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Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 1

by Gustave Flaubert · English · Gutenberg #34828 · 517,786 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 1

Author: Gustave Flaubert


        
Release date: January 2, 2011 [eBook #34828]
                Most recently updated: December 24, 2011

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION; OR, THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG MAN. VOLUME 1 ***




Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION

OR, _THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG MAN_

BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

    _VOLUME I._

    M. WALTER DUNNE
    NEW YORK AND LONDON

    COPYRIGHT, 1904,
    BY M. WALTER DUNNE
    PUBLISHER


[Illustration: She wore a wide straw hat with red ribbons, which
fluttered in the wind behind her.]




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I. A PROMISING PUPIL

CHAPTER II. DAMON AND PYTHIAS

CHAPTER III. SENTIMENT AND PASSION

CHAPTER IV. THE INEXPRESSIBLE SHE!

CHAPTER V. "LOVE KNOWETH NO LAWS"

CHAPTER VI. BLIGHTED HOPES

CHAPTER VII. CHANGE OF FORTUNE

CHAPTER VIII. FREDERICK ENTERTAINS

CHAPTER IX. THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

CHAPTER X. AT THE RACES




ILLUSTRATIONS


SHE WORE A WIDE STRAW HAT WITH RED RIBBONS, WHICH FLUTTERED IN THE WIND
BEHIND HER

"LAUGH, THEN! SHED NO MORE TEARS--BE HAPPY!"

THEN SHE SEIZED HIM BY THE EARS AND KISSED HIM




SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION




CHAPTER I.

A Promising Pupil.


On the 15th of September, 1840, about six o'clock in the morning, the
_Ville de Montereau_, just on the point of starting, was sending forth
great whirlwinds of smoke, in front of the Quai St. Bernard.

People came rushing on board in breathless haste. The traffic was
obstructed by casks, cables, and baskets of linen. The sailors answered
nobody. People jostled one another. Between the two paddle-boxes was
piled up a heap of parcels; and the uproar was drowned in the loud
hissing of the steam, which, making its way through the plates of
sheet-iron, enveloped everything in a white cloud, while the bell at the
prow kept ringing continuously.

At last, the vessel set out; and the two banks of the river, stocked
with warehouses, timber-yards, and manufactories, opened out like two
huge ribbons being unrolled.

A young man of eighteen, with long hair, holding an album under his arm,
remained near the helm without moving. Through the haze he surveyed
steeples, buildings of which he did not know the names; then, with a
parting glance, he took in the Île St. Louis, the Cité, Nôtre Dame; and
presently, as Paris disappeared from his view, he heaved a deep sigh.

Frederick Moreau, having just taken his Bachelor's degree, was returning
home to Nogent-sur-Seine, where he would have to lead a languishing
existence for two months, before going back to begin his legal studies.
His mother had sent him, with enough to cover his expenses, to Havre to
see an uncle, from whom she had expectations of his receiving an
inheritance. He had returned from that place only yesterday; and he
indemnified himself for not having the opportunity of spending a little
time in the capital by taking the longest possible route to reach his
own part of the country.

The hubbub had subsided. The passengers had all taken their places. Some
of them stood warming themselves around the machinery, and the chimney
spat forth with a slow, rhythmic rattle its plume of black smoke. Little
drops of dew trickled over the copper plates; the deck quivered with the
vibration from within; and the two paddle-wheels, rapidly turning round,
lashed the water. The edges of the river were covered with sand. The
vessel swept past rafts of wood which began to oscillate under the
rippling of the waves, or a boat without sails in which a man sat
fishing. Then the wandering haze cleared off; the sun appeared; the hill
which ran along the course of the Seine to the right subsided by
degrees, and another rose nearer on the opposite bank.

It was crowned with trees, which surrounded low-built houses, covered
with roofs in the Italian style. They had sloping gardens divided by
fresh walls, iron railings, grass-plots, hot-houses, and vases of
geraniums, laid out regularly on the terraces where one could lean
forward on one's elbow. More than one spectator longed, on beholding
those attractive residences which looked so peaceful, to be the owner of
one of them, and to dwell there till the end of his days with a good
billiard-table, a sailing-boat, and a woman or some other object to
dream about. The agreeable novelty of a journey by water made such
outbursts natural. Already the wags on board were beginning their jokes.
Many began to sing. Gaiety prevailed, and glasses of brandy were poured
out.

Frederick was thinking about the apartment which he would occupy over
there, on the plan of a drama, on subjects for pictures, on future
passions. He found that the happiness merited by the excellence of his
soul was slow in arriving. He declaimed some melancholy verses. He
walked with rapid step along the deck. He went on till he reached the
end at which the bell was; and, in the centre of a group of passengers
and sailors, he saw a gentleman talking soft nothings to a
country-woman, while fingering the gold cross which she wore over her
breast. He was a jovial blade of forty with frizzled hair. His robust
form was encased in a jacket of black velvet, two emeralds sparkled in
his cambric shirt, and his wide, white trousers fell over odd-looking
red boots of Russian leather set off with blue designs.

The presence of Frederick did not discompose him. He turned round and
glanced several times at the young man with winks of enquiry. He next
offered cigars to all who were standing around him. But getting tired,
no doubt, of their society, he moved away from them and took a seat
further up. Frederick followed him.

The conversation, at first, turned on the various kinds of tobacco, then
quite naturally it glided into a discussion about women. The gentleman
in the red boots gave the young man advice; he put forward theories,
related anecdotes, referred to himself by way of illustration, and he
gave utterance to all these things in a paternal tone, with the
ingenuousness of entertaining depravity.

He was republican in his opinions. He had travelled; he was familiar
with the inner life of theatres, restaurants, and newspapers, and knew
all the theatrical celebrities, whom he called by their Christian names.
Frederick told him confidentially about his projects; and the elder man
took an encouraging view of them.

But he stopped talking to take a look at the funnel, then he went
mumbling rapidly through a long calculation in order to ascertain "how
much each stroke of the piston at so many times per minute would come
to," etc., and having found the number, he spoke about the scenery,
which he admired immensely. Then he gave expression to his delight at
having got away from business.

Frederick regarded him with a certain amount of respect, and politely
manifested a strong desire to know his name. The stranger, without a
moment's hesitation, replied:

"Jacques Arnoux, proprietor of _L'Art Industriel_, Boulevard
Montmartre."

A man-servant in a gold-laced cap came up and said:

"Would Monsieur have the kindness to go below? Mademoiselle is crying."

_L'Art Industriel_ was a hybrid establishment, wherein the functions of
an art-journal and a picture-shop were combined. Frederick had seen this
title several times in the bookseller's window in his native place on
big prospectuses, on which the name of Jacques Arnoux displayed itself
magisterially.

The sun's rays fell perpendicularly, shedding a glittering light on the
iron hoops around the masts, the plates of the barricades, and the
surface of the water, which, at the prow, was cut into two furrows that
spread out as far as the borders of the meadows. At each winding of the
river, a screen of pale poplars presented itself with the utmost
uniformity. The surrounding country at this point had an empty look. In
the sky there were little white clouds which remained motionless, and
the sense of weariness, which vaguely diffused itself over everything,
seemed to retard the progress of the steamboat and to add to the
insignificant appearance of the passengers. Putting aside a few persons
of good position who were travelling first class, they were artisans or
shopmen with their wives and children. As it was customary at that time
to wear old clothes when travelling, they nearly all had their heads
covered with shabby Greek caps or discoloured hats, thin black coats
that had become quite threadbare from constant rubbing against
writing-desks, or frock-coats with the casings of their buttons loose
from continual service in the shop. Here and there some roll-collar
waistcoat afforded a glimpse of a calico shirt stained with coffee.
Pinchbeck pins were stuck into cravats that were all torn. List shoes
were kept up by stitched straps. Two or three roughs who held in their
hands bamboo canes with leathern loops, kept looking askance at their
fellow-passengers; and fathers of families opened their eyes wide while
making enquiries. People chatted either standing up or squatting over
their luggage; some went to sleep in various corners of the vessel;
several occupied themselves with eating. The deck was soiled with walnut
shells, butt-ends of cigars, peelings of pears, and the droppings of
pork-butchers' meat, which had been carried wrapped up in paper. Three
cabinet-makers in blouses took their stand in front of the bottle case;
a harp-player in rags was resting with his elbows on his instrument. At
intervals could be heard the sound of falling coals in the furnace, a
shout, or a laugh; and the captain kept walking on the bridge from one
paddle-box to the other without stopping for a moment.

Frederick, to get back to his place, pushed forward the grating leading
into the part of the vessel reserved for first-class passengers, and in
so doing disturbed two sportsmen with their dogs.

What he then saw was like an apparition. She was seated in the middle of
a bench all alone, or, at any rate, he could see no one, dazzled as he
was by her eyes. At the moment when he was passing, she raised her head;
his shoulders bent involuntarily; and, when he had seated himself, some
distance away, on the same side, he glanced towards her.

She wore a wide straw hat with red ribbons which fluttered in the wind
behind her. Her black tresses, twining around the edges of her large
brows, descended very low, and seemed amorously to press the oval of her
face. Her robe of light muslin spotted with green spread out in numerous
folds. She was in the act of embroidering something; and her straight
nose, her chin, her entire person was cut out on the background of the
luminous air and the blue sky.

As she remained in the same attitude, he took several turns to the right
and to the left to hide from her his change of position; then he placed
himself close to her parasol which lay against the bench, and pretended
to be looking at a sloop on the river.

Never before had he seen more lustrous dark skin, a more seductive
figure, or more delicately shaped fingers than those through which the
sunlight gleamed. He stared with amazement at her work-basket, as if it
were something extraordinary. What was her name, her place of residence,
her life, her past? He longed to become familiar with the furniture of
her apartment, all the dresses that she had worn, the people whom she
visited; and the desire of physical possession yielded to a deeper
yearning, a painful curiosity that knew no bounds.

A negress, wearing a silk handkerchief tied round her head, made her
appearance, holding by the hand a little girl already tall for her age.
The child, whose eyes were swimming with tears, had just awakened. The
lady took the little one on her knees. "Mademoiselle was not good,
though she would soon be seven; her mother would not love her any more.
She was too often pardoned for being naughty." And Frederick heard those
things with delight, as if he had made a discovery, an acquisition.

He assumed that she must be of Andalusian descent, perhaps a Creole: had
she brought this negress across with her from the West Indian Islands?

Meanwhile his attention was directed to a long shawl with violet stripes
thrown behind her back over the copper support of the bench. She must
have, many a time, wrapped it around her waist, as the vessel sped
through the midst of the waves; drawn it over her feet, gone to sleep in
it!

Frederick suddenly noticed that with the sweep of its fringes it was
slipping off, and it was on the point of falling into the water when,
with a bound, he secured it. She said to him:

"Thanks, Monsieur."

Their eyes met.

"Are you ready, my dear?" cried my lord Arnoux, presenting himself at
the hood of the companion-ladder.

Mademoiselle Marthe ran over to him, and, clinging to his neck, she
began pulling at his moustache. The strains of a harp were heard--she
wanted to see the music played; and presently the performer on the
instrument, led forward by the negress, entered the place reserved for
saloon passengers. Arnoux recognized in him a man who had formerly been
a model, and "thou'd" him, to the astonishment of the bystanders. At
length the harpist, flinging back his long hair over his shoulders,
stretched out his hands and began playing.

It was an Oriental ballad all about poniards, flowers, and stars. The
man in rags sang it in a sharp voice; the twanging of the harp strings
broke the harmony of the tune with false notes. He played more
vigorously: the chords vibrated, and their metallic sounds seemed to
send forth sobs, and, as it were, the plaint of a proud and vanquished
love. On both sides of the river, woods extended as far as the edge of
the water. A current of fresh air swept past them, and Madame Arnoux
gazed vaguely into the distance. When the music stopped, she moved her
eyes several times as if she were starting out of a dream.

The harpist approached them with an air of humility. While Arnoux was
searching his pockets for money, Frederick stretched out towards the cap
his closed hand, and then, opening it in a shamefaced manner, he
deposited in it a louis d'or. It was not vanity that had prompted him to
bestow this alms in her presence, but the idea of a blessing in which he
thought she might share--an almost religious impulse of the heart.

Arnoux, pointing out the way, cordially invited him to go below.
Frederick declared that he had just lunched; on the contrary, he was
nearly dying of hunger; and he had not a single centime in his purse.

After that, it occurred to him that he had a perfect right, as well as
anyone else, to remain in the cabin.

Ladies and gentlemen were seated before round tables, lunching, while an
attendant went about serving out coffee. Monsieur and Madame Arnoux were
in the far corner to the right. He took a seat on the long bench covered
with velvet, having picked up a newspaper which he found there.

They would have to take the diligence at Montereau for Châlons. Their
tour in Switzerland would last a month. Madame Arnoux blamed her husband
for his weakness in dealing with his child. He whispered in her ear
something agreeable, no doubt, for she smiled. Then, he got up to draw
down the window curtain at her back. Under the low, white ceiling, a
crude light filled the cabin. Frederick, sitting opposite to the place
where she sat, could distinguish the shade of her eyelashes. She just
moistened her lips with her glass and broke a little piece of crust
between her fingers. The lapis-lazuli locket fastened by a little gold
chain to her wrist made a ringing sound, every now and then, as it
touched her plate. Those present, however, did not appear to notice it.

At intervals one could see, through the small portholes, the side of a
boat taking away passengers or putting them on board. Those who sat
round the tables stooped towards the openings, and called out the names
of the various places they passed along the river.

Arnoux complained of the cooking. He grumbled particularly at the amount
of the bill, and got it reduced. Then, he carried off the young man
towards the forecastle to drink a glass of grog with him. But Frederick
speedily came back again to gaze at Madame Arnoux, who had returned to
the awning, beneath which she seated herself. She was reading a thin,
grey-covered volume. From time to time, the corners of her mouth curled
and a gleam of pleasure lighted up her forehead. He felt jealous of the
inventor of those things which appeared to interest her so much. The
more he contemplated her, the more he felt that there were yawning
abysses between them. He was reflecting that he should very soon lose
sight of her irrevocably, without having extracted a few words from her,
without leaving her even a souvenir!

On the right, a plain stretched out. On the left, a strip of
pasture-land rose gently to meet a hillock where one could see
vineyards, groups of walnut-trees, a mill embedded in the grassy slopes,
and, beyond that, little zigzag paths over the white mass of rocks that
reached up towards the clouds. What bliss it would have been to ascend
side by side with her, his arm around her waist, while her gown would
sweep the yellow leaves, listening to her voice and gazing up into her
glowing eyes! The steamboat might stop, and all they would have to do
was to step out of it; and yet this thing, simple as it might be, was
not less difficult than it would have been to move the sun.

A little further on, a château appeared with pointed roof and square
turrets. A flower garden spread out in the foreground; and avenues ran,
like dark archways, under the tall linden trees. He pictured her to
himself passing along by this group of trees. At that moment a young
lady and a young man showed themselves on the steps in front of the
house, between the trunks of the orange trees. Then the entire scene
vanished.

The little girl kept skipping playfully around the place where he had
stationed himself on the deck. Frederick wished to kiss her. She hid
herself behind her nurse. Her mother scolded her for not being nice to
the gentleman who had rescued her own shawl. Was this an indirect
overture?

"Is she going to speak to me?" he asked himself.

Time was flying. How was he to get an invitation to the Arnoux's house?
And he could think of nothing better than to draw her attention to the
autumnal hues, adding:

"We are close to winter--the season of balls and dinner-parties."

But Arnoux was entirely occupied with his luggage. They had arrived at
the point of the river's bank facing Surville. The two bridges drew
nearer. They passed a ropewalk, then a range of low-built houses, inside
which there were pots of tar and splinters of wood; and brats went
along the sand turning head over heels. Frederick recognised a man with
a sleeved waistcoat, and called out to him:

"Make haste!"

They were at the landing-place. He looked around anxiously for Arnoux
amongst the crowd of passengers, and the other came and shook hands with
him, saying:

"A pleasant time, dear Monsieur!"

When he was on the quay, Frederick turned around. She was standing
beside the helm. He cast a look towards her into which he tried to put
his whole soul. She remained motionless, as if he had done nothing.
Then, without paying the slightest attentions to the obeisances of his
man-servant:

"Why didn't you bring the trap down here?"

The man made excuses.

"What a clumsy fellow you are! Give me some money."

And after that he went off to get something to eat at an inn.

A quarter of an hour later, he felt an inclination to turn into the
coachyard, as if by chance. Perhaps he would see her again.

"What's the use of it?" said he to himself.

The vehicle carried him off. The two horses did not belong to his
mother. She had borrowed one of M. Chambrion, the tax-collector, in
order to have it yoked alongside of her own. Isidore, having set forth
the day before, had taken a rest at Bray until evening, and had slept at
Montereau, so that the animals, with restored vigour, were trotting
briskly.

Fields on which the crops had been cut stretched out in apparently
endless succession; and by degrees Villeneuve, St. Georges, Ablon,
Châtillon, Corbeil, and the other places--his entire journey--came back
to his recollection with such vividness that he could now recall to mind
fresh details, more intimate particulars.... Under the lowest flounce of
her gown, her foot showed itself encased in a dainty silk boot of maroon
shade. The awning made of ticking formed a wide canopy over her head,
and the little red tassels of the edging kept perpetually trembling in
the breeze.

She resembled the women of whom he had read in romances. He would have
added nothing to the charms of her person, and would have taken nothing
from them. The universe had suddenly become enlarged. She was the
luminous point towards which all things converged; and, rocked by the
movement of the vehicle, with half-dosed eyelids, and his face turned
towards the clouds, he abandoned himself to a dreamy, infinite joy.

At Bray, he did not wait till the horses had got their oats; he walked
on along the road ahead by himself. Arnoux had, when he spoke to her,
addressed her as "Marie." He now loudly repeated the name "Marie!" His
voice pierced the air and was lost in the distance.

The western sky was one great mass of flaming purple. Huge stacks of
wheat, rising up in the midst of the stubble fields, projected giant
shadows. A dog began to bark in a farm-house in the distance. He
shivered, seized with disquietude for which he could assign no cause.

When Isidore had come up with him, he jumped up into the front seat to
drive. His fit of weakness was past. He had thoroughly made up his mind
to effect an introduction into the house of the Arnoux, and to become
intimate with them. Their house should be amusing; besides, he liked
Arnoux; then, who could tell? Thereupon a wave of blood rushed up to his
face; his temples throbbed; he cracked his whip, shook the reins, and
set the horses going at such a pace that the old coachman repeatedly
exclaimed:

"Easy! easy now, or they'll get broken-winded!"

Gradually Frederick calmed down, and he listened to what the man was
saying. Monsieur's return was impatiently awaited. Mademoiselle Louise
had cried in her anxiety to go in the trap to meet him.

"Who, pray, is Mademoiselle Louise?"

"Monsieur Roque's little girl, you know."

"Ah! I had forgotten," rejoined Frederick, carelessly.

Meanwhile, the two horses could keep up the pace no longer. They were
both getting lame; and nine o'clock struck at St. Laurent's when he
arrived at the parade in front of his mother's house.

This house of large dimensions, with a garden looking out on the open
country, added to the social importance of Madame Moreau, who was the
most respected lady in the district.

She came of an old family of nobles, of which the male line was now
extinct. Her husband, a plebeian whom her parents forced her to marry,
met his death by a sword-thrust, during her pregnancy, leaving her an
estate much encumbered. She received visitors three times a week, and
from time to time, gave a fashionable dinner. But the number of wax
candles was calculated beforehand, and she looked forward with some
impatience to the payment of her rents. These pecuniary embarrassments,
concealed as if there were some guilt attached to them, imparted a
certain gravity to her character. Nevertheless, she displayed no
prudery, no sourness, in the practice of her peculiar virtue. Her most
trifling charities seemed munificent alms. She was consulted about the
selection of servants, the education of young girls, and the art of
making preserves, and Monseigneur used to stay at her house on the
occasion of his episcopal visitations.

Madame Moreau cherished a lofty ambition for her son. Through a sort of
prudence grounded on the expectation of favours, she did not care to
hear blame cast on the Government. He would need patronage at the start;
then, with its aid, he might become a councillor of State, an
ambassador, a minister. His triumphs at the college of Sens warranted
this proud anticipation; he had carried off there the prize of honour.

When he entered the drawing-room, all present arose with a great racket;
he was embraced; and the chairs, large and small, were drawn up in a big
semi-circle around the fireplace. M. Gamblin immediately asked him what
was his opinion about Madame Lafarge. This case, the rage of the period,
did not fail to lead to a violent discussion. Madame Moreau stopped it,
to the regret, however, of M. Gamblin. He deemed it serviceable to the
young man in his character of a future lawyer, and, nettled at what had
occurred, he left the drawing-room.

Nothing should have caused surprise on the part of a friend of Père
Roque! The reference to Père Roque led them to talk of M. Dambreuse, who
had just become the owner of the demesne of La Fortelle. But the
tax-collector had drawn Frederick aside to know what he thought of M.
Guizot's latest work. They were all anxious to get some information
about his private affairs, and Madame Benoît went cleverly to work with
that end in view by inquiring about his uncle. How was that worthy
relative? They no longer heard from him. Had he not a distant cousin in
America?

The cook announced that Monsieur's soup was served. The guests
discreetly retired. Then, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room,
his mother said to him in a low tone:

"Well?"

The old man had received him in a very cordial manner, but without
disclosing his intentions.

Madame Moreau sighed.

"Where is she now?" was his thought.

The diligence was rolling along the road, and, wrapped up in the shawl,
no doubt, she was leaning against the cloth of the coupé, her beautiful
head nodding asleep.

He and his mother were just going up to their apartments when a waiter
from the Swan of the Cross brought him a note.

"What is that, pray?"

"It is Deslauriers, who wants me," said he.

"Ha! your chum!" said Madame Moreau, with a contemptuous sneer.
"Certainly it is a nice hour to select!"

Frederick hesitated. But friendship was stronger. He got his hat.

"At any rate, don't be long!" said his mother to him.




CHAPTER II.

Damon and Pythias.


Charles Deslauriers' father, an ex-captain in the line, who had left the
service in 1818, had come back to Nogent, where he had married, and with
the amount of the dowry bought up the business of a process-server,[1]
which brought him barely enough to maintain him. Embittered by a long
course of unjust treatment, suffering still from the effects of old
wounds, and always regretting the Emperor, he vented on those around him
the fits of rage that seemed to choke him. Few children received so many
whackings as his son. In spite of blows, however, the brat did not
yield. His mother, when she tried to interpose, was also ill-treated.
Finally, the captain planted the boy in his office, and all the day long
kept him bent over his desk copying documents, with the result that his
right shoulder was noticeably higher than his left.

[Footnote 1: The French word _huissier_ means a sheriff's officer, or a
person whose business it is to serve writs, processes, and legal
documents generally. The word "process-server" must not be understood in
its colloquial English sense, for in France this business is sometimes a
lucrative one.--Translator.]

In 1833, on the invitation of the president, the captain sold his
office. His wife died of cancer. He then went to live at Dijon. After
that he started in business at Troyes, where he was connected with the
slave trade; and, having obtained a small scholarship for Charles,
placed him at the college of Sens, where Frederick came across him. But
one of the pair was twelve years old, while the other was fifteen;
besides, a thousand differences of character and origin tended to keep
them apart.

Frederick had in his chest of drawers all sorts of useful things--choice
articles, such as a dressing-case. He liked to lie late in bed in the
morning, to look at the swallows, and to read plays; and, regretting the
comforts of home, he thought college life rough. To the process-server's
son it seemed a pleasant life. He worked so hard that, at the end of the
second year, he had got into the third form. However, owing to his
poverty or to his quarrelsome disposition, he was regarded with intense
dislike. But when on one occasion, in the courtyard where pupils of the
middle grade took exercise, an attendant openly called him a beggar's
child, he sprang at the fellow's throat, and would have killed him if
three of the ushers had not intervened. Frederick, carried away by
admiration, pressed him in his arms. From that day forward they became
fast friends. The affection of a _grandee_ no doubt flattered the vanity
of the youth of meaner rank, and the other accepted as a piece of good
fortune this devotion freely offered to him. During the holidays
Charles's father allowed him to remain in the college. A translation of
Plato which he opened by chance excited his enthusiasm. Then he became
smitten with a love of metaphysical studies; and he made rapid progress,
for he approached the subject with all the energy of youth and the
self-confidence of an emancipated intellect. Jouffroy, Cousin,
Laromiguière, Malebranche, and the Scotch metaphysicians--everything
that could be found in the library dealing with this branch of knowledge
passed through his hands. He found it necessary to steal the key in
order to get the books.

Frederick's intellectual distractions were of a less serious
description. He made sketches of the genealogy of Christ carved on a
post in the Rue des Trois Rois, then of the gateway of a cathedral.
After a course of mediæval dramas, he took up memoirs--Froissart,
Comines, Pierre de l'Estoile, and Brantôme.

The impressions made on his mind by this kind of reading took such a
hold of it that he felt a need within him of reproducing those pictures
of bygone days. His ambition was to be, one day, the Walter Scott of
France. Deslauriers dreamed of formulating a vast system of philosophy,
which might have the most far-reaching applications.

They chatted over all these matters at recreation hours, in the
playground, in front of the moral inscription painted under the clock.
They kept whispering to each other about them in the chapel, even with
St. Louis staring down at them. They dreamed about them in the
dormitory, which looked out on a burial-ground. On walking-days they
took up a position behind the others, and talked without stopping.

They spoke of what they would do later, when they had left college.
First of all, they would set out on a long voyage with the money which
Frederick would take out of his own fortune on reaching his majority.
Then they would come back to Paris; they would work together, and would
never part; and, as a relaxation from their labours, they would have
love-affairs with princesses in boudoirs lined with satin, or dazzling
orgies with famous courtesans. Their rapturous expectations were
followed by doubts. After a crisis of verbose gaiety, they would often
lapse into profound silence.

On summer evenings, when they had been walking for a long time over
stony paths which bordered on vineyards, or on the high-road in the open
country, and when they saw the wheat waving in the sunlight, while the
air was filled with the fragrance of angelica, a sort of suffocating
sensation took possession of them, and they stretched themselves on
their backs, dizzy, intoxicated. Meanwhile the other lads, in their
shirt-sleeves, were playing at base or flying kites. Then, as the usher
called in the two companions from the playground, they would return,
taking the path which led along by the gardens watered by brooklets;
then they would pass through the boulevards overshadowed by the old city
walls. The deserted streets rang under their tread. The grating flew
back; they ascended the stairs; and they felt as sad as if they had had
a great debauch.

The proctor maintained that they mutually cried up each other.
Nevertheless, if Frederick worked his way up to the higher forms, it was
through the exhortations of his friend; and, during the vacation in
1837, he brought Deslauriers to his mother's house.

Madame Moreau disliked the young man. He had a terrible appetite. He was
fond of making republican speeches. To crown all, she got it into her
head that he had been the means of leading her son into improper
places. Their relations towards each other were watched. This only made
their friendship grow stronger, and they bade one another adieu with
heartfelt pangs when, in the following year, Deslauriers left the
college in order to study law in Paris.

Frederick anxiously looked forward to the time when they would meet
again. For two years they had not laid eyes on each other; and, when
their embraces were over, they walked over the bridges to talk more at
their ease.

The captain, who had now set up a billiard-room at Villenauxe, reddened
with anger when his son called for an account of the expense of
tutelage, and even cut down the cost of victuals to the lowest figure.
But, as he intended to become a candidate at a later period for a
professor's chair at the school, and as he had no money, Deslauriers
accepted the post of principal clerk in an attorney's office at Troyes.
By dint of sheer privation he spared four thousand francs; and, by not
drawing upon the sum which came to him through his mother, he would
always have enough to enable him to work freely for three years while he
was waiting for a better position. It was necessary, therefore, to
abandon their former project of living together in the capital, at least
for the present.

Frederick hung down his head. This was the first of his dreams which had
crumbled into dust.

"Be consoled," said the captain's son. "Life is long. We are young.
We'll meet again. Think no more about it!"

He shook the other's hand warmly, and, to distract his attention,
questioned him about his journey.

Frederick had nothing to tell. But, at the recollection of Madame
Arnoux, his vexation disappeared. He did not refer to her, restrained by
a feeling of bashfulness. He made up for it by expatiating on Arnoux,
recalling his talk, his agreeable manner, his stories; and Deslauriers
urged him strongly to cultivate this new acquaintance.

Frederick had of late written nothing. His literary opinions were
changed. Passion was now above everything else in his estimation. He was
equally enthusiastic about Werther, René, Franck, Lara, Lélia, and other
ideal creations of less merit. Sometimes it seemed to him that music
alone was capable of giving expression to his internal agitation. Then,
he dreamed of symphonies; or else the surface of things seized hold of
him, and he longed to paint. He had, however, composed verses.
Deslauriers considered them beautiful, but did not ask him to write
another poem.

As for himself, he had given up metaphysics. Social economy and the
French Revolution absorbed all his attention. Just now he was a tall
fellow of twenty-two, thin, with a wide mouth, and a resolute look. On
this particular evening, he wore a poor-looking paletot of lasting; and
his shoes were white with dust, for he had come all the way from
Villenauxe on foot for the express purpose of seeing Frederick.

Isidore arrived while they were talking. Madame begged of Monsieur to
return home, and, for fear of his catching cold, she had sent him his
cloak.

"Wait a bit!" said Deslauriers. And they continued walking from one end
to the other of the two bridges which rest on the narrow islet formed by
the canal and the river.

When they were walking on the side towards Nogent, they had, exactly in
front of them, a block of houses which projected a little. At the right
might be seen the church, behind the mills in the wood, whose sluices
had been closed up; and, at the left, the hedges covered with shrubs,
along the skirts of the wood, formed a boundary for the gardens, which
could scarcely be distinguished. But on the side towards Paris the high
road formed a sheer descending line, and the meadows lost themselves in
the distance under the vapours of the night. Silence reigned along this
road, whose white track clearly showed itself through the surrounding
gloom. Odours of damp leaves ascended towards them. The waterfall, where
the stream had been diverted from its course a hundred paces further
away, kept rumbling with that deep harmonious sound which waves make in
the night time.

Deslauriers stopped, and said:

"'Tis funny to have these worthy folks sleeping so quietly! Patience! A
new '89 is in preparation. People are tired of constitutions, charters,
subtleties, lies! Ah, if I had a newspaper, or a platform, how I would
shake off all these things! But, in order to undertake anything
whatever, money is required. What a curse it is to be a tavern-keeper's
son, and to waste one's youth in quest of bread!"

He hung down his head, bit his lips, and shivered under his threadbare
overcoat.

Frederick flung half his cloak over his friend's shoulder. They both
wrapped themselves up in it; and, with their arms around each other's
waists, they walked down the road side by side.

"How do you think I can live over there without you?" said Frederick.

The bitter tone of his friend had brought back his own sadness.

"I would have done something with a woman who loved me. What are you
laughing at? Love is the feeding-ground, and, as it were, the atmosphere
of genius. Extraordinary emotions produce sublime works. As for seeking
after her whom I want, I give that up! Besides, if I should ever find
her, she will repel me. I belong to the race of the disinherited, and I
shall be extinguished with a treasure that will be of paste or of
diamond--I know not which."

Somebody's shadow fell across the road, and at the same time they heard
these words:

"Excuse me, gentlemen!"

The person who had uttered them was a little man attired in an ample
brown frock-coat, and with a cap on his head which under its peak
afforded a glimpse of a sharp nose.

"Monsieur Roque?" said Frederick.

"The very man!" returned the voice.

This resident in the locality explained his presence by stating that he
had come back to inspect the wolf-traps in his garden near the
water-side.

"And so you are back again in the old spot? Very good! I ascertained the
fact through my little girl. Your health is good, I hope? You are not
going away again?"

Then he left them, repelled, probably, by Frederick's chilling
reception.

Madame Moreau, indeed, was not on visiting terms with him. Père Roque
lived in peculiar relations with his servant-girl, and was held in very
slight esteem, although he was the vice-president at elections, and M.
Dambreuse's manager.

"The banker who resides in the Rue d'Anjou," observed Deslauriers. "Do
you know what you ought to do, my fine fellow?"

Isidore once more interrupted. His orders were positive not to go back
without Frederick. Madame would be getting uneasy at his absence.

"Well, well, he will go back," said Deslauriers. "He's not going to stay
out all night."

And, as soon as the man-servant had disappeared:

"You ought to ask that old chap to introduce you to the Dambreuses.
There's nothing so useful as to be a visitor at a rich man's house.
Since you have a black coat and white gloves, make use of them. You must
mix in that set. You can introduce me into it later. Just think!--a man
worth millions! Do all you can to make him like you, and his wife, too.
Become her lover!"

Frederick uttered an exclamation by way of protest.

"Why, I can quote classical examples for you on that point, I rather
think! Remember Rastignac in the _Comédie Humaine_. You will succeed, I
have no doubt."

Frederick had so much confidence in Deslauriers that he felt his
firmness giving way, and forgetting Madame Arnoux, or including her in
the prediction made with regard to the other, he could not keep from
smiling.

The clerk added:

"A last piece of advice: pass your examinations. It is always a good
thing to have a handle to your name: and, without more ado, give up your
Catholic and Satanic poets, whose philosophy is as old as the twelfth
century! Your despair is silly. The very greatest men have had more
difficult beginnings, as in the case of Mirabeau. Besides, our
separation will not be so long. I will make that pickpocket of a father
of mine disgorge. It is time for me to be going back. Farewell! Have you
got a hundred sous to pay for my dinner?"

Frederick gave him ten francs, what was left of those he had got that
morning from Isidore.

Meanwhile, some forty yards away from the bridges, a light shone from
the garret-window of a low-built house.

Deslauriers noticed it. Then he said emphatically, as he took off his
hat:

"Your pardon, Venus, Queen of Heaven, but Penury is the mother of
wisdom. We have been slandered enough for that--so have mercy."

This allusion to an adventure in which they had both taken part, put
them into a jovial mood. They laughed loudly as they passed through the
streets.

Then, having settled his bill at the inn, Deslauriers walked back with
Frederick as far as the crossway near the Hôtel-Dieu, and after a long
embrace, the two friends parted.




CHAPTER III.

Sentiment and Passion.


Two months later, Frederick, having debarked one morning in the Rue
Coq-Héron, immediately thought of paying his great visit.

Chance came to his aid. Père Roque had brought him a roll of papers and
requested him to deliver them up himself to M. Dambreuse; and the worthy
man accompanied the package with an open letter of introduction in
behalf of his young fellow-countryman.

Madame Moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. Frederick concealed
the delight that it gave him.

M. Dambreuse's real name was the Count d'Ambreuse; but since 1825,
gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turned
his attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, his
hand in every enterprise, on the watch for every opportunity, as subtle
as a Greek and as laborious as a native of Auvergne, he had amassed a
fortune which might be called considerable. Furthermore, he was an
officer of the Legion of Honour, a member of the General Council of the
Aube, a deputy, and one of these days would be a peer of France.
However, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the Minister
by his continual applications for relief, for crosses, and licences for
tobacconists' shops; and in his complaints against authority he was
inclined to join the Left Centre.

His wife, the pretty Madame Dambreuse, of whom mention was made in the
fashion journals, presided at charitable assemblies. By wheedling the
duchesses, she appeased the rancours of the aristocratic faubourg, and
led the residents to believe that M. Dambreuse might yet repent and
render them some services.

The young man was agitated when he called on them.

"I should have done better to take my dress-coat with me. No doubt they
will give me an invitation to next week's ball. What will they say to
me?"

His self-confidence returned when he reflected that M. Dambreuse was
only a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab briskly
on the pavement of the Rue d'Anjou.

When he had pushed forward one of the two gateways he crossed the
courtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered a
vestibule paved with coloured marble. A straight double staircase, with
red carpet, fastened with copper rods, rested against the high walls of
shining stucco. At the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whose
wide leaves fell down over the velvet of the baluster. Two bronze
candelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; the
atmosphere was heavy with the fumes exhaled by the vent-holes of the
hot-air stoves; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a big
clock fixed at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour.

A bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and introduced Frederick into
a little apartment, where one could observe two strong boxes, with
pigeon-holes filled with pieces of pasteboard. In the centre of it, M.
Dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk.

He ran his eye over Père Roque's letter, tore open the canvas in which
the papers had been wrapped, and examined them.

At some distance, he presented the appearance of being still young,
owing to his slight figure. But his thin white hair, his feeble limbs,
and, above all, the extraordinary pallor of his face, betrayed a
shattered constitution. There was an expression of pitiless energy in
his sea-green eyes, colder than eyes of glass. His cheek-bones
projected, and his finger-joints were knotted.

At length, he arose and addressed to the young man a few questions with
regard to persons of their acquaintance at Nogent and also with regard
to his studies, and then dismissed him with a bow. Frederick went out
through another lobby, and found himself at the lower end of the
courtyard near the coach-house.

A blue brougham, to which a black horse was yoked, stood in front of the
steps before the house. The carriage door flew open, a lady sprang in,
and the vehicle, with a rumbling noise, went rolling along the gravel.
Frederick had come up to the courtyard gate from the other side at the
same moment. As there was not room enough to allow him to pass, he was
compelled to wait. The young lady, with her head thrust forward past the
carriage blind, talked to the door-keeper in a very low tone. All he
could see was her back, covered with a violet mantle. However, he took a
glance into the interior of the carriage, lined with blue rep, with silk
lace and fringes. The lady's ample robes filled up the space within. He
stole away from this little padded box with its perfume of iris, and, so
to speak, its vague odour of feminine elegance. The coachman slackened
the reins, the horse brushed abruptly past the starting-point, and all
disappeared.

Frederick returned on foot, following the track of the boulevard.

He regretted not having been able to get a proper view of Madame
Dambreuse. A little higher than the Rue Montmartre, a regular jumble of
vehicles made him turn round his head, and on the opposite side, facing
him, he read on a marble plate:

"JACQUES ARNOUX."

How was it that he had not thought about her sooner? It was Deslauriers'
fault; and he approached the shop, which, however, he did not enter. He
was waiting for _her_ to appear.

The high, transparent plate-glass windows presented to one's gaze
statuettes, drawings, engravings, catalogues and numbers of _L'Art
Industriel_, arranged in a skilful fashion; and the amounts of the
subscription were repeated on the door, which was decorated in the
centre with the publisher's initials. Against the walls could be seen
large pictures whose varnish had a shiny look, two chests laden with
porcelain, bronze, alluring curiosities; a little staircase separated
them, shut off at the top by a Wilton portière; and a lustre of old
Saxe, a green carpet on the floor, with a table of marqueterie, gave to
this interior the appearance rather of a drawing-room than of a shop.

Frederick pretended to be examining the drawings. After hesitating for a
long time, he went in. A clerk lifted the portière, and in reply to a
question, said that Monsieur would not be in the shop before five
o'clock. But if the message could be conveyed----

"No! I'll come back again," Frederick answered blandly.

The following days were spent in searching for lodgings; and he fixed
upon an apartment in a second story of a furnished mansion in the Rue
Hyacinthe.

With a fresh blotting-case under his arm, he set forth to attend the
opening lecture of the course. Three hundred young men, bare-headed,
filled an amphitheatre, where an old man in a red gown was delivering a
discourse in a monotonous voice. Quill pens went scratching over the
paper. In this hall he found once more the dusty odour of the school, a
reading-desk of similar shape, the same wearisome monotony! For a
fortnight he regularly continued his attendance at law lectures. But he
left off the study of the Civil Code before getting as far as Article 3,
and he gave up the Institutes at the _Summa Divisio Personarum_.

The pleasures that he had promised himself did not come to him; and when
he had exhausted a circulating library, gone over the collections in the
Louvre, and been at the theatre a great many nights in succession, he
sank into the lowest depths of idleness.

His depression was increased by a thousand fresh annoyances. He found it
necessary to count his linen and to bear with the door keeper, a bore
with the figure of a male hospital nurse who came in the morning to make
up his bed, smelling of alcohol and grunting. He did not like his
apartment, which was ornamented with an alabaster time-piece. The
partitions were thin; he could hear the students making punch, laughing
and singing.

Tired of this solitude, he sought out one of his old schoolfellows named
Baptiste Martinon; and he discovered this friend of his boyhood in a
middle-class boarding-house in the Rue Saint-Jacques, cramming up legal
procedure before a coal fire. A woman in a print dress sat opposite him
darning his socks.

Martinon was what people call a very fine man--big, chubby, with a
regular physiognomy, and blue eyes far up in his face. His father, an
extensive land-owner, had destined him for the magistracy; and wishing
already to present a grave exterior, he wore his beard cut like a collar
round his neck.

As there was no rational foundation for Frederick's complaints, and as
he could not give evidence of any misfortune, Martinon was unable in any
way to understand his lamentations about existence. As for him, he went
every morning to the school, after that took a walk in the Luxembourg,
in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteen
hundred francs a year, and the love of this workwoman, he felt perfectly
happy.

"What happiness!" was Frederick's internal comment.

At the school he had formed another acquaintance, a youth of
aristocratic family, who on account of his dainty manners, suggested a
resemblance to a young lady.

M. de Cisy devoted himself to drawing, and loved the Gothic style. They
frequently went together to admire the Sainte-Chapelle and Nôtre Dame.
But the young patrician's rank and pretensions covered an intellect of
the feeblest order. Everything took him by surprise. He laughed
immoderately at the most trifling joke, and displayed such utter
simplicity that Frederick at first took him for a wag, and finally
regarded him as a booby.

The young man found it impossible, therefore, to be effusive with
anyone; and he was constantly looking forward to an invitation from the
Dambreuses.

On New Year's Day, he sent them visiting-cards, but received none in
return.

He made his way back to the office of _L'Art Industriel_.

A third time he returned to it, and at last saw Arnoux carrying on an
argument with five or six persons around him. He scarcely responded to
the young man's bow; and Frederick was wounded by this reception. None
the less he cogitated over the best means of finding his way to her
side.

His first idea was to come frequently to the shop on the pretext of
getting pictures at low prices. Then he conceived the notion of slipping
into the letter-box of the journal a few "very strong" articles, which
might lead to friendly relations. Perhaps it would be better to go
straight to the mark at once, and declare his love? Acting on this
impulse, he wrote a letter covering a dozen pages, full of lyric
movements and apostrophes; but he tore it up, and did nothing, attempted
nothing--bereft of motive power by his want of success.

Above Arnoux's shop, there were, on the first floor, three windows which
were lighted up every evening. Shadows might be seen moving about behind
them, especially one; this was hers; and he went very far out of his way
in order to gaze at these windows and to contemplate this shadow.

A negress who crossed his path one day in the Tuileries, holding a
little girl by the hand, recalled to his mind Madame Arnoux's negress.
She was sure to come there, like the others; every time he passed
through the Tuileries, his heart began to beat with the anticipation of
meeting her. On sunny days he continued his walk as far as the end of
the Champs-Élysées.

Women seated with careless ease in open carriages, and with their veils
floating in the wind, filed past close to him, their horses advancing at
a steady walking pace, and with an unconscious see-saw movement that
made the varnished leather of the harness crackle. The vehicles became
more numerous, and, slackening their motion after they had passed the
circular space where the roads met, they took up the entire track. The
horses' manes and the carriage lamps were close to each other. The steel
stirrups, the silver curbs and the brass rings, flung, here and there,
luminous points in the midst of the short breeches, the white gloves,
and the furs, falling over the blazonry of the carriage doors. He felt
as if he were lost in some far-off world. His eyes wandered along the
rows of female heads, and certain vague resemblances brought back Madame
Arnoux to his recollection. He pictured her to himself, in the midst of
the others, in one of those little broughams like Madame Dambreuse's
brougham.

But the sun was setting, and the cold wind raised whirling clouds of
dust. The coachmen let their chins sink into their neckcloths; the
wheels began to revolve more quickly; the road-metal grated; and all the
equipages descended the long sloping avenue at a quick trot, touching,
sweeping past one another, getting out of one another's way; then, at
the Place de la Concorde, they went off in different directions. Behind
the Tuileries, there was a patch of slate-coloured sky. The trees of the
garden formed two enormous masses violet-hued at their summits. The
gas-lamps were lighted; and the Seine, green all over, was torn into
strips of silver moiré, near the piers of the bridges.

He went to get a dinner for forty-three sous in a restaurant in the Rue
de la Harpe. He glanced disdainfully at the old mahogany counter, the
soiled napkins, the dingy silver-plate, and the hats hanging up on the
wall.

Those around him were students like himself. They talked about their
professors, and about their mistresses. Much he cared about professors!
Had he a mistress? To avoid being a witness of their enjoyment, he came
as late as possible. The tables were all strewn with remnants of food.
The two waiters, worn out with attendance on customers, lay asleep, each
in a corner of his own; and an odour of cooking, of an argand lamp, and
of tobacco, filled the deserted dining-room. Then he slowly toiled up
the streets again. The gas lamps vibrated, casting on the mud long
yellowish shafts of flickering light. Shadowy forms surmounted by
umbrellas glided along the footpaths. The pavement was slippery; the fog
grew thicker, and it seemed to him that the moist gloom, wrapping him
around, descended into the depths of his heart.

He was smitten with a vague remorse. He renewed his attendance at
lectures. But as he was entirely ignorant of the matters which formed
the subject of explanation, things of the simplest description puzzled
him. He set about writing a novel entitled _Sylvio, the Fisherman's
Son_. The scene of the story was Venice. The hero was himself, and
Madame Arnoux was the heroine. She was called Antonia; and, to get
possession of her, he assassinated a number of noblemen, and burned a
portion of the city; after which achievements he sang a serenade under
her balcony, where fluttered in the breeze the red damask curtains of
the Boulevard Montmartre.

The reminiscences, far too numerous, on which he dwelt produced a
disheartening effect on him; he went no further with the work, and his
mental vacuity redoubled.

After this, he begged of Deslauriers to come and share his apartment.
They might make arrangements to live together with the aid of his
allowance of two thousand francs; anything would be better than this
intolerable existence. Deslauriers could not yet leave Troyes. He urged
his friend to find some means of distracting his thoughts, and, with
that end in view, suggested that he should call on Sénécal.

Sénécal was a mathematical tutor, a hard-headed man with republican
convictions, a future Saint-Just, according to the clerk. Frederick
ascended the five flights, up which he lived, three times in succession,
without getting a visit from him in return. He did not go back to the
place.

He now went in for amusing himself. He attended the balls at the Opera
House. These exhibitions of riotous gaiety froze him the moment he had
passed the door. Besides, he was restrained by the fear of being
subjected to insult on the subject of money, his notion being that a
supper with a domino, entailing considerable expense, was rather a big
adventure.

It seemed to him, however, that he must needs love her. Sometimes he
used to wake up with his heart full of hope, dressed himself carefully
as if he were going to keep an appointment, and started on interminable
excursions all over Paris. Whenever a woman was walking in front of him,
or coming in his direction, he would say: "Here she is!" Every time it
was only a fresh disappointment. The idea of Madame Arnoux strengthened
these desires. Perhaps he might find her on his way; and he conjured up
dangerous complications, extraordinary perils from which he would save
her, in order to get near her.

So the days slipped by with the same tiresome experiences, and
enslavement to contracted habits. He turned over the pages of pamphlets
under the arcades of the Odéon, went to read the _Revue des Deux Mondes_
at the café, entered the hall of the Collége de France, and for an hour
stopped to listen to a lecture on Chinese or political economy. Every
week he wrote long letters to Deslauriers, dined from time to time with
Martinon, and occasionally saw M. de Cisy. He hired a piano and composed
German waltzes.

One evening at the theatre of the Palais-Royal, he perceived, in one of
the stage-boxes, Arnoux with a woman by his side. Was it she? The screen
of green taffeta, pulled over the side of the box, hid her face. At
length, the curtain rose, and the screen was drawn aside. She was a tall
woman of about thirty, rather faded, and, when she laughed, her thick
lips uncovered a row of shining teeth. She chatted familiarly with
Arnoux, giving him, from time to time, taps, with her fan, on the
fingers. Then a fair-haired young girl with eyelids a little red, as if
she had just been weeping, seated herself between them. Arnoux after
that remained stooped over her shoulder, pouring forth a stream of talk
to which she listened without replying. Frederick taxed his ingenuity to
find out the social position of these women, modestly attired in gowns
of sober hue with flat, turned-up collars.

At the close of the play, he made a dash for the passages. The crowd of
people going out filled them up. Arnoux, just in front of him, was
descending the staircase step by step, with a woman on each arm.

Suddenly a gas-burner shed its light on him. He wore a crape hat-band.
She was dead, perhaps? This idea tormented Frederick's mind so much,
that he hurried, next day, to the office of _L'Art Industriel_, and
paying, without a moment's delay, for one of the engravings exposed in
the window for sale, he asked the shop-assistant how was Monsieur
Arnoux.

The shop-assistant replied:

"Why, quite well!"

Frederick, growing pale, added:

"And Madame?"

"Madame, also."

Frederick forgot to carry off his engraving.

The winter drew to an end. He was less melancholy in the spring time,
and began to prepare for his examination. Having passed it
indifferently, he started immediately afterwards for Nogent.

He refrained from going to Troyes to see his friend, in order to escape
his mother's comments. Then, on his return to Paris at the end of the
vacation, he left his lodgings, and took two rooms on the Quai Napoléon
which he furnished. He had given up all hope of getting an invitation
from the Dambreuses. His great passion for Madame Arnoux was beginning
to die out.




CHAPTER IV.

The Inexpressible She!


One morning, in the month of December, while going to attend a law
lecture, he thought he could observe more than ordinary animation in the
Rue Saint-Jacques. The students were rushing precipitately out of the
cafés, where, through the open windows, they were calling one another
from one house to the other. The shop keepers in the middle of the
footpath were looking about them anxiously; the window-shutters were
fastened; and when he reached the Rue Soufflot, he perceived a large
assemblage around the Panthéon.

Young men in groups numbering from five to a dozen walked along, arm in
arm, and accosted the larger groups, which had stationed themselves here
and there. At the lower end of the square, near the railings, men in
blouses were holding forth, while policemen, with their three-cornered
hats drawn over their ears, and their hands behind their backs, were
strolling up and down beside the walls making the flags ring under the
tread of their heavy boots. All wore a mysterious, wondering look; they
were evidently expecting something to happen. Each held back a question
which was on the edge of his lips.

Frederick found himself close to a fair-haired young man with a
prepossessing face and a moustache and a tuft of beard on his chin, like
a dandy of Louis XIII.'s time. He asked the stranger what was the cause
of the disorder.

"I haven't the least idea," replied the other, "nor have they, for that
matter! 'Tis their fashion just now! What a good joke!"

And he burst out laughing. The petitions for Reform, which had been
signed at the quarters of the National Guard, together with the
property-census of Humann and other events besides, had, for the past
six months, led to inexplicable gatherings of riotous crowds in Paris,
and so frequently had they broken out anew, that the newspapers had
ceased to refer to them.

"This lacks graceful outline and colour," continued Frederick's
neighbour. "I am convinced, messire, that we have degenerated. In the
good epoch of Louis XI., and even in that of Benjamin Constant, there
was more mutinousness amongst the students. I find them as pacific as
sheep, as stupid as greenhorns, and only fit to be grocers. Gadzooks!
And these are what we call the youth of the schools!"

He held his arms wide apart after the fashion of Frederick Lemaitre in
_Robert Macaire_.

"Youth of the schools, I give you my blessing!"

After this, addressing a rag picker, who was moving a heap of
oyster-shells up against the wall of a wine-merchant's house:

"Do you belong to them--the youth of the schools?"

The old man lifted up a hideous countenance in which one could trace, in
the midst of a grey beard, a red nose and two dull eyes, bloodshot from
drink.

"No, you appear to me rather one of those men with patibulary faces whom
we see, in various groups, liberally scattering gold. Oh, scatter it, my
patriarch, scatter it! Corrupt me with the treasures of Albion! Are you
English? I do not reject the presents of Artaxerxes! Let us have a
little chat about the union of customs!"

Frederick felt a hand laid on his shoulder. It was Martinon, looking
exceedingly pale.

"Well!" said he with a big sigh, "another riot!"

He was afraid of being compromised, and uttered complaints. Men in
blouses especially made him feel uneasy, suggesting a connection with
secret societies.

"You mean to say there are secret societies," said the young man with
the moustaches. "That is a worn-out dodge of the Government to frighten
the middle-class folk!"

Martinon urged him to speak in a lower tone, for fear of the police.

"You believe still in the police, do you? As a matter of fact, how do
you know, Monsieur, that I am not myself a police spy?"

And he looked at him in such a way, that Martinon, much discomposed,
was, at first, unable to see the joke. The people pushed them on, and
they were all three compelled to stand on the little staircase which
led, by one of the passages, to the new amphitheatre.

The crowd soon broke up of its own accord. Many heads could be
distinguished. They bowed towards the distinguished Professor Samuel
Rondelot, who, wrapped in his big frock-coat, with his silver spectacles
held up high in the air, and breathing hard from his asthma, was
advancing at an easy pace, on his way to deliver his lecture. This man
was one of the judicial glories of the nineteenth century, the rival of
the Zachariæs and the Ruhdorffs. His new dignity of peer of France had
in no way modified his external demeanour. He was known to be poor, and
was treated with profound respect.

Meanwhile, at the lower end of the square, some persons cried out:

"Down with Guizot!"

"Down with Pritchard!"

"Down with the sold ones!"

"Down with Louis Philippe!"

The crowd swayed to and fro, and, pressing against the gate of the
courtyard, which was shut, prevented the professor from going further.
He stopped in front of the staircase. He was speedily observed on the
lowest of three steps. He spoke; the loud murmurs of the throng drowned
his voice. Although at another time they might love him, they hated him
now, for he was the representative of authority. Every time he tried to
make himself understood, the outcries recommenced. He gesticulated with
great energy to induce the students to follow him. He was answered by
vociferations from all sides. He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully,
and plunged into the passage. Martinon profited by his situation to
disappear at the same moment.

"What a coward!" said Frederick.

"He was prudent," returned the other.

There was an outburst of applause from the crowd, from whose point of
view this retreat, on the part of the professor, appeared in the light
of a victory. From every window, faces, lighted with curiosity, looked
out. Some of those in the crowd struck up the "Marseillaise;" others
proposed to go to Béranger's house.

"To Laffitte's house!"

"To Chateaubriand's house!"

"To Voltaire's house!" yelled the young man with the fair moustaches.

The policemen tried to pass around, saying in the mildest tones they
could assume:

"Move on, messieurs! Move on! Take yourselves off!"

Somebody exclaimed:

"Down with the slaughterers!"

This was a form of insult usual since the troubles of the month of
September. Everyone echoed it. The guardians of public order were hooted
and hissed. They began to grow pale. One of them could endure it no
longer, and, seeing a low-sized young man approaching too close,
laughing in his teeth, pushed him back so roughly, that he tumbled over
on his back some five paces away, in front of a wine-merchant's shop.
All made way; but almost immediately afterwards the policeman rolled on
the ground himself, felled by a blow from a species of Hercules, whose
hair hung down like a bundle of tow under an oilskin cap. Having stopped
for a few minutes at the corner of the Rue Saint-Jacques, he had very
quickly laid down a large case, which he had been carrying, in order to
make a spring at the policeman, and, holding down that functionary,
punched his face unmercifully. The other policemen rushed to the rescue
of their comrade. The terrible shop-assistant was so powerfully built
that it took four of them at least to get the better of him. Two of them
shook him, while keeping a grip on his collar; two others dragged his
arms; a fifth gave him digs of the knee in the ribs; and all of them
called him "brigand," "assassin," "rioter." With his breast bare, and
his clothes in rags, he protested that he was innocent; he could not, in
cold blood, look at a child receiving a beating.

"My name is Dussardier. I'm employed at Messieurs Valincart Brothers'
lace and fancy warehouse, in the Rue de Cléry. Where's my case? I want
my case!"

He kept repeating:

"Dussardier, Rue de Cléry. My case!"

However, he became quiet, and, with a stoical air, allowed himself to be
led towards the guard-house in the Rue Descartes. A flood of people came
rushing after him. Frederick and the young man with the moustaches
walked immediately behind, full of admiration for the shopman, and
indignant at the violence of power.

As they advanced, the crowd became less thick.

The policemen from time to time turned round, with threatening looks;
and the rowdies, no longer having anything to do, and the spectators not
having anything to look at, all drifted away by degrees. The passers-by,
who met the procession, as they came along, stared at Dussardier, and in
loud tones, gave vent to abusive remarks about him. One old woman, at
her own door, bawled out that he had stolen a loaf of bread from her.
This unjust accusation increased the wrath of the two friends. At
length, they reached the guard-house. Only about twenty persons were
now left in the attenuated crowd, and the sight of the soldiers was
enough to disperse them.

Frederick and his companion boldly asked to have the man who had just
been imprisoned delivered up. The sentinel threatened, if they
persisted, to ram them into jail too. They said they required to see the
commander of the guard-house, and stated their names, and the fact that
they were law-students, declaring that the prisoner was one also.

They were ushered into a room perfectly bare, in which, amid an
atmosphere of smoke, four benches might be seen lining the
roughly-plastered walls. At the lower end there was an open wicket. Then
appeared the sturdy face of Dussardier, who, with his hair all tousled,
his honest little eyes, and his broad snout, suggested to one's mind in
a confused sort of way the physiognomy of a good dog.

"Don't you recognise us?" said Hussonnet.

This was the name of the young man with the moustaches.

"Why----" stammered Dussardier.

"Don't play the fool any further," returned the other. "We know that you
are, just like ourselves, a law-student."

In spite of their winks, Dussardier failed to understand. He appeared to
be collecting his thoughts; then, suddenly:

"Has my case been found?"

Frederick raised his eyes, feeling much discouraged.

Hussonnet, however, said promptly:

"Ha! your case, in which you keep your notes of lectures? Yes, yes, make
your mind easy about it!"

They made further pantomimic signs with redoubled energy, till
Dussardier at last realised that they had come to help him; and he held
his tongue, fearing that he might compromise them. Besides, he
experienced a kind of shamefacedness at seeing himself raised to the
social rank of student, and to an equality with those young men who had
such white hands.

"Do you wish to send any message to anyone?" asked Frederick.

"No, thanks, to nobody."

"But your family?"

He lowered his head without replying; the poor fellow was a bastard. The
two friends stood quite astonished at his silence.

"Have you anything to smoke?" was Frederick's next question.

He felt about, then drew forth from the depths of one of his pockets the
remains of a pipe--a beautiful pipe, made of white talc with a shank of
blackwood, a silver cover, and an amber mouthpiece.

For the last three years he had been engaged in completing this
masterpiece. He had been careful to keep the bowl of it constantly
thrust into a kind of sheath of chamois, to smoke it as slowly as
possible, without ever letting it lie on any cold stone substance, and
to hang it up every evening over the head of his bed. And now he shook
out the fragments of it into his hand, the nails of which were covered
with blood, and with his chin sunk on his chest, his pupils fixed and
dilated, he contemplated this wreck of the thing that had yielded him
such delight with a glance of unutterable sadness.

"Suppose we give him some cigars, eh?" said Hussonnet in a whisper,
making a gesture as if he were reaching them out.

Frederick had already laid down a cigar-holder, filled, on the edge of
the wicket.

"Pray take this. Good-bye! Cheer up!"

Dussardier flung himself on the two hands that were held out towards
him. He pressed them frantically, his voice choked with sobs.

"What? For me!--for me!"

The two friends tore themselves away from the effusive display of
gratitude which he made, and went off to lunch together at the Café
Tabourey, in front of the Luxembourg.

While cutting up the beefsteak, Hussonnet informed his companion that he
did work for the fashion journals, and manufactured catchwords for
_L'Art Industriel_.

"At Jacques Arnoux's establishment?" said Frederick.

"Do you know him?"

"Yes!--no!--that is to say, I have seen him--I have met him."

He carelessly asked Hussonnet if he sometimes saw Arnoux's wife.

"From time to time," the Bohemian replied.

Frederick did not venture to follow up his enquiries. This man
henceforth would fill up a large space in his life. He paid the
lunch-bill without any protest on the other's part.

There was a bond of mutual sympathy between them; they gave one another
their respective addresses, and Hussonnet cordially invited Frederick to
accompany him to the Rue de Fleurus.

They had reached the middle of the garden, when Arnoux's clerk, holding
his breath, twisted his features into a hideous grimace, and began to
crow like a cock. Thereupon all the cocks in the vicinity responded
with prolonged "cock-a-doodle-doos."

"It is a signal," explained Hussonnet.

They stopped close to the Théàtre Bobino, in front of a house to which
they had to find their way through an alley. In the skylight of a
garret, between the nasturtiums and the sweet peas, a young woman showed
herself, bare-headed, in her stays, her two arms resting on the edge of
the roof-gutter.

"Good-morrow, my angel! good-morrow, ducky!" said Hussonnet, sending her
kisses.

He made the barrier fly open with a kick, and disappeared.

Frederick waited for him all the week. He did not venture to call at
Hussonnet's residence, lest it might look as if he were in a hurry to
get a lunch in return for the one he had paid for. But he sought the
clerk all over the Latin Quarter. He came across him one evening, and
brought him to his apartment on the Quai Napoléon.

They had a long chat, and unbosomed themselves to each other. Hussonnet
yearned after the glory and the gains of the theatre. He collaborated in
the writing of vaudevilles which were not accepted, "had heaps of
plans," could turn a couplet; he sang out for Frederick a few of the
verses he had composed. Then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of
Hugo and another of Lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of
the romantic school. These poets had neither good sense nor correctness,
and, above all, were not French! He plumed himself on his knowledge of
the language, and analysed the most beautiful phrases with that snarling
severity, that academic taste which persons of playful disposition
exhibit when they are discussing serious art.

Frederick was wounded in his predilections, and he felt a desire to cut
the discussion short. Why not take the risk at once of uttering the word
on which his happiness depended? He asked this literary youth whether it
would be possible to get an introduction into the Arnoux's house through
his agency.

The thing was declared to be quite easy, and they fixed upon the
following day.

Hussonnet failed to keep the appointment, and on three subsequent
occasions he did not turn up. One Saturday, about four o'clock, he made
his appearance. But, taking advantage of the cab into which they had
got, he drew up in front of the Théàtre Français to get a box-ticket,
got down at a tailor's shop, then at a dressmaker's, and wrote notes in
the door-keeper's lodge. At last they came to the Boulevard Montmartre.
Frederick passed through the shop, and went up the staircase. Arnoux
recognised him through the glass-partition in front of his desk, and
while continuing to write he stretched out his hand and laid it on
Frederick's shoulder.

Five or six persons, standing up, filled the narrow apartment, which was
lighted by a single window looking out on the yard, a sofa of brown
damask wool occupying the interior of an alcove between two
door-curtains of similar material. Upon the chimney-piece, covered with
old papers, there was a bronze Venus. Two candelabra, garnished with
rose-coloured wax-tapers, supported it, one at each side. At the right
near a cardboard chest of drawers, a man, seated in an armchair, was
reading the newspaper, with his hat on. The walls were hidden from view
beneath the array of prints and pictures, precious engravings or
sketches by contemporary masters, adorned with dedications testifying
the most sincere affection for Jacques Arnoux.

"You're getting on well all this time?" said he, turning round to
Frederick.

And, without waiting for an answer, he asked Hussonnet in a low tone:

"What is your friend's name?" Then, raising his voice:

"Take a cigar out of the box on the cardboard stand."

The office of _L'Art Industriel_, situated in a central position in
Paris, was a convenient place of resort, a neutral ground wherein
rivalries elbowed each other familiarly. On this day might be seen there
Anténor Braive, who painted portraits of kings; Jules Burrieu, who by
his sketches was beginning to popularise the wars in Algeria; the
caricaturist Sombary, the sculptor Vourdat, and others. And not a single
one of them corresponded with the student's preconceived ideas. Their
manners were simple, their talk free and easy. The mystic Lovarias told
an obscene story; and the inventor of Oriental landscape, the famous
Dittmer, wore a knitted shirt under his waistcoat, and went home in the
omnibus.

The first topic that came on the carpet was the case of a girl named
Apollonie, formerly a model, whom Burrieu alleged that he had seen on
the boulevard in a carriage. Hussonnet explained this metamorphosis
through the succession of persons who had loved her.

"How well this sly dog knows the girls of Paris!" said Arnoux.

"After you, if there are any of them left, sire," replied the Bohemian,
with a military salute, in imitation of the grenadier offering his flask
to Napoléon.

Then they talked about some pictures in which Apollonie had sat for the
female figures. They criticised their absent brethren, expressing
astonishment at the sums paid for their works; and they were all
complaining of not having been sufficiently remunerated themselves, when
the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a man of middle
stature, who had his coat fastened by a single button, and whose eyes
glittered with a rather wild expression.

"What a lot of shopkeepers you are!" said he. "God bless my soul! what
does that signify? The old masters did not trouble their heads about the
million--Correggio, Murillo----"

"Add Pellerin," said Sombary.

But, without taking the slightest notice of the epigram, he went on
talking with such vehemence, that Arnoux was forced to repeat twice to
him:

"My wife wants you on Thursday. Don't forget!"

This remark recalled Madame Arnoux to Frederick's thoughts. No doubt,
one might be able to reach her through the little room near the sofa.
Arnoux had just opened the portière leading into it to get a
pocket-handkerchief, and Frédéric had seen a wash-stand at the far end
of the apartment.

But at this point a kind of muttering sound came from the corner of the
chimney-piece; it was caused by the personage who sat in the armchair
reading the newspaper. He was a man of five feet nine inches in height,
with rather heavy eyelashes, a head of grey hair, and an imposing
appearance; and his name was Regimbart.

"What's the matter now, citizen?" said Arnoux.

"Another fresh piece of rascality on the part of Government!"

The thing that he was referring to was the dismissal of a schoolmaster.

Pellerin again took up his parallel between Michael Angelo and
Shakespeare. Dittmer was taking himself off when Arnoux pulled him back
in order to put two bank notes into his hand. Thereupon Hussonnet said,
considering this an opportune time:

"Couldn't you give me an advance, my dear master----?"

But Arnoux had resumed his seat, and was administering a severe
reprimand to an old man of mean aspect, who wore a pair of blue
spectacles.

"Ha! a nice fellow you are, Père Isaac! Here are three works cried down,
destroyed! Everybody is laughing at me! People know what they are now!
What do you want me to do with them? I'll have to send them off to
California--or to the devil! Hold your tongue!"

The specialty of this old worthy consisted in attaching the signatures
of the great masters at the bottom of these pictures. Arnoux refused to
pay him, and dismissed him in a brutal fashion. Then, with an entire
change of manner, he bowed to a gentleman of affectedly grave demeanour,
who wore whiskers and displayed a white tie round his neck and the cross
of the Legion of Honour over his breast.

With his elbow resting on the window-fastening, he kept talking to him
for a long time in honeyed tones. At last he burst out:

"Ah! well, I am not bothered with brokers, Count."

The nobleman gave way, and Arnoux paid him down twenty-five louis. As
soon as he had gone out:

"What a plague these big lords are!"

"A lot of wretches!" muttered Regimbart.

As it grew later, Arnoux was much more busily occupied. He classified
articles, tore open letters, set out accounts in a row; at the sound of
hammering in the warehouse he went out to look after the packing; then
he went back to his ordinary work; and, while he kept his steel pen
running over the paper, he indulged in sharp witticisms. He had an
invitation to dine with his lawyer that evening, and was starting next
day for Belgium.

The others chatted about the topics of the day--Cherubini's portrait,
the hemicycle of the Fine Arts, and the next Exhibition. Pellerin railed
at the Institute. Scandalous stories and serious discussions got mixed
up together. The apartment with its low ceiling was so much stuffed up
that one could scarcely move; and the light of the rose-coloured
wax-tapers was obscured in the smoke of their cigars, like the sun's
rays in a fog.

The door near the sofa flew open, and a tall, thin woman entered with
abrupt movements, which made all the trinkets of her watch rattle under
her black taffeta gown.

It was the woman of whom Frederick had caught a glimpse last summer at
the Palais-Royal. Some of those present, addressing her by name, shook
hands with her. Hussonnet had at last managed to extract from his
employer the sum of fifty francs. The clock struck seven.

All rose to go.

Arnoux told Pellerin to remain, and accompanied Mademoiselle Vatnaz into
the dressing-room.

Frederick could not hear what they said; they spoke in whispers.
However, the woman's voice was raised:

"I have been waiting ever since the job was done, six months ago."

There was a long silence, and then Mademoiselle Vatnaz reappeared.
Arnoux had again promised her something.

"Oh! oh! later, we shall see!"

"Good-bye! happy man," said she, as she was going out.

Arnoux quickly re-entered the dressing-room, rubbed some cosmetic over
his moustaches, raised his braces, stretched his straps; and, while he
was washing his hands:

"I would require two over the door at two hundred and fifty apiece, in
Boucher's style. Is that understood?"

"Be it so," said the artist, his face reddening.

"Good! and don't forget my wife!"

Frederick accompanied Pellerin to the top of the Faubourg Poissonnière,
and asked his permission to come to see him sometimes, a favour which
was graciously accorded.

Pellerin read every work on æsthetics, in order to find out the true
theory of the Beautiful, convinced that, when he had discovered it, he
would produce masterpieces. He surrounded himself with every imaginable
auxiliary--drawings, plaster-casts, models, engravings; and he kept
searching about, eating his heart out. He blamed the weather, his
nerves, his studio, went out into the street to find inspiration there,
quivered with delight at the thought that he had caught it, then
abandoned the work in which he was engaged, and dreamed of another which
should be finer. Thus, tormented by the desire for glory, and wasting
his days in discussions, believing in a thousand fooleries--in systems,
in criticisms, in the importance of a regulation or a reform in the
domain of Art--he had at fifty as yet turned out nothing save mere
sketches. His robust pride prevented him from experiencing any
discouragement, but he was always irritated, and in that state of
exaltation, at the same time factitious and natural, which is
characteristic of comedians.

On entering his studio one's attention was directed towards two large
pictures, in which the first tones of colour laid on here and there made
on the white canvas spots of brown, red, and blue. A network of lines in
chalk stretched overhead, like stitches of thread repeated twenty times;
it was impossible to understand what it meant. Pellerin explained the
subject of these two compositions by pointing out with his thumb the
portions that were lacking. The first was intended to represent "The
Madness of Nebuchadnezzar," and the second "The Burning of Rome by
Nero." Frederick admired them.

He admired academies of women with dishevelled hair, landscapes in which
trunks of trees, twisted by the storm, abounded, and above all freaks of
the pen, imitations from memory of Callot, Rembrandt, or Goya, of which
he did not know the models. Pellerin no longer set any value on these
works of his youth. He was now all in favour of the grand style; he
dogmatised eloquently about Phidias and Winckelmann. The objects around
him strengthened the force of his language; one saw a death's head on a
prie-dieu, yataghans, a monk's habit. Frederick put it on.

When he arrived early, he surprised the artist in his wretched
folding-bed, which was hidden from view by a strip of tapestry; for
Pellerin went to bed late, being an assiduous frequenter of the
theatres. An old woman in tatters attended on him. He dined at a
cook-shop, and lived without a mistress. His acquirements, picked up in
the most irregular fashion, rendered his paradoxes amusing. His hatred
of the vulgar and the "bourgeois" overflowed in sarcasms, marked by a
superb lyricism, and he had such religious reverence for the masters
that it raised him almost to their level.

But why had he never spoken about Madame Arnoux? As for her son, at one
time he called Pellerin a decent fellow, at other times a charlatan.
Frederick was waiting for some disclosures on his part.

One day, while turning over one of the portfolios in the studio, he
thought he could trace in the portrait of a female Bohemian some
resemblance to Mademoiselle Vatnaz; and, as he felt interested in this
lady, he desired to know what was her exact social position.

She had been, as far as Pellerin could ascertain, originally a
schoolmistress in the provinces. She now gave lessons in Paris, and
tried to write for the small journals.

According to Frederick, one would imagine from her manners with Arnoux
that she was his mistress.

"Pshaw! he has others!"

Then, turning away his face, which reddened with shame as he realised
the baseness of the suggestion, the young man added, with a swaggering
air:

"Very likely his wife pays him back for it?"

"Not at all; she is virtuous."

Frederick again experienced a feeling of compunction, and the result was
that his attendance at the office of the art journal became more marked
than before.

The big letters which formed the name of Arnoux on the marble plate
above the shop seemed to him quite peculiar and pregnant with
significance, like some sacred writing. The wide footpath, by its
descent, facilitated his approach; the door almost turned of its own
accord; and the handle, smooth to the touch, gave him the sensation of
friendly and, as it were, intelligent fingers clasping his.
Unconsciously, he became quite as punctual as Regimbart.

Every day Regimbart seated himself in the chimney corner, in his
armchair, got hold of the _National_, and kept possession of it,
expressing his thoughts by exclamations or by shrugs of the
shoulders. From time to time he would wipe his forehead with his
pocket-handkerchief, rolled up in a ball, which he usually stuck in
between two buttons of his green frock-coat. He had trousers with
wrinkles, bluchers, and a long cravat; and his hat, with its turned-up
brim, made him easily recognised, at a distance, in a crowd.

At eight o'clock in the morning he descended the heights of Montmartre,
in order to imbibe white wine in the Rue Nôtre Dame des Victoires. A
late breakfast, following several games of billiards, brought him on to
three o'clock. He then directed his steps towards the Passage des
Panoramas, where he had a glass of absinthe. After the sitting in
Arnoux's shop, he entered the Bordelais smoking-divan, where he
swallowed some bitters; then, in place of returning home to his wife, he
preferred to dine alone in a little café in the Rue Gaillon, where he
desired them to serve up to him "household dishes, natural things."
Finally, he made his way to another billiard-room, and remained there
till midnight, in fact, till one o'clock in the morning, up till the
last moment, when, the gas being put out and the window-shutters
fastened, the master of the establishment, worn out, begged of him to
go.

And it was not the love of drinking that attracted Citizen Regimbart to
these places, but the inveterate habit of talking politics at such
resorts. With advancing age, he had lost his vivacity, and now exhibited
only a silent moroseness. One would have said, judging from the gravity
of his countenence, that he was turning over in his mind the affairs of
the whole world. Nothing, however, came from it; and nobody, even
amongst his own friends, knew him to have any occupation, although he
gave himself out as being up to his eyes in business.

Arnoux appeared to have a very great esteem for him. One day he said to
Frederick:

"He knows a lot, I assure you. He is an able man."

On another occasion Regimbart spread over his desk papers relating to
the kaolin mines in Brittany. Arnoux referred to his own experience on
the subject.

Frederick showed himself more ceremonious towards Regimbart, going so
far as to invite him from time to time to take a glass of absinthe; and,
although he considered him a stupid man, he often remained a full hour
in his company solely because he was Jacques Arnoux's friend.

After pushing forward some contemporary masters in the early portions of
their career, the picture-dealer, a man of progressive ideas, had tried,
while clinging to his artistic ways, to extend his pecuniary profits.
His object was to emancipate the fine arts, to get the sublime at a
cheap rate. Over every industry associated with Parisian luxury he
exercised an influence which proved fortunate with respect to little
things, but fatal with respect to great things. With his mania for
pandering to public opinion, he made clever artists swerve from their
true path, corrupted the strong, exhausted the weak, and got distinction
for those of mediocre talent; he set them up with the assistance of his
connections and of his magazine. Tyros in painting were ambitious of
seeing their works in his shop-window, and upholsterers brought
specimens of furniture to his house. Frederick regarded him, at the same
time, as a millionaire, as a _dilettante_, and as a man of action.
However, he found many things that filled him with astonishment, for my
lord Arnoux was rather sly in his commercial transactions.

He received from the very heart of Germany or of Italy a picture
purchased in Paris for fifteen hundred francs, and, exhibiting an
invoice that brought the price up to four thousand, sold it over again
through complaisance for three thousand five hundred. One of his usual
tricks with painters was to exact as a drink-allowance an abatement in
the purchase-money of their pictures, under the pretence that he would
bring out an engraving of it. He always, when selling such pictures,
made a profit by the abatement; but the engraving never appeared. To
those who complained that he had taken an advantage of them, he would
reply by a slap on the stomach. Generous in other ways, he squandered
money on cigars for his acquaintances, "thee'd" and "thou'd" persons who
were unknown, displayed enthusiasm about a work or a man; and, after
that, sticking to his opinion, and, regardless of consequences, spared
no expense in journeys, correspondence, and advertising. He looked upon
himself as very upright, and, yielding to an irresistible impulse to
unbosom himself, ingenuously told his friends about certain indelicate
acts of which he had been guilty. Once, in order to annoy a member of
his own trade who inaugurated another art journal with a big banquet, he
asked Frederick to write, under his own eyes, a little before the hour
fixed for the entertainment, letters to the guests recalling the
invitations.

"This impugns nobody's honour, do you understand?"

And the young man did not dare to refuse the service.

Next day, on entering with Hussonnet M. Arnoux's office, Frederick saw
through the door (the one opening on the staircase) the hem of a lady's
dress disappearing.

"A thousand pardons!" said Hussonnet. "If I had known that there were
women----"

"Oh! as for that one, she is my own," replied Arnoux. "She just came in
to pay me a visit as she was passing."

"You don't say so!" said Frederick.

"Why, yes; she is going back home again."

The charm of the things around him was suddenly withdrawn. That which
had seemed to him to be diffused vaguely through the place had now
vanished--or, rather, it had never been there. He experienced an
infinite amazement, and, as it were, the painful sensation of having
been betrayed.

Arnoux, while rummaging about in his drawer, began to smile. Was he
laughing at him? The clerk laid down a bundle of moist papers on the
table.

"Ha! the placards," exclaimed the picture-dealer. "I am not ready to
dine this evening."

Regimbart took up his hat.

"What, are you leaving me?"

"Seven o'clock," said Regimbart.

Frederick followed him.

At the corner of the Rue Montmartre, he turned round. He glanced towards
the windows of the first floor, and he laughed internally with self-pity
as he recalled to mind with what love he had so often contemplated them.
Where, then, did she reside? How was he to meet her now? Once more
around the object of his desire a solitude opened more immense than
ever!

"Are you coming to take it?" asked Regimbart.

"To take what?"

"The absinthe."

And, yielding to his importunities, Frederick allowed himself to be led
towards the Bordelais smoking-divan. Whilst his companion, leaning on
his elbow, was staring at the decanter, he was turning his eyes to the
right and to the left. But he caught a glimpse of Pellerin's profile on
the footpath outside; the painter gave a quick tap at the window-pane,
and he had scarcely sat down when Regimbart asked him why they no longer
saw him at the office of _L'Art Industriel_.

"May I perish before ever I go back there again. The fellow is a brute,
a mere tradesman, a wretch, a downright rogue!"

These insulting words harmonised with Frederick's present angry mood.
Nevertheless, he was wounded, for it seemed to him that they hit at
Madame Arnoux more or less.

"Why, what has he done to you?" said Regimbart.

Pellerin stamped with his foot on the ground, and his only response was
an energetic puff.

He had been devoting himself to artistic work of a kind that he did not
care to connect his name with, such as portraits for two crayons, or
pasticcios from the great masters for amateurs of limited knowledge;
and, as he felt humiliated by these inferior productions, he preferred
to hold his tongue on the subject as a general rule. But "Arnoux's dirty
conduct" exasperated him too much. He had to relieve his feelings.

In accordance with an order, which had been given in Frederick's very
presence, he had brought Arnoux two pictures. Thereupon the dealer took
the liberty of criticising them. He found fault with the composition,
the colouring, and the drawing--above all the drawing; he would not, in
short, take them at any price. But, driven to extremities by a bill
falling due, Pellerin had to give them to the Jew Isaac; and, a
fortnight later, Arnoux himself sold them to a Spaniard for two thousand
francs.

"Not a sou less! What rascality! and, faith, he has done many other
things just as bad. One of these mornings we'll see him in the dock!"

"How you exaggerate!" said Frederick, in a timid voice.

"Come, now, that's good; I exaggerate!" exclaimed the artist, giving the
table a great blow with his fist.

This violence had the effect of completely restoring the young man's
self-command. No doubt he might have acted more nicely; still, if Arnoux
found these two pictures----

"Bad! say it out! Are you a judge of them? Is this your profession? Now,
you know, my youngster, I don't allow this sort of thing on the part of
mere amateurs."

"Ah! well, it's not my business," said Frederick.

"Then, what interest have you in defending him?" returned Pellerin,
coldly.

The young man faltered:

"But--since I am his friend----"

"Go, and give him a hug for me. Good evening!"

And the painter rushed away in a rage, and, of course, without paying
for his drink.

Frederick, whilst defending Arnoux, had convinced himself. In the heat
of his eloquence, he was filled with tenderness towards this man, so
intelligent and kind, whom his friends calumniated, and who had now to
work all alone, abandoned by them. He could not resist a strange impulse
to go at once and see him again. Ten minutes afterwards he pushed open
the door of the picture-warehouse.

Arnoux was preparing, with the assistance of his clerks, some huge
placards for an exhibition of pictures.

"Halloa! what brings you back again?"

This question, simple though it was, embarrassed Frederick, and, at a
loss for an answer, he asked whether they had happened to find a
notebook of his--a little notebook with a blue leather cover.

"The one that you put your letters to women in?" said Arnoux.

Frederick, blushing like a young girl, protested against such an
assumption.

"Your verses, then?" returned the picture-dealer.

He handled the pictorial specimens that were to be exhibited,
discovering their form, colouring, and frames; and Frederick felt more
and more irritated by his air of abstraction, and particularly by the
appearance of his hands--large hands, rather soft, with flat nails. At
length, M. Arnoux arose, and saying, "That's disposed of!" he chucked
the young man familiarly under the chin. Frederick was offended at this
liberty, and recoiled a pace or two; then he made a dash for the
shop-door, and passed out through it, as he imagined, for the last time
in his life. Madame Arnoux herself had been lowered by the vulgarity of
her husband.

During the same week he got a letter from Deslauriers, informing him
that the clerk would be in Paris on the following Thursday. Then he
flung himself back violently on this affection as one of a more solid
and lofty character. A man of this sort was worth all the women in the
world. He would no longer have any need of Regimbart, of Pellerin, of
Hussonnet, of anyone! In order to provide his friend with as comfortable
lodgings as possible, he bought an iron bedstead and a second armchair,
and stripped off some of his own bed-covering to garnish this one
properly. On Thursday morning he was dressing himself to go to meet
Deslauriers when there was a ring at the door.

Arnoux entered.

"Just one word. Yesterday I got a lovely trout from Geneva. We expect
you by-and-by--at seven o'clock sharp. The address is the Rue de
Choiseul 24 _bis_. Don't forget!"

Frederick was obliged to sit down; his knees were tottering under him.
He repeated to himself, "At last! at last!" Then he wrote to his
tailor, to his hatter, and to his bootmaker; and he despatched these
three notes by three different messengers.

The key turned in the lock, and the door-keeper appeared with a trunk on
his shoulder.

Frederick, on seeing Deslauriers, began to tremble like an adulteress
under the glance of her husband.

"What has happened to you?" said Deslauriers. "Surely you got my
letter?"

Frederick had not enough energy left to lie. He opened his arms, and
flung himself on his friend's breast.

Then the clerk told his story. His father thought to avoid giving an
account of the expense of tutelage, fancying that the period limited for
rendering such accounts was ten years; but, well up in legal procedure,
Deslauriers had managed to get the share coming to him from his mother
into his clutches--seven thousand francs clear--which he had there with
him in an old pocket-book.

"'Tis a reserve fund, in case of misfortune. I must think over the best
way of investing it, and find quarters for myself to-morrow morning.
To-day I'm perfectly free, and am entirely at your service, my old
friend."

"Oh! don't put yourself about," said Frederick. "If you had anything of
importance to do this evening----"

"Come, now! I would be a selfish wretch----"

This epithet, flung out at random, touched Frederick to the quick, like
a reproachful hint.

The door-keeper had placed on the table close to the fire some chops,
cold meat, a large lobster, some sweets for dessert, and two bottles of
Bordeaux.

Deslauriers was touched by these excellent preparations to welcome his
arrival.

"Upon my word, you are treating me like a king!"

They talked about their past and about the future; and, from time to
time, they grasped each other's hands across the table, gazing at each
other tenderly for a moment.

But a messenger came with a new hat. Deslauriers, in a loud tone,
remarked that this head-gear was very showy. Next came the tailor
himself to fit on the coat, to which he had given a touch with the
smoothing-iron.

"One would imagine you were going to be married," said Deslauriers.

An hour later, a third individual appeared on the scene, and drew forth
from a big black bag a pair of shining patent leather boots. While
Frederick was trying them on, the bootmaker slyly drew attention to the
shoes of the young man from the country.

"Does Monsieur require anything?"

"Thanks," replied the clerk, pulling behind his chair his old shoes
fastened with strings.

This humiliating incident annoyed Frederick. At length he exclaimed, as
if an idea had suddenly taken possession of him:

"Ha! deuce take it! I was forgetting."

"What is it, pray?"

"I have to dine in the city this evening."

"At the Dambreuses'? Why did you never say anything to me about them in
your letters?"

"It is not at the Dambreuses', but at the Arnoux's."

"You should have let me know beforehand," said Deslauriers. "I would
have come a day later."

"Impossible," returned Frederick, abruptly. "I only got the invitation
this morning, a little while ago."

And to redeem his error and distract his friend's mind from the
occurrence, he proceeded to unfasten the tangled cords round the trunk,
and to arrange all his belongings in the chest of drawers, expressed his
willingness to give him his own bed, and offered to sleep himself in the
dressing-room bedstead. Then, as soon as it was four o'clock, he began
the preparations for his toilet.

"You have plenty of time," said the other.

At last he was dressed and off he went.

"That's the way with the rich," thought Deslauriers.

And he went to dine in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at a little restaurant
kept by a man he knew.

Frederick stopped several times while going up the stairs, so violently
did his heart beat. One of his gloves, which was too tight, burst, and,
while he was fastening back the torn part under his shirt-cuff, Arnoux,
who was mounting the stairs behind him, took his arm and led him in.

The anteroom, decorated in the Chinese fashion, had a painted lantern
hanging from the ceiling, and bamboos in the corners. As he was passing
into the drawing-room, Frederick stumbled against a tiger's skin. The
place had not yet been lighted up, but two lamps were burning in the
boudoir in the far corner.

Mademoiselle Marthe came to announce that her mamma was dressing. Arnoux
raised her as high as his mouth in order to kiss her; then, as he wished
to go to the cellar himself to select certain bottles of wine, he left
Frederick with the little girl.

She had grown much larger since the trip in the steamboat. Her dark hair
descended in long ringlets, which curled over her bare arms. Her dress,
more puffed out than the petticoat of a _danseuse_, allowed her rosy
calves to be seen, and her pretty childlike form had all the fresh odour
of a bunch of flowers. She received the young gentleman's compliments
with a coquettish air, fixed on him her large, dreamy eyes, then
slipping on the carpet amid the furniture, disappeared like a cat.

After this he no longer felt ill at ease. The globes of the lamps,
covered with a paper lace-work, sent forth a white light, softening the
colour of the walls, hung with mauve satin. Through the fender-bars, as
through the slits in a big fan, the coal could be seen in the fireplace,
and close beside the clock there was a little chest with silver clasps.
Here and there things lay about which gave the place a look of home--a
doll in the middle of the sofa, a fichu against the back of a chair, and
on the work-table a knitted woollen vest, from which two ivory needles
were hanging with their points downwards. It was altogether a peaceful
spot, suggesting the idea of propriety and innocent family life.

Arnoux returned, and Madame Arnoux appeared at the other doorway. As she
was enveloped in shadow, the young man could at first distinguish only
her head. She wore a black velvet gown, and in her hair she had fastened
a long Algerian cap, in a red silk net, which coiling round her comb,
fell over her left shoulder.

Arnoux introduced Frederick.

"Oh! I remember Monsieur perfectly well," she responded.

Then the guests arrived, nearly all at the same time--Dittmer, Lovarias,
Burrieu, the composer Rosenwald, the poet Théophile Lorris, two art
critics, colleagues of Hussonnet, a paper manufacturer, and in the rear
the illustrious Pierre Paul Meinsius, the last representative of the
grand school of painting, who blithely carried along with his glory his
forty-five years and his big paunch.

When they were passing into the dining-room, Madame Arnoux took his arm.
A chair had been left vacant for Pellerin. Arnoux, though he took
advantage of him, was fond of him. Besides, he was afraid of his
terrible tongue, so much so, that, in order to soften him, he had given
a portrait of him in _L'Art Industriel_, accompanied by exaggerated
eulogies; and Pellerin, more sensitive about distinction than about
money, made his appearance about eight o'clock quite out of breath.
Frederick fancied that they had been a long time reconciled.

He liked the company, the dishes, everything. The dining-room, which
resembled a mediæval parlour, was hung with stamped leather. A Dutch
whatnot faced a rack for chibouks, and around the table the Bohemian
glasses, variously coloured, had, in the midst of the flowers and
fruits, the effect of an illumination in a garden.

He had to make his choice between ten sorts of mustard. He partook of
daspachio, of curry, of ginger, of Corsican blackbirds, and a species of
Roman macaroni called lasagna; he drank extraordinary wines, lip-fraeli
and tokay. Arnoux indeed prided himself on entertaining people in good
style. With an eye to the procurement of eatables, he paid court to
mail-coach drivers, and was in league with the cooks of great houses,
who communicated to him the secrets of rare sauces.

But Frederick was particularly amused by the conversation. His taste for
travelling was tickled by Dittmer, who talked about the East; he
gratified his curiosity about theatrical matters by listening to
Rosenwald's chat about the opera; and the atrocious existence of Bohemia
assumed for him a droll aspect when seen through the gaiety of
Hussonnet, who related, in a picturesque fashion, how he had spent an
entire winter with no food except Dutch cheese. Then, a discussion
between Lovarias and Burrieu about the Florentine School gave him new
ideas with regard to masterpieces, widened his horizon, and he found
difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm when Pellerin exclaimed:

"Don't bother me with your hideous reality! What does it mean--reality?
Some see things black, others blue--the multitude sees them
brute-fashion. There is nothing less natural than Michael Angelo; there
is nothing more powerful! The anxiety about external truth is a mark of
contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on that way, a
sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as
much below politics as it is below business. You will never reach its
end--yes, its end!--which is to cause within us an impersonal
exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution.
Look, for instance, at Bassolier's pictures: they are pretty,
coquettish, spruce, and by no means dull. You might put them into your
pocket, bring them with you when you are travelling. Notaries buy them
for twenty thousand francs, while pictures of the ideal type are sold
for three sous. But, without ideality, there is no grandeur; without
grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most swagger
monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste;
the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than
a hairdresser!"

Frederick, as these words fell upon his ear, glanced towards Madame
Arnoux. They sank into his soul like metals falling into a furnace,
added to his passion, and supplied the material of love.

His chair was three seats below hers on the same side. From time to
time, she bent forward a little, turning aside her head to address a few
words to her little daughter; and as she smiled on these occasions, a
dimple took shape in her cheek, giving to her face an expression of more
dainty good-nature.

As soon as the time came for the gentlemen to take their wine, she
disappeared. The conversation became more free and easy. M. Arnoux shone
in it, and Frederick was astonished at the cynicism of men. However,
their preoccupation with woman established between them and him, as it
were, an equality, which raised him in his own estimation.

When they had returned to the drawing-room, he took up, to keep himself
in countenance, one of the albums which lay about on the table. The
great artists of the day had illustrated them with drawings, had written
in them snatches of verse or prose, or their signatures simply. In the
midst of famous names he found many that he had never heard of before,
and original thoughts appeared only underneath a flood of nonsense. All
these effusions contained a more or less direct expression of homage
towards Madame Arnoux. Frederick would have been afraid to write a line
beside them.

She went into her boudoir to look at the little chest with silver clasps
which he had noticed on the mantel-shelf. It was a present from her
husband, a work of the Renaissance. Arnoux's friends complimented him,
and his wife thanked him. His tender emotions were aroused, and before
all the guests he gave her a kiss.

After this they all chatted in groups here and there. The worthy
Meinsius was with Madame Arnoux on an easy chair close beside the fire.
She was leaning forward towards his ear; their heads were just touching,
and Frederick would have been glad to become deaf, infirm, and ugly if,
instead, he had an illustrious name and white hair--in short, if he only
happened to possess something which would install him in such intimate
association with her. He began once more to eat out his heart, furious
at the idea of being so young a man.

But she came into the corner of the drawing-room in which he was
sitting, asked him whether he was acquainted with any of the guests,
whether he was fond of painting, how long he had been a student in
Paris. Every word that came out of her mouth seemed to Frederick
something entirely new, an exclusive appendage of her personality. He
gazed attentively at the fringes of her head-dress, the ends of which
caressed her bare shoulder, and he was unable to take away his eyes; he
plunged his soul into the whiteness of that feminine flesh, and yet he
did not venture to raise his eyelids to glance at her higher, face to
face.

Rosenwald interrupted them, begging of Madame Arnoux to sing something.
He played a prelude, she waited, her lips opened slightly, and a sound,
pure, long-continued, silvery, ascended into the air.

Frederick did not understand a single one of the Italian words. The song
began with a grave measure, something like church music, then in a more
animated strain, with a crescendo movement, it broke into repeated
bursts of sound, then suddenly subsided, and the melody came back again
in a tender fashion with a wide and easy swing.

She stood beside the keyboard with her arms hanging down and a far-off
look on her face. Sometimes, in order to read the music, she advanced
her forehead for a moment and her eyelashes moved to and fro. Her
contralto voice in the low notes took a mournful intonation which had a
chilling effect on the listener, and then her beautiful head, with those
great brows of hers, bent over her shoulder; her bosom swelled; her eyes
were wide apart; her neck, from which roulades made their escape, fell
back as if under aërial kisses. She flung out three sharp notes, came
down again, cast forth one higher still, and, after a silence, finished
with an organ-point.

Rosenwald did not leave the piano. He continued playing, to amuse
himself. From time to time a guest stole away. At eleven o'clock, as the
last of them were going off, Arnoux went out along with Pellerin, under
the pretext of seeing him home. He was one of those people who say that
they are ill when they do not "take a turn" after dinner. Madame Arnoux
had made her way towards the anteroom. Dittmer and Hussonnet bowed to
her. She stretched out her hand to them. She did the same to Frederick;
and he felt, as it were, something penetrating every particle of his
skin.

He quitted his friends. He wished to be alone. His heart was
overflowing. Why had she offered him her hand? Was it a thoughtless
act, or an encouragement? "Come now! I am mad!" Besides, what did it
matter, when he could now visit her entirely at his ease, live in the
very atmosphere she breathed?

The streets were deserted. Now and then a heavy wagon would roll past,
shaking the pavements. The houses came one after another with their grey
fronts, their closed windows; and he thought with disdain of all those
human beings who lived behind those walls without having seen her, and
not one of whom dreamed of her existence. He had no consciousness of his
surroundings, of space, of anything, and striking the ground with his
heel, rapping with his walking-stick on the shutters of the shops, he
kept walking on continually at random, in a state of excitement, carried
away by his emotions. Suddenly he felt himself surrounded by a circle of
damp air, and found that he was on the edge of the quays.

The gas-lamps shone in two straight lines, which ran on endlessly, and
long red flames flickered in the depths of the water. The waves were
slate-coloured, while the sky, which was of clearer hue, seemed to be
supported by vast masses of shadow that rose on each side of the river.
The darkness was intensified by buildings whose outlines the eye could
not distinguish. A luminous haze floated above the roofs further on. All
the noises of the night had melted into a single monotonous hum.

He stopped in the middle of the Pont Neuf, and, taking off his hat and
exposing his chest, he drank in the air. And now he felt as if something
that was inexhaustible were rising up from the very depths of his being,
an afflux of tenderness that enervated him, like the motion of the
waves under his eyes. A church-clock slowly struck one, like a voice
calling out to him.

Then, he was seized with one of those shuddering sensations of the soul
in which one seems to be transported into a higher world. He felt, as it
were, endowed with some extraordinary faculty, the aim of which he could
not determine. He seriously asked himself whether he would be a great
painter or a great poet; and he decided in favour of painting, for the
exigencies of this profession would bring him into contact with Madame
Arnoux. So, then, he had found his vocation! The object of his existence
was now perfectly clear, and there could be no mistake about the future.

When he had shut his door, he heard some one snoring in the dark closet
near his apartment. It was his friend. He no longer bestowed a thought
on him.

His own face presented itself to his view in the glass. He thought
himself handsome, and for a minute he remained gazing at himself.




CHAPTER V.

"Love Knoweth No Laws."


Before twelve o'clock next day he had bought a box of colours,
paintbrushes, and an easel. Pellerin consented to give him lessons, and
Frederick brought him to his lodgings to see whether anything was
wanting among his painting utensils.

Deslauriers had come back, and the second armchair was occupied by a
young man. The clerk said, pointing towards him:

"'Tis he! There he is! Sénécal!" Frederick disliked this young man. His
forehead was heightened by the way in which he wore his hair, cut
straight like a brush. There was a certain hard, cold look in his grey
eyes; and his long black coat, his entire costume, savoured of the
pedagogue and the ecclesiastic.

They first discussed topics of the hour, amongst others the _Stabat_ of
Rossini. Sénécal, in answer to a question, declared that he never went
to the theatre.

Pellerin opened the box of colours.

"Are these all for you?" said the clerk.

"Why, certainly!"

"Well, really! What a notion!" And he leaned across the table, at which
the mathematical tutor was turning over the leaves of a volume of Louis
Blanc. He had brought it with him, and was reading passages from it in
low tones, while Pellerin and Frederick were examining together the
palette, the knife, and the bladders; then the talk came round to the
dinner at Arnoux's.

"The picture-dealer, is it?" asked Sénécal. "A nice gentleman, truly!"

"Why, now?" said Pellerin. Sénécal replied:

"A man who makes money by political turpitude!"

And he went on to talk about a well-known lithograph, in which the Royal
Family was all represented as being engaged in edifying occupations:
Louis Philippe had a copy of the Code in his hand; the Queen had a
Catholic prayer-book; the Princesses were embroidering; the Duc de
Nemours was girding on a sword; M. de Joinville was showing a map to his
young brothers; and at the end of the apartment could be seen a bed with
two divisions. This picture, which was entitled "A Good Family," was a
source of delight to commonplace middle-class people, but of grief to
patriots.

Pellerin, in a tone of vexation, as if he had been the producer of this
work himself, observed by way of answer that every opinion had some
value. Sénécal protested: Art should aim exclusively at promoting
morality amongst the masses! The only subjects that ought to be
reproduced were those which impelled people to virtuous actions; all
others were injurious.

"But that depends on the execution," cried Pellerin. "I might produce
masterpieces."

"So much the worse for you, then; you have no right----"

"What?"

"No, monsieur, you have no right to excite my interest in matters of
which I disapprove. What need have we of laborious trifles, from which
it is impossible to derive any benefit--those Venuses, for instance,
with all your landscapes? I see there no instruction for the people!
Show us rather their miseries! arouse enthusiasm in us for their
sacrifices! Ah, my God! there is no lack of subjects--the farm, the
workshop----"

Pellerin stammered forth his indignation at this, and, imagining that he
had found an argument:

"Molière, do you accept him?"

"Certainly!" said Sénécal. "I admire him as the precursor of the French
Revolution."

"Ha! the Revolution! What art! Never was there a more pitiable epoch!"

"None greater, Monsieur!"

Pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face:

"You have the appearance of a famous member of the National Guard!"

His opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded:

"I am not, and I detest it just as much as you. But with such principles
we corrupt the crowd. This sort of thing, however, is profitable to the
Government. It would not be so powerful but for the complicity of a lot
of rogues of that sort."

The painter took up the defence of the picture-dealer, for Sénécal's
opinions exasperated him. He even went so far as to maintain that Arnoux
was really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeply
attached to his wife.

"Oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let her
serve as a model."

Frederick turned pale.

"So then, he has done you some great injury, Monsieur?"

"Me? no! I saw him once at a café with a friend. That's all."

Sénécal had spoken truly. But he had his teeth daily set on edge by the
announcements in _L'Art Industriel_. Arnoux was for him the
representative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. An
austere Republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt in
every form of elegance, and the more so as he wanted nothing and was
inflexible in his integrity.

They found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. The painter
soon recalled to mind his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, when
they had gone, after a long silence, Deslauriers asked a number of
questions about Arnoux.

"You will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?"

"Certainly," said Frederick. Then they thought about settling
themselves. Deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post of
second clerk in a solicitor's office; he had also entered his name for
the terms at the Law School, and bought the indispensable books; and the
life of which they had dreamed now began.

It was delightful, owing to their youth, which made everything assume a
beautiful aspect. As Deslauriers had said nothing as to any pecuniary
arrangement, Frederick did not refer to the subject. He helped to defray
all the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after all
the household requirements; but if it happened to be desirable to give
the door-keeper a rating, the clerk took that on his own shoulders,
still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, of
protector and senior.

Separated all day long, they met again in the evening. Each took his
place at the fireside and set about his work. But ere long it would be
interrupted. Then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable bursts
of merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much or
a book being mislaid, momentary ebullitions of anger which subsided in
hearty laughter.

While in bed they left open the door of the little room where
Deslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance.

In the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. The
sun rose; light vapours passed over the river. From the flower-market
close beside them the noise of screaming reached their ears; and the
smoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which was
refreshing to their eyes still puffed from sleep. While they inhaled it,
their hearts swelled with great expectations.

When it was not raining on Sunday they went out together, and, arm in
arm, they sauntered through the streets. The same reflection nearly
always occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go on
chatting without noticing anything around them. Deslauriers longed for
riches, as a means for gaining power over men. He was anxious to possess
an influence over a vast number of people, to make a great noise, to
have three secretaries under his command, and to give a big political
dinner once a month.

Frederick would have furnished for himself a palace in the Moorish
fashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmur
of a jet of water, attended by negro pages. And these things, of which
he had only dreamed, became in the end so definite that they made him
feel as dejected as if he had lost them.

"What is the use of talking about all these things," said he, "when
we'll never have them?"

"Who knows?" returned Deslauriers.

In spite of his democratic views, he urged Frederick to get an
introduction into the Dambreuses' house.

The other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previous
attempts.

"Bah! go back there. They'll give you an invitation!"

Towards the close of the month of March, they received amongst other
bills of a rather awkward description that of the restaurant-keeper who
supplied them with dinners. Frederick, not having the entire amount,
borrowed a hundred crowns from Deslauriers. A fortnight afterwards, he
renewed the same request, and the clerk administered a lecture to him on
the extravagant habits to which he gave himself up in the Arnoux's
society.

As a matter of fact, he put no restraint upon himself in this respect. A
view of Venice, a view of Naples, and another of Constantinople
occupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects by
Alfred de Dreux here and there, a group by Pradier over the mantelpiece,
numbers of _L'Art Industriel_ lying on the piano, and works in boards on
the floor in the corners, encumbered the apartment which he occupied to
such an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or to
move one's elbows about freely. Frederick maintained that he needed all
this for his painting.

He pursued his art-studies under Pellerin. But when he called on the
artist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend at every
funeral and public occurrence of which an account was given in the
newspapers, and so it was that Frederick spent entire hours alone in the
studio. The quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed save
the scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or the
hissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectual
ease. Then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he was
engaged, roamed over the shell-work on the wall, around the objects of
virtù on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that had
collected made, as it were, shreds of velvet; and, like a traveller who
has lost his way in the middle of a wood, and whom every path brings
back to the same spot, continually, he found underlying every idea in
his mind the recollection of Madame Arnoux.

He selected days for calling on her. When he had reached the second
floor, he would pause on the threshold, hesitating as to whether he
ought to ring or not. Steps drew nigh, the door opened, and the
announcement "Madame is gone out," a sense of relief would come upon
him, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. He met her, however.
On the first occasion there were three other ladies with her; the next
time it was in the afternoon, and Mademoiselle Marthe's writing-master
came on the scene. Besides, the men whom Madame Arnoux received were
not very punctilious about paying visits. For the sake of prudence he
deemed it better not to call again.

But he did not fail to present himself regularly at the office of _L'Art
Industriel_ every Wednesday in order to get an invitation to the
Thursday dinners, and he remained there after all the others, even
longer than Regimbart, up to the last moment, pretending to be looking
at an engraving or to be running his eye through a newspaper. At last
Arnoux would say to him, "Shall you be disengaged to-morrow evening?"
and, before the sentence was finished, he would give an affirmative
answer. Arnoux appeared to have taken a fancy to him. He showed him how
to become a good judge of wines, how to make hot punch, and how to
prepare a woodcock ragoût. Frederick followed his advice with docility,
feeling an attachment to everything connected with Madame Arnoux--her
furniture, her servants, her house, her street.

During these dinners he scarcely uttered a word; he kept gazing at her.
She had a little mole close to her temple. Her head-bands were darker
than the rest of her hair, and were always a little moist at the edges;
from time to time she stroked them with only two fingers. He knew the
shape of each of her nails. He took delight in listening to the rustle
of her silk skirt as she swept past doors; he stealthily inhaled the
perfume that came from her handkerchief; her comb, her gloves, her rings
were for him things of special interest, important as works of art,
almost endowed with life like individuals; all took possession of his
heart and strengthened his passion.

He had not been sufficiently self-contained to conceal it from
Deslauriers. When he came home from Madame Arnoux's, he would wake up
his friend, as if inadvertently, in order to have an opportunity of
talking about her.

Deslauriers, who slept in the little off-room, close to where they had
their water-supply, would give a great yawn. Frederick seated himself on
the side of the bed. At first, he spoke about the dinner; then he
referred to a thousand petty details, in which he saw marks of contempt
or of affection. On one occasion, for instance, she had refused his arm,
in order to take Dittmer's; and Frederick gave vent to his humiliation:

"Ah! how stupid!"

Or else she had called him her "dear friend."

"Then go after her gaily!"

"But I dare not do that," said Frederick.

"Well, then, think no more about her! Good night!"

Deslauriers thereupon turned on his side, and fell asleep. He felt
utterly unable to comprehend this love, which seemed to him the last
weakness of adolescence; and, as his own society was apparently not
enough to content Frederick, he conceived the idea of bringing together,
once a week, those whom they both recognised as friends.

They came on Saturday about nine o'clock. The three Algerine curtains
were carefully drawn. The lamp and four wax-lights were burning. In the
middle of the table the tobacco-pot, filled with pipes, displayed itself
between the beer-bottles, the tea-pot, a flagon of rum, and some fancy
biscuits.

They discussed the immortality of the soul, and drew comparisons between
the different professors.

One evening Hussonnet introduced a tall young man, attired in a
frock-coat, too short in the wrists, and with a look of embarrassment in
his face. It was the young fellow whom they had gone to release from
the guard-house the year before.

As he had not been able to restore the box of lace which he had lost in
the scuffle, his employer had accused him of theft, and threatened to
prosecute him. He was now a clerk in a wagon-office. Hussonnet had come
across him that morning at the corner of the street, and brought him
along, for Dussardier, in a spirit of gratitude, had expressed a wish to
see "the other."

He stretched out towards Frederick the cigar-holder, still full, which
he had religiously preserved, in the hope of being able to give it back.
The young men invited him to pay them a second visit; and he was not
slow in doing so.

They all had sympathies in common. At first, their hatred of the
Government reached the height of an unquestionable dogma. Martinon alone
attempted to defend Louis Philippe. They overwhelmed him with the
commonplaces scattered through the newspapers--the "Bastillization" of
Paris, the September laws, Pritchard, Lord Guizot--so that Martinon held
his tongue for fear of giving offence to somebody. During his seven
years at college he had never incurred the penalty of an imposition, and
at the Law School he knew how to make himself agreeable to the
professors. He usually wore a big frock-coat of the colour of putty,
with india-rubber goloshes; but one evening he presented himself arrayed
like a bridegroom, in a velvet roll-collar waistcoat, a white tie, and a
gold chain.

The astonishment of the other young men was greatly increased when they
learned that he had just come away from M. Dambreuse's house. In fact,
the banker Dambreuse had just bought a portion of an extensive wood
from Martinon senior; and, when the worthy man introduced his son, the
other had invited them both to dinner.

"Was there a good supply of truffles there?" asked Deslauriers. "And did
you take his wife by the waist between the two doors, _sicut decet_?"

Hereupon the conversation turned on women. Pellerin would not admit that
there were beautiful women (he preferred tigers); besides the human
female was an inferior creature in the æsthetic hierarchy.

"What fascinates you is just the very thing that degrades her as an
idea; I mean her breasts, her hair----"

"Nevertheless," urged Frederick, "long black hair and large dark
eyes----"

"Oh! we know all about that," cried Hussonnet. "Enough of Andalusian
beauties on the lawn. Those things are out of date; no thank you! For
the fact is, honour bright! a fast woman is more amusing than the Venus
of Milo. Let us be Gallic, in Heaven's name, and after the Regency
style, if we can!

    'Flow, generous wines; ladies, deign to smile!'[2]

[Footnote 2: _Coules, bons vins; femmes, deignez sourire._]

We must pass from the dark to the fair. Is that your opinion, Father
Dussardier?"

Dussardier did not reply. They all pressed him to ascertain what his
tastes were.

"Well," said he, colouring, "for my part, I would like to love the same
one always!"

This was said in such a way that there was a moment of silence, some of
them being surprised at this candour, and others finding in his words,
perhaps, the secret yearning of their souls.

Sénécal placed his glass of beer on the mantelpiece, and declared
dogmatically that, as prostitution was tyrannical and marriage immoral,
it was better to practice abstinence. Deslauriers regarded women as a
source of amusement--nothing more. M. de Cisy looked upon them with the
utmost dread.

Brought up under the eyes of a grandmother who was a devotee, he found
the society of those young fellows as alluring as a place of ill-repute
and as instructive as the Sorbonne. They gave him lessons without stint;
and so much zeal did he exhibit that he even wanted to smoke in spite of
the qualms that upset him every time he made the experiment. Frederick
paid him the greatest attention. He admired the shade of this young
gentleman's cravat, the fur on his overcoat, and especially his boots,
as thin as gloves, and so very neat and fine that they had a look of
insolent superiority. His carriage used to wait for him below in the
street.

One evening, after his departure, when there was a fall of snow, Sénécal
began to complain about his having a coachman. He declaimed against
kid-gloved exquisites and against the Jockey Club. He had more respect
for a workman than for these fine gentlemen.

"For my part, anyhow, I work for my livelihood! I am a poor man!"

"That's quite evident," said Frederick, at length, losing patience.

The tutor conceived a grudge against him for this remark.

But, as Regimbart said he knew Sénécal pretty well, Frederick, wishing
to be civil to a friend of the Arnoux, asked him to come to the
Saturday meetings; and the two patriots were glad to be brought together
in this way.

However, they took opposite views of things.

Sénécal--who had a skull of the angular type--fixed his attention merely
on systems, whereas Regimbart, on the contrary, saw in facts nothing but
facts. The thing that chiefly troubled him was the Rhine frontier. He
claimed to be an authority on the subject of artillery, and got his
clothes made by a tailor of the Polytechnic School.

The first day, when they asked him to take some cakes, he disdainfully
shrugged his shoulders, saying that these might suit women; and on the
next few occasions his manner was not much more gracious. Whenever
speculative ideas had reached a certain elevation, he would mutter: "Oh!
no Utopias, no dreams!" On the subject of Art (though he used to visit
the studios, where he occasionally out of complaisance gave a lesson in
fencing) his opinions were not remarkable for their excellence. He
compared the style of M. Marast to that of Voltaire, and Mademoiselle
Vatnaz to Madame de Staël, on account of an Ode on Poland in which
"there was some spirit." In short, Regimbart bored everyone, and
especially Deslauriers, for the Citizen was a friend of the Arnoux
family. Now the clerk was most anxious to visit those people in the hope
that he might there make the acquaintance of some persons who would be
an advantage to him.

"When are you going to take me there with you?" he would say. Arnoux was
either overburdened with business, or else starting on a journey. Then
it was not worth while, as the dinners were coming to an end.

If he had been called on to risk his life for his friend, Frederick
would have done so. But, as he was desirous of making as good a figure
as possible, and with this view was most careful about his language and
manners, and so attentive to his costume that he always presented
himself at the office of _L'Art Industriel_ irreproachably gloved, he
was afraid that Deslauriers, with his shabby black coat, his
attorney-like exterior, and his swaggering kind of talk, might make
himself disagreeable to Madame Arnoux, and thus compromise him and lower
him in her estimation. The other results would have been bad enough, but
the last one would have annoyed him a thousand times more.

The clerk saw that his friend did not wish to keep his promise, and
Frederick's silence seemed to him an aggravation of the insult. He would
have liked to exercise absolute control over him, to see him developing
in accordance with the ideal of their youth; and his inactivity excited
the clerk's indignation as a breach of duty and a want of loyalty
towards himself. Moreover, Frederick, with his thoughts full of Madame
Arnoux, frequently talked about her husband; and Deslauriers now began
an intolerable course of boredom by repeating the name a hundred times a
day, at the end of each remark, like the parrot-cry of an idiot.

When there was a knock at the door, he would answer, "Come in, Arnoux!"
At the restaurant he asked for a Brie cheese "in imitation of Arnoux,"
and at night, pretending to wake up from a bad dream, he would rouse his
comrade by howling out, "Arnoux! Arnoux!" At last Frederick, worn out,
said to him one day, in a piteous voice:

"Oh! don't bother me about Arnoux!"

"Never!" replied the clerk:

    "He always, everywhere, burning or icy cold,
    The pictured form of Arnoux----"[3]

[Footnote 3: _Toujours lui! lui partout! ou brulante ou glacée, L'image
de l'Arnoux._]

"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" exclaimed Frederick, raising his fist.

Then less angrily he added:

"You know well this is a painful subject to me."

"Oh! forgive me, old fellow," returned Deslauriers with a very low bow.
"From this time forth we will be considerate towards Mademoiselle's
nerves. Again, I say, forgive me. A thousand pardons!"

And so this little joke came to an end.

But, three weeks later, one evening, Deslauriers said to him:

"Well, I have just seen Madame Arnoux."

"Where, pray?"

"At the Palais, with Balandard, the solicitor. A dark woman, is she not,
of the middle height?"

Frederick made a gesture of assent. He waited for Deslauriers to speak.
At the least expression of admiration he would have been most effusive,
and would have fairly hugged the other. However, Deslauriers remained
silent. At last, unable to contain himself any longer, Frederick, with
assumed indifference, asked him what he thought of her.

Deslauriers considered that "she was not so bad, but still nothing
extraordinary."

"Ha! you think so," said Frederick.

They soon reached the month of August, the time when he was to present
himself for his second examination. According to the prevailing opinion,
the subjects could be made up in a fortnight. Frederick, having full
confidence in his own powers, swallowed up in a trice the first four
books of the Code of Procedure, the first three of the Penal Code, many
bits of the system of criminal investigation, and a part of the Civil
Code, with the annotations of M. Poncelet. The night before, Deslauriers
made him run through the whole course, a process which did not finish
till morning, and, in order to take advantage of even the last quarter
of an hour, continued questioning him while they walked along the
footpath together.

As several examinations were taking place at the same time, there were
many persons in the precincts, and amongst others Hussonnet and Cisy:
young men never failed to come and watch these ordeals when the fortunes
of their comrades were at stake.

Frederick put on the traditional black gown; then, followed by the
throng, with three other students, he entered a spacious apartment, into
which the light penetrated through uncurtained windows, and which was
garnished with benches ranged along the walls. In the centre, leather
chairs were drawn round a table adorned with a green cover. This
separated the candidates from the examiners in their red gowns and
ermine shoulder-knots, the head examiners wearing gold-laced flat caps.

Frederick found himself the last but one in the series--an unfortunate
place. In answer to the first question, as to the difference between a
convention and a contract, he defined the one as if it were the other;
and the professor, who was a fair sort of man, said to him, "Don't be
agitated, Monsieur! Compose yourself!" Then, having asked two easy
questions, which were answered in a doubtful fashion, he passed on at
last to the fourth. This wretched beginning made Frederick lose his
head. Deslauriers, who was facing him amongst the spectators, made a
sign to him to indicate that it was not a hopeless case yet; and at the
second batch of questions, dealing with the criminal law, he came out
tolerably well. But, after the third, with reference to the "mystic
will," the examiner having remained impassive the whole time, his mental
distress redoubled; for Hussonnet brought his hands together as if to
applaud, whilst Deslauriers liberally indulged in shrugs of the
shoulders. Finally, the moment was reached when it was necessary to be
examined on Procedure. The professor, displeased at listening to
theories opposed to his own, asked him in a churlish tone:

"And so this is your view, monsieur? How do you reconcile the principle
of article 1351 of the Civil Code with this application by a third party
to set aside a judgment by default?"

Frederick had a great headache from not having slept the night before. A
ray of sunlight, penetrating through one of the slits in a Venetian
blind, fell on his face. Standing behind the seat, he kept wriggling
about and tugging at his moustache.

"I am still awaiting your answer," the man with the gold-edged cap
observed.

And as Frederick's movements, no doubt, irritated him:

"You won't find it in that moustache of yours!"

This sarcasm made the spectators laugh. The professor, feeling
flattered, adopted a wheedling tone. He put two more questions with
reference to adjournment and summary jurisdiction, then nodded his head
by way of approval. The examination was over. Frederick retired into the
vestibule.

While an usher was taking off his gown, to draw it over some other
person immediately afterwards, his friends gathered around him, and
succeeded in fairly bothering him with their conflicting opinions as to
the result of his examination. Presently the announcement was made in a
sonorous voice at the entrance of the hall: "The third was--put off!"

"Sent packing!" said Hussonnet. "Let us go away!"

In front of the door-keeper's lodge they met Martinon, flushed, excited,
with a smile on his face and the halo of victory around his brow. He had
just passed his final examination without any impediment. All he had now
to do was the thesis. Before a fortnight he would be a licentiate. His
family enjoyed the acquaintance of a Minister; "a beautiful career" was
opening before him.

"All the same, this puts you into a mess," said Deslauriers.

There is nothing so humiliating as to see blockheads succeed in
undertakings in which we fail. Frederick, filled with vexation, replied
that he did not care a straw about the matter. He had higher
pretensions; and as Hussonnet made a show of leaving, Frederick took him
aside, and said to him:

"Not a word about this to them, mind!"

It was easy to keep it secret, since Arnoux was starting the next
morning for Germany.

When he came back in the evening the clerk found his friend singularly
altered: he danced about and whistled; and the other was astonished at
this capricious change of mood. Frederick declared that he did not
intend to go home to his mother, as he meant to spend his holidays
working.

At the news of Arnoux's departure, a feeling of delight had taken
possession of him. He might present himself at the house whenever he
liked without any fear of having his visits broken in upon. The
consciousness of absolute security would make him self-confident. At
last he would not stand aloof, he would not be separated from her!
Something more powerful than an iron chain attached him to Paris; a
voice from the depths of his heart called out to him to remain.

There were certain obstacles in his path. These he got over by writing
to his mother: he first of all admitted that he had failed to pass,
owing to alterations made in the course--a mere mischance--an unfair
thing; besides, all the great advocates (he referred to them by name)
had been rejected at their examinations. But he calculated on presenting
himself again in the month of November. Now, having no time to lose, he
would not go home this year; and he asked, in addition to the quarterly
allowance, for two hundred and fifty francs, to get coached in law by a
private tutor, which would be of great assistance to him; and he threw
around the entire epistle a garland of regrets, condolences, expressions
of endearment, and protestations of filial love.

Madame Moreau, who had been expecting him the following day, was doubly
grieved. She threw a veil over her son's misadventure, and in answer
told him to "come all the same." Frederick would not give way, and the
result was a falling out between them. However, at the end of the week,
he received the amount of the quarter's allowance together with the sum
required for the payment of the private tutor, which helped to pay for
a pair of pearl-grey trousers, a white felt hat, and a gold-headed
switch. When he had procured all these things he thought:

"Perhaps this is only a hairdresser's fancy on my part!"

And a feeling of considerable hesitation took possession of him.

In order to make sure as to whether he ought to call on Madame Arnoux,
he tossed three coins into the air in succession. On each occasion luck
was in his favour. So then Fate must have ordained it. He hailed a cab
and drove to the Rue de Choiseul.

He quickly ascended the staircase and drew the bell-pull, but without
effect. He felt as if he were about to faint.

Then, with fierce energy, he shook the heavy silk tassel. There was a
resounding peal which gradually died away till no further sound was
heard. Frederick got rather frightened.

He pasted his ear to the door--not a breath! He looked in through the
key-hole, and only saw two reed-points on the wall-paper in the midst of
designs of flowers. At last, he was on the point of going away when he
changed his mind. This time, he gave a timid little ring. The door flew
open, and Arnoux himself appeared on the threshold, with his hair all in
disorder, his face crimson, and his features distorted by an expression
of sullen embarrassment.

"Hallo! What the deuce brings you here? Come in!"

He led Frederick, not into the boudoir or into the bedroom, but into the
dining-room, where on the table could be seen a bottle of champagne and
two glasses; and, in an abrupt tone:

"There is something you want to ask me, my dear friend?"

"No! nothing! nothing!" stammered the young man, trying to think of some
excuse for his visit. At length, he said to Arnoux that he had called to
know whether they had heard from him, as Hussonnet had announced that he
had gone to Germany.

"Not at all!" returned Arnoux. "What a feather-headed fellow that is to
take everything in the wrong way!"

In order to conceal his agitation, Frederick kept walking from right to
left in the dining-room. Happening to come into contact with a chair, he
knocked down a parasol which had been laid across it, and the ivory
handle got broken.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "How sorry I am for having broken Madame
Arnoux's parasol!"

At this remark, the picture-dealer raised his head and smiled in a very
peculiar fashion. Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity thus
offered to talk about her, added shyly:

"Could I not see her?"

No. She had gone to the country to see her mother, who was ill.

He did not venture to ask any questions as to the length of time that
she would be away. He merely enquired what was Madame Arnoux's native
place.

"Chartres. Does this astonish you?"

"Astonish me? Oh, no! Why should it! Not in the least!"

After that, they could find absolutely nothing to talk about. Arnoux,
having made a cigarette for himself, kept walking round the table,
puffing. Frederick, standing near the stove, stared at the walls, the
whatnot, and the floor; and delightful pictures flitted through his
memory, or, rather, before his eyes. Then he left the apartment.

A piece of a newspaper, rolled up into a ball, lay on the floor in the
anteroom. Arnoux snatched it up, and, raising himself on the tips of his
toes, he stuck it into the bell, in order, as he said, that he might be
able to go and finish his interrupted siesta. Then, as he grasped
Frederick's hand:

"Kindly tell the porter that I am not in."

And he shut the door after him with a bang.

Frederick descended the staircase step by step. The ill-success of this
first attempt discouraged him as to the possible results of those that
might follow. Then began three months of absolute boredom. As he had
nothing to do, his melancholy was aggravated by the want of occupation.

He spent whole hours gazing from the top of his balcony at the river as
it flowed between the quays, with their bulwarks of grey stone,
blackened here and there by the seams of the sewers, with a pontoon of
washerwomen moored close to the bank, where some brats were amusing
themselves by making a water-spaniel swim in the slime. His eyes,
turning aside from the stone bridge of Nôtre Dame and the three
suspension bridges, continually directed their glance towards the
Quai-aux-Ormes, resting on a group of old trees, resembling the
linden-trees of the Montereau wharf. The Saint-Jacques tower, the Hôtel
de Ville, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Louis, and Saint-Paul, rose up in front
of him amid a confused mass of roofs; and the genius of the July Column
glittered at the eastern side like a large gold star, whilst at the
other end the dome of the Tuileries showed its outlines against the sky
in one great round mass of blue. Madame Arnoux's house must be on this
side in the rear!

He went back to his bedchamber; then, throwing himself on the sofa, he
abandoned himself to a confused succession of thoughts--plans of work,
schemes for the guidance of his conduct, attempts to divine the future.
At last, in order to shake off broodings all about himself, he went out
into the open air.

He plunged at random into the Latin Quarter, usually so noisy, but
deserted at this particular time, for the students had gone back to join
their families. The huge walls of the colleges, which the silence seemed
to lengthen, wore a still more melancholy aspect. All sorts of peaceful
sounds could be heard--the flapping of wings in cages, the noise made by
the turning of a lathe, or the strokes of a cobbler's hammer; and the
old-clothes men, standing in the middle of the street, looked up at each
house fruitlessly. In the interior of a solitary café the barmaid was
yawning between her two full decanters. The newspapers were left
undisturbed on the tables of reading-rooms. In the ironing
establishments linen quivered under the puffs of tepid wind. From time
to time he stopped to look at the window of a second-hand book-shop; an
omnibus which grazed the footpath as it came rumbling along made him
turn round; and, when he found himself before the Luxembourg, he went no
further.

Occasionally he was attracted towards the boulevards by the hope of
finding there something that might amuse him. After he had passed
through dark alleys, from which his nostrils were greeted by fresh moist
odours, he reached vast, desolate, open spaces, dazzling with light, in
which monuments cast at the side of the pavement notches of black
shadow. But once more the wagons and the shops appeared, and the crowd
had the effect of stunning him, especially on Sunday, when, from the
Bastille to the Madeleine, it kept swaying in one immense flood over the
asphalt, in the midst of a cloud of dust, in an incessant clamour. He
felt disgusted at the meanness of the faces, the silliness of the talk,
and the idiotic self-satisfaction that oozed through these sweating
foreheads. However, the consciousness of being superior to these
individuals mitigated the weariness which he experienced in gazing at
them.

Every day he went to the office of _L'Art Industriel_; and in order to
ascertain when Madame Arnoux would be back, he made elaborate enquiries
about her mother. Arnoux's answer never varied--"the change for the
better was continuing"--his wife, with his little daughter, would be
returning the following week. The longer she delayed in coming back, the
more uneasiness Frederick exhibited, so that Arnoux, touched by so much
affection, brought him five or six times a week to dine at a restaurant.

In the long talks which they had together on these occasions Frederick
discovered that the picture-dealer was not a very intellectual type of
man. Arnoux might, however, take notice of his chilling manner; and now
Frederick deemed it advisable to pay back, in a small measure, his
polite attentions.

So, being anxious to do things on a good scale, the young man sold all
his new clothes to a second-hand clothes-dealer for the sum of eighty
francs, and having increased it with a hundred more francs which he had
left, he called at Arnoux's house to bring him out to dine. Regimbart
happened to be there, and all three of them set forth for Les Trois
Frères Provençaux.

The Citizen began by taking off his surtout, and, knowing that the two
others would defer to his gastronomic tastes, drew up the _menu_. But in
vain did he make his way to the kitchen to speak himself to the _chef_,
go down to the cellar, with every corner of which he was familiar, and
send for the master of the establishment, to whom he gave "a blowing
up." He was not satisfied with the dishes, the wines, or the attendance.
At each new dish, at each fresh bottle, as soon as he had swallowed the
first mouthful, the first draught, he threw down his fork or pushed his
glass some distance away from him; then, leaning on his elbows on the
tablecloth, and stretching out his arms, he declared in a loud tone that
he could no longer dine in Paris! Finally, not knowing what to put into
his mouth, Regimbart ordered kidney-beans dressed with oil, "quite
plain," which, though only a partial success, slightly appeased him.
Then he had a talk with the waiter all about the latter's predecessors
at the "Provençaux":--"What had become of Antoine? And a fellow named
Eugène? And Théodore, the little fellow who always used to attend down
stairs? There was much finer fare in those days, and Burgundy vintages
the like of which they would never see again."

Then there was a discussion as to the value of ground in the suburbs,
Arnoux having speculated in that way, and looked on it as a safe thing.
In the meantime, however, he would lie out of the interest on his money.
As he did not want to sell out at any price, Regimbart would find out
some one to whom he could let the ground; and so these two gentlemen
proceeded at the close of the dessert to make calculations with a lead
pencil.

They went out to get coffee in the smoking-divan on the ground-floor in
the Passage du Saumon. Frederick had to remain on his legs while
interminable games of billiards were being played, drenched in
innumerable glasses of beer; and he lingered on there till midnight
without knowing why, through want of energy, through sheer
senselessness, in the vague expectation that something might happen
which would give a favourable turn to his love.

When, then, would he next see her? Frederick was in a state of despair
about it. But, one evening, towards the close of November, Arnoux said
to him:

"My wife, you know, came back yesterday!"

Next day, at five o'clock, he made his way to her house. He began by
congratulating her on her mother's recovery from such a serious illness.

"Why, no! Who told you that?"

"Arnoux!"

She gave vent to a slight "Ah!" then added that she had grave fears at
first, which, however, had now been dispelled. She was seated close
beside the fire in an upholstered easy-chair. He was on the sofa, with
his hat between his knees; and the conversation was difficult to carry
on, as it was broken off nearly every minute, so he got no chance
of giving utterance to his sentiments. But, when he began to
complain of having to study legal quibbles, she answered, "Oh! I
understand--business!" and she let her face fall, buried suddenly in her
own reflections.

He was eager to know what they were, and even did not bestow a thought
on anything else. The twilight shadows gathered around them.

She rose, having to go out about some shopping; then she reappeared in a
bonnet trimmed with velvet, and a black mantle edged with minever. He
plucked up courage and offered to accompany her.

It was now so dark that one could scarcely see anything. The air was
cold, and had an unpleasant odour, owing to a heavy fog, which partially
blotted out the fronts of the houses. Frederick inhaled it with delight;
for he could feel through the wadding of his coat the form of her arm;
and her hand, cased in a chamois glove with two buttons, her little hand
which he would have liked to cover with kisses, leaned on his sleeve.
Owing to the slipperiness of the pavement, they lost their balance a
little; it seemed to him as if they were both rocked by the wind in the
midst of a cloud.

The glitter of the lamps on the boulevard brought him back to the
realities of existence. The opportunity was a good one, there was no
time to lose. He gave himself as far as the Rue de Richeliéu to declare
his love. But almost at that very moment, in front of a china-shop, she
stopped abruptly and said to him:

"We are at the place. Thanks. On Thursday--is it not?--as usual."

The dinners were now renewed; and the more visits he paid at Madame
Arnoux's, the more his love-sickness increased. The contemplation of
this woman had an enervating effect upon him, like the use of a perfume
that is too strong. It penetrated into the very depths of his nature,
and became almost a kind of habitual sensation, a new mode of existence.

The prostitutes whom he brushed past under the gaslight, the female
ballad-singers breaking into bursts of melody, the ladies rising on
horseback at full gallop, the shopkeepers' wives on foot, the grisettes
at their windows, all women brought her before his mental vision, either
from the effect of their resemblance to her or the violent contrast to
her which they presented. As he walked along by the shops, he gazed at
the cashmeres, the laces, and the jewelled eardrops, imagining how they
would look draped around her figure, sewn in her corsage, or lighting up
her dark hair. In the flower-girls' baskets the bouquets blossomed for
her to choose one as she passed. In the shoemakers' show-windows the
little satin slippers with swan's-down edges seemed to be waiting for
her foot. Every street led towards her house; the hackney-coaches stood
in their places to carry her home the more quickly; Paris was associated
with her person, and the great city, with all its noises, roared around
her like an immense orchestra.

When he went into the Jardin des Plantes the sight of a palm-tree
carried him off into distant countries. They were travelling together on
the backs of dromedaries, under the awnings of elephants, in the cabin
of a yacht amongst the blue archipelagoes, or side by side on mules with
little bells attached to them who went stumbling through the grass
against broken columns. Sometimes he stopped in the Louvre before old
pictures; and, his love embracing her even in vanished centuries, he
substituted her for the personages in the paintings. Wearing a hennin on
her head, she was praying on bended knees before a stained-glass window.
Lady Paramount of Castile or Flanders, she remained seated in a starched
ruff and a body lined with whalebone with big puffs. Then he saw her
descending some wide porphyry staircase in the midst of senators under a
dais of ostriches' feathers in a robe of brocade. At another time he
dreamed of her in yellow silk trousers on the cushions of a harem--and
all that was beautiful, the scintillation of the stars, certain tunes in
music, the turn of a phrase, the outlines of a face, led him to think
about her in an abrupt, unconscious fashion.

As for trying to make her his mistress, he was sure that any such
attempt would be futile.

One evening, Dittmer, on his arrival, kissed her on the forehead;
Lovarias did the same, observing:

"You give me leave--don't you?--as it is a friend's privilege?"

Frederick stammered out:

"It seems to me that we are all friends."

"Not all old friends!" she returned.

This was repelling him beforehand indirectly.

Besides, what was he to do? To tell her that he loved her? No doubt, she
would decline to listen to him or else she would feel indignant and turn
him out of the house. But he preferred to submit to even the most
painful ordeal rather than run the horrible risk of seeing her no more.
He envied pianists for their talents and soldiers for their scars. He
longed for a dangerous attack of sickness, hoping in this way to make
her take an interest in him.

One thing caused astonishment to himself, that he felt in no way jealous
of Arnoux; and he could not picture her in his imagination undressed, so
natural did her modesty appear, and so far did her sex recede into a
mysterious background.

Nevertheless, he dreamed of the happiness of living with her, of
"theeing" and "thouing" her, of passing his hand lingeringly over her
head-bands, or remaining in a kneeling posture on the floor, with both
arms clasped round her waist, so as to drink in her soul through his
eyes. To accomplish this it would be necessary to conquer Fate; and so,
incapable of action, cursing God, and accusing himself of being a
coward, he kept moving restlessly within the confines of his passion
just as a prisoner keeps moving about in his dungeon. The pangs which he
was perpetually enduring were choking him. For hours he would remain
quite motionless, or else he would burst into tears; and one day when he
had not the strength to restrain his emotion, Deslauriers said to him:

"Why, goodness gracious! what's the matter with you?"

Frederick's nerves were unstrung. Deslauriers did not believe a word of
it. At the sight of so much mental anguish, he felt all his old
affection reawakening, and he tried to cheer up his friend. A man like
him to let himself be depressed, what folly! It was all very well while
one was young; but, as one grows older, it is only loss of time.

"You are spoiling my Frederick for me! I want him whom I knew in bygone
days. The same boy as ever! I liked him! Come, smoke a pipe, old chap!
Shake yourself up a little! You drive me mad!"

"It is true," said Frederick, "I am a fool!"

The clerk replied:

"Ah! old troubadour, I know well what's troubling you! A little affair
of the heart? Confess it! Bah! One lost, four found instead! We console
ourselves for virtuous women with the other sort. Would you like me to
introduce you to some women? You have only to come to the Alhambra."

(This was a place for public balls recently opened at the top of the
Champs-Elysées, which had gone down owing to a display of licentiousness
somewhat ruder than is usual in establishments of the kind.)

"That's a place where there seems to be good fun. You can take your
friends, if you like. I can even pass in Regimbart for you."

Frederick did not think fit to ask the Citizen to go. Deslauriers
deprived himself of the pleasure of Sénécal's society. They took only
Hussonnet and Cisy along with Dussardier; and the same hackney-coach set
the group of five down at the entrance of the Alhambra.

Two Moorish galleries extended on the right and on the left, parallel to
one another. The wall of a house opposite occupied the entire backguard;
and the fourth side (that in which the restaurant was) represented a
Gothic cloister with stained-glass windows. A sort of Chinese roof
screened the platform reserved for the musicians. The ground was covered
all over with asphalt; the Venetian lanterns fastened to posts formed,
at regular intervals, crowns of many-coloured flame above the heads of
the dancers. A pedestal here and there supported a stone basin, from
which rose a thin streamlet of water. In the midst of the foliage could
be seen plaster statues, and Hebes and Cupid, painted in oil, and
presenting a very sticky appearance; and the numerous walks, garnished
with sand of a deep yellow, carefully raked, made the garden look much
larger than it was in reality.

Students were walking their mistresses up and down; drapers' clerks
strutted about with canes in their hands; lads fresh from college were
smoking their regalias; old men had their dyed beards smoothed out with
combs. There were English, Russians, men from South America, and three
Orientals in tarbooshes. Lorettes, grisettes, and girls of the town had
come there in the hope of finding a protector, a lover, a gold coin, or
simply for the pleasure of dancing; and their dresses, with tunics of
water-green, cherry-red, or violet, swept along, fluttered between the
ebony-trees and the lilacs. Nearly all the men's clothes were of striped
material; some of them had white trousers, in spite of the coolness of
the evening. The gas was lighted.

Hussonnet was acquainted with a number of the women through his
connection with the fashion-journals and the smaller theatres. He sent
them kisses with the tips of his fingers, and from time to time he
quitted his friends to go and chat with them.

Deslauriers felt jealous of these playful familiarities. He accosted in
a cynical manner a tall, fair-haired girl, in a nankeen costume. After
looking at him with a certain air of sullenness, she said:

"No! I wouldn't trust you, my good fellow!" and turned on her heel.

His next attack was on a stout brunette, who apparently was a little
mad; for she gave a bounce at the very first word he spoke to her,
threatening, if he went any further, to call the police. Deslauriers
made an effort to laugh; then, coming across a little woman sitting by
herself under a gas-lamp, he asked her to be his partner in a quadrille.

The musicians, perched on the platform in the attitude of apes, kept
scraping and blowing away with desperate energy. The conductor, standing
up, kept beating time automatically. The dancers were much crowded and
enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The bonnet-strings, getting loose,
rubbed against the cravats; the boots sank under the petticoats; and all
this bouncing went on to the accompaniment of the music. Deslauriers
hugged the little woman, and, seized with the delirium of the cancan,
whirled about, like a big marionnette, in the midst of the dancers. Cisy
and Deslauriers were still promenading up and down. The young aristocrat
kept ogling the girls, and, in spite of the clerk's exhortations, did
not venture to talk to them, having an idea in his head that in the
resorts of these women there was always "a man hidden in the cupboard
with a pistol who would come out of it and force you to sign a bill of
exchange."

They came back and joined Frederick. Deslauriers had stopped dancing;
and they were all asking themselves how they were to finish up the
evening, when Hussonnet exclaimed:

"Look! Here's the Marquise d'Amaëgui!"

The person referred to was a pale woman with a _retroussé_ nose, mittens
up to her elbows, and big black earrings hanging down her cheeks, like
two dog's ears. Hussonnet said to her:

"We ought to organise a little fête at your house--a sort of Oriental
rout. Try to collect some of your friends here for these French
cavaliers. Well, what is annoying you? Are you going to wait for your
hidalgo?"

The Andalusian hung down her head: being well aware of the by no means
lavish habits of her friend, she was afraid of having to pay for any
refreshments he ordered. When, at length, she let the word "money" slip
from her, Cisy offered five napoleons--all he had in his purse; and so
it was settled that the thing should come off.

But Frederick was absent. He fancied that he had recognised the voice of
Arnoux, and got a glimpse of a woman's hat; and accordingly he hastened
towards an arbour which was not far off.

Mademoiselle Vatnaz was alone there with Arnoux.

"Excuse me! I am in the way?"

"Not in the least!" returned the picture-merchant.

Frederick, from the closing words of their conversation, understood that
Arnoux had come to the Alhambra to talk over a pressing matter of
business with Mademoiselle Vatnaz; and it was evident that he was not
completely reassured, for he said to her, with some uneasiness in his
manner:

"You are quite sure?"

"Perfectly certain! You are loved. Ah! what a man you are!"

And she assumed a pouting look, putting out her big lips, so red that
they seemed tinged with blood. But she had wonderful eyes, of a tawny
hue, with specks of gold in the pupils, full of vivacity, amorousness,
and sensuality. They illuminated, like lamps, the rather yellow tint of
her thin face. Arnoux seemed to enjoy her exhibition of pique. He
stooped over her, saying:

"You are nice--give me a kiss!"

She caught hold of his two ears, and pressed her lips against his
forehead.

At that moment the dancing stopped; and in the conductor's place
appeared a handsome young man, rather fat, with a waxen complexion. He
had long black hair, which he wore in the same fashion as Christ, and a
blue velvet waistcoat embroidered with large gold palm-branches. He
looked as proud as a peacock, and as stupid as a turkey-cock; and,
having bowed to the audience, he began a ditty. A villager was supposed
to be giving an account of his journey to the capital. The singer used
the dialect of Lower Normandy, and played the part of a drunken man. The
refrain--

    "Ah! I laughed at you there, I laughed at you there,
         In that rascally city of Paris!"[4]

was greeted with enthusiastic stampings of feet. Delmas, "a vocalist who
sang with expression," was too shrewd to let the excitement of his
listeners cool. A guitar was quickly handed to him and he moaned forth a
ballad entitled "The Albanian Girl's Brother."

[Footnote 4: _Ah! j'ai l'y ri, j'ai l'y ri. Dans ce gueusard de Paris!_]

The words recalled to Frederick those which had been sung by the man in
rags between the paddle-boxes of the steamboat. His eyes involuntarily
attached themselves to the hem of the dress spread out before him.

After each couplet there was a long pause, and the blowing of the wind
through the trees resembled the sound of the waves.

Mademoiselle Vatnaz blushed the moment she saw Dussardier. She soon
rose, and stretching out her hand towards him:

"You do not remember me, Monsieur Auguste?"

"How do you know her?" asked Frederick.

"We have been in the same house," he replied.

Cisy pulled him by the sleeve; they went out; and, scarcely had they
disappeared, when Madame Vatnaz began to pronounce a eulogy on his
character. She even went so far as to add that he possessed "the genius
of the heart."

Then they chatted about Delmas, admitting that as a mimic he might be a
success on the stage; and a discussion followed in which Shakespeare,
the Censorship, Style, the People, the receipts of the Porte
Saint-Martin, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Dumersan were all mixed
up together.

Arnoux had known many celebrated actresses; the young men bent forward
their heads to hear what he had to say about these ladies. But his words
were drowned in the noise of the music; and, as soon as the quadrille or
the polka was over, they all squatted round the tables, called the
waiter, and laughed. Bottles of beer and of effervescent lemonade went
off with detonations amid the foliage; women clucked like hens; now and
then, two gentlemen tried to fight; and a thief was arrested. The
dancers, in the rush of a gallop, encroached on the walks. Panting, with
flushed, smiling faces, they filed off in a whirlwind which lifted up
the gowns with the coat-tails. The trombones brayed more loudly; the
rhythmic movement became more rapid. Behind the mediæval cloister could
be heard crackling sounds; squibs went off; artificial suns began
turning round; the gleam of the Bengal fires, like emeralds in colour,
lighted up for the space of a minute the entire garden; and, with the
last rocket, a great sigh escaped from the assembled throng.

It slowly died away. A cloud of gunpowder floated into the air.
Frederick and Deslauriers were walking step by step through the midst of
the crowd, when they happened to see something that made them suddenly
stop: Martinon was in the act of paying some money at the place where
umbrellas were left; and he was accompanying a woman of fifty,
plain-looking, magnificently dressed, and of problematic social rank.

"That sly dog," said Deslauriers, "is not so simple as we imagine. But
where in the world is Cisy?"

Dussardier pointed out to them the smoking-divan, where they perceived
the knightly youth, with a bowl of punch before him, and a pink hat by
his side, to keep him company. Hussonnet, who had been away for the past
few minutes, reappeared at the same moment.

A young girl was leaning on his arm, and addressing him in a loud voice
as "My little cat."

"Oh! no!" said he to her--"not in public! Call me rather 'Vicomte.' That
gives you a cavalier style--Louis XIII. and dainty boots--the sort of
thing I like! Yes, my good friends, one of the old _régime_!--nice,
isn't she?"--and he chucked her by the chin--"Salute these gentlemen!
they are all the sons of peers of France. I keep company with them in
order that they may get an appointment for me as an ambassador."

"How insane you are!" sighed Mademoiselle Vatnaz. She asked Dussardier
to see her as far as her own door.

Arnoux watched them going off; then, turning towards Frederick:

"Did you like the Vatnaz? At any rate, you're not quite frank about
these affairs. I believe you keep your amours hidden."

Frederick, turning pale, swore that he kept nothing hidden.

"Can it be possible you don't know what it is to have a mistress?" said
Arnoux.

Frederick felt a longing to mention a woman's name at random. But the
story might be repeated to her. So he replied that as a matter of fact
he had no mistress.

The picture-dealer reproached him for this.

"This evening you had a good opportunity! Why didn't you do like the
others, each of whom went off with a woman?"

"Well, and what about yourself?" said Frederick, provoked by his
persistency.

"Oh! myself--that's quite a different matter, my lad! I go home to my
own one!"

Then he called a cab, and disappeared.

The two friends walked towards their own destination. An east wind was
blowing. They did not exchange a word. Deslauriers was regretting that
he had not succeeded in making a _shine_ before a certain
newspaper-manager, and Frederick was lost once more in his melancholy
broodings. At length, breaking silence, he said that this public-house
ball appeared to him a stupid affair.

"Whose fault is it? If you had not left us, to join that Arnoux of
yours----"

"Bah! anything I could have done would have been utterly useless!"

But the clerk had theories of his own. All that was necessary in order
to get a thing was to desire it strongly.

"Nevertheless, you yourself, a little while ago----"

"I don't care a straw about that sort of thing!" returned Deslauriers,
cutting short Frederick's allusion. "Am I going to get entangled with
women?"

And he declaimed against their affectations, their silly ways--in short,
he disliked them.

"Don't be acting, then!" said Frederick.

Deslauriers became silent. Then, all at once:

"Will you bet me a hundred francs that I won't _do_ the first woman that
passes?"

"Yes--it's a bet!"

The first who passed was a hideous-looking beggar-woman, and they were
giving up all hope of a chance presenting itself when, in the middle of
the Rue de Rivoli, they saw a tall girl with a little bandbox in her
hand.

Deslauriers accosted her under the arcades. She turned up abruptly by
the Tuileries, and soon diverged into the Place du Carrousel. She
glanced to the right and to the left. She ran after a hackney-coach;
Deslauriers overtook her. He walked by her side, talking to her with
expressive gestures. At length, she accepted his arm, and they went on
together along the quays. Then, when they reached the rising ground in
front of the Châtelet, they kept tramping up and down for at least
twenty minutes, like two sailors keeping watch. But, all of a sudden,
they passed over the Pont-au-Change, through the Flower Market, and
along the Quai Napoléon. Frederick came up behind them. Deslauriers gave
him to understand that he would be in their way, and had only to follow
his own example.

"How much have you got still?"

"Two hundred sous pieces."

"That's enough--good night to you!"

Frederick was seized with the astonishment one feels at seeing a piece
of foolery coming to a successful issue.

"He has the laugh at me," was his reflection. "Suppose I went back
again?"

Perhaps Deslauriers imagined that he was envious of this paltry love!
"As if I had not one a hundred times more rare, more noble, more
absorbing." He felt a sort of angry feeling impelling him onward. He
arrived in front of Madame Arnoux's door.

None of the outer windows belonged to her apartment. Nevertheless, he
remained with his eyes pasted on the front of the house--as if he
fancied he could, by his contemplation, break open the walls. No doubt,
she was now sunk in repose, tranquil as a sleeping flower, with her
beautiful black hair resting on the lace of the pillow, her lips
slightly parted, and one arm under her head. Then Arnoux's head rose
before him, and he rushed away to escape from this vision.

The advice which Deslauriers had given to him came back to his memory.
It only filled him with horror. Then he walked about the streets in a
vagabond fashion.

When a pedestrian approached, he tried to distinguish the face. From
time to time a ray of light passed between his legs, tracing a great
quarter of a circle on the pavement; and in the shadow a man appeared
with his dosser and his lantern. The wind, at certain points, made the
sheet-iron flue of a chimney shake. Distant sounds reached his ears,
mingling with the buzzing in his brain; and it seemed to him that he was
listening to the indistinct flourish of quadrille music. His movements
as he walked on kept up this illusion. He found himself on the Pont de
la Concorde.

Then he recalled that evening in the previous winter, when, as he left
her house for the first time, he was forced to stand still, so rapidly
did his heart beat with the hopes that held it in their clasp. And now
they had all withered!

Dark clouds were drifting across the face of the moon. He gazed at it,
musing on the vastness of space, the wretchedness of life, the
nothingness of everything. The day dawned; his teeth began to chatter,
and, half-asleep, wet with the morning mist, and bathed in tears, he
asked himself, Why should I not make an end of it? All that was
necessary was a single movement. The weight of his forehead dragged him
along--he beheld his own dead body floating in the water. Frederick
stooped down. The parapet was rather wide, and it was through pure
weariness that he did not make the attempt to leap over it.

Then a feeling of dismay swept over him. He reached the boulevards once
more, and sank down upon a seat. He was aroused by some police-officers,
who were convinced that he had been indulging a little too freely.

He resumed his walk. But, as he was exceedingly hungry, and as all the
restaurants were closed, he went to get a "snack" at a tavern by the
fish-markets; after which, thinking it too soon to go in yet, he kept
sauntering about the Hôtel de Ville till a quarter past eight.

Deslauriers had long since got rid of his wench; and he was writing at
the table in the middle of his room. About four o'clock, M. de Cisy came
in.

Thanks to Dussardier, he had enjoyed the society of a lady the night
before; and he had even accompanied her home in the carriage with her
husband to the very threshold of their house, where she had given him an
assignation. He parted with her without even knowing her name.

"And what do you propose that I should do in that way?" said Frederick.

Thereupon the young gentleman began to cudgel his brains to think of a
suitable woman; he mentioned Mademoiselle Vatnaz, the Andalusian, and
all the rest. At length, with much circumlocution, he stated the object
of his visit. Relying on the discretion of his friend, he came to aid
him in taking an important step, after which he might definitely regard
himself as a man; and Frederick showed no reluctance. He told the story
to Deslauriers without relating the facts with reference to himself
personally.

The clerk was of opinion that he was now going on very well. This
respect for his advice increased his good humour. He owed to that
quality his success, on the very first night he met her, with
Mademoiselle Clémence Daviou, embroideress in gold for military outfits,
the sweetest creature that ever lived, as slender as a reed, with large
blue eyes, perpetually staring with wonder. The clerk had taken
advantage of her credulity to such an extent as to make her believe that
he had been decorated. At their private conversations he had his
frock-coat adorned with a red ribbon, but divested himself of it in
public in order, as he put it, not to humiliate his master. However, he
kept her at a distance, allowed himself to be fawned upon, like a pasha,
and, in a laughing sort of way, called her "daughter of the people."
Every time they met, she brought him little bunches of violets.
Frederick would not have cared for a love affair of this sort.

Meanwhile, whenever they set forth arm-in-arm to visit Pinson's or
Barillot's circulating library, he experienced a feeling of singular
depression. Frederick did not realise how much pain he had made
Deslauriers endure for the past year, while brushing his nails before
going out to dine in the Rue de Choiseul!

One evening, when from the commanding position in which his balcony
stood, he had just been watching them as they went out together, he saw
Hussonnet, some distance off, on the Pont d'Arcole. The Bohemian began
calling him by making signals towards him, and, when Frederick had
descended the five flights of stairs:

"Here is the thing--it is next Saturday, the 24th, Madame Arnoux's
feast-day."

"How is that, when her name is Marie?"

"And Angèle also--no matter! They will entertain their guests at their
country-house at Saint-Cloud. I was told to give you due notice about
it. You'll find a vehicle at the magazine-office at three o'clock. So
that makes matters all right! Excuse me for having disturbed you! But I
have such a number of calls to make!"

Frederick had scarcely turned round when his door-keeper placed a letter
in his hand:

"Monsieur and Madame Dambreuse beg of Monsieur F. Moreau to do them the
honour to come and dine with them on Saturday the 24th inst.--R.S.V.P."

"Too late!" he said to himself. Nevertheless, he showed the letter to
Deslauriers, who exclaimed:

"Ha! at last! But you don't look as if you were satisfied. Why?"

After some little hesitation, Frederick said that he had another
invitation for the same day.

"Be kind enough to let me run across to the Rue de Choiseul. I'm not
joking! I'll answer this for you if it puts you about."

And the clerk wrote an acceptance of the invitation in the third person.

Having seen nothing of the world save through the fever of his desires,
he pictured it to himself as an artificial creation discharging its
functions by virtue of mathematical laws. A dinner in the city, an
accidental meeting with a man in office, a smile from a pretty woman,
might, by a series of actions deducing themselves from one another, have
gigantic results. Certain Parisian drawing-rooms were like those
machines which take a material in the rough and render it a hundred
times more valuable. He believed in courtesans advising diplomatists, in
wealthy marriages brought about by intrigues, in the cleverness of
convicts, in the capacity of strong men for getting the better of
fortune. In short, he considered it so useful to visit the Dambreuses,
and talked about it so plausibly, that Frederick was at a loss to know
what was the best course to take.

The least he ought to do, as it was Madame Arnoux's feast-day, was to
make her a present. He naturally thought of a parasol, in order to make
reparation for his awkwardness. Now he came across a shot-silk parasol
with a little carved ivory handle, which had come all the way from
China. But the price of it was a hundred and seventy-five francs, and he
had not a sou, having in fact to live on the credit of his next
quarter's allowance. However, he wished to get it; he was determined to
have it; and, in spite of his repugnance to doing so, he had recourse to
Deslauriers.

Deslauriers answered Frederick's first question by saying that he had no
money.

"I want some," said Frederick--"I want some very badly!"

As the other made the same excuse over again, he flew into a passion.

"You might find it to your advantage some time----"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh! nothing."

The clerk understood. He took the sum required out of his reserve-fund,
and when he had counted out the money, coin by coin:

"I am not asking you for a receipt, as I see you have a lot of expense!"

Frederick threw himself on his friend's neck with a thousand
affectionate protestations. Deslauriers received this display of emotion
frigidly. Then, next morning, noticing the parasol on the top of the
piano:

"Ah! it was for that!"

"I will send it, perhaps," said Frederick, with an air of carelessness.

Good fortune was on his side, for that evening he got a note with a
black border from Madame Dambreuse announcing to him that she had lost
an uncle, and excusing herself for having to defer till a later period
the pleasure of making his acquaintance. At two o'clock, he reached the
office of the art journal. Instead of waiting for him in order to drive
him in his carriage, Arnoux had left the city the night before, unable
to resist his desire to get some fresh air.

Every year it was his custom, as soon as the leaves were budding forth,
to start early in the morning and to remain away several days, making
long journeys across the fields, drinking milk at the farm-houses,
romping with the village girls, asking questions about the harvest, and
carrying back home with him stalks of salad in his pocket-handkerchief.
At length, in order to realise a long-cherished dream of his, he had
bought a country-house.

While Frederick was talking to the picture-dealer's clerk, Mademoiselle
Vatnaz suddenly made her appearance, and was disappointed at not seeing
Arnoux. He would, perhaps, be remaining away two days longer. The clerk
advised her "to go there"--she could not go there; to write a
letter--she was afraid that the letter might get lost. Frederick offered
to be the bearer of it himself. She rapidly scribbled off a letter, and
implored of him to let nobody see him delivering it.

Forty minutes afterwards, he found himself at Saint-Cloud. The house,
which was about a hundred paces farther away than the bridge, stood
half-way up the hill. The garden-walls were hidden by two rows of
linden-trees, and a wide lawn descended to the bank of the river. The
railed entrance before the door was open, and Frederick went in.

Arnoux, stretched on the grass, was playing with a litter of kittens.
This amusement appeared to absorb him completely. Mademoiselle Vatnaz's
letter drew him out of his sleepy idleness.

"The deuce! the deuce!--this is a bore! She is right, though; I must
go."

Then, having stuck the missive into his pocket, he showed the young man
through the grounds with manifest delight. He pointed out
everything--the stable, the cart-house, the kitchen. The drawing-room
was at the right, on the side facing Paris, and looked out on a floored
arbour, covered over with clematis. But presently a few harmonious notes
burst forth above their heads: Madame Arnoux, fancying that there was
nobody near, was singing to amuse herself. She executed quavers,
trills, arpeggios. There were long notes which seemed to remain
suspended in the air; others fell in a rushing shower like the spray of
a waterfall; and her voice passing out through the Venetian blind, cut
its way through the deep silence and rose towards the blue sky. She
ceased all at once, when M. and Madame Oudry, two neighbours, presented
themselves.

Then she appeared herself at the top of the steps in front of the house;
and, as she descended, he caught a glimpse of her foot. She wore little
open shoes of reddish-brown leather, with three straps crossing each
other so as to draw just above her stockings a wirework of gold.

Those who had been invited arrived. With the exception of Maître
Lefaucheur, an advocate, they were the same guests who came to the
Thursday dinners. Each of them had brought some present--Dittmer a
Syrian scarf, Rosenwald a scrap-book of ballads, Burieu a water-colour
painting, Sombary one of his own caricatures, and Pellerin a
charcoal-drawing, representing a kind of dance of death, a hideous
fantasy, the execution of which was rather poor. Hussonnet dispensed
with the formality of a present.

Frederick was waiting to offer his, after the others.

She thanked him very much for it. Thereupon, he said:

"Why, 'tis almost a debt. I have been so much annoyed----"

"At what, pray?" she returned. "I don't understand."

"Come! dinner is waiting!" said Arnoux, catching hold of his arm; then
in a whisper: "You are not very knowing, certainly!"

Nothing could well be prettier than the dining-room, painted in
water-green. At one end, a nymph of stone was dipping her toe in a basin
formed like a shell. Through the open windows the entire garden could be
seen with the long lawn flanked by an old Scotch fir, three-quarters
stripped bare; groups of flowers swelled it out in unequal plots; and at
the other side of the river extended in a wide semi-circle the Bois de
Boulogne, Neuilly, Sèvres, and Meudon. Before the railed gate in front a
canoe with sail outspread was tacking about.

They chatted first about the view in front of them, then about scenery
in general; and they were beginning to plunge into discussions when
Arnoux, at half-past nine o'clock, ordered the horse to be put to the
carriage.

"Would you like me to go back with you?" said Madame Arnoux.

"Why, certainly!" and, making her a graceful bow: "You know well,
madame, that it is impossible to live without you!"

Everyone congratulated her on having so good a husband.

"Ah! it is because I am not the only one," she replied quietly, pointing
towards her little daughter.

Then, the conversation having turned once more on painting, there was
some talk about a Ruysdaél, for which Arnoux expected a big sum, and
Pellerin asked him if it were true that the celebrated Saul Mathias from
London had come over during the past month to make him an offer of
twenty-three thousand francs for it.

"'Tis a positive fact!" and turning towards Frederick: "That was the
very same gentleman I brought with me a few days ago to the Alhambra,
much against my will, I assure you, for these English are by no means
amusing companions."

Frederick, who suspected that Mademoiselle Vatnaz's letter contained
some reference to an intrigue, was amazed at the facility with which my
lord Arnoux found a way of passing it off as a perfectly honourable
transaction; but his new lie, which was quite needless, made the young
man open his eyes in speechless astonishment.

The picture-dealer added, with an air of simplicity:

"What's the name, by-the-by, of that young fellow, your friend?"

"Deslauriers," said Frederick quickly.

And, in order to repair the injustice which he felt he had done to his
comrade, he praised him as one who possessed remarkable ability.

"Ah! indeed? But he doesn't look such a fine fellow as the other--the
clerk in the wagon-office."

Frederick bestowed a mental imprecation on Dussardier. She would now be
taking it for granted that he associated with the common herd.

Then they began to talk about the ornamentation of the capital--the new
districts of the city--and the worthy Oudry happened to refer to M.
Dambreuse as one of the big speculators.

Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity to make a good figure,
said he was acquainted with that gentleman. But Pellerin launched into a
harangue against shopkeepers--he saw no difference between them, whether
they were sellers of candles or of money. Then Rosenwald and Burieu
talked about old china; Arnoux chatted with Madame Oudry about
gardening; Sombary, a comical character of the old school, amused
himself by chaffing her husband, referring to him sometimes as "Odry,"
as if he were the actor of that name, and remarking that he must be
descended from Oudry, the dog-painter, seeing that the bump of the
animals was visible on his forehead. He even wanted to feel M. Oudry's
skull; but the latter excused himself on account of his wig; and the
dessert ended with loud bursts of laughter.

When they had taken their coffee, while they smoked, under the
linden-trees, and strolled about the garden for some time, they went out
for a walk along the river.

The party stopped in front of a fishmonger's shop, where a man was
washing eels. Mademoiselle Marthe wanted to look at them. He emptied the
box in which he had them out on the grass; and the little girl threw
herself on her knees in order to catch them, laughed with delight, and
then began to scream with terror. They all got spoiled, and Arnoux paid
for them.

He next took it into his head to go out for a sail in the cutter.

One side of the horizon was beginning to assume a pale aspect, while on
the other side a wide strip of orange colour showed itself in the sky,
deepening into purple at the summits of the hills, which were steeped in
shadow. Madame Arnoux seated herself on a big stone with this glittering
splendour at her back. The other ladies sauntered about here and there.
Hussonnet, at the lower end of the river's bank, went making ducks and
drakes over the water.

Arnoux presently returned, followed by a weather-beaten long boat, into
which, in spite of the most prudent remonstrances, he packed his
guests. The boat got upset, and they had to go ashore again.

By this time wax-tapers were burning in the drawing-room, all hung with
chintz, and with branched candlesticks of crystal fixed close to the
walls. Mère Oudry was sleeping comfortably in an armchair, and the
others were listening to M. Lefaucheux expatiating on the glories of the
Bar. Madame Arnoux was sitting by herself near the window. Frederick
came over to her.

They chatted about the remarks which were being made in their vicinity.
She admired oratory; he preferred the renown gained by authors. But, she
ventured to suggest, it must give a man greater pleasure to move crowds
directly by addressing them in person, face to face, than it does to
infuse into their souls by his pen all the sentiments that animate his
own. Such triumphs as these did not tempt Frederick much, as he had no
ambition.

Then he broached the subject of sentimental adventures. She spoke
pityingly of the havoc wrought by passion, but expressed indignation at
hypocritical vileness, and this rectitude of spirit harmonised so well
with the regular beauty of her face that it seemed indeed as if her
physical attractions were the outcome of her moral nature.

She smiled, every now and then, letting her eyes rest on him for a
minute. Then he felt her glances penetrating his soul like those great
rays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water. He loved
her without mental reservation, without any hope of his love being
returned, unconditionally; and in those silent transports, which were
like outbursts of gratitude, he would fain have covered her forehead
with a rain of kisses. However, an inspiration from within carried him
beyond himself--he felt moved by a longing for self-sacrifice, an
imperative impulse towards immediate self-devotion, and all the stronger
from the fact that he could not gratify it.

He did not leave along with the rest. Neither did Hussonnet. They were
to go back in the carriage; and the vehicle was waiting just in front of
the steps when Arnoux rushed down and hurried into the garden to gather
some flowers there. Then the bouquet having been tied round with a
thread, as the stems fell down unevenly, he searched in his pocket,
which was full of papers, took out a piece at random, wrapped them up,
completed his handiwork with the aid of a strong pin, and then offered
it to his wife with a certain amount of tenderness.

"Look here, my darling! Excuse me for having forgotten you!"

But she uttered a little scream: the pin, having been awkwardly fixed,
had cut her, and she hastened up to her room. They waited nearly a
quarter of an hour for her. At last, she reappeared, carried off Marthe,
and threw herself into the carriage.

"And your bouquet?" said Arnoux.

"No! no--it is not w

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