe refused his friend's proferred hand—he thought some crime had been committed.

"Let us make haste, let us make haste," said Marcel, "we have the fifteen francs required. This is how it happened. I met an antiquary at Medicis'. When he saw the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the only one wanting in his cabinet. He had sent everywhere to get this vacancy filled up, and had lost all hope. Thus, when he had thoroughly examined my Carlovingian crown piece, he did not hesitate for a moment to offer me five francs for it. Medicis nudged me with his elbow; a look from him completed the business. He meant, 'share the profits of the sale, and I will bid against him.' We ran it up to thirty francs. I gave the Jew fifteen, and here are the rest. Now our guests may come; we are in a position to dazzle them. Hallo! You have got a swallow-tail!"

"Yes," said Rodolphe, "Colline's swallow-tail." And as he was feeling for his handkerchief, Rodolphe pulled out a small volume in a Tartar dialect, overlooked in the foreign literature pocket.

The two friends at once proceeded to make their preparations. The studio was set in order, a fire kindled in the stove, the stretcher of a picture, garnished with composite candles, suspended from the ceiling as a chandelier, and a writing table placed in the middle of the studio to serve as a rostrum for the orators. The solitary armchair, which was to be reserved for the influential critic, was placed in front of it, and upon a table were arranged all the books, romances, poems, pamphlets, &c., the authors of which were to honor the company with their presence.

In order to avoid any collision between members of the different schools of literature, the studio had been, moreover, divided into four compartments, at the entrance to each of which could be read, on four hurriedly manufactured placards, the inscriptions—"Poets," "Prose Writers," "Classic School," and "Romantic School."

The ladies were to occupy a space reserved in the middle of the studio.

"Humph! Chairs are lacking," said Rodolphe.

"Oh!" remarked Marcel, "there are several on the landing, fastened along the wall. Suppose we were to gather them."

"Certainly, let us gather them by all means," said Rodolphe, starting off to seize on the chairs, which belonged to some neighbor.

Six o'clock struck: the two friends went off to a hasty dinner, and returned to light up the saloons. They were themselves dazzled by the result. At seven o'clock Schaunard arrived, accompanied by three ladies, who had forgotten their diamonds and their bonnets. One of them wore a red shawl with black spots. Schaunard pointed out this lady particularly to Rodolphe.

"She is a woman accustomed to the best society," said he, "an Englishwoman whom the fall of the Stuarts has driven into exile, she lives in a modest way by giving lessons in English. Her father was Lord Chancellor under Cromwell, she told me, so we must be polite with her. Don't be too familiar."

Numerous footsteps were heard on the stairs. It was the guests arriving. They seemed astonished to see a fire burning in the stove.

Rodolphe's swallow-tail went to greet the ladies, and kissed their hands with a grace worthy of the Regency. When there was a score of persons present, Schaunard asked whether it was not time for a round of drinks.

"Presently," said Marcel. "We are waiting for the arrival of the influential critic to set fire to the punch."

At eight o'clock the whole of the guests had arrived, and the execution of the program commenced. Each item was alternated with a round of drink of some kind, no one ever knew what.

Towards ten o'clock the white waistcoat of the influential critic made its appearance. He only stayed an hour, and was very sober in the consumption of refreshments.

At midnight, as there was no more wood, and it was very cold, the guests who were seated drew lots as to who should cast his chair into the fire.

By one o'clock every one was standing.

Amiable gaiety did not cease to reign amongst the guests. There were no accidents to be regretted, with the exception of a rent in the foreign languages pocket of Colline's swallow-tail and a smack in the face given by Schaunard to the daughter of Cromwell's Lord Chancellor.

This memorable evening was for a week the staple subject of gossip in the district, and Phemie Teinturiere, who had been the queen of the fete, was accustomed to remark, when talking it over with her friends,—

"It was awfully fine. There were composite candles, my dear."



CHAPTER VI

MADEMOISELLE MUSETTE

Mademoiselle Musette was a pretty girl of twenty who shortly after her arrival in Paris had become what many pretty girls become when they have a neat figure, plenty of coquesttishness, a dash of ambition and hardly any education. After having for a long time shone as the star of the supper parties of the Latin Quarter, at which she used to sing in a voice, still very fresh if not very true, a number of country ditties, which earned her the nickname under which she has since been immortalized by one of our neatest rhymsters, Mademoiselle Musette suddenly left the Rue de la Harpe to go and dwell upon the Cytherean heights of the Breda district.

She speedily became one of the foremost of the aristocracy of pleasure and slowly made her way towards that celebrity which consists in being mentioned in the columns devoted to Parisian gossip, or lithographed at the printsellers.

However Mademoiselle Musette was an exception to the women amongst whom she lived. Of a nature instinctively elegant and poetical, like all women who are really such, she loved luxury and the many enjoyments which it procures; her coquetry warmly coveted all that was handsome and distinguished; a daughter of the people, she would not have been in any way out of her element amidst the most regal sumptuosity. But Mademoiselle Musette, who was young and pretty, had never consented to be the mistress of any man who was not like herself young and handsome. She had been known bravely to refuse the magnificient offers of an old man so rich that he was styled the Peru of the Chaussee d'Antin, and who had offered a golden ladder to the gratification of her fancies. Intelligent and witty, she had also a repugnance for fools and simpletons, whatever might be their age, their title and their name.

Musette, therefore, was an honest and pretty girl, who in love adopted half of Champfort's famous amphoris, "Love is the interchange of two caprices." Thus her connection had never been preceded by one of those shameful bargains which dishonor modern gallantry. As she herself said, Musette played fair and insisted that she should receive full change for her sincerity.

But if her fancies were lively and spontaneous, they were never durable enough to reach the height of a passion. And the excessive mobility of her caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred de Musset to fitly narrate your careless and vagabond course amidst the flowery paths of youth; and he would certainly have celebrated you, if like me, he had heard you sing in your pretty false notes, this couplet from one of your favorite ditties:

"It was a day in Spring When love I strove to sing Unto a nut brown maid. O'er face as fair as dawn Cast a bewitching shade,"

The story we are about to tell is one of the most charming in the life of this charming adventuress who wore so many green gowns.

At a time when she was the mistress of a young Counsellor of State, who had gallantly placed in her hands the key of his ancestral coffers, Mademoiselle Musette was in the habit of receiving once a week in her pretty drawing room in the Rue de la Bruyere. These evenings resembled most Parisian evenings, with the difference that people amused themselves. When there was not enough room they sat on one another's knees, and it often happened that the same glass served for two. Rodolphe, who was a friend of Musette and never anything more than a friend, without either of them knowing why—Rodolphe asked leave to bring his friend, the painter Marcel.

"A young fellow of talent," he added, "for whom the future is embroidering his Academician's coat."

"Bring him," said Musette.

The evening they were to go together to Musette's Rodolphe called on Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet.

"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?"

"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly.

"Shock custom, it stuns it."

"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as 'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines."

"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?"

"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory black."

"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight.

In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society.

M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on reaching Mademoiselle Musette's.

This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination.

This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to withdraw.

Musette bowed her guests out, singing:

"They will laugh long and loud, tralala, At my Thursday night's crowd They will laugh long and loud, tralala."

Marcel and Rodolphe alone remained with Musette, who ascended to her room where there was nothing left but the bed.

"Ah, but my adventure is no longer such a lively one after all," said Musette. "I shall have to take up my quarters out of doors."

"Oh madame!" said Marcel, "if I had the gifts of Plutus I should like to offer you a temple finer than that of Solomon, but—"

"You are not Plutus. All the same I thank you for your good intentions. Ah!" she added, glancing around the room, "I was getting bored here, and then the furniture was old. I had had it nearly six months. But that is not all, after the dance one should sup."

"Let us sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all in the morning, when he was terrible.

As Rodolphe had gained some money at the lansquenet played during the evening, he carried off Musette and Marcel to a restaurant which was just opening.

After breakfast, the three, who had no inclination for sleep, spoke of finishing the day in the country, and as they found themselves close to the railway station they got into the first train that started, which landed them at Saint Germain.

During the whole of the night of the party and all of the rest of the day Marcel, who was gunpowder which a single glance sufficed to kindle, had been violently smitten by Mademoiselle Musette and paid her "highly-colored court," as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the last with the result of the sale of his famous picture, "The Passage of the Red Sea." Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it became necessary to part from Musette, who whilst allowing him to kiss her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every time that he tried to violently burgle her heart.

On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the artist to see her to her door.

"Will you allow me to call on you?" asked Marcel, "I will paint your portrait."

"My dear fellow," replied she, "I cannot give you my address, since tomorrow I may no longer have one, but I will call and see you, and I will mend your coat, which has a hole so big that one could shoot the moon through it."

"I will await your coming like that of the messiah," said Marcel.

"Not quite so long," said Musette, laughing.

"What a charming girl," said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked away. "She is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat."

He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette.

"My dear Monsieur Marcel," said she, "are you a true knight?"

"I am. 'Rubens and my lady,' that is my motto."

"Well then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir," returned Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered grammar in fine style, "the landlord has taken away the key of my room and it is eleven o'clock at night. Do you understand?"

"I understand," said Marcel, offering Musette his arm. He took her to his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs.

Musette was hardly able to keep awake, but she still had strength enough to say to Marcel, taking him by the hand, "You remember what you have promised?"

"Oh Musette! charming creature!" said the artist in a somewhat moved tone, "you are here beneath a hospitable roof, sleep in peace. Good night, I am off."

"Why so?" said Musette, her eyes half closed. "I am not afraid, I can assure you. In the first place, there are two rooms. I will sleep on your sofa."

"My sofa is too hard to sleep on, it is stuffed with carded pebbles. I will give you hospitality here, and ask it for myself from a friend who lives on the same landing. It will be more prudent," said he. "I usually keep my word, but I am twenty-two and you are eighteen, Musette,—and I am off. Good night."

The next morning at eight o'clock Marcel entered her room with a pot of flowers that he had gone and bought in the market. He found Musette, who had thrown herself fully dressed on the bed, and was still sleeping. At the noise made by him she woke, and held out her hand.

"What a good fellow," said she.

"Good fellow," repeated Marcel, "is not that a term of ridicule?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Musette, "why should you say that to me? It is not nice. Instead of saying spiteful things offer me that pretty pot of flowers."

"It is, indeed, for you that I have brought them up," said Marcel. "Take it, and in return for my hospitality sing me one of your songs, the echo of my garret may perhaps retain something of your voice, and I shall still hear you after you have departed."

"Oh! so you want to show me the door?" said Musette. "Listen, Marcel, I do not beat about the bush to say what my thoughts are. You like me and I like you. It is not love, but it is perhaps its seed. Well, I am not going away, I am going to stop here, and I shall stay here as long as the flowers you have just given me remain unfaded."

"Ah!" exclaimed Marcel, "they will fade in a couple of days. If I had known I would have bought immortelles."

* * * * *

For a fortnight Musette and Marcel lived together, and led, although often without money, the most charming life in the world. Musette felt for the artist an affection which had nothing in common with her preceding passions, and Marcel began to fear that he was seriously in love with his mistress. Ignorant that she herself was very much afraid of being equally smitten, he glanced every morning at the condition of the flowers, the death of which was to bring about the severance of their connection, and found it very difficult to account for their continued freshness. But he soon had a key to the mystery. One night, waking up, he no longer found Musette beside him. He rose, hastened into the next room, and perceived his mistress, who profited nightly by his slumbers to water the flowers and hinder them from perishing.



CHAPTER VII

THE BILLOWS OF PACTOLUS

It was the nineteenth of March, 184—. Should Rodolphe reach the age of Methuselah, he will never forget the date; for it was on that day, at three in the afternoon, that our friend issued from a banker's where he had just received five hundred francs in current and sounding specie.

The first use Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into his pocket was not to pay his debts, inasmuch as he had sworn to himself to practice economy and go to no extra expense. He had a fixed idea on this subject, and declared that before thinking of superfluities, one ought to provide for necessaries. Therefore it was that he paid none of his creditors, and bought a Turkish pipe which he had long coveted.

Armed with this purchase, he directed his steps towards the lodging of his friend Marcel, who had for some time given him shelter. As he entered Marcel's studio, Rodolphe's pockets rang like a village-steeple on a grand holiday. On hearing this unusual sound, Marcel supposed it was one of his neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on 'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn robber, forty times over."

So, never suspecting that it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which had been on his easel nearly three years.

Rodolphe, who had not yet spoken, meditating an experiment which he was about to make on his friend, said to himself, "We shall laugh in a minute. Won't it be fun?" and he let fall a five-franc piece on the floor.

Marcel raised his eyes and looked at Rodolphe, who was as grave as an article in the "Revue des deux Mondes." Then he picked up the piece of money with a well-satisfied air, and made a courteous salute to it; for, vagabond artist as he was, he understood the usages of society, and was very civil to strangers. Knowing, moreover, that Rodolphe had gone out to look for money, Marcel, seeing that his friend had succeeded in his operations, contented himself with admiring the result, without inquiring by what means it had been obtained. Accordingly, he went to work again without speaking, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the waves of the Red Sea. As he was terminating this homicide, Rodolphe let fall another piece, laughing in his sleeve at the face the painter was going to make.

At the sonorous sound of the metal, Marcel bounded up as if he had received an electric shock, and cried, "What! Number two!"

A third piece rolled on the floor, then another, then one more; finally a whole quadrille of five-franc pieces were dancing in the room.

Marcel began to show evident signs of mental alienation; and Rodolphe laughed like the pit of a Parisian theatre at the first representation of a very tragical tragedy. Suddenly, and without any warning, he plunged both hands into his pockets, and the money rushed out in a supernatural steeple-chase. It was an inundation of Pactolus; it was Jupiter entering Danae's chamber.

Marcel remained silent, motionless, with a fixed stare; his astonishment was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which the untimely curiosity of Lott's wife brought upon her: by the time that Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter was petrified all down one side of his body.

Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the crying of a child at the breast.

Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in a tragedy, he ejaculated:

"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added, "Explain to me this mystery."

"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more."

"Come, now!"

"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!"

"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red Sea.'"

All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist:

"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in laboriously acquiring a serious position—such as a virtuous man should occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties—."

"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel.

"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good sense, no doubt."

"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries. They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in which I am from this moment clad."

"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion."

"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must be economical."

"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the works of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, who will perhaps teach us how to practice the art. Hallo! You have a Turkish pipe there!"

"Yes, I bought it for twenty-five francs."

"How is that! You talk of economy, and give twenty-five francs for a pipe!"

"And this is an economy. I used to break a two-sous pipe every day, and at the end of the year that came to a great deal more."

"True, I should never have thought of that."

They heard a neighboring clock strike six.

"Let us have dinner at once," said Rodolphe. "I mean to begin from tonight. Talking of dinner, it occurs to me that we lose much valuable time every day in cooking ours; now time is money, so we must economize it. From this day we will dine out."

"Yes," said Marcel, "there is a capital restaurant twenty steps off. It's rather dear, but not far to go, so we shall gain in time what we lose in money."

"We will go there today," said Rodolphe, "but tomorrow or next day we will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the restaurant, we will hire a cook."

"No, no," put in Marcel, "we will hire a servant to be cook and everything. Just see the immense advantages which will result from it. First of all, our rooms will be always in order; he will clean our boots, go on errands, wash my brushes; I will even try and give him a taste of the fine arts, and make him grind colors. In this way, we shall save at least six hours a day."

Five minutes after, the two friends were installed in one of the little rooms of the restaurant, and continuing their schemes of economy.

"We must get an intelligent lad," said Rodolphe, "if he has a sprinkling of spelling, I will teach him to write articles, and make an editor of him."

"That will be his resource for his old age," said Marcel, adding up the bill. "Well, this is dear, rather! Fifteen francs! We used both to dine for a franc and a half."

"Yes," replied Rodolphe, "but then we dined so badly that we were obliged to sup at night. So, on the whole, it is an economy."

"You always have the best of the argument," muttered the convinced artist. "Shall we work tonight?"

"No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?"

"I shall go to Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures to give me. By the way, give me five francs."

"For what?"

"To cross the Pont des Arts."

"Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a violation of our rule."

"I am wrong, to be sure," said Marcel. "I will take a cab and go by the Pont Neuf."

So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they didn't go home till morning.

Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they met in the street. Still their system of economy was in full blast, though it was not without much difficulty that their "organization of labor" had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an average donkey.

But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he blushed with indignation, and sent it by porter. However, he had some merits; for instance, he could hash hare well and his first profession having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time—or his masters', rather—in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But where he was unrivalled was in smoking Marcel's cigars and lighting them with Rodolphe's manuscripts.

One day Marcel wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste replied by a flat refusal, and demanded his wages.

"Very well," said Marcel, "I will settle with you tonight."

When Rodolphe returned, his friends declared that they must send away Baptiste. "He is of no use to us at all."

"No, indeed—only an ornament, and not much of that."

"Awfully stupid."

"And equally lazy."

"We must turn him off."

"Let us!"

"Still, he has some good points. He hashes hare very well."

"And the lamp-black! He is a very Raphael for that."

"Yes, but that's all he is good for. We lose time arguing with him."

"He keeps us from working."

"He is the cause of my 'Passage' not being finished in time for the Exhibition. He wouldn't sit for Pharaoh."

"Thanks to him, I couldn't finish my article in time. He wouldn't go to the public library and hunt up the notes I wanted."

"He is ruining us."

"Decidedly we can't keep him."

"Send him away then! But we must pay him."

"That we'll do. Give me the money, and I will settle accounts with him."

"Money! But it is not I who keeps the purse, but you."

"Not at all! It is you who are charged with the financial department."

"But I assure you," said Marcel, "I have no money."

"Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can't have spent five hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is."

"Yes, but we shan't find where the money is. However, let us see the account-book, at any rate."

And this is the way they kept their accounts which had been begun under the auspices of Saint Economy:

"March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, 15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr."

"What are those sundries?" asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading.

"You know very well," replied the other, "that night when we didn't go home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that."

"Well, afterwards?"

"March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an opera glass, 2 fr. 50 c.—that goes to your account. What did you want a glass for? You see perfectly well."

"You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the 'Scarf of Iris.' It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The expense is quite legitimate. Well?—"

"A bamboo cane—"

"Ah, that goes to your account," said Rodolphe. "You didn't want a cane."

"That was all we spent the 20th," was Marcel's only answer. "The 21st we breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out."

"We ought not to have spent much that day."

"Not much, in fact—hardly thirty francs."

"But what for?"

"I don't know; it's marked sundries."

"Vague and treacherous heading!"

"'21st. (The day that Baptiste came.) 5 francs to him on account of his wages. 50 centimes to the organ man.'"

"23rd. Nothing set down. 24th, ditto. Two good days!"

"'25th. Baptiste, on account, 3 fr. It seems to me we give him money very often," said Marcel, by way of reflection.

"There will be less owing to him," said Rodolphe. "Go on!"

"'26th. Sundries, useful in an artistic point of view, 36 fr.'"

"What did we buy that was useful? I don't recollect. What can it have been?"

"You don't remember! The day we went to the top of Notre Dame for a bird's-eye view of Paris."

"But it costs only eight sous to go up the tower."

"Yes, but then we went to dine at Saint Germain after we came down."

"Clear as mud!"

"27th. Nothing to set down."

"Good! There's economy for you."

"'28th. Baptiste, on account, 6 fr.'"

"Now this time I am sure we owe Baptiste nothing more. Perhaps he is even in our debt. We must see."

"29th. Nothing set down, except the beginning of an article on 'Social Morals.'"

"30th. Ah! We had company at dinner—heavy expenses the 30th, 55 fr. 31st.—that's today—we have spent nothing yet. You see," continued Marcel, "the account has been kept very carefully, and the total does not reach five hundred francs."

"Then there ought to be money in the drawer."

"We can see," said Marcel, opening it.

"Anything there?"

"Yes, a spider."

"A spider in the morning Of sorrow is a warning," hummed Rodolphe.

"Where the deuce has all the money gone?" exclaimed Marcel, totally upset at the sight of the empty drawer.

"Very simple," replied Rodolphe. "Baptiste has had it all."

"Stop a minute!" cried Marcel, rummaging in the drawer, where he perceived a paper. "The bill for last quarter's rent!"

"How did it come there?"

"And paid, too," added Marcel. "You paid the landlord, then!"

"Me! Come now!" said Rodolphe.

"But what means—"

"But I assure you—"

"Oh, what can be this mystery?" sang the two in chorus to the final air of "The White Lady."

Baptiste, who loved music, came running in at once. Marcel showed him the paper.

"Ah, yes," said Baptiste carelessly, "I forgot to tell you. The landlord came this morning while you were out. I paid him, to save him the trouble of coming back."

"Where did you find the money?"

"I took it out of the open drawer. I thought, sir, you had left it open on purpose, and forgot to tell me to pay him, so I did just as if you had told me."

"Baptiste!" said Marcel, in a white heat, "you have gone beyond your orders. From this day you cease to form part of our household. Take off your livery!"

Baptiste took off the glazed leather cap which composed his livery, and handed it to Marcel.

"Very well," said the latter, "now you may go."

"And my wages?"

"Wages? You scamp! You have had fourteen francs in a little more than a week. What do you do with so much money? Do you keep a dancer?"

"A rope dancer?" suggested Rodolphe.

"Then I am to be left," said the unhappy domestic, "without a covering for my head!"

"Take your livery," said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he restored the cap to Baptiste.

"Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes," said Rodolphe, seeing poor Baptiste go out. "Where shall we dine today?"

"We shall know tomorrow," replied Marcel.



CHAPTER VIII

THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE

One Saturday evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure. Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch. She even, without circumlocution, made an appointment with him for the next day.

"By Jove," said Rodolphe to himself, as he saw Mademoiselle Laure home, "this is certainly a very amiable young person. She seems to me to have a good grammar and a tolerably extensive wardrobe. I am quite disposed to make her happy."

On reaching the door of her house, Mademoiselle Laure relinquished Rodolphe's arm, thanking him for the trouble he had taken in accompanying her to such a remote locality.

"Oh! madame," replied Rodolphe, bowing to the ground, "I should like you to have lived at Moscow or the islands of the Sound, in order to have had the pleasure of being your escort the longer."

"That would be rather far," said Laure, affectedly.

"We could have gone by way of the Boulevards, madame," said Rodolphe. "Allow me to kiss you hand in the shape of your cheek," he added, kissing his companion on the lips before Laure could make any resistance.

"Oh sir!" she exclaimed, "you go too fast."

"It is to reach my destination sooner," said Rodolphe. "In love, the first stages should be ridden at a gallop."

"What a funny fellow," though the milliner, as she entered her dwelling.

"A pretty girl," said Rodolphe, as he walked away.

Returning home, he went to bed at once, and had the most delightful dreams. He saw himself at balls, theaters, and public promenades with Mademoiselle Laure on his arm, clad in dresses more magnificent than those of the girl with the ass's skin of the fairy tale.

The next morning at eleven o'clock, according to habit, Rodolphe got up. His first thought was for Mademoiselle Laure.

"She is a very well mannered woman," he murmured, "I feel sure that she was brought up at Saint Denis. I shall at length realize the happiness of having a mistress who is not pitted with the small-pox. Decidedly I will make sacrifices for her. I will go and draw my screw at 'The Scarf of Iris.' I will buy some gloves, and I will take Laure to dinner at a restaurant where table napkins are in use. My coat is not up to much," said he as he dressed himself, "but, bah! black is good wear."

And he went out to go to the office of "The Scarf of Iris."

Crossing the street he came across an omnibus, on the side of which was pasted a bill, with the words, "Display of Fountains at Versailles, today, Sunday."

A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe's feet would not have produced a deeper impression upon him than the sight of this bill.

"Today, Sunday! I had forgotten it," he exclaimed. "I shall not be able to get any money. Today, Sunday!!! All the spare coin in Paris is on its way to Versailles."

However, impelled by one of those fabulous hopes to which a man always clings, Rodolphe hurried to the office of the paper, reckoning that some happy chance might have taken the cashier there.

Monsieur Boniface had, indeed, looked in for a moment, but had left at once.

"For Versailles," said the office messenger to Rodolphe.

"Come," said Rodolphe, "it is all over!... But let me see," he thought, "my appointment is for this evening. It is noon, so I have five hours to find five francs in—twenty sous an hour, like the horses in the Bois du Boulogne. Forward."

As he found himself in a neighborhood where the journalist, whom he styled the influential critic, resided, Rodolphe thought of having a try at him.

"I am sure to find him in," said he, as he ascended the stairs, "it is the day he writes his criticism—there is no fear of his being out. I will borrow five francs of him."

"Hallo! it's you, is it?" said the journalist, on seeing Rodolphe. "You come at the right moment. I have a slight service to ask of you."

"How lucky it falls out," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris."

"Were you at the Odeon Theater last night?"

"I am always at the Odeon."

"You have seen the new piece, then?"

"Who else would have seen it? I am the Odeon audience."

"That is true," said the critic, "you are one of the caryatides of the theater. It is even rumored that it is you who finds the money for its subvention. Well, that is what I want of you, a summary of the plot of the new piece."

"That is easy, I have the memory of a creditor."

"Whom is this piece by?" asked the critic of Rodolphe, whilst the latter was writing.

"A gentleman."

"It cannot be up to much."

"Well, it is not as strong as a Turk."

"Then it cannot be very robust. The Turks, you see, have usurped a reputation for strength. Besides, there are no longer any Turks except at masked balls and in the Champs-Elysees where they sell dates. One of my friends knows the East and he assures me that all the natives of it were born in the Rue Coquenard."

"That is smart," said Rodolphe.

"You think so?" observed the critic, "I will put it in my article."

"Here is my analysis of the piece, it is to the point," resumed Rodolphe.

"Yes, but it is short."

"By putting in dashes and developing your critical opinion it will fill some space."

"I have scarcely time, my dear fellow, and then my critical opinion will not fill enough space either."

"You can stick in an adjective at every third word."

"Cannot you tail on to your analysis a little, or rather a long criticism of the piece, eh?" asked the critic.

"Humph," said Rodolphe. "I have certainly some opinions upon tragedy, but I have printed them three times in 'The Beaver' and 'The Scarf of Iris.'"

"No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?"

"Forty lines."

"The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines."

"Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart."

"What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there anything new in the world except virtue?"

"Here you are," said Rodolphe, as he finished.

"Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is this chasm to be filled?" exclaimed the critic. "Since you are here supply me with some paradoxes."

"I have not any about me," said Rodolphe, "though I can lend you some. Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet."

"Very good," said the critic.

"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. "I shall certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as partridges." And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about pianos, goldfish and Rhine wine, which was called toilet wine just as we speak of toilet vinegar.

"It is very good," said the critic. "Now do me the favor to add that the place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere else is the galleys."

"Why?"

"To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished," said the influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the printers.

"And now," thought Rodolphe, "let us strike home." And he gravely proposed his request.

"Ah! my dear fellow," said the critic, "I have not a sou in the place. Lolette ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters spout forth the floods."

"To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!" exclaimed Rodolphe.

"But why do you want money?"

"That is my story," replied Rodolphe, "I have at five this evening an appointment with a lady, a very well bred lady who never goes out save in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of this life. For dinner, dances, &c., &c., I must have five francs, and if I do not find them French literature is dishonoured in my person."

"Why don't you borrow the sum of the lady herself?" exclaimed the critic.

"The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me out of this fix."

"By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell."

"Impossible today, Mother Mansut's, Lebigre's, and all the shops on the quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such things never sell."

"Unless the author is criminally convicted," said the critic. "Wait a bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about it skillfully you may, perhaps, make money of them."

"I would rather have something else, a pair of trowsers, for instance."

"Come," said the critic, "take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor, it is the widow's mite."

"I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it as the thirteenth labor of Hercules."

After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot.

"Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle."

Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti's, who read upon his nephew's face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as:

"Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are terribly high, commerce decaying, &c., &c.," all the hypocritical litany of shopkeepers.

"Would you believe it," said the uncle, "that I have been forced to borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?"

"You should have sent to me," said Rodolphe. "I would have lent it you, I received two hundred francs three days ago."

"Thanks, my lad," said the uncle, "but you have need of your fortune. Ah! whilst you are here, you might, you who write such a good hand, copy out some bills for me that I want to send out."

"My five francs are going to cost me dear," said Rodolphe to himself, setting about the task, which he condensed.

"My dear uncle," said he to Monetti, "I know how fond you are of music and I have brought you some concert tickets."

"You are very kind, my boy. Will you stay to dinner?"

"Thanks, uncle, but I am expected at dinner in the Faubourg Saint Germain, indeed, I am rather put out about it for I have not time to run home and get the money to buy gloves."

"You have no gloves, shall I lend you mine?" said his uncle.

"Thanks, we do not take the same size, only you would greatly oblige me by the loan of—"

"Twenty nine sous to buy a pair? Certainly, my boy, here you are. When one goes into society one should be well dressed. Better be envied than pitied, as your aunt used to say. Come, I see you are getting on in the world, so much the better. I would have given you more," he went on, "but it is all I have in the till. I should have to go upstairs and I cannot leave the shop, customers drop in every moment."

"You were saying that business was not flourishing?"

Uncle Monetti pretended not to hear, and said to his nephew who was pocketing the twenty nine sous:

"Do not be in a hurry about repayment."

"What a screw," said Rodolphe, bolting. "Ah!" he continued, "there are still thirty-one sous lacking. Where am I to find them? I know, let's be off to the crossroads of Providence."

This was the name bestowed by Rodolphe on the most central point in Paris, that is to say, the Palais Royal, a spot where it is almost impossible to remain ten minutes without meeting ten people of one's acquaintance, creditors above all. Rodolphe therefore went and stationed himself at the entrance to the Palais Royal. This time Providence was long in coming. At last Rodolphe caught sight of it. Providence had a white hat, a green coat, and a gold headed cane—a well dressed Providence.

It was a rich and obliging fellow, although a phalansterian.

"I am delighted to see you," said he to Rodolphe, "come and walk a little way with me; we can have a talk."

"So I am to have the infliction of the phalanstere," murmured Rodolphe, suffering himself to be led away from the wearer of the white hat, who, indeed, phalanstered him to the utmost.

As they drew near the Pont des Arts Rodolphe said to his companion—

"I must leave you, not having sufficient to pay the toll."

"Nonsense," said the other, catching hold of Rodolphe and throwing two sous to the toll keeper.

"This is the right moment," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris," as they crossed the bridge. Arrived at the further end in front of the clock of the Institute, Rodolphe stopped short, pointed to the dial with a despairing gesture, and exclaimed:—

"Confound it all, a quarter to five! I am done for."

"What is the matter?" cried his astonished friend.

"The matter is," said Rodolphe, "that, thanks to your dragging me here in spite of myself, I have missed an appointment."

"An important one?"

"I should think so; money that I was to call for at five o'clock at—Batignolles. I shall never be able to get there. Hang it; what am I to do?"

"Why," said the phalansterian, "nothing is simpler; come home with me and I will lend you some."

"Impossible, you live at Montrouge, and I have business at six o'clock at the Chaussee d'Antin. Confound it."

"I have a trifle about me," said Providence, timidly, "but it is very little."

"If I had enough to take a cab I might get to Batignolles in time."

"Here is the contents of my purse, my dear fellow, thirty one sous."

"Give it to me at once, that I may bolt," said Rodolphe, who had just heard five o'clock strike, and who hastened off to keep his appointment.

"It has been hard to get," said he, counting out his money. "A hundred sous exactly. At last I am supplied, and Laure will see that she has to do with a man who knows how to do things properly. I won't take a centime home this evening. We must rehabilitate literature, and prove that its votaries only need money to be wealthy."

Rodolphe found Mademoiselle Laure at the trysting place.

"Good," said he, "for punctuality she is a feminine chronometer."

He spent the evening with her, and bravely melted down his five francs in the crucible of prodigality. Mademoiselle Laure was charmed with his manners, and was good enough only to notice that Rodolphe had not escorted her home at the moment when he was ushering her into his own room.

"I am committing a fault," said she. "Do not make me repent of it by the ingratitude which is characteristic of your sex."

"Madame," said Rodolphe, "I am known for my constancy. It is such that all my friends are astonished at my fidelity, and have nicknamed me the General Bertrand of Love."



CHAPTER IX

THE WHITE VIOLETS

About this time Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and the thermometer was twelve degrees below freezing point.

Mademoiselle Angela was the daughter of Monsieur Monetti, the chimney doctor, of whom we have already had occasion to speak. She was eighteen years old, and had just come from Burgundy, where she lived five years with a relative who was to leave her all her property. This relative was an old lady who had never been young apparently—certainly never handsome, but had always been very ill-natured, although—or perhaps because—very superstitious. Angela, who at her departure was a charming child, and promised to be a charming girl, came back at the end of the five years a pretty enough young lady, but cold, dry, and uninteresting. Her secluded provincial life, and the narrow and bigoted education she had received, had filled her mind with vulgar prejudices, shrunk her imagination, and converted her heart into a sort of organ, limited to fulfilling its function of physical balance wheel. You might say that she had holy water in her veins instead of blood. She received her cousin with an icy reserve; and he lost his time whenever he attempted to touch the chord of her recollections—recollections of the time when they had sketched out that flirtation in the Paul-and-Virginia style which is traditional between cousins of different sexes. Still Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and learning one day that the young lady was going shortly to the wedding ball of one of her friends, he made bold to promise Angela a bouquet of violets for the ball. And after asking permission of her father, Angela accepted her cousin's gallant offer—always on condition that the violets should be white.

Overjoyed at his cousin's amiability, Rodolphe danced and sang his way back to Mount St. Bernard, as he called his lodging—why will be seen presently. As he passed by a florist's in crossing the Palais Royal, he saw some white violets in the showcase, and was curious enough to ask their price. A presentable bouquet could not be had for less than ten francs; there were some that cost more.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "ten francs! and only eight days to find this fortune! It will be a hard pull, but never mind, my cousin shall have her flowers."

This happened in the time of Rodolphe's literary genesis, as the transcendentalists would say. His only income at that period was an allowance of fifteen francs a month, made him by a friend, who, after living a long while in Paris as a poet, had, by the help of influential acquaintances, gained the mastership of a provincial school. Rodolphe, who was the child of prodigality, always spent his allowance in four days; and, not choosing to abandon his holy but not very profitable profession of elegiac poet, lived for the rest of the month on the rare droppings from the basket of Providence. This long Lent had no terrors for him; he passed through it gaily, thanks to his stoical temperament and to the imaginary treasures which he expended every day while waiting for the first of the month, that Easter which terminated his fast. He lived at this time at the very top of one of the loftiest houses in Paris. His room was shaped like a belvidere, and was a delicious habitation in summer, but from October to April a perfect little Kamschatka. The four cardinal winds which penetrated by the four windows,—there was one on each of the four sides—made fearful music in it throughout the cold seasons. Then in irony as it were, there was a huge fireplace, the immense chimney of which seemed a gate of honor reserved for Boreas and his retinue. On the first attack of cold, Rodolphe had recourse to an original system of warming; he cut up successively what little furniture he had, and at the end of a week his stock was considerably abridged; in fact, he had only a bed and two chairs left; it should be remarked that these items were insured against fire by their nature, being of iron. This manner of heating himself he called moving up the chimney.

It was January, and the thermometer, which indicated twelve degrees below freezing point on the Spectacle Quay, would have stood two or three lower if moved to the belvidere, which Rodolphe called indifferently Mount St. Bernard, Spitzenberg, and Siberia.

The night when he promised his cousin the white violets, he was seized with a great rage on returning home; the four cardinal winds, in playing puss-in-the-corner round his chamber, had broken a pane of glass—the third time in a fortnight. After exploding in a volley of frantic imprecations upon Eolus and all his family, and plugging up the breach with a friend's portrait, Rodolphe lay down, dressed as he was, between his two mattresses, and dreamed of white violets all night.

At the end of five days, Rodolphe had found nothing to help him toward realizing his dreams. He must have the bouquet the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, the thermometer fell still lower, and the luckless poet was ready to despair as he thought the violets might have risen higher. Finally his good angel had pity on him, and came to his relief as follows.

One morning, Rodolphe went to take his chance of getting a breakfast from his friend Marcel the painter, and found him conversing with a woman in mourning. It was a widow who had just lost her husband, and who wanted to know how much it would cost to paint on the tomb which she had erected, a man's hand, with this inscription beneath:

"I WAIT FOR HER TO WHOM MY FAITH WAS PLIGHTED."

To get the work at a cheaper rate, she observed to the artist that when she was called to rejoin her husband, he would have another hand to paint—her hand with a bracelet on the wrist and the supplementary line beneath:

"AT LENGTH, BEHOLD US THUS ONCE MORE UNITED."

"I shall put this clause in my will," she said, "and require that the task be intrusted to you."

"In that case, madame," replied the artist, "I will do it at the price you offer—but only in the hope of seeing your hand. Don't go and forget me in your will."

"I should like to have this as soon as possible," said the disconsolate one, "nevertheless, take your time to do it well and don't forget the scar on the thumb. I want a living hand."

"Don't be afraid, madame, it shall be a speaking one," said Marcel, as he bowed the widow out. But hardly had she crossed the threshold when she returned, saying, "I have one more thing to ask you, sir: I should like to have inscribed on my husband's tomb something in verse which would tell of his good conduct and his last words. Is that good style?"

"Very good style—they call that an epitaph—the very best style."

"You don't know anyone who would do that for me cheap? There is my neighbor Monsieur Guerin, the public writer, but he asks the clothes off my back."

Here Rodolphe looked at Marcel, who understood him at once.

"Madame," said the artist, pointing to Rodolphe, "a happy fortune has conducted hither the very person who can be of service to you in this mournful juncture. This gentleman is a renowned poet; you couldn't find a better one."

"I want something very melancholy," said the widow, "and the spelling all right."

"Madame," replied Marcel, "my friend spells like a book. He had all the prizes at school."

"Indeed!" said the widow, "my grand-nephew had just had a prize too; he is only seven years old."

"A very forward child, madame."

"But are you sure that the gentleman can make very melancholy verses?"

"No one better, madame, for he has undergone much sorrow in his life. The papers always find fault with his verses for being too melancholy."

"What!" cried the widow, "do they talk about him in the papers? He must know quite as much, then, as Monsieur Guerin, the public writer."

"And a great deal more. Apply to him, madame, and you will not repent of it."

After having explained to Rodolphe the sort of inscription in verse which she wished to place on her husband's tomb, the widow agreed to give Rodolphe ten francs if it suited her—only she must have it very soon. The poet promised she should have it the very next day.

"Oh good genius of Artemisia!" cried Rodolphe as the widow disappeared. "I promise you that you shall be suited—full allowance of melancholy lyrics, better got up than a duchess, orthography and all. Good old lady! May Heaven reward you with a life of a hundred and seven years—equal to that of a good brandy!"

"I object," said Marcel.

"That's true," said Rodolphe, "I forgot that you have her hand to paint, and that so long a life would make you lose money." And lifting his hands he gravely ejaculated, "Heaven, do not grant my prayer! Ah!" he continued, "I was in jolly good luck to come here."

"By the way," asked Marcel, "what did you want?"

"I recollect—and now especially that I have to pass the night in making these verses, I cannot do without what I came to ask you for, namely, first, some dinner; secondly, tobacco and a candle; thirdly, your polar-bear costume."

"To go to the masked ball?"

"No, indeed, but as you see me here, I am as much frozen up as the grand army in retreat from Russia. Certainly my green frock-coat and Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary."

"Take the fur!" said Marcel, "it's a good idea; warm as a dish of charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it."

Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin.

"Now," said he, "the thermometer is going to be really mad."

"Are you going out so?" said Marcel to his friend, after they had finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish.

"I just am," replied Rodolphe. "Do you think I care for public opinion? Besides, today is the beginning of carnival."

He went half over Paris with all the gravity of the beast whose skin he occupied. Only on passing before a thermometer in an optician's window he couldn't help taking a sight at it.

Having returned home not without causing great terror to his porter, Rodolphe lit his candle, carefully surrounding it with an extempore shade of paper to guard it against the malice of the winds, and set to work at once. But he was not long in perceiving that if his body was almost entirely protected from the cold, his hands were not; a terrible numbness seized his fingers which let the pen fall.