"The poor devil! Why, they'll devour him."

"Pshaw! it's only fair to make him disgorge a little. He stole so much down there among the Turks."

"Really, do you think so?"

"Do I think so! I have some very precise information on that subject from Baron Hemerlingue, the banker who negotiated the last Tunisian loan. He knows some fine stories about this Nabob. Just fancy—"

And the stream of calumny began to flow. For fifteen years Jansoulet had plundered the late bey shamefully. They mentioned the names of contractors and cited divers swindles characterized by admirable coolness and effrontery; for instance, the story of a musical frigate—yes, it really played tunes—intended as a dining-room ornament, which he bought for two hundred thousand francs and sold again for ten millions; a throne sold to the bey for three millions, whereas the bill could be seen on the books of a house furnisher of Faubourg Saint-Honore, and amounted to less than a hundred thousand francs; and the most comical part of it was that the bey's fancy changed and the royal seat, having fallen into disgrace before it had even been unpacked, was still in its packing-case at the custom-house in Tripoli.

Furthermore, aside from these outrageous commissions on the sale of the most trivial playthings, there were other far more serious accusations, but equally authentic, as they all came from the same source. In addition to the seraglio there was a harem of European women, admirably equipped for His Highness by the Nabob, who should be a connoisseur in such matters, as he had been engaged in the most extraordinary occupations in Paris before his departure for the Orient: ticket speculator, manager of a public ball at the barrier, and of a house of much lower reputation. And the whispering terminated in a stifled laugh,—the coarse laugh of two men in private conversation.

The young provincial's first impulse, on hearing those infamous slanders, was to turn and cry out:

"You lie!"

A few hours earlier he would have done it without hesitation, but since he had been there he had learned to be suspicious, sceptical. He restrained himself therefore and listened to the end, standing in the same spot, having in his heart an unconfessed desire to know more of the man in whose service he was. As for the Nabob, the perfectly unconscious subject of that ghastly chronicle, he was quietly playing a game of ecarte with the Due de Mora in a small salon to which the blue hangings and two shaded lamps imparted a meditative air.

O wonderful magic of the galleon! The son of the dealer in old iron alone at a card-table with the first personage of the Empire! Jansoulet could hardly believe the Venetian mirror in which were reflected his resplendent, beaming face and that august cranium, divided by a long bald streak. So it was that, in order to show his appreciation of that great honor, he strove to lose as many thousand-franc notes as he decently could, feeling that he was the winner none the less, and proud as Lucifer to see his money pass into those aristocratic hands, whose every movement he studied while they were cutting, dealing, or holding the cards.

A circle formed around them, but at a respectful distance, the ten paces required for saluting a prince; that was the audience of the triumph at which the Nabob was present as if in a dream, intoxicated by the fairy-like strains slightly muffled in the distance, the songs that reached his ears in detached phrases, as if they passed over a resonant sheet of water, the perfume of the flowers that bloom so strangely toward the close of Parisian balls, when the late hour, confusing all notions of time, and the weariness of the sleepless night communicate to brains which have become more buoyant in a more nervous atmosphere a sort of youthful giddiness. The robust nature of Jansoulet, that civilized savage, was more susceptible than another to these strange refinements; and he had to exert all his strength to refrain from inaugurating with a joyful hurrah an unseasonable out-pouring of words and gestures, from giving way to the impulse of physical buoyancy which stirred his whole being; like the great mountain dogs which are thrown into convulsions of epileptic frenzy by inhaling a single drop of a certain essence.

* * *

"It is a fine night and the sidewalks are dry. If you like, my dear boy, we will send away the carriage and go home on foot," said Jansoulet to his companion as they left Jenkins' house.

De Gery eagerly assented. He needed to walk, to shake off in the sharp air the infamies and lies of that society comedy which left his heart cold and oppressed, while all his life-blood had taken refuge in his temples, of whose swollen veins he could hear the beating. He walked unsteadily, like a poor creature who has been operated on for cataract and in the first terror of recovered vision dares not put one foot before the other. But with what a brutal hand the operation had been performed! And so that great artist with the glorious name, that pure, wild beauty, the mere sight of whom had agitated him like a supernatural apparition, was simply a courtesan. Madame Jenkins, that imposing creature, whose manner was at once so proud and so sweet, was not really Madame Jenkins. That illustrious scientist, so frank of feature and so hospitable, had the impudence to live publicly in shameless concubinage. And Paris suspected it, yet that did not prevent Paris from attending their parties. Last of all, this Jansoulet, so kind-hearted and generous, for whom he felt such a burden of gratitude in his heart, had to his knowledge fallen into the hands of a crew of bandits, being himself a bandit, and quite worthy of the scheme devised to make him disgorge his millions.

Was it possible; must he believe it?

A sidelong glance at the Nabob, whose huge frame filled the whole sidewalk, suddenly revealed to him something low and common that he had not before noticed in that gait to which the weight of the money in his pockets gave a decided lurch. Yes, he was the typical adventurer from the South, moulded of the slime that covers the quays of Marseille, trodden hard by all the vagabonds who wander from seaport to seaport. Kind-hearted, generous, forsooth! as prostitutes are, and thieves. And the gold that flowed into that luxurious and vicious receptacle, spattering everything, even the walls, seemed to him now to bring with it all the dregs, all the filth of its impure and slimy source. That being so, there was but one thing for him, de Gery, to do, and that was to go, to leave as soon as possible the place where he ran the risk of compromising his name, all that there was of his patrimony. Of course. But there were the two little brothers down yonder in the provinces,—who would pay for their schooling? Who would keep up the modest home miraculously restored by the handsome salary of the oldest son, the head of the family? The words "head of the family" cast him at once into one of those inward combats in which self-interest and conscience are the contending parties—the one strong, brutal, attacking fiercely with straight blows, the other retreating, breaking the measure by suddenly withdrawing its weapon—while honest Jansoulet, the unconscious cause of the conflict, strode along beside his young friend, inhaling the fresh air delightedly with the lighted end of his cigar.

He had never been so happy that he was alive. And that evening at Jenkins', his own debut in society as well as Paul's, had left upon him an impression of arches erected as if for a triumph, of a curious crowd, of flowers thrown in his path. So true is it that things exist only through the eyes that see them. What a success! The duke, just as they parted, urging him to come and see his gallery; which meant that the doors of the hotel de Mora would be open to him within a week. Felicia Ruys consenting to make a bust of him, so that at the next exposition the junk-dealer's son would have his portrait in marble by the same great artist whose name was appended to that of the Minister of State. Was not this the gratification of all his childish vanities?

Revolving thus their thoughts, cheerful or sinister, they walked on side by side, preoccupied, distraught, so that Place Vendome, silent and flooded by a cold, blue light, rang beneath their feet before they had spoken a word.

"Already!" said the Nabob. "I would have liked to walk a little farther. What do you say?" And as they walked around the square two or three times, he emitted in puffs the exuberant joy with which he was full to overflowing.

"How fine it is! What pleasure to breathe! God's thunder! I wouldn't give up my evening for a hundred thousand francs. What a fine fellow that Jenkins is! Do you like Felicia Ruys' type of beauty? For my part, I dote on it. And the duke, what a perfect great nobleman! so simple, so amiable. That is fashionable Paris, eh, my son?"

"It's too complicated for me—it frightens me," said Paul de Gery in a low voice.

"Yes, yes, I understand," rejoined the other, with adorable conceit. "You aren't used to it yet, but one soon gets into it, you know! See how perfectly at my ease I am after only a month."

"That's because you had been in Paris before. You used to live here."

"I? Never in my life. Who told you that?"

"Why, I thought so," replied the young man, and added, as a multitude of thoughts came crowding into his mind:

"What have you ever done to this Baron Hemerlingue? There seems to be a deadly hatred between you."

The Nabob was taken aback for a moment. That name Hemerlingue, suddenly obtruded upon his joy, reminded him of the only unpleasant episode of the evening.

"To him, as to everybody else," he said in a sad voice, "I never did anything but good. We began life together in a miserable way. We grew and prospered side by side. When he attempted to fly with his own wings I always assisted him, supported him as best I could. It was through me that he had the contract for supplying the fleet and army for ten years; almost the whole of his fortune comes from that. And then one fine morning that idiot of a cold-blooded Bearnese must go and fall in love with an odalisque whom the bey's mother had turned out of the harem! She was a handsome, ambitious hussy; she made him marry her, and naturally, after that excellent marriage, Hemerlingue had to leave Tunis. They had made him believe that I egged the bey on to forbid him the country. That is not true. On the contrary, I persuaded His Highness to allow the younger Hemerlingue—his first wife's child—to remain at Tunis to look after their interests there, while the father came to Paris to establish his banking-house. But I was well repaid for my kindness. When my poor Ahmed died and the mouchir, his brother, ascended the throne, the Hemerlingues, being restored to favor, never ceased to try to injure me in the eyes of the new master. The bey was always pleasant with me, but my influence was impaired. Ah well! in spite of all that, in spite of all the tricks Hemerlingue has played on me and is playing on me still, I was ready to offer him my hand to-night. Not only did the villain refuse it, but he sent his wife to insult me,—an uncivilized, vicious beast, who can never forgive me for refusing to receive her at Tunis. Do you know what she called me there to-night when she passed me? 'Robber and son of a dog.' The harlot had the face to call me that. As if I didn't know my Hemerlingue, who's as cowardly as he is fat. But, after all, let them say what they choose. I snap my fingers at 'em. What can they do against me? Destroy my credit with the bey? That makes no difference to me. I have no more business in Tunis, and I shall get away from there altogether as soon as possible. There's only one city, one country in the world, and that is Paris, hospitable, open-hearted Paris, with no false modesty, where any intelligent man finds room to do great things. And, you see, de Gery, I propose to do great things. I've had enough of business life. I have worked twenty years for money; now I am greedy for respect, glory, renown. I mean to be a personage of some consequence in the history of my country, and that will be an easy matter for me. With my great fortune, my knowledge of men and of affairs, with what I feel here in my head, I can aspire to anything and reach any eminence. So take my advice, my dear boy, don't leave me,"—one would have said he was answering his young companion's secret thought,—"stick loyally to my ship. The spars are stanch and the hold is full of coal. I swear to you that we will sail far and fast, damme!"

The artless Southerner thus discharged his plans into the darkness with an abundance of expressive gestures, and from time to time, as they paced the vast, deserted square, majestically surrounded by its tightly-closed silent palaces, he looked up toward the bronze man on the column, as if calling to witness that great upstart, whose presence in the heart of Paris justifies the most extravagant ambitions and renders all chimeras probable.

There is in youth a warmth of heart, a craving for enthusiasm which are aroused by the slightest breath. As the Nabob spoke, de Gery felt his suspicions vanishing and all his sympathy reviving with an infusion of pity. No, surely that man was no vile knave, but a poor deluded mortal whose fortune had gone to his head, like a wine too powerful for a stomach that has long slaked its thirst with water. Alone in the midst of Paris, surrounded by enemies and sharpers, Jansoulet reminded him of a pedestrian laden with gold passing through a wood haunted by thieves, in the dark and unarmed. And he thought that it would be well for the protege to watch over the patron without seeming to do so, to be the clear-sighted Telemachus of that blind Mentor, to point out the pitfalls to him, to defend him against the brigands, in short to assist him to fight in that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt to be lurking savagely about the Nabob and his millions.



V.

THE JOYEUSE FAMILY.

Every morning in the year, at precisely eight o'clock, a new and almost uninhabited house in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris was filled with shouts and cries and happy laughter that rang clear as crystal in the desert of the hall.

"Father, don't forget my music."

"Father, my embroidery cotton."

"Father, bring us some rolls."

And the father's voice calling from below:

"Yaia, throw down my bag."

"Well, upon my word! he's forgotten his bag."

Thereupon there was joyous haste from top to bottom of the house, a running to and fro of all those pretty faces, heavy-eyed with sleep, of all those touzled locks which they put in order as they ran, up to the very moment when a half-dozen of young girls, leaning over the rail, bade an echoing farewell to a little old gentleman neatly dressed and well brushed, whose florid face and slight figure disappeared at last in the convolutions of the staircase. M. Joyeuse had gone to his office. Thereupon the whole flock of fugitives from the bird-cage ran quickly up to the fourth floor, and, after locking the door, gathered at an open window to catch another glimpse of the father. The little man turned, kisses were exchanged at a distance, then the windows were closed; the new, deserted house became quiet once more except for the signs dancing their wild saraband in the wind on the unfinished street, as if they too were stirred to gayety by all that manoeuvring. A moment later the photographer on the fifth floor came down to hang his show-case at the door, always the same, with the old gentleman in the white cravat surrounded by his daughters in varied groups; then he went upstairs again in his turn, and the perfect calm succeeding that little matutinal tumult suggested the thought that "the father" and his young ladies had returned to the show-case, where they would remain motionless and smiling, until evening.

From Rue Saint-Ferdinand to Messieurs Hemerlingue and Son's, his employers, M. Joyeuse had a walk of three-quarters of an hour. He held his head erect and stiff, as if he were afraid of disarranging the lovely bow of his cravat, tied by his daughters, or his hat, put on by them; and when the oldest, always anxious and prudent, turned up the collar of his overcoat just as he was going out, to protect him against the vicious gust of wind at the street corner, M. Joyeuse, even when the temperature was that of a hothouse, never turned it down until he reached the office, like the lover fresh from his mistress's embrace, who dares not stir for fear of losing the intoxicating perfume.

The excellent man, a widower for some years, lived for his children alone, thought only of them, went out into the world surrounded by those little blond heads, which fluttered confusedly around him as in a painting of the Assumption. All his desires, all his plans related to "the young ladies" and constantly returned to them, sometimes after long detours; for M. Joyeuse—doubtless because of his very short neck and his short figure, in which his bubbling blood had but a short circuit to make—possessed an astonishingly fertile imagination. Ideas formed in his mind as rapidly as threshed straw collects around the hopper. At the office the figures kept his mind fixed by their unromantic rigidity; but once outside, it took its revenge for that inexorable profession. The exercise of walking and familiarity with a route of which he knew by heart the most trivial details, gave entire liberty to his imaginative faculties, and he invented extraordinary adventures, ample material for twenty newspaper novels.

Suppose, for example, that M. Joyeuse were walking through Faubourg Saint-Honore, on the right hand sidewalk—he always chose that side—and espied a heavy laundress's cart going along at a smart trot, driven by a countrywoman whose child, perched on a bundle of linen, was leaning over the side.

"The child!" the good man would exclaim in dismay, "look out for the child!"

His voice would be lost in the clatter of the wheels and his warning in the secret design of Providence. The cart would pass on. He would look after it for a moment, then go his way; but the drama begun in his mind would go on unfolding itself there with numberless sudden changes. The child had fallen. The wheels were just about to pass over him. M. Joyeuse would dart forward, save the little creature on the very brink of death, but the shaft would strike himself full in the breast, and he would fall, bathed in his blood. Thereupon he would see himself carried to the druggist's amid the crowd that had collected. They would place him on a litter and carry him home, then suddenly he would hear the heart-rending cry of his daughters, his beloved daughters, upon seeing him in that condition. And that cry would go so straight to his heart, he would hear it so distinctly, so vividly: "Papa, dear papa!" that he would repeat it himself in the street, to the great surprise of the passers-by, in a hoarse voice which would wake him from his manufactured nightmare.

Would you like another instance of the vagaries of that prodigious imagination? It rains, it hails; beastly weather. M. Joyeuse has taken the omnibus to go to his office. As he takes his seat opposite a species of giant, with brutish face and formidable biceps, M. Joyeuse, an insignificant little creature, with his bag on his knees, draws in his legs to make room for the enormous pillars that support his neighbor's monumental trunk. In the jolting of the vehicle and the pattering of the rain on the windows, M. Joyeuse begins to dream. And suddenly the colossus opposite, who has a good-natured face enough, is amazed to see the little man change color and glare at him with fierce, murderous eyes, gnashing his teeth. Yes, murderous eyes in truth, for at that moment M. Joyeuse is dreaming a terrible dream. One of his daughters is sitting there, opposite him, beside that annoying brute, and the villain is putting his arm around her waist under her cloak.

"Take your hand away, monsieur," M. Joyeuse has already said twice. The other simply laughs contemptuously. Now he attempts to embrace Elise.

"Ah! villain!"

Lacking strength to defend his daughter, M. Joyeuse, foaming with rage, feels in his pocket for his knife, stabs the insolent knave in the breast, and goes away with head erect, strong in the consciousness of his rights as an outraged father, to make his statement at the nearest police-station.

"I have just killed a man in an omnibus!"

The poor fellow wakes at the sound of his own voice actually uttering those sinister words, but not at the police-station; he realizes from the horrified faces of the passengers that he must have spoken aloud, and speedily avails himself of the conductor's call: "Saint-Philippe—Pantheon—Bastille," to alight, in dire confusion and amid general stupefaction.

That imagination, always on the alert, gave to M. Joyeuse's face a strangely feverish, haggard expression, in striking contrast to the faultlessly correct dress and bearing of the petty clerk. He lived through so many passionate existences in a single day. Such waking dreamers as he, in whom a too restricted destiny holds in check unemployed forces, heroic faculties, are more numerous than is generally supposed. Dreaming is the safety valve through which it all escapes, with a terrible spluttering, an intensely hot vapor and floating images which instantly disappear. Some come forth from these visions radiant, others downcast and abashed, finding themselves once more on the commonplace level of everyday life. M. Joyeuse was of the former class, constantly soaring aloft to heights from which one cannot descend without being a little shaken by the rapidity of the journey.

Now, one morning when our Imaginaire had left his house at the usual hour and under the usual circumstances, he started upon one of his little private romances as he turned out of Rue Saint-Ferdinand. The end of the year was close at hand, and, perhaps it was the sight of a board shanty under construction in the neighboring woodyard that made him think of "New Year's gifts." And thereupon the word bonus planted itself in his mind, as the first landmark in an exciting story. In the month of December all Hemerlingue's clerks received double pay, and in small households, you know, a thousand ambitious or generous projects are based upon such windfalls,—presents to be given, a piece of furniture to be replaced, a small sum tucked away in a drawer for unforeseen emergencies.

The fact is that M. Joyeuse was not rich. His wife, a Mademoiselle de Saint-Amand, being tormented with aspirations for worldly grandeur, had established the little household on a ruinous footing, and in the three years since her death, although Grandmamma had managed affairs so prudently, they had not been able as yet to save anything, the burden of the past was so heavy. Suddenly the excellent man fancied that the honorarium would be larger than usual that year on account of the increased work necessitated by the Tunisian loan. That loan was a very handsome thing for his employers, too handsome indeed, for M. Joyeuse had taken the liberty to say at the office that on that occasion "Hemerlingue and Son had shaved the Turk a little too close."

"Yes, the bonus will certainly be doubled," thought the visionary as he walked along; and already he saw himself, a month hence, ascending the staircase leading to Hemerlingue's private office, with his fellow-clerks, for their New Year's call. The banker announced the good news; then he detained M. Joyeuse for a private interview. And lo! that employer, usually so cold, and encased in his yellow fat as in a bale of raw silk, became affectionate, fatherly, communicative. He wished to know how many daughters Joyeuse had.

"I have three—that is to say, four, Monsieur le Baron. I always get confused about them. The oldest one is such a little woman."

How old were they?

"Aline is twenty, Monsieur le Baron. She's the oldest. Then we have Elise who is eighteen and preparing for her examination, Henriette who is fourteen, and Zaza or Yaia who is only twelve."

The pet name Yaia amused Monsieur le Baron immensely; he also inquired as to the resources of the family.

"My salary, Monsieur le Baron, nothing but that. I had a little money laid by, but my poor wife's sickness and the girls' education—"

"What you earn is not enough, my dear Joyeuse. I raise you to a thousand francs a month."

"Oh! Monsieur le Baron, that is too much!"

But, although he had uttered this last phrase aloud, in the face of a policeman who watched with a suspicious eye the little man who gesticulated and shook his head so earnestly, the poor visionary did not awake. He joyously imagined himself returning home, telling the news to his daughters, and taking them to the theatre in the evening to celebrate that happy day. God! how pretty the Joyeuse girls were, sitting in the front of their box! what a nosegay of rosy cheeks! And then, on the next day, lo and behold the two oldest are sought in marriage by—Impossible to say by whom, for M. Joyeuse suddenly found himself under the porch of the Hemerlingue establishment, in front of a swing-door surmounted by the words, "Counting Room" in gold letters.

"I shall always be the same," he said to himself with a little laugh, wiping his forehead, on which the perspiration stood in beads.

Put in good humor by his fancy, by the blazing fires in the long line of offices, with inlaid floors and wire gratings, keeping the secrets confided to them in the subdued light of the ground floor, where one could count gold pieces without being dazzled by them, M. Joyeuse bade the other clerks a cheery good-morning, and donned his working-coat and black velvet cap. Suddenly there was a whistle from above; and the cashier, putting his ear to the tube, heard the coarse, gelatinous voice of Hemerlingue, the only, the genuine Hemerlingue—the other, the son, was always absent—asking for M. Joyeuse. What! was he still dreaming? He was greatly excited as he took the little inner stairway, which he had ascended so jauntily just before, and found himself in the banker's office, a narrow room with a very high ceiling, and with no other furniture than green curtains and enormous leather arm-chairs, proportioned to the formidable bulk of the head of the house. He was sitting there at his desk, which his paunch prevented him from approaching, corpulent, puffing, and so yellow that his round face with its hooked nose, the face of a fat, diseased owl, shone like a beacon light in that solemn, gloomy office. A coarse, Moorish merchant mouldering in the dampness of his little courtyard. His eyes gleamed an instant beneath his heavy slow-moving eyelids when the clerk entered; he motioned to him to approach, and slowly, coldly, with frequent breaks in his breathless sentences, instead of: "M. Joyeuse, how many daughters have you?" he said this:

"Joyeuse, you have assumed to criticize in our offices our recent operations on the market in Tunis. No use to deny it. What you said has been repeated to me word for word. And as I can't allow such things from one of my clerks, I notify you that with the end of this month you will cease to be in my employ."

The blood rushed to the clerk's face, receded, returned, causing each time a confused buzzing in his ears, a tumult of thoughts and images in his brain.

His daughters!

What would become of them?

Places are so scarce at that time of year!

Want stared him in the face, and also the vision of a poor devil falling at Hemerlingue's feet, imploring him, threatening him, leaping at his throat in an outburst of desperate frenzy. All this agitation passed across his face like a gust of wind which wrinkles the surface of a lake, hollowing out shifting caverns of all shapes therein; but he stood mute on the same spot, and at a hint from his employer that he might withdraw, went unsteadily down to resume his task in the counting-room.

That evening, on returning to Rue Saint-Ferdinand, M. Joyeuse said nothing to his daughters. He dared not. The thought of casting a shadow upon that radiant gayety, which was the whole life of the house, of dimming with great tears those sparkling eyes, seemed to him unendurable. Moreover he was timid and weak, one of those who always say: "Let us wait till to-morrow." So he waited before speaking, in the first place until the month of November should be at an end, comforting himself with the vague hope that Hemerlingue might change his mind, as if he did not know that unyielding will, like the flabby, tenacious grasp of a mollusk clinging to its gold ingot. Secondly, when his accounts were settled and another clerk had taken his place at the tall desk at which he had stood so long, he hoped speedily to find something else and to repair the disaster before he was obliged to avow it.

Every morning he pretended to start for the office, allowed himself to be equipped and escorted to the door as usual, his great leather bag all ready for the numerous parcels he was to bring home at night. Although he purposely forgot some of them because of the approach of the perplexing close of the month, he no longer lacked time in which to do his daughters' errands. He had his day to himself, an interminable day, which he passed in running about Paris in search of a place. They gave him addresses and excellent recommendations. But in that month of December, when the air is so cold and the days are so short, a month overburdened with expenses and anxieties, clerks suffer in patience and employers too. Every one tries to end the year in tranquillity, postponing to the month of January, when time takes a great leap onward toward another station, all changes, ameliorations, attempts to lead a new life.

Wherever M. Joyeuse called, he saw faces suddenly turn cold as soon as he explained the purpose of his visit. "What! you are no longer with Hemerlingue and Son? How does that happen?" He would explain the condition of affairs as best he could, attributing it to a caprice of his employer, that violent-tempered Hemerlingue whom all Paris knew; but he was conscious of a cold, suspicious accent in the uniform reply: "Come and see us after the holidays." And, timid as he was at best, he reached a point at which he hardly dared apply anywhere, but would walk back and forth twenty times in front of the same door, nor would he ever have crossed the threshold but for the thought of his daughters. That thought alone would grasp his shoulder, put heart into his legs and send him to opposite ends of Paris in the same day, to exceedingly vague addresses given him by comrades, to a great bone-black factory at Aubervilliers, for instance, where they made him call three days in succession, and all for nothing.

Oh! the long walks in the rain and frost, the closed doors, the employer who has gone out or has visitors, the promises given and suddenly retracted, the disappointed hopes, the enervating effect of long suspense, the humiliation in store for every man who asks for work, as if it were a shameful thing to be without it. M. Joyeuse experienced all those heartsickening details, and he learned too how the will becomes weary and discouraged in the face of persistent ill-luck. And you can imagine whether the bitter martyrdom of "the man in search of a place" was intensified by the fantasies of his imagination, by the chimeras which rose before him from the pavements of Paris, while he pursued his quest in every direction.

For a whole month he was like one of those pitiful marionettes who soliloquize and gesticulate on the sidewalks, and from whom the slightest jostling on the part of the crowd extorts a somnambulistic ejaculation: "I said as much," or "Don't you doubt it, monsieur." You pass on, you almost laugh, but you are moved to pity at the unconsciousness of those poor devils, possessed by a fixed idea, blind men led by dreams, drawn on by an invisible leash. The terrible feature of it all was this, that when M. Joyeuse returned home, after those long, cruel days of inaction and fatigue, he must enact the comedy of the man returning from work, must describe the events of the day, tell what he had heard, the gossip of the office, with which he was always accustomed to entertain the young ladies.

In humble households there is always one name that comes to the lips more frequently than others, a name that is invoked on days of disaster, that plays a part in every wish, in every hope, even in the play of the children, who are permeated with the idea of its importance, a name that fills the role of a sub-providence in the family, or rather of a supernatural household god. It is the name of the employer, the manager of the factory, the landlord, the minister, the man, in short, who holds in his powerful hand the welfare, the very existence of the family. In the Joyeuse household it was Hemerlingue, always Hemerlingue; ten, twenty times a day the name was mentioned in the conversation of the girls, who associated it with all their plans, with the most trivial details of their girlish ambitions: "If Hemerlingue would consent. It all depends on Hemerlingue." And nothing could be more delightful than the familiar way in which those children spoke of the wealthy boor whom they had never seen.

They asked questions about him. Had their father spoken to him? Was he in good humor? To think that all of us, however humble we may be, however cruelly enslaved by destiny, have always below us some poor creature more humble, more enslaved than ourselves, in whose eyes we are great, in whose eyes we are gods, and, as gods, indifferent, scornful or cruel.

We can fancy M. Joyeuse's torture when he was compelled to invent incidents, to manufacture anecdotes concerning the villain who had dismissed him so heartlessly after ten years of faithful service. However, he played his little comedy in such way as to deceive them all completely. They had noticed only one thing, and that was that their father, on returning home at night, always had a hearty appetite for the evening meal. I should say as much! Since he had lost his place, the poor man had ceased to eat any luncheon.

The days passed. M. Joyeuse found nothing. Yes, he was offered a clerkship at the Caisse Territoriale, which he declined, being too well acquainted with the banking operations, with all the nooks and corners of financial Bohemia in general and the Caisse Territoriale in particular, to step foot in that den.

"But," said Passajon—for it was Passajon, who, happening to meet the good man and finding that he was unemployed, had spoken to him of taking service with Paganetti—"but I tell you again that it's all right. We have plenty of money. We pay our debts. I have been paid; just see what a dandy I am."

In truth, the old clerk had a new livery, and his paunch protruded majestically beneath his tunic with silver buttons. For all that, M. Joyeuse had withstood the temptation, even after Passajon, opening wide his bulging eyes, had whispered with emphasis in his ear these words big with promise:

"The Nabob is in it."

Even after that, M. Joyeuse had had the courage to say no. Was it not better to die of hunger than to enter the service of an unsubstantial house whose books he might some day be called upon to examine as an expert before a court of justice?

So he continued to wander about; but he was discouraged and had abandoned his search for employment. As it was necessary for him to remain away from home, he loitered in front of the shop-windows on the quays, leaned for hours on the parapets, watching the river and the boats discharging their cargoes. He became one of those idlers whom we see in the front rank of all street crowds, taking refuge from a shower under porches, drawing near the stoves on which the asphalters boil their tar in the open air, to warm themselves, and sinking on benches along the boulevard when their feet can no longer carry them.

What an excellent way of lengthening one's days, to do nothing!

On certain days, however, when M. Joyeuse was too tired or the weather too inclement, he waited at the end of the street until the young ladies had closed their window, then went back to the house, hugging the walls, hurried upstairs, holding his breath as he passed his own door, and took refuge with the photographer, Andre Maranne, who, being aware of his catastrophe, offered him the compassionate welcome which poor devils extend to one another. Customers are rare so near the barriers. He would sit for many hours in the studio, talking in an undertone, reading by his friend's side, listening to the rain on the window-panes or the wind whistling as in mid-ocean, rattling the old doors and window-frames in the graveyard of demolished buildings below. On the next floor he heard familiar sounds, full of charm for him, snatches of song accompanying the work of willing hands, a chorus of laughter, the piano lesson given by Grandmamma, the tic-tac of the metronome, a delicious domestic hurly-burly that warmed his heart. He lived with his darlings, who certainly had no idea that they had him so near at hand.

Once, while Maranne was out, M. Joyeuse, acting as a faithful custodian of the studio and its brand-new equipment, heard two little taps on the ceiling of the fourth floor, two separate, very distinct taps, then a cautious rumbling like the scampering of a mouse. The intimacy between the photographer and his neighbors justified this prisoner-like method of communication, but what did that mean? How should he answer what seemed like a call? At all hazards he repeated the two taps, the soft drumming sound, and the interview stopped there. When Andre Maranne returned, he explained it. It was very simple: sometimes, during the day, the young ladies, who never saw their neighbor except in the evening, took that means of inquiring for his health and whether business was improving. The signal he had heard signified: "Is business good to-day?" and M. Joyeuse had instinctively but unwittingly replied: "Not bad for the season." Although young Maranne blushed hotly as he said it, M. Joyeuse believed him. But the idea of frequent communication between the two households made him fear lest his secret should be divulged, and thereafter he abstained from what he called his "artistic days." However, the time was drawing near when he could no longer conceal his plight, for the end of the month was at hand, complicated by the end of the year.

Paris was already assuming the usual festal aspect of the last weeks of December. That is about all that is left in the way of national or popular merrymaking. The revels of the carnival died with Gavarni, the religious festivals, the music of which we scarcely hear above the din of the streets, seclude themselves behind the heavy church doors, the Fifteenth of August has never been aught but the Saint-Charlemagne of the barracks; but Paris has retained its respect for the first day of the year.

Early in December a violent epidemic of childishness is apparent in the streets. Wagons pass, laden with gilded drums, wooden horses, playthings by the score. In the manufacturing districts, from top to bottom of the five-story buildings, former palaces of the Marais, where the shops have such lofty ceilings and stately double doors, people work all night, handling gauze, flowers and straw, fastening labels on satin-covered boxes, sorting out, marking and packing; the innumerable details of the toy trade, that great industry upon which Paris places the sign-manual of its refined taste. There is a smell of green wood, of fresh paint, of glistening varnish, and in the dust of the garrets, on the rickety stairways where the common people deposit all the mud through which they have tramped, chips of rosewood are strewn about, clippings of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the debris of the treasures employed to dazzle childish eyes. Then the shop-windows array themselves. Behind the transparent glass the gilt binding of gift-books ascends like a gleaming wave under the gas-lights, rich stuffs of kaleidoscopic, tempting hues display their heavy, graceful folds, while the shop-girls, with their hair piled high upon their heads and ribbons around their necks, puff their wares with the little finger in the air, or fill silk bags, into which the bonbons fall like a shower of pearls.

But face to face with this bourgeois industry, firmly established and intrenched behind its gorgeous shop fronts, is the ephemeral industry carried on in the stalls built of plain boards, open to the wind from the street, standing in a double row which gives the boulevard the aspect of a foreign market place. There are to be found the real interest, the poetry of New Year's gifts. Luxurious in the Madeleine quarter, less ostentatious toward Boulevard Saint-Denis, cheaper and more tawdry as you approach the Bastille, these little booths change their character to suit their customers, estimate their chances of success according to the condition of the purses of the passers-by. Between them stand tables covered with trifles, miracles of the petty Parisian trades, made of nothing, fragile and insignificant, but sometimes whirled away by fashion in one of its fierce gusts, because of their very lightness. And lastly, along the sidewalks, lost in the line of vehicles which brush against them as they stroll along, the orange-women put the final touch to this ambulatory commerce, heaping up the sun-colored fruit under their red lanterns, and crying: "La Valence!" in the fog, the uproar, the excessive haste with which Paris rushes to meet the close of the year.

Ordinarily M. Joyeuse made a part of the happy crowd that throngs the streets with a jingling of money in the pockets and packages in every hand. He would run about with Grandmamma in quest of presents for the young ladies, stopping in front of the booths of the small shopkeepers whom the slightest indication of a customer excites beyond measure, for they are unfamiliar with the art of selling and have based upon that brief season visions of extraordinary profits. And there would be consultations and meditations, a never-ending perplexity as to the final selection in that busy little brain, always in advance of the present and of the occupation of the moment.

But that year, alas! there was nothing of the sort. He wandered sadly through the joyous city, sadder and more discouraged by reason of all the activity around him, jostled and bumped like all those who impede the circulation of the industrious, his heart beating with constant dread, for Grandmamma, for several days past, had been making significant, prophetic remarks at table on the subject of New Year's gifts. For that reason he avoided being left alone with her and had forbidden her coming to meet him at the office. But, struggle as he would, the time was drawing near, he felt it in his bones, when further mystery would be impossible and his secret would be divulged. Was this Grandmamma of whom M. Joyeuse stood in such fear such a terrible creature, pray? Mon Dieu, no! A little stern, that was all, with a sweet smile which promised instant pardon to every culprit. But M. Joyeuse was naturally cowardly and timid; twenty years of housekeeping with a masterful woman, "a person of gentle birth," had enslaved him forever, like those convicts who are subjected to surveillance for a certain period after their sentences have expired. And he was subjected to it for life.

One evening the Joyeuse family was assembled in the small salon, the last relic of its splendor, where there still were two stuffed arm-chairs, an abundance of crochet-work, a piano, two Carcel lamps with little green caps, and a small table covered with trivial ornaments.

The true family exists only among the lowly.

For economy's sake only one fire was lighted for the whole house, and only one lamp around which all their occupations, all their diversions were grouped; an honest family lamp, whose old-fashioned shade—with night scenes, studded with brilliant points—had been the wonder and the delight of all the girls in their infancy. Emerging gracefully from the shadow of the rest of the room, four youthful faces, fair or dark, smiling or engrossed, bent forward in the warm, cheerful rays, which illumined them to the level of the eyes and seemed to feed the fire of their glances, the radiant youth beneath their transparent brows, to watch over them, to shelter them, to protect them from the black cold wind without, from ghosts, pitfalls, misery and terror, from all the sinister things that lurk in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris on a winter's night.

Thus assembled in a small room near the top of the deserted house, in the warmth and security of its neatly kept and comfortable home, the Joyeuse family resembles a family of birds in a nest at the top of a tall tree. They sew and read and talk a little. A burst of flame, the crackling of the fire, are the only sounds to be heard, save for an occasional exclamation from M. Joyeuse, who sits just outside of his little circle, hiding in the shadow his anxious brow and all the vagaries of his imagination. Now he fancies that, in the midst of the distress by which he is overwhelmed, the absolute necessity of confessing everything to his children to-night, to-morrow at latest, unforeseen succor comes to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends to him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, the accustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "From Monsieur le Baron." The Imaginaire says this aloud. The pretty faces turn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretch wakes with a start.

Oh! how he reviles himself now for his delay in confessing everything, for the fallacious security which he has encouraged in his home and which he will have to destroy at one blow. Why need he have criticised that Tunisian loan? He even blames himself now for having declined a position at the Caisse Territoriale. Had he the right to decline it? Ah! what a pitiful head of a family, who lacked strength to maintain or to defend the welfare of his dear ones. And, in presence of the charming group sitting within the rays of the lamp, whose tranquil aspect is in such glaring contrast to his inward agitation, he is seized with remorse, which assails his feeble mind so fiercely that his secret comes to his lips, is on the point of escaping him in an outburst of sobs, when a ring at the bell—not an imaginary ring—startles them all and checks him as he is about to speak.

Who could have come at that hour? They had lived in seclusion since the mother's death, receiving almost no visitors. Andre Maranne, when he came down to pass a few moments with them, knocked familiarly after the manner of those to whom a door is always open. Profound silence in the salon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant—she had been in the family as long as the lamp—introduced a young man, a perfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of the charming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about the table. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, he set forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended to apply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy man of his acquaintance, old Passajon, to give him lessons in book-keeping. A friend of his was involved in some large financial enterprises, a stock company of some size. He was anxious to be of service to him by keeping an eye upon the employment of his funds and the rectitude of his associates' operations; but he was a lawyer, with a very imperfect knowledge of financial matters and the vernacular of the banking business. Could not M. Joyeuse, in a few months, with three or four lessons a week—"

"Why, yes indeed, monsieur, yes indeed," stammered the father, dazed by this unhoped-for chance; "I will willingly undertake to fit you in a month or two for this work of examining accounts. Where shall we have the lessons?"

"Here, if you please," said the young man, "for I am anxious that nobody should know that I am working at it. But I shall be very sorry if I am to put everybody to flight every time I appear, as I seem to have done this evening."

It was a fact that, as soon as the visitor opened his mouth, the four curly heads had disappeared, with much whispering and rustling of skirts, and the salon appeared very bare now that the great circle of white light was empty.

Always quick to take alarm where his daughters were concerned, M. Joyeuse replied that "the young ladies always retired early," in a short, sharp tone which said as plainly as could be: "Let us confine our conversation to our lessons, young man, I beg."

Thereupon they agreed upon the days and the hours in the evening.

As for the terms, that would be for monsieur to determine.

Monsieur named a figure.

The clerk turned scarlet; it was what he earned at Hemerlingue's.

"Oh! no, that is too much."

But the other would not listen; he hemmed and hawed and rolled his tongue around as if he were trying to say something that it was very difficult to say; then with sudden resolution:

"Here is your first month's pay."

"But, monsieur—"

The young man insisted. He was a stranger. It was fair that he should pay in advance. Evidently Passajon had told him. M. Joyeuse understood and said, beneath his breath: "Thanks, oh! thanks!" so deeply moved that words failed him. Life, it meant life for a few months, time to turn around, to find a situation. His darlings would be deprived of nothing. They would have their New Year's gifts. O Providence!

"Until Wednesday, then, Monsieur Joyeuse."

"Until Wednesday, Monsieur—?"

"De Gery—Paul de Gery."

They parted, equally dazzled, enchanted, one by the appearance of that unexpected saviour, the other by the lovely tableau of which he had caught a glimpse, all those maidens grouped around the table covered with books and papers and skeins, with an air of purity, of hard-working probity. That sight opened up to de Gery a whole new Paris, brave, domestic, very different from that with which he was already familiar, a Paris of which the writers of feuilletons and the reporters never speak, and which reminded him of his province, with an additional element, namely, the charm which the surrounding hurly-burly and turmoil impart to the peaceful shelter that they do not reach.



VI.

FELICIA RUYS.

"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we never see him at your house now? He was an attractive boy."

As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she always addressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabob which she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and putting down the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on the little sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoon flooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" every Sunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowing people to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from her work for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun, to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads and bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man, sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs, men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who came rather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that they would have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was at Felicia's to-day." Among them Paul de Gery, silent, engrossed by an admiration which sank a little deeper in his heart day by day, strove to comprehend the beautiful sphinx, arrayed in purple cashmere and unbleached lace, who worked bravely away in the midst of her clay, a burnisher's apron—reaching nearly to the neck—leaving naught visible save the proud little face with those transparent tones, those gleams as of veiled rays with which intellect and inspiration give animation to the features. Paul never forgot what had been said of her in his presence, he tried to form an opinion for himself, was beset by doubt and perplexity, yet fascinated; vowed every time that he would never come again, yet never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture, always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and a lace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn by years, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, her hands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins, always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and his apostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all. He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth he displayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and of the pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seeming to notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued to court the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom he had been so fond and whom he had attended until his last breath.

On this occasion, however, the question that Felicia propounded to him on the subject of his son seemed to him extremely disagreeable; and there was a frown upon his face, a genuine expression of ill-humor, as he replied:

"Faith, I know no more than you as to what has become of him. He has turned his back upon us altogether. He was bored with us. He cares for nothing but his Bohemia—"

Felicia gave a bound which made them all start, and with flashing eye and quivering nostril retorted:

"That is too much. Look you, Jenkins, what do you call Bohemia? A charming word, by the way, which should evoke visions of long wandering jaunts in the sunlight, halting in shady nooks, the first taste of luscious fruits and sparkling fountains, taken at random on the highroads. But since you have made of the word with all the charm attaching to it a stigma and an insult, to whom do you apply it? To certain poor long-haired devils, in love with freedom in rags and tatters, who starve to death on fifth floors, looking at the sky at too close quarters, or seeking rhymes under tiles through which the rain drips; to those idiots, fewer and fewer in number, who in their horror of the conventional, the traditional, of the dense stupidity of life, have taken a standing jump over the edge. But that's the way it used to be, I tell you. That's the Bohemia of Murger, with the hospital at the end, the terror of children, the comfort of kindred, Little Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf. That state of things came to an end a long while ago. To-day you know perfectly well that artists are the most well-behaved people on earth, that they earn money, pay their debts and do their best to resemble the ordinary man. There is no lack of genuine Bohemians, however; our society is made up of them, but they are found more particularly in your circle. Parbleu! they are not labelled on the outside, and no one distrusts them; but so far as the uncertainty of existence and lack of order are concerned, they have no reason to envy those whom they so disdainfully call 'irregulars.' Ah! if one knew all the baseness, all the unheard-of, monstrous experiences that may be masked by a black coat, the most correct of your horrible modern garments! Jenkins, at your house the other evening, I amused myself counting all those adventurers of high—"

The little old lady, pink-cheeked and powdered, said to her softly from her seat:

"Felicia—take care—"

But she went on without listening to her:

"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Hery? And Mora himself? And—"

She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself.

"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuously of Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublime Jenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, of finance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and the higher you go the more of them there are, because high rank gives impunity and wealth closes many mouths."

She spoke with great animation, harshly, her lip curling in fierce disdain. The other laughed a false laugh and assumed an airy, condescending tone. "Ah! madcap! madcap!" And his glance, anxious and imploring, rested upon the Nabob, as if to beseech his forgiveness for that flood of impertinent paradoxes.

But Jansoulet, far from appearing to be vexed,—he who was so proud to pose for that lovely artist, so puffed up by the honor conferred upon him—nodded his head approvingly.

"She is right, Jenkins," he said, "she is right. We are the real Bohemia. Look at me, for instance, and Hemerlingue, two of the greatest handlers of money in Paris. When I think where we started from, all the trades that we tried our hands at! Hemerlingue, an old regimental sutler; and myself, who carried bags of grain on the wharves at Marseille for a living. And then the strokes of luck by which our fortunes were made, as indeed all fortunes are made nowadays. Bless my soul! Just look under the peristyle at the Bourse from three to five. But I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, with my mania for gesticulating when I talk, I've spoiled my pose—let's see, will this do?"

"It's of no use," said Felicia, throwing down her modelling-tool with the gesture of a spoiled child. "I can do nothing more to-day."

She was a strange girl, this Felicia. A true child of an artist, a genial and dissipated artist, according to the romantic tradition, such as Sebastien Ruys was. She had never known her mother, being the fruit of one of those ephemeral passions which suddenly enter a sculptor's bachelor life, as swallows enter a house of which the door is always open, and go out again at once, because they cannot build nests there.

On that occasion the lady, on taking flight, had left with the great artist, then in the neighborhood of forty, a beautiful child whom he had acknowledged and reared, and who became the joy and passion of his life. Felicia had remained with her father until she was thirteen, importing a childish, refining element into that studio crowded with idlers, models, and huge greyhounds lying at full length on divans. There was a corner set aside for her, for her attempts at sculpture, a complete equipment on a microscopic scale, a tripod and wax; and old Ruys would say to all who came in:

"Don't go over there. Don't disturb anything. That's the little one's corner."

The result was that at ten years of age she hardly knew how to read and handled the modelling-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would have liked to keep the child, who never annoyed him in any way, with him permanently, a tiny member of the great brotherhood. But it was a pitiful thing to see the little maid exposed to the free and easy manners of the habitues of the house, the incessant going and coming of models, the discussions concerning an art that is purely physical, so to speak; and at the uproarious Sunday dinner-table, too, sitting in the midst of five or six women, with all of whom her father was on the most intimate terms, actresses, dancers, singers, who, when dinner was at an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revelling in the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house. Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, a polished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly. Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted by all that passed over her little mind because it was so near the ground.

Every summer she went to pass a few days with her godmother, Constance Crenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, who was for so long a time called by all Europe the "illustrious dancer," and who was living quietly in seclusion at Fontainebleau.

The arrival of the "little devil" introduced into the old lady's life, for a time, an element of excitement from which she had the whole year to recover. The frights that the child caused her with her audacious exploits in leaping and riding, the passionate outbreaks of that untamed nature, made the visit both a delight and a terrible trial to her,—a delight, because she worshipped Felicia, the only domestic tie left the poor old salamander, retired after thirty years of battus in the glare of the footlights; a trial, because the demon pitilessly pillaged the ex-dancer's apartments, which were as dainty and neat and sweet-smelling as her dressing-room at the Opera, and embellished with a museum of souvenirs dated from all the theatres in the world.

Constance Crenmitz was the sole feminine element in Felicia's childhood. Frivolous, shallow, having all her life kept her mind enveloped in pink swaddling-clothes, she had at all events a dainty knack at housekeeping, and agile fingers clever at sewing, embroidering, arranging furniture, and leaving the trace of their deft, painstaking touch in every corner of a room. She alone undertook to train that wild young plant, and to awaken with care the womanly instincts in that strange creature, on whose figure cloaks and furs, all the elegant inventions of fashion, fell in folds too stiff, or performed other strange antics.

It was the dancer again—surely the little Ruys must not be abandoned—who, triumphing over the paternal selfishness, compelled the sculptor to assent to a necessary separation, when Felicia was twelve or thirteen years old; furthermore, she assumed the responsibility of finding a suitable boarding school, and purposely selected a very rich but very bourgeois establishment, pleasantly situated in a sparsely-settled faubourg, in a huge old-fashioned mansion, surrounded by high walls and tall trees,—a sort of convent, minus the restraint and contempt for serious studies.

Indeed, a great deal of hard work was done at Madame Belin's establishment, with no opportunities to go out except on great festivals, and no communication with the outside world except a visit from one's relatives on Thursday, in a little garden of flowering shrubs, or in the vast parlor with the carved and gilded panels above the doors. Felicia's first appearance in that almost monastic institution caused considerable commotion; her costume, selected by the Austrian ballet-dancer, her curly hair falling to the waist, her ungainly, boyish bearing, gave rise to some ill-natured remarks; but she was a Parisian and readily adapted herself to all situations, to all localities. In a few days she wore more gracefully than any of the others the little black apron, to which the most coquettish attached their watches, the straight skirt—a stern and cruel requirement at that period, when the prevailing fashion enlarged the circumference of woman with an infinite number of ruffles and flounces—and the prescribed arrangement of the hair, in two braids fastened together well down on the neck, after the fashion of Roman peasants.

Strangely enough, the assiduous work of the classes, their tranquil regularity, suited Felicia's nature, all intelligence and animation, in which a taste for study was enlivened by an overflow of childish spirits in the hours of recreation. Every one loved her. Among those children of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers, a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined to stiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and the respect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputation as an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest and greatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success in her studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, that element of superiority which produces its effect even upon very young girls.

In the purer atmosphere of the boarding-school, she felt the keenest pleasure in making herself womanly, in resuming her true sex, in learning order, regularity, in a different sense from that inculcated by the amiable dancer, whose kisses always retained a taste of rouge, and whose embraces always left an impression of unnaturally round arms. Pere Ruys was enchanted, every time that he went to see his daughter, to find her more of a young lady, able to enter and walk about and leave a room with the pretty courtesy that made all of Madame Belin's boarders long for the frou-frou of a long train.

At first he came often, then, as he lacked time for all the commissions accepted and undertaken, the advances upon which helped to pay for the disorder and heedlessness of his life, he was seen less frequently in the parlor. At last disease took a hand. Brought to earth by hopeless anaemia, for weeks he did not leave the house, nor work. He insisted upon seeing his daughter; and from the peaceful, health-giving shadow of the boarding-school Felicia returned to her father's studio, still haunted by the same cronies, the parasites that cling to every celebrity, among whom sickness had introduced a new figure in the person of Dr. Jenkins.

That handsome, open face, the air of frankness and serenity diffused over the whole person of that already well known physician, who talked of his art so freely, yet performed miraculous cures, and his assiduous attentions to her father, made a deep impression on the girl. Jenkins soon became the friend, the confidant, a vigilant and gentle guardian. Sometimes in the studio, when some one—the father himself most frequently—made a too equivocal remark or a ribald jest, the Irishman would frown and make a little noise with his lips, or else would divert Felicia's attention. He often took her to pass the day with Madame Jenkins, exerting himself to prevent her from becoming once more the wild creature of the ante-boarding school days, or indeed the something worse than that which she threatened to become, in the moral abandonment, the saddest of all forms of abandonment, in which she was left.

But the girl had a more powerful protector than the irreproachable but worldly example of the fair Madame Jenkins: the art which she adored, the enthusiasm it aroused in her essentially open nature, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which passed from her thoughtful brain, teeming with ideas, into her fingers with a little quiver of the nerves, a longing to see the thing done, the image realized. All day she worked at her sculpture, gave shape to her reveries, with the happy tact of instinct-guided youth, which imparts so much charm to first works; that prevented her from regretting too keenly the austere regime of the Belin institution, which was as perfect a safeguard and as light as the veil of a novice who has not taken her vows; and it also shielded her from perilous conversations to which in her one absorbing preoccupation she paid no heed.

Ruys was proud of the talent springing up by his side. As he grew weaker from day to day, having already reached the stage at which the artist regrets his vanishing powers, he followed Felicia's progress as a consolation for the close of his own career. The modelling-tool, which trembled in his hand, was seized at his side with virile firmness and self-assurance, tempered by all of the innate refinement of her being that a woman can apply to the realization of her ideal of an art. A curious sensation is that twofold paternity, that survival of genius, which abandons the one who is going away to pass into the one who is coming, like the lovely domestic birds which, on the eve of a death, desert the threatened roof for a more cheerful dwelling.

In the last days of her father's life, Felicia—a great artist, and still a child—did half of her father's work for him, and nothing could be more touching than that collaboration of the father and daughter, in the same studio, sculptors of the same group. Things did not always run smoothly. Although she was her father's pupil, Felicia's individuality was already inclined to rebel against any arbitrary guidance. She had the audacity of beginners, the presentiment of a great future felt only by youthful geniuses, and, in opposition to the romantic traditions of Sebastien Ruys, a tendency toward modern realism, a feeling that she must plant that glorious old flag upon some new monument.

Then there would be terrible scenes, disputes from which the father would come forth vanquished, annihilated by his daughter's logic, amazed at the rapid progress children make on the highroads, while their elders, who have opened the gates for them, remain stationary at the point of departure. When she was working for him Felicia yielded more readily; but concerning her own work she was intractable. For instance, the Joueur de Boules, her first exhibited work, which made such a tremendous hit at the Salon of 1862, was the occasion of violent disputes between the two artists, of such fierce controversy that Jenkins had to intervene and to superintend the removal of the figure, which Ruys had threatened to break.

Aside from these little dramas, which had no effect upon the love of their hearts, those two worshipped each other, with the presentiment and, as the days passed, the cruel certainty of an impending separation; when suddenly there came a horrible episode in Felicia's life. One day Jenkins took her home to dinner with him, as he often did. Madame Jenkins and her son were away for two days; but the doctor's years, his semi-paternal intimacy, justified him in inviting to his house, even in his wife's absence, a girl whose fifteen years, the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess resplendent with premature beauty, left her still almost a child.

The dinner was very lively, Jenkins cordial and agreeable as always. Then they went into the doctor's office; and suddenly, as they sat on the divan, talking in the most intimate and friendly way concerning her father, his health and their joint work, Felicia had a feeling as of the cold blast from an abyss between herself and that man, followed by the brutal embrace of a satyr's claw. She saw a Jenkins totally unknown to her, wild-eyed, stammering, with brutish laugh and insulting hands. In the surprise, the unexpectedness of that outbreak of the animal instinct, any other than Felicia, any child of her years, but genuinely innocent, would have been lost. The thing that saved her, poor child, was her knowledge. She had heard so many stories at her father's table! And then her art, her life at the studio. She was no ingenue. She at once understood what that embrace meant, she squirmed and struggled, then, finding that she was not strong enough, screamed. He was frightened, released her, and suddenly she found herself on her feet, free, with the man at her knees, weeping and imploring forgiveness. He had yielded to an attack of frenzy. She was so lovely, he loved her so dearly. He had struggled for months. But now it was all over—never again, oh! never again. He would not even touch the hem of her dress. She did not reply, but tremblingly rearranged her hair and her clothes with frenzied fingers. Go, she must go at once, alone. He sent a servant with her, and whispered, as she entered the carriage: "Above all things, not a word of this at home. It would kill your father." He knew her so well, he was so sure of closing her mouth by that thought, the villain, that he came the next day as if nothing had happened, effusive as always and with the same ingenuous face. She never did mention the incident to her father or to anybody else. But from that day a change took place in her, as if the springs of her pride were relaxed. She became capricious, had fits of lassitude, a curl of disgust in her smile, and sometimes she yielded to sudden outbursts of wrath against her father, and cast scornful glances upon him, rebuking him for his failure to watch over her.

"What is the matter with her?" Pere Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, with the authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and a physical trouble. He himself avoided speaking to the girl, relying upon time to efface the sinister impression, and not despairing of obtaining what he desired, for he desired more eagerly than ever, being in the grasp of the insane passion of a man of forty-seven, the incurable passion of maturity; and that was the hypocrite's punishment. His daughter's strange state caused the sculptor genuine distress; but it was of brief duration. Ruys suddenly expired, fell to pieces all at once, like all those whom Jenkins attended. His last words were:

"Jenkins, I place my daughter in your care."

The words were so ironical in all their mournfulness that Jenkins, who was present at the last, could not avoid turning pale.

Felicia was even more stupefied than sorrowful. To the feeling of amazement at death, which she had never seen before, and which appeared in a guise so dear to her, was added the feeling of a terrible loneliness surrounded by darkness and perils.

Several friends of the sculptor assembled in a family council to deliberate concerning the future of the unfortunate, penniless orphan. They had found fifty francs in the catch-all in which Sebastien kept his money on a little commode in the studio, well known to his needy friends, who had recourse to it without scruple. No other patrimony, in cash at all events; only a most superb collection of artistic objects and curios, a few valuable pictures and some scattered outstanding claims hardly sufficient to cover his innumerable debts. They talked of a sale at auction. Felicia, on being consulted, replied that it was a matter of indifference to her whether they sold all or none, but that she begged them, for God's sake, to leave her in peace.

The sale did not take place, however, thanks to the godmother, the excellent Crenmitz, who suddenly made her appearance, as tranquil and gentle as always:

"Don't listen to them, my child, sell nothing. Your old Constance has fifteen thousand francs a year which were intended for you. You shall have the benefit of them now, that's all. We will live together here. I will not be in the way, you will see. You can work at your sculpture, while I keep the house. Does that suit you?"

It was said so affectionately, in the childish accent of foreigners expressing themselves in French, that the girl was deeply moved. Her stony heart opened, a burning flood poured from her eyes and she threw herself, buried herself in the ex-dancer's arms: "Oh! godmother, how good you are! Yes, yes; don't leave me again—stay with me always. Life frightens and disgusts me. I see so much hypocrisy and lying!" And when the old woman had made herself a silky, embroidered nest in the house, which resembled a traveller's camp filled with the treasures of all lands, those two widely different natures took up their life together.

It was no small sacrifice that Constance had made to the little demon, to leave her retreat at Fontainebleau for Paris, which she held in horror. From the day when the ballet-dancer, once famous for her extravagant caprices, who squandered princely fortunes between her five parted fingers, had descended from the realm of apotheoses with a last remnant of their dazzling glare still lingering in her eyes, and had tried to resume the life of ordinary mortals, to administer her little income and her modest household, she had been subjected to a multitude of unblushing attempts at extortion and schemes which were readily successful in view of the ignorance of that poor butterfly, who was afraid of reality and constantly coming in contact with all its unknown difficulties. In Felicia's house the responsibility became far more serious, because of the extravagant methods long ago inaugurated by the father and continued by the daughter, both artists having the utmost contempt for economy. She had other difficulties, too, to overcome. She could not endure the studio, with its permanent odor of tobacco smoke, with the cloud, impenetrable to her, in which artistic discussions and ideas, expressed in their baldest form, were confounded in vague eddies of glowing vapor which invariably gave her the sick headache. The blague was especially terrifying to her. Being a foreigner, a former divinity of the ballet greenroom, fed upon superannuated compliments, gallantries a la Dorat she was unable to understand it, and was dismayed at the wild exaggerations, the paradoxes of those Parisians whose wits were sharpened by the liberty of the studio.

She whose wit had consisted entirely in the agility of her feet was awed by her new surroundings and relegated to the position of a simple companion; and to see that amiable old creature, silent and smiling, sitting in the bright light of the rounded window, her knitting on her knees, like one of Chardin's bourgeoises, or walking quickly up the long Rue de Chaillot where the nearest market was situated, with her cook at her side, one would never have dreamed that the worthy woman had once held kings, princes, all the susceptible portion of the nobility and the world of finance, subject to the whim of her toes and her gauze skirts.

Paris is full of these extinct stars which have fallen back into the crowd.

Some of these celebrities, these conquerors of a former time, retain a gnawing rage in their hearts; others, on the contrary, dwell blissfully upon the past, ruminate in ineffable content all their glorious, bygone joys, seeking only repose, silence and obscurity, wherein they may remember and meditate, so that, when they die, we are amazed to learn that they were still living.

Constance Crenmitz was one of those happy mortals. But what a strange artists' household was that of those two women, equally childlike, contributing to the common stock inexperience and ambition, the tranquillity of an accomplished destiny and the feverish activity of a life in its prime, all the differences indeed that were indicated by the contrast between that blonde, white as a withered rose, who seemed to be dressed, beneath her fair complexion, in a remnant of Bengal fire, and that brunette, with the regular features, who almost invariably enveloped her beauty in dark stuffs, simply made, as if with a semblance of masculinity.

Unforeseen emergencies, caprice, ignorance of even the most trivial things, led to extreme confusion in the management of the household, from which they were sometimes unable to extricate themselves except by enforced privations, by dismissing servants, by reforms laughable in their exaggeration. During one of those crises Jenkins made delicate, carefully veiled offers of assistance which were repelled with scorn by Felicia.

"It isn't right," said Constance, "to be so rude to that poor doctor. After all, there was nothing insulting in what he said. An old friend of your father's."

"That man, anybody's friend! Oh! what a superb Tartuffe!"

And Felicia, hardly able to contain herself, twisted her wrath into irony, mimicked Jenkins, the affected gestures, the hand on the heart; then, puffing out her cheeks, said in a hoarse, whistling voice, full of false effusiveness:

"We must be kind, we must be humane. To do good without hope of reward!—that is the secret."

Constance laughed, in spite of herself, till the tears ran down her cheeks, the resemblance was so perfect.

"Never mind, you were too harsh—you will end by driving him away."

"Oh! indeed!" said a shake of the girl's head.

In truth, he continued to come to the house, always affable and sweet, dissembling his passion, which was visible only when he became jealous of new-comers, overwhelming with attentions the ex-ballet-dancer, to whom his pleasant manners were gratifying in spite of everything, and who recognized in him a man of her own time, of the time when men paid their respects to women by kissing their hand, with a complimentary remark as to their appearance.

* * *

One morning, Jenkins, having looked in during his round of visits, found Constance alone and unoccupied in the reception room.

"I am mounting guard, Doctor, as you see," she said calmly.

"How does that happen?"

"Why, Felicia's at work. She doesn't want to be disturbed and the servants are so stupid. I am carrying out her orders myself."

Then, as she saw the Irishman walk toward the studio, she added:

"No, no, don't go there. She gave me strict orders not to let any one go in."

"Very good, but I—"

"I beg you not—you will get me a scolding."

Jenkins was about to withdraw, when a peal of laughter from Felicia reached their ears through the portiere and made him raise his head.

"So she isn't alone?"

"No. The Nabob is with her. They are having a sitting—for the bust."

"But why this mystery? It's very strange."

He strode back and forth, raging inwardly, but holding himself back.

At last he broke out.

It was improper beyond expression to allow a girl to be closeted in that way with a man.

He was astonished that so serious-minded, so devout a person as Constance—What did it look like?

The old lady gazed at him in stupefaction. As if Felicia were like other girls! And then, what danger could there be with the Nabob, such a serious man and so ugly? Moreover, Jenkins ought to know well enough that Felicia never consulted anybody, that she did only what she chose.

"No, no, it's impossible; I cannot allow this," exclaimed the Irishman.

And, paying no further heed to the dancer, who threw up her arms to call heaven to witness what was taking place, he walked toward the studio; but, instead of entering at once, he opened the door gently and raised a corner of the hanging, so that a part of the room, just that part where the Nabob was posing, was visible to him, although at a considerable distance.

Jansoulet was seated, without a cravat, with his waistcoat thrown open, talking excitedly, in an undertone. Felicia answered in laughing whispers. The sitting was very animated. Then there was a pause, a rustling of skirts, and the artist, going up to her model, turned his linen collar back all the way around, with a familiar gesture, letting her hand run lightly over the tanned skin.

That Ethiopian face, in which the muscles quivered with the intoxication of supreme content, with its great eyelids lowered like those of a sleeping beast being tickled with a straw, the bold outline of the girl as she leaned over that outlandish face to verify its proportions, and then a violent, irresistible gesture, seizing the slender hand as it passed and pressing it to two thick, trembling lips,—Jenkins saw all this in a red glare.

The noise that he made in entering caused the two to resume their respective positions, and in the bright light which dazzled his prying, catlike eyes, he saw the girl standing before him, indignant, dumfounded: "What is this? Who has dared?" and the Nabob on his platform, with his collar turned back, petrified, monumental.

Jenkins, somewhat abashed, dismayed by his own audacity, stammered some words of apology. He had something very urgent to say to M. Jansoulet, very important information which could not be delayed. He knew from a reliable source that there would be a distribution of crosses on March 16th. The Nabob's face, momentarily contracted, at once relaxed.

"Ah! really?"

He abandoned his pose. The matter was well worth considering, deuce take it! M. de La Perriere, one of the Empress's secretaries, had been directed by her to visit the shelter of Bethlehem. Jenkins had come to take the Nabob to the secretary's office at the Tuileries and make inquiries. That visit to Bethlehem meant a cross for him.

"Come, let us be off; I am with you, my dear doctor."

He bore Jenkins no ill-will for disturbing him, and he feverishly tied his cravat, forgetting under the stress of his new emotion the agitation of a moment before, for with him ambition took precedence of everything.

While the two men talked together in undertones, Felicia, standing before them, with quivering nostrils and lip curling in scorn, watched them as if to say: "Well! I am waiting."

Jansoulet apologized for being obliged to interrupt the sitting; but a visit of the utmost importance—She smiled pityingly.

"Go, go. At the point where we are now, I can work without you."

"Oh! yes," said the doctor, "the bust is almost finished. It's a fine piece of work," he added, with the air of a connoisseur.

And, relying on the compliment to cover his retreat, he was slinking away, crestfallen; but Felicia fiercely called him back:

"Stay, you. I have something to say to you."

He saw by her expression that he must comply, under pain of an outbreak.

"With your permission, my friend? Mademoiselle has a word to say to me. My coupe is at the door. Get in, I will be with you in a moment."

When the studio door closed upon those heavy departing footsteps, they looked each other in the face.

"You must be either drunk or mad to venture to do such a thing. What! you presume to enter my studio when I do not choose to receive? Why this violence? By what right?"

"By the right that desperate, unconquerable passion gives."

"Be quiet, Jenkins; those are words that I do not wish to hear. I let you come here through pity, through habit, because my father was fond of you. But never speak to me again of your—love"—she said the word very low, as if it were a disgrace—"or you will see me no more, even though I should be driven to die in order to escape you for good and all."

A child taken in fault does not bend his head more humbly than Jenkins as he replied:

"True—I was wrong. A moment of madness, of blindness. But why do you take pleasure in tearing my heart as you do?"

"As if I were thinking of you!"

"Whether you are thinking of me or not, I am here, I see what is going on, and your coquetry pains me terribly."

A slight flush rose in her cheeks at that reproach.

"I, a coquette! With whom?"

"With him," said the Irishman, pointing to the superb apelike bust.

She tried to laugh.

"The Nabob. What nonsense!"

"Do not lie. Do you think I am blind, that I don't understand all your manoeuvres? You stay alone with him a long while. I was at the door just now. I saw you." He lowered his voice as if his breath had failed him. "What are you after, in heaven's name, you strange, heartless child? I have seen you repel the handsomest, the noblest, the greatest. That little de Gery devours you with his eyes, but you pay no heed to him. Even the Duc de Mora has not succeeded in reaching your heart. And this man, a shocking, vulgar creature, who isn't thinking of you, who has something very different from love in his head—you saw how he went away just now! What are you aiming at? What do you expect from him?"

"I intend—I intend that he shall marry me. There."

Coolly, in a softer tone, as if the confession had drawn her nearer to the man she despised so bitterly, she set forth her reasons. She had luxurious, extravagant tastes, unmethodical habits which nothing could overcome and which would infallibly lead her to poverty and destitution, and good Crenmitz too, who allowed herself to be ruined without a word. In three years, four years at most, it would be all over. And then would come debts and desperate expedients, the ragged gowns and old shoes of poor artists' households. Or else the lover, the keeper, that is to say slavery and degradation.

"Nonsense," said Jenkins. "What of me, am I not here?"

"Anything rather than you," she said, drawing herself up. "No, what I must have, what I will have, is a husband to protect me from others and from myself, to keep me from a mass of black things of which I am afraid when life becomes a bore to me, from abysses into which I feel that I may plunge,—some one who will love me while I work, and will relieve my poor old exhausted fairy from doing sentry duty. That man suits me and I have had my eye on him ever since I first saw him. He is ugly to look at, but he seems kind; and then he is absurdly rich, and wealth, in that degree, must be amusing. Oh! I know all about it. There probably is some black spot in his life which has brought him good luck. All that gold can't have been honestly come by. But tell me truly, Jenkins, with your hand on that heart which you invoke so often, do you think that I am a very tempting wife for an honest man? Consider: of all these young men who ask as a favor to be allowed to come here, what one has ever thought of asking for my hand? Never a single one. De Gery no more than the rest. I charm, but I terrify. That is easily understood. What can anyone expect of a girl brought up as I was, with no mother or family, tossed in a heap with my father's models and mistresses? Such mistresses, great God! And Jenkins for my only protector. Oh! when I think of it! When I think of it!"

And, with the memory of that already distant episode, thoughts came to her mind which inflamed her wrath. "Oh! yes, I am a child of chance, and this adventurer is just the husband for me."[2]

[2] Je suis une fille d'aventure, et cet aventurier est bien le mari qu'il me faut.

"At least you will wait until he's a widower," retorted Jenkins tranquilly. "And in that case you may have to wait a long while, for his Levantine looks to be in excellent health."

Felicia Ruys became livid.

"He is married?"

"Married, why, to be sure, and father of a lot of children. The whole outfit landed here two days ago."

She stood for a moment, speechless, her cheeks quivering.

In front of her the Nabob's broad visage, in shining clay, with its flat nose, its sensual good-humored mouth, seemed to cry aloud in its fidelity to life. She gazed at it a moment, then stepped toward it, and with a gesture of disgust overturned the high, wooden stand and the gleaming, greasy block itself, which fell to the floor a shapeless mass of mud.



VII.

JANSOULET AT HOME.

Married he had been for twelve years, but had never mentioned the fact to any one of his Parisian acquaintances, by virtue of an acquired Oriental habit, the habit that Oriental peoples have of maintaining silence concerning their female relations. Suddenly it was learned that Madame was coming, that apartments must be made ready for her, her children and her women. The Nabob hired the whole second floor of the house on Place Vendome, the previous tenant being sacrificed to Nabob prices. The stables were increased in size, the staff of servants was doubled; and then, one day, coachmen and carriages went to the Lyon station to fetch Madame, who arrived with a retinue of negresses, little negroes and gazelles, completely filling a long train that had been heated expressly for her all the way from Marseille.

She alighted in a terrible state of prostration, exhausted and bewildered by her long railroad journey, the first in her life, for she had been taken to Tunis as a child and had never left it. Two negroes carried her from the carriage to her apartments in an armchair, which was always kept in the vestibule thereafter, ready for that difficult transportation. Madame Jansoulet could not walk upstairs, for it made her dizzy; she would not have an elevator because her weight made it squeak; besides, she never walked. An enormous creature, so bloated that it was impossible to assign her an age, but somewhere between twenty-five and forty, with rather a pretty face, but features all deformed by fat, lifeless eyes beneath drooping lids grooved like shells, trussed up in exported gowns, loaded with diamonds and jewels like a Hindoo idol, she was a most perfect specimen of the transplanted Europeans who are called Levantines. A strange race of obese Creoles, connected with our society by naught save language and dress, but enveloped by the Orient in its stupefying atmosphere, the subtle poisons of its opium-laden air, in which everything becomes limp and nerveless, from the tissues of the skin to the girdle around the waist, ay, even to the mind itself and the thought.

She was the daughter of an enormously wealthy Belgian, a dealer in coral at Tunis, in whose establishment Jansoulet had been employed for several months on his first arrival in the country. Mademoiselle Afchin, at that time a fascinating doll, with dazzling complexion and hair, and perfect health, came often to the counting-room for her father, in the great chariot drawn by mules which conveyed them to their beautiful villa of La Marse in the outskirts of Tunis. The child, always decollete, with gleaming white shoulders seen for a moment in a luxurious frame, dazzled the adventurer; and years after, when he had become rich, the favorite of the bey, and thought of settling down, his mind reverted to her. The child had changed into a stout, heavy, sallow girl. Her intellect, never of a high order, had become still more obtuse in the torpor of such a life as dormice lead, in the neglect of a father whose whole time and thought were given to business, and in the use of tobacco saturated with opium and of sweetmeats,—the torpor of her Flemish blood conjoined with Oriental indolence; and with all the rest, ill-bred, gluttonous, sensual, arrogant, a Levantine trinket brought to perfection.

But Jansoulet saw nothing of all that.

In his eyes she was then, she was always, down to the time of her arrival in Paris, a superior being, a person of the highest refinement, a Demoiselle Afchin; he spoke to her with respect, maintained a slightly humble and timid attitude toward her, gave her money without counting it, indulged her most extravagant caprices, her wildest whims, all the strange conceits of a Levantine's brain distracted by ennui and idleness. A single word justified everything; she was a Demoiselle Afchin. And yet they had nothing in common; he was always at the Kasbah or the Bardo, in attendance on the bey, paying his court to him, or else in his counting-room; she passed her day in bed, on her head a diadem of pearls worth three hundred thousand francs, which she never laid aside, brutalizing herself by smoking, living as in a harem, admiring herself in the mirror, arraying herself in fine clothes, in company with several other Levantines, whose greatest joy consisted in measuring with their necklaces the girth of arms and legs which rivalled one another in corpulency, bringing forth children with whom she never concerned herself, whom she never saw, who had never even caused her suffering, for she was delivered under the influence of chloroform. A "bale" of white flesh perfumed with musk. And Jansoulet would say with pride: "I married a Demoiselle Afchin!"

Under Parisian skies and in the cold light of the capital, his disillusionment began. Having determined to set up a regular establishment, to receive, to give entertainments, the Nabob had sent for his wife, in order to place her at the head of his house. But when he saw that mass of stiff, crackling dry-goods, of Palais-Royal finery, alight at his door, and all the extraordinary outfit that followed her, he had a vague impression of a Queen Pomare in exile. The difficulty was that he had seen some genuine women of fashion and he made comparisons. He had planned a grand ball to celebrate her arrival, but he prudently abstained. Indeed Madame Jansoulet refused to receive any one. Her natural indolence was augmented by the homesickness which the cold yellow fog and the pouring rain had brought upon her as soon as she landed. She passed several days in bed, crying aloud like a child, declaring that they had brought her to Paris to kill her, and even rejecting the slightest attentions from her women. She lay there roaring among her lace pillows, her hair in a tangled mass around her diadem, the windows closed and curtains tightly drawn, lamps lighted day and night, crying out that she wanted to go away—ay, to go away—ay; and it was a pitiful thing to see, in that tomb-like darkness, the half-filled trunks scattered over the carpet, the frightened gazelles, the negresses crouching around their hysterical mistress, groaning in unison, with haggard eyes, like the dogs of travellers in polar countries which go mad when they cannot see the sun.

The Irish doctor, upon being admitted to that distressing scene, had no success with his fatherly ways, his fine superficial phrases. Not at any price would the Levantine take the pearls with arsenical base, to give tone to her system. The Nabob was horrified. What was he to do? Send her back to Tunis with the children? That was hardly possible. He was definitively in disgrace there. The Hemerlingues had triumphed. A last insult had filled the measure to overflowing: on Jansoulet's departure the bey had commissioned him to have several millions of gold coined after a new pattern at the Paris Mint; then the commission had been abruptly withdrawn and given to Hemerlingue. Jansoulet, being publicly insulted, retorted with a public manifesto, offering all his property for sale, his palace on the Bardo presented to him by the former bey, his villas at La Marse, all of white marble, surrounded by magnificent gardens, his counting rooms, the most commodious and most sumptuously furnished in the city, and instructing the intelligent Bompain to bring his wife and children to Paris in order to put the seal of finality to his departure. After such a display, it would be hard to return; that is what he tried to make Mademoiselle Afchin understand, but she replied only by prolonged groans. He strove to comfort her, to amuse her, but what form of distraction could be made to appeal to that abnormally apathetic nature? And then, could he change the skies of Paris, give back to the wretched Levantine her marble-tiled patio, where she used to pass long hours in a cool, delicious state of drowsiness, listening to the plashing of the water in the great alabaster fountain with three basins one above the other, and her gilded boat, covered with a purple awning and rowed by eight supple, muscular Tripolitan oarsmen over the lovely lake of El-Baheira, when the sun was setting? Sumptuous as were the apartments on Place Vendome, they could not supply the place of those lost treasures. And she plunged deeper than ever in her despair. One habitue of the house succeeded, however, in drawing her out of it, Cabassu, who styled himself on his cards "professor of massage;" a stout dark thick-set man, redolent of garlic and hair-oil, square-shouldered, covered with hair to his eyes, who knew stories of Parisian seraglios, trivial anecdotes within the limited range of Madame's intellect. He came once to rub her, and she wished to see him again, detained him. He was obliged to abandon all his other customers and to become the masseur of that able-bodied creature, at a salary equal to that of a senator, her page, her reader, her body-guard. Jansoulet, overjoyed to see that his wife was contented, was not conscious of the disgusting absurdity of the intimacy.