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 PF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS 
 
 DOMESTIC DEAMAS 
 
 (DRAMES DE FAMILLE)
 
 DOMESTIC DEAMAS 
 
 (DRAMES DE FAMILLE) 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL BOURGET 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 WILLIAM MARCHANT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1900 

 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Norfoooto 13rtB3 
 
 J. 8. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood MM*. U.S.A.
 
 2T0 JHg JJttenti 
 GEORGES SAINT-RENE-TAILLANDIER 
 
 2125866
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 nun 
 I. THE DAY OF RECKONING 1 
 
 II. OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 83 
 
 I. A Parisian Family : the Husband . . 85 
 
 II. A Parisian Family : the Wife . . .100 
 
 III. A Parisian Family : the Daughter . . 119 
 
 IV. The Cost of the Show 138 
 
 V. Mme. Le Prieux's " Day " . . . .167 
 
 VI. Charles Huguenin 191 
 
 VII. Revelations 212 
 
 VIII. Hector Le Prieux's Plan . . . .252 
 
 IX. Epilogue 274 
 
 III. CHILDREN'S HEARTS 281 
 
 I. The Talisman 283 
 
 II. Precocious Feelings ..... 326 
 
 III. Resurrection . 348
 
 I 
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING
 
 DOMESTIC DRAMAS 
 I 
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 WHEN a history of ideas in France in the nineteenth 
 century is written, one of the periods most difficult fitly 
 to characterize will be that of the generation immedi- 
 ately succeeding the war of 1870. Never, indeed, did 
 more contradictory influences act simultaneously in the 
 guidance of human minds. The young men who entered 
 upon life at that date met in those next older than them- 
 selves the whole sum of philosophic conceptions elabo- 
 rated under the Second Empire. M. Taine and M. Renan 
 were the two most illustrious representatives of these 
 doctrines. This is not the place to mention them in 
 detail. We need only remember that an absolute faith 
 in Science was, so to speak, their basis, and that the 
 dogma of necessity pervaded the work of these masters 
 from beginning to end, in formulas more sharply distinct 
 with Taine, more subtly disguised with Eenan. Whether 
 
 3
 
 4 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 or not they desired it, their teaching resulted in complete 
 fatalism. The historian of English Literature taught us 
 to regard all civilization as the product of race, of the 
 environment, and of the period; and the author of the 
 Life of Jesus showed us the evolution of religious thought 
 throughout the centuries as ruled by natural laws no less 
 fixed than those which govern the development of an 
 animal or vegetable species. These hypotheses may be 
 reconciled, in mature minds, with energetic action and a 
 recognition of the moral law. But for the young there 
 resulted from them only pessimism and agnosticism, and 
 this precisely at an hour when the disasters of war and 
 of the Commune had smitten the country so severely and 
 forced upon every man's conscience the evidence of his 
 duty to the community, his obligation to direct and use- 
 ful effort. The contrast was too sharp between the theo- 
 ries of our most loved and admired masters, and the 
 necessity of action which the country's disaster laid, 
 despite ourselves, upon our hearts ; and one, at least, of 
 the two great writers I have just mentioned, felt this 
 himself. Had not M. Taine dreaded the paralyzing influ- 
 ence of his work, would he have devoted his mature 
 age to those exhaustive studies in contemporary history 
 which make his magnificent last work the political brev- 
 iary of all good Frenchmen? It took him a quarter- 
 century of persistent labour to effect a reconciliation 
 between Faith and Science, between civic morals and 
 psychology, between the fabric of his philosophy and
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 5 
 
 national realities. Such a problem was not within our 
 scope at twenty years of age. We saw, on the one 
 hand, France stricken down. We felt the responsibility 
 which lay upon us as to her future recovery or ruin. 
 Eecognizing the crisis, we desired to act. On the other 
 hand, a doctrine of despair, impregnated with the most 
 nihilistic determinism, discouraged us in advance. The 
 divorce was absolute between one's intellect and one's 
 emotional nature. Most of us, if we will look back, will 
 perceive that the task of our youth was to reconcile a 
 contradiction from which there are those who suffer even 
 now, although life has brought to us all its inevitable 
 discipline which consists in making us accept these 
 inconsistencies as the natural condition of modern souls, 
 made up of elements too incongruous ever to be entirely 
 simplified. 
 
 A strange youth it was that found its keenest pleas- 
 ures in the discussion of abstract ideas ! In relating an 
 episode of this period it has seemed to me needful to 
 give its moral tonality by this reference to the conditions 
 of intellectual anxiety under which we lived in our youth. 
 The domestic drama which I am about to relate would be, 
 by itself, merely an incident a little less commonplace, 
 perhaps, than most incidents. But my friend who was 
 its hero and its victim had, in a very high degree, 
 this character common to our generation: with him, 
 the problems of daily life transformed themselves at 
 once into problems of thought, and this incident became
 
 6 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 for him a crisis of truly tragic responsibility. Did lie 
 take a very lucid view of the situation in which he 
 found himself involved ? Or did he give to events, in 
 themselves peculiarly sad, an altogether arbitrary sig- 
 nificance, and decide in the direction of excessive scru- 
 pulousness a question certainly very painful ? I myself 
 a troubled looker-on have passed through two very 
 different states of opinion in regard to my friend and the 
 decision which he made. At the time when these events 
 of which I speak took place, I had adopted it as an 
 indisputable axiom that there is in nature no trace what- 
 ever of a personal will. Hence, I had no faith in that 
 secret logic of chance which religious people call Provi- 
 dence, and the positivist defines, not less obscurely, as 
 immanent justice. The tragedy which, to my friend's 
 view, revealed an avenging power, always ready to reach 
 the criminal through the unexpected results of his crime, 
 to me was one of the innumerable freaks of chance. 
 Experience has now shown me how true was Napoleon's 
 saying, at Saint Helena, " Tout se paie " ; it has shown 
 me by what circuitous paths punishment follows and 
 overtakes the wrong-doing, and that chance is usually 
 only an unlooked-for form of the expiation. I incline, 
 therefore, to believe with Eugene Corbieres this was 
 my schoolmate's name that the drama to which these 
 over-long reflections are a prologue, was really one of 
 those payments of debt in which the Emperor believed. 
 This one was obscure and humble. Sometimes they are
 
 THE DAY OP RECKONING 7 
 
 conspicuous and resound afar. It is possible that the 
 spirit of justice which governs human things appears 
 more formidable in its more obscure acts. 
 
 I have said that Corbieres was my schoolmate. We 
 had known each other at the lycee Louis-le-Grand, when 
 we were both day-scholars ; but our acquaintance was 
 nothing more than a reason for tutoiement. We had 
 heard the same lecturers, learned the same lessons, put 
 the same material into Latin verse, for a number of years, 
 without having spoken to each other, except to say " good 
 morning," and " good night." We made the discovery 
 of each other, as schoolmates often do, after we were out 
 of school, and after having entered upon paths which 
 were widely dissimilar. But we both brought to our 
 respective pursuits in themselves so different that one 
 might say they were diametrically opposite that same 
 anxiety as to the problems of our time, that same 
 need of harmonizing intellectual determinism with civic 
 action which seems to me the peculiar characteristic 
 of our generation. It was in the spring of 1873 that 
 this renewal of acquaintance took place, as the result of 
 a meeting that can hardly be attributed to anything but 
 chance. Its least details are present to my mind with 
 extreme precision. I was coming out of a cafe', now 
 destroyed, which once occupied the corner of the rue 
 de Vaugirard, opposite the Luxembourg and the Ode'on. 
 Little groups of young writers, now dispersed, were accus- 
 tomed to meet there, who had the ingenuous whim of
 
 8 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 calling themselves the " Living Ones." I felt myself a 
 man of letters, in that I spent several hours daily in the 
 merry and paradoxical society of these amiable compan- 
 ions, who left the deepest part of my intellect unsatis- 
 fied. They were, all of them, literary artists exclusively, 
 some of them already distinguished, while I, even 
 then, cared more for analysis than for style and for 
 psychology than for aesthetics. When I left them, I was 
 always dissatisfied with myself first, because I had 
 been talking instead of working, and further, because 
 the feeling of their personality, too opposite to mine, 
 made me doubt my own. 
 
 I can see myself, that afternoon, about three o'clock, 
 entering the garden of the Luxembourg, and walking 
 along the avenue, a prey to that melancholy of men- 
 tal solitude so intense with the young. I can see 
 Corbieres coming from the opposite direction, and 
 accosting me with one of those cordial smiles which, 
 in the case of old schoolmates, are addressed less to 
 the individual than to that common past for which 
 one has already begun to feel some faint regret. 
 Thereupon we begin making inquiries of each other, 
 as we walk a few steps together. I tell Corbieres 
 that I have taken up literature. He tells me that 
 he has taken up medicine, and in the course of this 
 conversation, which might easily have been altogether 
 superficial in its character, he explains to me this 
 choice of a career by motives so peculiar and so much
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 9 
 
 like my own habitual turn of mind, that, on the moment, 
 I was his friend. At the age where we then were, 
 certain resemblances in ways of thinking are equiva- 
 lent to years of intimacy. 
 
 " My father and mother," he said, " desired to have 
 me study law after my military service. My father 
 was, for thirty years, usher at the Ministry of the 
 Interior. He resigned a year ago. He adores the 
 administration. He saw me, in advance, sub-prefect. 
 I should be of his own type. Fortunately, he is very 
 good to me, and so is my mother. If I will always 
 stay with them, they are satisfied. When I announced 
 my wish to study medicine, they were rather surprised, 
 of course, but they gave their consent. I alleged as a 
 pretext that with the present instability in political 
 affairs, civil office no longer offered the same guarantees 
 as during the Empire. My true reason I did not give. 
 The dear old people have no other philosophy than 
 that of the heart. They would not have understood 
 my point of view ; but you will understand. What 
 decided me to follow this path you may think it 
 singular was the need of certainty. My personal 
 taste would have led me to more abstract studies. I 
 should have entered the licole Normale, and pursued 
 the study of metaphysics, but I had read Kant and 
 Taine's V Intelligence, and it appeared to me that the 
 subject, in the philosophic sciences, is far too much 
 beset with doubts. My mind is, I may say, hungry
 
 10 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 and thirsty for something certain, unquestionable. The 
 natural sciences give this. Then I reflected. I do 
 not know how you stand as to moral convictions ; I 
 myself am absolutely an agnostic. It is my opinion 
 that we cannot know whether there is a God to 
 take the simplest formula or not; whether there is 
 Good or Evil, or not; merit or demerit, or not; a 
 future life, or not. And still we must act. I, at 
 least, feel obliged to act, especially since the war. 
 I feel as I should in a storm, upon a vessel that 
 was in danger. It is a shame not to be of use, 
 if you can be. I recalled Pascal's argument, you 
 remember, of the wager. I said to myself, which is 
 there among the natural sciences that is capable of a 
 practical application of such a kind that under any 
 hypothesis it will be worth while ? It seemed to me 
 that medicine, regarded nobly, answered to this pro- 
 gramme. Look at it from either point of view. Sup- 
 pose demonstrated all theories of a soul go further, 
 say all Christian theories. What is duty? To relieve 
 suffering. The physician does this. Suppose all the 
 opposing theories demonstrated. To what, then, is 
 morality reduced ? To an altruistic instinct which 
 must be recognized and gratified, like all the other 
 instincts, and consists in a need of associating our- 
 selves with our kind, aiding them and being aided by 
 them in the presence of hostile nature. Who performs 
 this task better than the physician? He is, par
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 11 
 
 excellence, the altruist. He is right, whatever be the 
 metaphysical postulate that we adopt. And the proof 
 is, that since I was first matriculated and crossed 
 the threshold of the hospital, I have enjoyed a kind 
 of tranquillity before unknown. I have had the evi- 
 dence that, mentally and morally, my feet were on 
 solid ground, that I could walk safely. Since then, I 
 have never doubted it." 
 
 It was iery striking to look at Corbieres while he 
 thus spoke. The flame of thought transfigured his irreg- 
 ular and rather ugly features. This son of a petty 
 employee of government betrayed, in his very build, 
 that half-peasant, half-townsman heredity which has 
 neither the integrity of rustic strength nor the refine- 
 ment of the true city-bred race. He had big bones 
 and small muscles, coarse features and impoverished 
 blood. The beauty of the eyes and the mouth cor- 
 rected the paltriness of the face. It was a mouth of 
 charming goodness, which sMiled with free ingenuous- 
 ness, and they were blue eyes of such loyalty that it 
 seemed impossible that the man who looked at you like 
 that could ever lie. Withal, a taking voice, in which 
 vibrated the ardour of inmost conviction. Does it need 
 more, to explain the profound impression produced upon 
 me by what he said, which I give textually as he said 
 it? I wrote it down that very evening in my journal 
 of that time, with many other details needless to relate, 
 in which I find indices of the lightning stroke of enthu-
 
 12 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 siasm that struck me there, under the leafy trees of 
 the old garden. I imagine I hope that to-day, as 
 then, those peaceful avenues, along which stand statues 
 of queens and busts of poets, serve as the theatre for 
 conversations between young men, of the same high 
 bent with this one, whose remote memory I recall. 
 Hours like these I am glad to remember, from an ill- 
 governed youth; these, and, with them, the naive plas- 
 ticity of soul capable of noble infatuations, like that 
 which made me, the very same afternoon, abandon other 
 plans to accompany Eugene to his home. No sooner 
 were we there, than he proposed, in turn, to go home with 
 me. It was after dark when we separated, after 
 having, in this interminable conversation, touched on 
 all subjects of human thought, and agreed to meet in 
 the morning. I was to accompany my comrade to the 
 Pitie, where he attended the clinic. 
 
 " I believe," I said to him, grasping his hand, " that 
 I shall do as you have done, and study medicine." 
 
 I did not study medicine, and this sudden resolution 
 to imitate Corbieres was reduced to a few visits to the 
 hospital, which had at least the good effect of bringing 
 me into the presence of realities a contact of which 
 I had most need. My , error, which was that of so 
 many young men led astray by a precocious ambition 
 to write, consisted in making literature an end, while 
 it is in truth only a result. I was trying to compose 
 romances, and I had observed nothing; poetry, and I
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 13 
 
 had experienced nothing. The great service to be ren- 
 dered me was to draw me out of the altogether arti- 
 ficial, bookish surroundings in which I was becoming 
 more and more enfeebled, and show me human nature, 
 simple and needy, life, humble and narrow, but true. 
 This service Eugene did me unconsciously, and in two 
 ways : first, by these salutary visits to the Pitie, and 
 then by giving me access to the home life of his family, 
 that original and mysterious home life, in which, for a 
 long time, I saw only the picturesque. The mystery 
 was visible to me later. 
 
 The elder Corbieres, with their son, lived in the 
 third story of a very old house in a very old street 
 near the Pantheon. This street, formerly rue du 
 Puits-qui-parle has nothing modern about it except 
 its more recent name of rue Amyot. Not a house 
 in it appears to have changed inmates since that 
 remote period when the Scottish and Irish colleges, 
 of which the frontal inscriptions remain to this day, 
 flourished there side by side. In my occasional pil- 
 grimages thither, I still find the place exactly as it was 
 twenty-five years ago. The uneven paving-stones, over 
 which carriages rarely risk themselves, are still rimmed 
 with verdure, as in some little country town. Branches 
 of trees still stretch out over garden walls ; concierges 
 still hold upon the sidewalk long sessions of open-air 
 work and gossip with tenants of the ground-floor ; and 
 children play ball and diable without having to fear the
 
 14 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 abrupt passage of vehicles. The irregular houses, of dif- 
 ferent dates and styles, show that the quarter grew like 
 a creation of nature, slowly, usefully, as it was needed, 
 and not by one of those municipal edicts which impress 
 upon new Paris a stamp of universal monotony. No 
 frame was more appropriate to the set, rigid faces of 
 my friend's parents. The retired employee, who came 
 himself to open the door when a visitor rang the bell, 
 was a man of fifty-eight, very straight and very thin, 
 with an inexplicable face which had nothing expressive 
 in it except the eyes, blue like his son's, but with a 
 singular brilliancy, in which I discern, at this distance, 
 the hidden fever of a constant remorse. At that time 
 I was disposed to see in it only the ardour of a paternal 
 idolatry of which I have never seen a second example. 
 This worthy old fellow, whose life had been spent 
 in an anteroom in the place Beauvau, in a chimney- 
 corner heated at the expense of the tax-payers in 
 making petitioners endure delays, seemed to have found 
 in his son all the compensations of his wearisome exist- 
 ence. To judge by the humble apartment, the simple 
 furniture, the dress of both father and mother, the 
 resources of the household must have been extremely 
 slender. And yet never had a book been refused to 
 Eugene for his studies, and never had the father been 
 willing that the student of medicine should be distracted 
 from his studies for an hour to give a lesson, to write 
 for some little newspaper, in a word, to earn money
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 15 
 
 in any way. The intensity of his affection made him 
 comprehend that for a future savant the years of youth 
 have triple value, and that the entire command of one's 
 time during that period is the most precious of ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 " 1 say to Eugene," he would often repeat, " ' Don't 
 think of us. Our happiness is to be with you.' I 
 should not be a Picard si je n'appendais pas avec mon 
 fieu." He had retained from his native place, which 
 was Peronne, some patois phrases that he loved to 
 use, with a pretence of being a peasant. "He must 
 become a famous man," he would add; "and he will. 
 I have always thought so, ever since he was in school, 
 monsieur. See his prizes ! There are eighty-seven 
 volumes." 
 
 And with a hand callous from his humble labours, 
 the father pointed out to me the rows of books in a 
 mahogany bookcase with glass doors securely locked. 
 All the story of his devotion to his son clung about 
 those miserable prize volumes, which the old man would 
 sometimes call simplicity ! his " patents of nobil- 
 ity." You can trace the steps of the boy's progress : 
 the child goes to the clerical school of the neighbour- 
 hood; he is intelligent, he learns rapidly. "It would 
 be a pity that he should not go on," says the Superior. 
 The parents consult together. "Bah! we can do with 
 less tobacco and sugar. We can dispense with the char- 
 woman." The boy is sent to the lyce*e near by. He
 
 16 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 does well. It had been intended to take him away 
 after the fourth year and the examination in grammar. 
 Then comes his success at the concours. He must go on, 
 as far as the baccalaureate. The rest follows. Habits 
 of the severest economy were manifest by many signs in 
 the household. Of course it was the father who under- 
 took the heavier work polishing the floors, rubbing the 
 furniture, chopping wood, emptying water, even mak- 
 ing the beds. He had evidently given up his place 
 at the office that his son might be better served. His 
 red face had a skin honeycombed, as it were, with wide 
 wrinkles, of which each one bore witness to the endur- 
 ance, the persistency, of a rude and substantial race. 
 An extreme neatness also a trait of his native coun- 
 try, on the confines of Flanders prevailed in the six 
 rooms that composed the apartment, namely : a kitchen, 
 an entry, the bedroom of the parents, a dining room, 
 a parlour, which quickly became Eugene's study, and 
 the son's bedroom. Thus the student had the occu- 
 pancy of more than a third of the humble suite, and, 
 as a matter of course, the portion that was the largest and 
 most airy, with windows looking out into gardens, and 
 also the only part that was almost luxuriously furnished. 
 My comrade accepted all that was done for him partly, 
 it must be owned, with the egoism natural to those who 
 are working hard, but chiefly, with the idea that his 
 future was preparing an ample compensation for his par- 
 ents' present sacrifices. How often have I heard him say,
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 17 
 
 when I tried to drag him off on some excursion or to 
 some place of amusement : " I cannot. I must think of 
 my old people." 
 
 I knew well enough that his " old people," as he called 
 them, with loving familiarity, would never have said a 
 word of blame to him, in whatever way he might have 
 spent his afternoon or evening. No. What he meant by 
 that was the expression of his own passionate desire to 
 merit their admirable devotion. And he was all the more 
 industrious, because he suspected in them a strange apti- 
 tude for suffering. It was very true, this most excellent 
 couple did not seem to live in that atmosphere of cheer- 
 fulness of which their devotion, prolonged through so 
 many years, rendered them worthy. On the reddened 
 forehead of the father, where projecting veins marked in 
 the temples the strong current of the blood, there seemed 
 to weigh a constant anxiety. Did he fear that he might 
 die before his work was finished, before he had seen his 
 son a graduate, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, a 
 member of the Academy ? Had he spent all his savings 
 in this long and costly education, and was his little pen- 
 sion from government, which would cease with his life, 
 the main portion of his present means ? Was he merely 
 a man of melancholy disposition, saddened by his wife's 
 feeble health? These were questions that the son no 
 doubt asked himself, as I asked myself, whenever I noticed, 
 during my visits, traces upon the father's face of this mys- 
 terious gloom. In the case of Madame Corbieres, the
 
 18 THE DAY OP BECKONING 
 
 answer was simple, or at least it appeared so to me. 
 Eugene had too often spoken to me himself of his fears as 
 to his mother's health. He believed her threatened with 
 some disease of the liver. She was a short, thick-set per- 
 son, who must, at twenty, have been a handsome girl, with 
 that beauty of the southern mountaineers, at once light 
 and sturdy, in which there is so much vitality packed, as 
 it were, crowded, into a little figure. She was from La 
 Eoquebrussane, a village of Var, perched on a spur of 
 the Maures, between Brignoles and Toulon. She had 
 the pretty feet and small hands of the Provencal women 
 real slipper-feet, straight and slender, able to climb, 
 at fifty and over, without a stumble, the steep sides of 
 her native hills, hands, thin and agile as an olive- 
 picker's should be. And what a black flame in her eyes ! 
 They seemed literally to burn in her thin and sallow 
 face. Although this woman always received me with 
 extreme courtesy of manner, why did I never feel at ease 
 with her ? There was, in her whole being, a something 
 shy and, as it were, defiant, which even her son's pres- 
 ence did not appease, did not smooth away completely. 
 
 " She is not a soul at peace," Eugene once said to me, 
 when I inquired about her. "If I believed in a God, 
 it is something would make me doubt His justice. You 
 know my mother. You see what her life is. From my 
 earliest infancy, I remember her as a person who has lived 
 only for others for us two, my father and me. With her 
 marketing, her cooking, the care of our clothing, her life
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 19 
 
 has been spent in the humblest duties of the humblest of 
 servants, and she was born a lady and has had some 
 education! If any person deserves to have peace of 
 heart, certainly it is she : and she does not have it. She 
 is religious, devout even ; and she uses her religion only 
 to torture herself with scruples. Feeble as she is, every 
 Lent I expect to see her fall ill, and there is no way to pre- 
 vent her excessive austerities. I should have spoken to 
 her confessor, but I don't know who he is. She is very 
 secretive on some points, especially on that one ; and if 
 one ventures to question her, even I, it is evident that it 
 causes her pain. They talk to us of a good conscience. 
 It is a good stomach and a good liver that we need. At 
 each digestive period, the liver fills with blood. Let this 
 blood, by some accident, be loaded with irritants for the 
 hepatic cells, and the whole moral being is physically 
 poisoned." 
 
 " But," I said, " are there not also cases where grief 
 kills, that is to say, where the physical being is mor- 
 ally poisoned ? " 
 
 " Perfectly true," he rejoined ; " and this completes the 
 proof that we know nothing about anything. And still, 
 we do. I know that on the day when my good mother 
 sees me a graduate, that success will be more useful to 
 her than all the water of Carlsbad or Marienbad. And 
 so I will leave you and go to work."
 
 20 THE DAY OP BECKONING 
 
 II 
 
 I HAVE lingered over these reminiscences, of which I 
 could multiply details. They sum up the impressions of 
 many years years extending from the spring of 1873, 
 when I renewed with Eugene Corbieres the acquaintance 
 begun at school, to the winter of 1882, when occurred 
 the events I have to relate, which are the real subject of 
 the story ; incoherent years for me, spending them, as 
 I did, and as most apprentice-authors do, in all sorts of 
 unfruitful attempts and unwise experiments, more or less 
 dangerous for my intellectual future : fruitful and well- 
 ordered years for my friend, who had made his way at 
 once. I saw him, successively, assistant, then house-sur- 
 geon in the hospital and winner of the gold medal, then 
 doctor, and he was approaching steadily toward that 
 position of hospital-doctor and title of associate, which he 
 had made the object of his ambition. The divergence of 
 our pursuits had been too great to make daily relations 
 possible for us all through this period. We had had, 
 therefore, during these nine years, merely one of those 
 intermittent intimacies which do not give opportunity 
 to observe certain slight changes in the domestic life of 
 those whom we thus meet from time to time. At each 
 of my visits in the rue Amyot I had found the situation 
 very much the same, the father a little redder in col- 
 ouring and a little less active, the mother a little more
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 21 
 
 leaden of face and more settled down in figure. But noth- 
 ing in their way of living had changed. When I arrived it 
 was always the old man who answered the bell, usually 
 in shirt sleeves, a scrubbing-brush in hand, or a broom 
 or a duster ; and through the half-open door into the 
 kitchen, I could see the mother at her stove, preparing 
 some southern dainty a rizot or a fish soup for the 
 evening meal of the patient day-labourer of Science 
 whom I found at his table surrounded by his papers and 
 his books, arranging his notes of the day or day before. 
 Although he now began to be called in by his instructors 
 for profitable consultations, and did some work for medi- 
 cal journals for which he was suitably paid, scarcely 
 did his "old people" tolerate the intrusion into their 
 household of a charwoman at five cents an hour, who 
 came only for part of the morning. 
 
 "I no longer insist," said Corbieres, explaining to 
 me the situation. " If either of them were to be really 
 ill, I should at once employ a regular servant. Mean- 
 time I am afraid, if I should interfere with their mode 
 of life, even a little, it might derange their health. 
 My mother especially could not endure being thwarted. 
 You know my former anxieties about her. I see that 
 she worries still, and about everything. My father 
 feels the effect. They succeed in making themselves 
 unhappy, such good people as they are ! No, certainly, 
 there is no Providence." 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1882, the situation
 
 22 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 however, underwent a change. Eugene had mani- 
 fested a desire to leave the rue Amyot, alleging the 
 necessity of establishing himself more suitably. Then 
 followed the first serious disagreement between the 
 son and his parents. After having approved of his 
 decision, and aided him in his search for a new abode, 
 and superintended its being made ready for him, 
 the father and mother suddenly declared that they 
 could not think of leaving the place in which they 
 had lived for over thirty years ; and their determina- 
 tion was invincible. In the light of the facts which 
 I came to know later, I now see that this resolve of 
 the old people contained an idea of expiation sug- 
 gested by the mother. But in ignorance of the wrong- 
 doing whose secret shame weighed upon this husband 
 and wife, how explain this obstinacy except as a 
 form of mania? This the physician did not fail to 
 do. But already the suspicion that his parents' mental 
 state concealed a mystery, had begun vaguely to dawn 
 in his mind. He perceived in them a determination 
 to have no share in the comfort of which his situation 
 would henceforth admit. Almost without effort on his 
 part, and without interruption of his work for the 
 examinations, the preceding year had brought him in 
 more than two thousand dollars an enormous sum 
 for ways of living so simple as theirs. He came to 
 see me, I remember, after his last attempt to persuade 
 his parents, and related to me the conversation he
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 23 
 
 had had with them, his own urgency and their more 
 and more positive refusal. 
 
 "There is some kind of mania in their case, with- 
 out doubt," he said. " But I also see, on my mother's 
 part, a religious idea. It is her way of wearing sack- 
 cloth, I think. She gives me the impression of wishing 
 to punish herself. But for what ? Poor saint ! It 
 can only be for having loved me too well, for having 
 been too proud of me. What I wonder at most is 
 that she can persuade my father to take the same 
 view. He is not at all pious. He goes to mass but 
 seldom now, and when I was a child he never went. 
 What arguments does she use to persuade him ? And 
 he is growing old, he needs rest, and to be better 
 fed, better lodged, better served. And there is no 
 way of bringing these old heads to reason. It is past 
 comprehension ! " 
 
 And so indeed it was. But why was it that this 
 eccentricity of the old man and his wife did not 
 surprise me beyond all measure ? Is there, in that 
 sum of vague impressions which the personality of 
 another gives us, a hidden logic, whose unexpressed 
 intuitions go beyond our own knowledge? I should 
 have been incapable of explaining why this attitude 
 of the parents of Eugene coincided with the idea of 
 them which I had in the depths of my consciousness. 
 What an unlikely thing it was, however, this sudden 
 effacement of a father and mother who had lived only
 
 24 THE DAY OP BECKONING 
 
 for their son, in the presence of this son's success! 
 What an anomaly, thus to renounce the daily joy 
 of sharing his triumph, which was their own work ! 
 I had seen them for ten years living and breathing 
 with no other aim than to secure to their son leisure 
 to follow his chosen career, to prepare for his exami- 
 nations, to become the distinguished doctor that he 
 was destined to be that he already was ; and now 
 they refused to take any share in this fulfilment of 
 the passionate desire of their lives. Was it that they 
 judged themselves too low-born, too ill-bred ? Did they 
 foresee that their son would marry into a world above 
 their own, and were they making the final separation 
 from him in advance ? Some of these hypotheses 
 seemed probable, others not. The only thing of which 
 I had not thought was that these people had com- 
 mitted a deed for which they could not forgive them- 
 selves. How could I imagine that regret for this act 
 weighed upon their declining years with a weight all 
 the more heavy (and upon this point Eugene did not 
 deceive himself) because Mme. Corbieres, with her 
 half-Italian religion, terrified herself and terrified her 
 husband with the idea of approaching death and sure 
 perdition? And indeed when I think of the succes- 
 sion of slight occurrences which unveiled to the son 
 this abyss of misery, I repeat it, I cannot but see in 
 them myself that punishment which the mother dreaded ; 
 and I think of the strange proverb in which the Italians
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 25 
 
 those cousins by blood of the Provenqaux depict, 
 with their vivid imagination, this return of the crime 
 upon him who has committed it : " La saetta gira, gira" 
 they say, " the arrow turns torna adosso a chi la 
 tira, and strikes him who shot it." 
 
 Something like a month had passed since Eugene 
 had lamented to me, in the language I have related, 
 the persistence of his parents in refusing to share his 
 new home. I had not again seen him since that day, 
 which, however, was no surprise to me, knowing as I 
 did the engrossing character of his pursuits. I never 
 suspected that, during these four weeks, his mind had 
 been occupied with something very different from dis- 
 eases of malnutrition, his favourite object of study, 
 and that he had entered, almost against his will, upon 
 an investigation from which he would perhaps have 
 shrunk back if he could have foreseen its result. But 
 no ; his was one of those virile minds some there 
 are, even in his profession in which no feeling can 
 overpower the brave desire to have the truth at all 
 times, no matter how harsh it may be. I can see him 
 now, as he came to my room, after these four weeks 
 had passed, one morning shortly after eleven o'clock. 
 It was inconvenient for him to leave his work at that 
 hour, and the very fact that he had done so showed that 
 something unusual had occurred. The expression of his 
 face also showed this, even more plainly a certain 
 agitation which he could not conceal, and in his eyes,
 
 26 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 usually so candid and so full of the beautiful clear light 
 of study, something like an imploring anguish, as of 
 one about to venture upon a step which he could not 
 bear even to have discussed. He made no preface to 
 what he had to say, but with true surgical decision 
 came at once to the point : 
 
 " I want to ask you to do me a very delicate service. 
 I will say in advance that, if you are not willing, I 
 shall not be offended. I only beg you to reflect before 
 saying no." 
 
 "I promise you that I will say yes, if it is possible 
 for me to do so," I replied, in the same grave tone 
 as his own. Knowing his distaste for all parade, 
 I felt from his manner of opening the subject that 
 there was some fixed resolve in his mind, and I esteemed 
 him too highly not to place myself at once on his own 
 level of seriousness. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, as he grasped my hand. 
 Then, without other preamble, he continued: "I have 
 told you how persistently my parents refuse to live 
 with me. And I have also told you that this refusal 
 is merely part of a general determination to make no 
 change in their way of living, now that they can do 
 this and ought to do it. It seems as if they felt that 
 in sharing my life henceforward they would be shar- 
 ing in ill-gotten wealth ; and yet, all that I have, all 
 that I ever shall have in the world, is the result of 
 my own labour and of theirs. It is they who, by
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 27 
 
 their sacrifices, made me what I am. Of this you are 
 a witness. I had my time for myself, all my time 
 I was absolutely free to work to the best advantage ; 
 and this was so, solely because they made it possible 
 for me, by their devotion, every hour in the day and 
 every day in the year, from my boyhood until now. 
 And I accepted this devotion, but only with the hope, 
 with the certainty, of making their old age happy and 
 comfortable. This they now deny me this poor- 
 pleasure, the expectation of which alone justified me 
 to myself in receiving from them so much." 
 
 "Do not give way to that feeling," I said; "it is 
 worthy neither of you nor of them. There are hearts 
 toward whom it is ungrateful to seek to show gratitude. 
 One must take what they give you as they give it, 
 freely. One pays them by loving them." 
 
 " It is because I do love them," he said, " and because 
 I know how much they love me, that their attitude 
 toward me tortures me. You remember I believed there 
 was some mania in their case. I had the idea that 
 especially my mother, a southern Catholic in her reli- 
 gion, might be swayed by some ghost of a scruple. Well, 
 during this month since I saw you last, I have ceased 
 to argue with them this question which ought to be 
 so simple, don't you think so ? I have gone to live in 
 my apartment in the rue Bonaparte, keeping their room 
 always ready for them. And, in spite of myself, I have 
 begun to look at them, since then. You are surprised at
 
 28 THE DAY OP RECKONING 
 
 my saying this, because I have always been with them. 
 But it is the fact, however. Except at the time when I 
 feared for my mother a beginning of hepatitis, I had 
 never before used toward them that acuteness of observa- 
 tion which is developed in us by our profession. It was 
 as if the son in me were suddenly removed to give place 
 to the medical man. It is extremely difficult for me to 
 explain to you a state which doubtless is absolutely 
 peculiar. I can make you understand it, however, in 
 this way: if the professional faculty were not at mo- 
 ments asleep, as it were, within us, no physician would 
 ever be a lover ; and if, on the other hand, this faculty, 
 awakened, did not dominate the whole man, no fair 
 patient would be safe with her doctor. I know no 
 example that better shows this division into two, of 
 which our technical education renders us capable. I 
 ascertained then, in the course of this close analysis, that 
 my parents were both more impaired in health than I 
 had heretofore noticed, and each one in the way indi- 
 cated by the temperament of each. He is in danger of 
 Bright's disease; she, of disease of the liver. But let 
 that pass ; I spare you the details of an investigation 
 which is connected with what I have to ask you only 
 by its result, which is this : I became convinced that 
 there has been in their minds a hidden cause of anxiety 
 which I had never suspected " 
 
 " An anxiety of which you were not the object ? " 
 I interrupted. "I have observed them, too these 
 poor parents of yours. It is not possible "
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 29 
 
 " Listen to me ! " lie broke in impatiently. " A week 
 ago, coming out of the hospital, I am acting as substi- 
 tute at the Hotel-Dieu, these ideas were distressing 
 me more than usual. The evening before, mamma had 
 been looking unusually worried when I left her. My 
 duties at the hospital had been over sooner than I 
 expected. It occurred to me that I had time to go over 
 to the rue Amyot and see how she was. I reached the 
 house. I went up the three nights of stairs. On the 
 landing, just as I was about to give the double ring, by 
 which for more than twenty years I have been accus- 
 tomed to announce myself, I heard loud talking from 
 inside. It seemed as if there were a quarrel going on. 
 It was not possible to distinguish the words, but I recog- 
 nized a voice my father's. The other was unknown to 
 me. For a moment I listened, catching only fragments of 
 sentences, among them this exclamation by my father, 
 twice over : ' But it is a shame, it is a shame ! ' Suddenly 
 the thought that, if the door opened, I should be detected, 
 by him or my mother, playing the spy, led me to grasp 
 the bell handle. At the double ring, which made known 
 that it was I, the voices ceased. My father's step ap- 
 proached. I was at one of those moments when the 
 nervous machine is so strained that it registers the 
 smallest signs. Merely by the creaking of the floor under 
 his feet I should have known that my father trembled. 
 I should have known it also by the way he fumbled with 
 the key, turning it again and again before opening the
 
 30 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 door. He was so disconcerted that he could hardly find 
 words to answer my question : ' You have some one 
 with you ? Do I interrupt you ? ' - ' Not at all,' he 
 said, and then he went on : ' Mamma is not in. But 
 if you will wait a minute, I shall be at liberty, and will 
 come to you.' He did not wish me to see the person 
 with whom he had been having this violent altercation. 
 That person, however, wished to see me; for, at the 
 moment my father opened the door to show me into the 
 dining room, the door of the kitchen, into which he had 
 pushed his visitor, was thrown wide. The same voice 
 which I had heard quarrelling with my father said: 
 ' Monsieur Corbieres, I will not inconvenience you ; I 
 will return for that little matter ; ' and, at the same mo- 
 ment I saw a man appear, of about our age, with rather 
 good features in a horribly worn face, with sharp shoul- 
 ders and an emaciated form very shabbily clothed. You 
 know how they look, those old clothes of the profes- 
 sional beggar, to whom our worn-out coats and trousers 
 and hats fall, in the end. This man reeked of liquor and 
 tobacco, and he had in his eyes, with their reddened 
 lids, that brutish and insolent look one sees so often in 
 people of his kind a mingled pride and stupidity which 
 announces general paralysis close at hand. He stared 
 at me, repeating, 'I shall come again,' and went out, 
 shuffling over the floor in his ragged shoes with an 
 arrogant gait." 
 
 " It is some poor wretch to whom your excellent father
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 31 
 
 is giving money," I said, " that is all. It would be wiser 
 for him not to receive such individuals when he is alone, 
 it is true. But these beggars are organized here, as they 
 are in Naples, in camorre. They give each other infor- 
 mation, and this one knows that M. Corbieres is not very 
 rich, you may be sure " 
 
 "Yes," Eugene rejoined; "it was a beggar, without 
 doubt. But he was not merely a beggar." 
 
 " What do you mean to say ? " 
 
 " I mean to say that, in the tone of his voice, while I 
 listened outside the door, in his manner of leaving the 
 house, in his way of saying, ' I shall return,' there was 
 something threatening, almost authoritative. And if he 
 had been a mere beggar, would my father have been so 
 disturbed by my arrival ? Would he have evaded my 
 questions when we were together ? Would he have 
 asked me not to mention the subject to my mother?" 
 
 " Why, certainly," I replied. " It is all explained if 
 you suppose merely that this is some worthless wretch to 
 whom your mother, more wisely, refuses charity, and 
 who makes his way in when she is absent, to secure a 
 handful of sous from the compassion of M. Corbieres." 
 
 " You have not seen that man and my father face to 
 face," Eugene answered. "I, having seen them, feel a 
 mystery, just as positively as I feel that fire." And he 
 extended a hand toward the flame which, yellow and 
 supple, blazed upon the hearth. "I felt it," he con- 
 tinued, " to the degree that I allowed myself to be drawn,
 
 32 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 under the influence of that feeling, into doing an incredi- 
 ble thing. When I had reached the house, I had sent 
 away my fiacre, intending to walk to the cole Pratique 
 after seeing my parents. As chance would have it, in 
 going away from the rue Amyot, I went by the rue de 
 la Vielle-Estrapade, and thence by the rue Saint-Jacques. 
 Perhaps you may remember that before you reach the 
 rue Soufflot there is on the left a kind of tavern, a 
 drinking shop rather, with a frontage of barrels and 
 unpainted wooden tables. It is not a wine dealer's, and 
 it is not a cafe. The men who frequent the place are 
 not the customers of a wine dealer or the patrons of a 
 cafe. There are a few workmen who go there, a very few, 
 but especially you will see there men who are losing 
 caste : teachers who have no school, painters without a 
 studio, political writers without a newspaper, poets with- 
 out a publisher, prospective lawyers without cases, medi- 
 cal students whose names are nowhere registered. The 
 favourite drink of the place is absinthe. I never go past 
 it without glancing in, almost in spite of myself. Now 
 and then I have dragged out of this place some old 
 fellow-student. I looked in this morning, and I recog- 
 nized, leaning on his elbows at a table in the back of 
 the shop, with a glass before him of the vile, greenish, 
 milky drug, the mysterious rascal whom I had just met 
 at my father's. As I stood still, struck motionless by 
 curiosity, he lifted his head and looked in my direction. 
 I drew back, like a criminal caught in the act, and hid
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 33 
 
 myself behind the awning of an adjacent shop. It was 
 labour wasted. The fellow was already completely in- 
 toxicated and incapable of recalling my face. His struck 
 me now more gloomily than before, because of the con- 
 trast behind the haggard stupor of intoxication and the 
 refinement of features of which I told you. There are 
 two very distinct types of drunkards : the brutal and 
 if one may employ such a word for such degradation 
 the refined. There is the man who drinks from coarse- 
 ness of nature and the man who seeks cerebral intoxica- 
 tion from some form of neuropathy, that he may forget 
 most frequently that he may forget himself. This is 
 the absinthe-drinker's intoxication, Musset's and Ver- 
 laine's. And it was that of my unknown man. This is 
 the saddest kind. It is impossible for me to give you an 
 idea of the singular melancholy stamped upon that face. 
 It was no longer arrogance or insolence that I read in 
 it, but an infinite and irremediable distress, that of a 
 life which has missed its destiny. As I watched him, 
 he lifted his glass and laughed convulsively at some 
 thought. His front teeth were gone, and the black hole 
 in that livid and distorted face, over that milky poison, 
 in that vile den whose acrid reek came out to me, was 
 a spectacle almost terrible, I swear to you. He emptied 
 the glass at one swallow. It must have been his fourth 
 or fifth, for he laid down, to pay for it, a silver coin and 
 received no change in return. Now in a place like that 
 his dram would cost three or four sous. Then, stiff and
 
 34 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 automatic, with the shaking somnambulist step which 
 betrays the incoordination of the muscles of the extrem- 
 ities, the fixity of the aim, in the vacillation of the 
 movement, he rises, comes out of the shop, walks along 
 the sidewalk. I follow. Where he goes, I go. We cross 
 the rue des Feuillantines, the Val-de-Grace, the boulevard 
 Port-Royal. Finally he stops in the rue du Faubourg- 
 Saint-Jacques, before one of those houses inside a court- 
 yard which are veritable cities of the destitute. I wait, 
 but he does not reappear." 
 
 " And then ? " I asked, as he hesitated. 
 
 " Then," he resumed, with the visible embarrassment of 
 a very scrupulous man, to whom underhand inquiry, in 
 whatever circumstances, is repugnant, " I entered, I 
 found the concierge, I questioned him and I learned the 
 man's name. He lodges there and his name is, or is 
 given out to be, Pierre Kobert." 
 
 " Very well, then you have to go to the prefecture of 
 police," I said, " and you can hear about him, having his 
 name and address." 
 
 " I thought of doing that," Eugene replied, " and then 
 I gave it up, for a very simple reason : my father has 
 been employed at the ministry, and he would know per- 
 fectly well how to protect himself from a blackmailer. 
 If he has not done it, there nmst be a reason." 
 
 " But what reason ? " I urged. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, with increasing emotion. " How do I 
 know? By thinking the whole matter over and over,
 
 THE DAY OP RECKONING 35 
 
 I came to the suspicion that this fellow was an 
 illegitimate child of my poor father, born before his 
 marriage, whose existence he conceals from my mother ; 
 and that she, sensitive as she is, suspects the truth 
 without really knowing it and this explains so many 
 things ! No sooner did this hypothesis dawn in my 
 mind than I became certain of its truth. I tell you 
 this to show you that I am morbid in presence of this 
 trouble in which I see that my parents are involved. I 
 no longer distinguish between the possible and the real. 
 Since this I have been constantly walking up and down 
 the street in front of that house. It attracted and, at the 
 same time, it terrified me. The idea that this horrible 
 degenerate, whose stumbling footsteps I had followed 
 along the sidewalks of those crowded thoroughfares, 
 might possibly be my brother, gave me one of those inde- 
 scribable shuddering fits that one feels to the very roots 
 of his being. It is not worth while to dwell upon my 
 own insane acts and thoughts for insane they are, I am 
 ready enough to admit. But my father's attitude toward 
 me was what distracted me. I have not been alone with 
 him once since the scene that I have related to you. As 
 I told you, he evaded my inquiry why I should not speak 
 of it to my mother. I read anew in his eyes, every time 
 I went to the house, this entreaty for silence, and it had 
 the effect of deepening my suspicion, until yesterday, in 
 the afternoon, as I was again in the rue Saint-Jacques, I 
 beheld my mother entering that house."
 
 36 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 " And you conclude from that ? " I asked, sharing 
 unconsciously in the passionate quest which he was 
 following out in my presence. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, " except that my supposition is 
 false. If my mother, also, knows this man, he is not 
 what I had supposed. There is a deduction that may 
 seem specious : to me it is evident in imploring me, as 
 he did, not to speak of meeting this Robert in his house, 
 my father had no wish to conceal from my mother any- 
 thing concerning this man, he wished to hide from her 
 something concerning me. Now, why ? Yes, why ? " 
 
 He was silent, and I could not even find a word to 
 express my sympathy for the strange anxiety with 
 which I saw him overpowered. That there was some- 
 thing abnormal, even to the extent of mystery, in the 
 sum of the facts which he had just made known to me, 
 I was indeed forced to admit. But the sequence of the 
 whole narrative supposed some connection between these 
 facts, on the one hand, and, on the other, his parents' 
 refusal of his request that they should come to live with 
 him. Now how was it possible there could be any such 
 connection ? And, further, how was it possible that the 
 impaired health which he believed that he detected in 
 them both had any connection whatever with the exist- 
 ence of this Pierre Robert unless, indeed, it were the 
 fact that this probable blackmailer, and evident beggar 
 and drunkard, was the illegitimate child, not of the 
 father, but of the mother? This was the hypothesis
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 37 
 
 which suddenly thrust itself forward in my mind, and I 
 perceived this horrible complication: a young girl is 
 seduced ; a son is born to her ; she marries without 
 confessing the truth ; the child grows up at a distance 
 from the mother, whose life is now irreproachable. She 
 again has a son, this one born in wedlock. Suddenly the 
 first-born son reappears. He has found his mother's 
 track. He threatens. The unhappy woman confesses all 
 to her husband, who forgives her. But would the legiti- 
 mate son forgive ? The mother is ready to die with ter- 
 ror at the thought of forfeiting this precious esteem, and 
 the husband carries magnanimity so far as to understand 
 her terror, and even to share it such were the 
 thoughts which rushed in upon me while my friend, in 
 gloomy silence, paced back and forth in the room. 
 Were they not also his thoughts, at that moment ? I 
 dared neither speak to him nor even look at him, lest 
 this identity of conclusions should suddenly reveal itself 
 to us both. Such a truth would have been extremely 
 painful to him. Could I foresee that the actual truth 
 would be more painful still ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 AND it was for this reason not to betray the gravity 
 of my suspicion to this tortured son that I accepted the 
 proposition, singular though it was, with which this con- 
 fidence ended. It seemed to me that the quickest way to
 
 38 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 tranquillize him was to enter into his ideas, even though 
 to me they seemed far from reasonable. 
 
 "Now," he resumed, "let us come to the object of my 
 visit. I have concealed from you nothing of all that 
 causes me anxiety, first, because I know you are my 
 friend, and next, that I may have the right to ask of 
 you a service which, I am aware, lies very much outside 
 our usual habits of action. And I say again, as I said at 
 first, if you wish to refuse, you will do so. It is this : 
 I am resolved to know the facts about this Robert. / 
 am resolved" and he put into the words all the indomi- 
 table energy of his extremely concentrated nature. " I 
 had the idea of going to him myself, to make him speak. 
 Then I thought it over. He saw me at my father's. 
 Very probably he supposed me to be the son of the 
 family. He will be on his guard against me. Well 
 then, will you, whom he does not know, and against 
 whom he will not be on his guard, undertake it in- 
 stead? The man is poor. He begs from my father, 
 and from others. This I learned from the concierge. 
 You will go to him on an errand of charity. You will 
 give him money. Thus you will satisfy your conscience. 
 And yoti will make him talk. You will learn about his 
 life, who he is, whence he comes, in short, something " 
 
 "I shall learn," I said, "whatever he may please 
 to tell me; but for your sake I will try to make him 
 talk. Do not thank me," I continued, as he grasped 
 my hand anew, with one of those virile grips that are
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 39 
 
 more eloquent than words ; " it is too easy a thing. And 
 when shall I go to see this man ? " 
 
 "At once, if you can," he rejoined eagerly. "I have 
 just come from the Faubourg-Saint-Jacques. He is 
 at home." 
 
 This proof that Corbieres had counted on me so fully 
 would have conquered any last reluctance that I might 
 still have felt. "Very well, then, let us go," I said, 
 and my words brought a smile of gratitude to his 
 anxious face. We went downstairs; his fiacre stood 
 at the door. In his certainty that I should accede to 
 his request he had not sent it away. From the quarter 
 of the Invalides, where I was then living, to this rue 
 du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, where dwelt the unknown 
 individual whose father-confessor I must seek to be- 
 come, was scarcely fifteen minutes' drive. But the dis- 
 tance seemed very long. If the step I was about to take 
 was unusual, at least its failure would be without 
 result. But nevertheless my heart was heavy, as at 
 the approach of a formidable trial, so powerful is the 
 contagion of certain anxieties. It is an altogether 
 physical phenomenon, which I have often experienced, 
 but never as in that carriage which bore us on, Eugene 
 and myself, toward a scene that I could not, however, 
 foresee would have results so cruelly irreparable. My 
 companion, on his part, said not a word, except to order 
 the driver to stop a few doors off from the house. He 
 pointed it out to me and gave me the number, adding :
 
 40 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 "I shall wait here for you in the carriage." 
 Two minutes later I had crossed the threshold of 
 the great dilapidated building which Corbieres had so 
 properly characterized as a city of despair. I had asked 
 of the concierge the number of M. Robert's room. I 
 had entered, following the woman's directions, a damp 
 and fetid court, above which opened six stories of shut- 
 terless windows, between which ropes were stretched 
 across supporting ragged and tattered clothes, patched 
 trousers, faded petticoats enough to poison a whole 
 neighbourhood with microbes ; and I had ascended a 
 staircase which gave access to many little numbered 
 rooms, and at last, under the roof, reached a garret door 
 bearing the number 63. 
 
 The key was in the lock. I knocked. A voice called 
 out, "Come in." It was somewhat indistinct, but not 
 the kind of voice I expected to hear. It had neither 
 the accent of the Faubourg nor the rude brutality 
 of the lowest class ; and the individual whom I beheld 
 when I opened the door was plainly the man of this 
 voice. Doubtless the torn and faded rags which Pierre 
 Robert wore gave him a sordid aspect which accorded 
 with the miserable room, almost unfurnished and repul- 
 sive with filth. But vileness of dress and surroundings 
 only made more noticeable in the inmate of this den 
 the singularly refined features which had struck Cor- 
 bieres so forcibly. The extreme fineness of the fair 
 hair, which had not at all turned gray, and the very
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 41 
 
 soft blue of the eyes, while the complexion was so 
 faded, bleached out, as it were, by the use of powerful 
 drugs, still attested the real elegance of the original 
 design, in this face now so debased. The ill-kept hands, 
 with nails gnawed to the quick, were neither scoundrelly 
 nor vulgar. The fingers were still thin and slender. 
 And especially the sadness of the face told, more 
 sincerely than words could do, of personal and social 
 downfall. 
 
 The outcast had scarcely raised his head as I entered. 
 Although it was now nearly noon, everything in this 
 den had remained untouched over night. A torn 
 blanket lay over a straw bed, heaped together in a 
 corner, just as the sleeper had left it, to make a 
 breakfast whose miserable remains lay on a table 
 which had once been white, a piece of a loaf of 
 bread from which he had pulled the crumb, leaving 
 the crust for lack of teeth to bite it, and a morsel of 
 Italian cheese in a greasy paper. This miserable food 
 seemed to have been to him only an incitement to 
 drink, for an empty quart bottle was near by which 
 must have contained white wine, to judge, not at all 
 from the tumbler, for there was none, but from the 
 colour of the wet rings made on the table by this 
 bottle, drained to its last drop. Two chairs, a bat- 
 tered zinc slop-pail without a handle, a basin and 
 broken-lipped water-jug, a broken comb, and a frag- 
 ment of glass on the wall completed the furniture.
 
 42 THE DAY OP RECKONING 
 
 I have omitted to mention a dozen books, ranged on 
 a shelf with a certain care. They were the last relic 
 of an education, which I afterward knew to have been 
 brilliant, resulting at last in what ? in this victim of 
 intemperance, who sat carelessly smoking a short clay 
 pipe, and was already half intoxicated, though he had 
 not yet left his room. Whence the tobacco came with 
 which the pipe was filled, appeared from the heap of 
 cigar-ends that lay on a corner of the table. The vaga- 
 bond had picked them up in the streets. This philoso- 
 pher in rags did not put himself to any trouble in 
 receiving me ; he did not rise from his seat ; he did 
 not abate one whiff of his pipe ; and his blue eyes 
 showed no curiosity, no surprise, when I asked him, 
 "Is this M. Pierre Robert?" 
 " It is, monsieur ; what do you want with me ? " 
 I began to explain to him, as had been agreed with 
 Corbieres, that I belonged to a benevolent society, 
 and having learned from one of his neighbours that 
 he was in need, had come to see if it were so. I 
 felt myself frightfully awkward in this rdle, altogether 
 new to me, of district visitor. I apprehended an out- 
 break of that haughty arrogance of which Eugene 
 had spoken. This revolt of offended pride did not 
 occur. He listened as passively as he had received 
 me. He took no trouble to know the name of the 
 society I was supposed to represent, or of the neigh- 
 bour who had mentioned him to me. He said only,
 
 THE DAY OP RECKONING 43 
 
 calling my attention to the remains of his breakfast 
 on the table and the cigar-ends beside it, 
 
 "It is quite true that at this moment I am not 
 very well off. You see what I eat, and what I smoke. 
 But I lived very differently in Africa." Then, with an 
 air of politeness which seemed like a last remnant of the 
 habits of civilized life, he pointed to the other chair, 
 and said, " Do me the favour to be seated, monsieur." 
 
 "In Africa? You have been in the service, then?" 
 I asked, as I sat down, taking advantage of the oppor- 
 tunity offered by his remark. My question set him 
 off at once. If I had not asked it, he would have 
 talked all the same, with that loquacity of the victims 
 of alcohol so painful to hear because it is so evi- 
 dently morbid, by turns voluble and hesitating. It is 
 the first phase of that which will be, in three months, 
 in a week, to-morrow, free delirium with its uncon- 
 trolled swagger and boasting. His confidential talk 
 was not addressed to me. It was the monologue, 
 scarcely guided by my questions, of a half maniac 
 thinking aloud, his head already unsettled by the 
 poison. He had taken but little of it this morning; 
 and still in his condition of frightful saturation this 
 small amount, just one bottle of white wine, sufficed to 
 make him almost unable to control his movements and 
 not at all his words. 
 
 "I have served my time twice," he said; "I ought 
 to be commandant to-day and officer of the Legion of
 
 44 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 Honour, if I had not been so unlucky. I am Bachelor of 
 Arts and Bachelor of Science, monsieur, just as you see 
 me. I have even had a prize in the General Examina- 
 tions. I still have one of the books that I received. 
 Look, there it is," and he pointed out to me, motioning 
 with his pipe, which he took out of the corner of his 
 mouth, the row of books, among which I distinguished, 
 placed conspicuously on the shelf, the gilt edges of a 
 volume bound in green morocco, with the arms of the 
 Empire. " It is a Horace that I re-read sometimes. I 
 have not forgotten all my Latin. 
 
 " ' Qui fit Maecenas, tit nemo, quam sibi sortem, 
 Sen ratio dederit, sen fors objecerit, ilia 
 Contentus vivat." 1 
 
 "Contented with his lot! Keally, I can't be with 
 mine. Look at it, monsieur. At twenty-one, I enter the 
 army. I choose the artillery. With my diplomas and 
 what I know of mathematics, I say to myself, I shall 
 reach the School at Versailles, and in three years I shall 
 be an officer. I happen upon a quartermaster who doesn't 
 like my looks. It takes me two years to become cor- 
 poral two years, with my education, yes, monsieur! 
 Not till the fourth year do I reach the School. I am 
 received there. During my time with the regiment, I 
 was unhappy. I drank a little. It was natural, don't 
 you see ? The colonel in command at the School had a 
 grudge against me for it. I don't know why he had. 
 He meets me one evening, as I was coming in, rather
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 45 
 
 lively but nothing more. If he had had the least tact, 
 he would have let me pass without seeming to notice it. 
 But instead of that, I am sent to the guard-house, and 
 two days later, I am dismissed I go back to the regi- 
 ment. My five years were just ending. I enter the 
 marine artillery. No more hope of Versailles. It was a 
 pity. I should have made a good officer. I look it over 
 thoroughly. I say to myself I will go to the colonies 
 as a soldier, and I will remain as a colonist. I had two 
 years' service in Algeria and two in Tonkin. When I 
 saw what a humbug life is out there, I was disgusted. 
 And then I was ill. Is it worth while, I ask you, to 
 conquer countries where a decent man cannot even 
 take his pousse-caf^ without his liver's getting wrong ? 
 As soon as I got my liberty, I swore to myself I would 
 never again leave Paris. I have been here now three 
 years. It is hard to live here when a man has no profes- 
 sion, and at my age " 
 
 "But," I suggested, "you have a right to a pension, 
 being a discharged non-commissioned officer ? " 
 
 " They had reduced me to the ranks before I left," 
 he replied. " They pardon nothing in a man who has 
 no friends ! " 
 
 Who were these mysterious They but the imaginary 
 persecutors whom his disordered brain made the poor 
 fellow see behind all his failures, until later, the hallu- 
 cinations of delirium tremens would come to besiege him 
 with their shapes of terror. So far, it was the lament-
 
 46 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 able confession of the ordinary outcast, who through 
 lack of will, through lack of helpful surroundings, 
 through lack of fortune, also, has slipped rather than 
 walked down the fatal slope. It is the cruellest of all 
 the consequences of the inevitable social inequality that 
 the margin of the irremediable faults is so broad for the 
 rich, so narrow for the poor ! A few words more, and 
 this commonplace aspect of one of the numerous victims 
 of modern education would be lighted with a gleam 
 which appals me even now, when my thoughts revert 
 to that far-distant moment. 
 
 "You have no relatives, then?" I said. 
 
 "I am an illegitimate child," he replied; "all my 
 misfortunes arise from that. They were not my father's 
 fault, however. He was married, and he held a posi- 
 tion of importance. He did for me what he could. 
 He supplied my mother with money to bring me up, 
 so long as she lived. I was eight years old at the 
 time of her death. He placed me at school and paid 
 for me. If he also had not died just as I left school, 
 my life would have turned out differently, or, indeed, 
 if I had received what he left me." 
 
 "He did not leave a legal will, then?" I asked, 
 as he suddenly stopped speaking. I dreaded one of 
 those sudden fits of reticence which will happen some- 
 times to these strange talkers who tell you the most 
 intimate facts of their life, the most disgraceful, 
 even, then stop short at some perhaps insignificant
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 47 
 
 detail and become obstinately silent, as unreasonably 
 and inconsiderately as they had, just before, been con- 
 fidential. Impulsive creatures of the moment, they 
 obey only their entirely subjective impressions. As I 
 questioned him, Eobert looked at rne with those blue 
 eyes whose softness of expression I had at first re- 
 marked, and whose strange changefulness now attracted 
 my notice. Was he tired with his long story, in which 
 his occasional hesitations before some word revealed 
 latent aphasia ? Had I expressed too eagerly an unjus- 
 tifiable curiosity, before which he stopped in surprise ? 
 It was the fact, certainly, that instead of giving me 
 any answer he resumed, 
 
 " You see, monsieur, that you have not been deceived, 
 and that I have much need of assistance from the 
 charitable." 
 
 "You already know some benevolent persons," I said, 
 taking from my pocket the gold piece I had ready, and 
 I laid it on the table, as I mentioned the name of 
 Eugene's parents. "I know that the Corbieres are 
 very good to you." 
 
 " You know the Corbieres ? " he said to me, and, 
 taking his pipe out of his mouth, he leaned forward 
 and looked at me, with a singular gleam in his eyes. 
 Then, shrugging his shoulders, he began again to smoke, 
 saying, "I understand; it is they who have sent you. 
 I know it, and I also know why. Would you like to 
 have me tell you? You are going to advise me to
 
 48 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 leave Paris. Isn't that true? They have told you 
 that I am drinking myself to death here. That is 
 what they tell me every time I go there. Well, then, 
 no, no, no ! I will not go away. I will not leave Paris. 
 These people shall see me, I tell you, they shall see me I 
 This is my vengeance, and they shall endure it to the end." 
 
 While he talked to me, taking my silence for acqui- 
 escence, his face grew animated. I recognized that 
 expression of arrogant authority that Eugene had men- 
 tioned. This change of demeanour was so singular, in 
 the case of a beggar just now so humble, there was 
 a threat so mysterious in the words he employed, 
 and at the same time the certainty of an invisible 
 right, that I allowed him to go on uncontradicted. I 
 had a crushing premonition of what I was about to 
 hear. What he had said a few minutes before, if he 
 had received ichat his father left him, was suddenly 
 illuminated for me with frightful clearness. This 
 impression, however, was but momentary, and I said 
 to him, 
 
 "You are unjust. I do not come to you from the 
 Corbieres; but suppose I did bring you such a mes- 
 sage from them, why not? If the Corbieres advise 
 you to leave Paris, it is for your own welfare. If they 
 reproach you with fatal habits of intemperance, they 
 are no more than right. And since you tell me that 
 you have been well brought up, you must know that 
 you ought not to speak thus of your benefactors."
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 49 
 
 " They ? " he exclaimed, " my benefactors ? They 
 have given themselves out to you as my benefactors ? " 
 He began to laugh, as Eugene had seen him laugh in 
 the liquor shop of the rue Saint- Jacques over his glass 
 of absinthe. A sudden change of semi-intoxication 
 carried him at once from torpor to excitability. His 
 irritation rendered his speech still more hesitating, and 
 his words, uttered with this difficulty, almost stam- 
 mered out, had a more poignant power of truth. It 
 was like a symbol of the repression against which he 
 had struggled all through his youth, because of the 
 crime to which he now testified. 
 
 " No, monsieur," he repeated, " they are not my bene- 
 factors. They are my murderers. That I am what 
 you see me, a withered fruit, a failure, a melancholy 
 failure, that I ani a drunkard, is their fault. I have 
 not the proof; it is true I have nothing that I could 
 produce in court to show that these so-called benefactors 
 have robbed me; yes, monsieur, they have robbed me. 
 And besides, what could I do with that money now? 
 Instead of having it when I was twenty ! At twenty, 
 I should have bought off my military service. Then 
 I should have studied law or medicine. I should be 
 now a great lawyer or a great doctor. You must not 
 judge me by what you see me now 'a ruin'd piece 
 of nature,' as the poet says." 
 
 He quoted the English sentence, with a very incorrect 
 accent, and yet clearly enough for me to recognize the
 
 50 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 famous cry of King Lear. That he could, degraded as 
 he was, quote Shakespeare, were it but a chance phrase, 
 after having quoted Horace, were it but two lines 
 what proof more heart-rending could be given that 
 there had been in the Pierre Robert to whom I lis- 
 tened an original design for a very different man? 
 Alas ! There remained of it only the refined features of 
 the wasted face, these little fragments of culture, and 
 these spasms of bitterness against the persons whom he 
 accused of having ruined him. It is probable enough 
 that he would have ruined himself, by his own character. 
 His nature would have proved itself the same under 
 other circumstances. Still he had a right to formulate 
 the accusation as he now did. 
 
 "It is their fault, monsieur," he said, "it is their 
 fault, and theirs alone. If this is not true, monsieur, 
 let them justify themselves. Go and talk to them, you 
 who are their friend ; go to them and repeat what I tell 
 you. It will teach them to send people to me ! Then 
 you will see them turn pale and tremble before you, as I 
 have seen them do before me. They will tell you that 
 I am mad, as they have told me. No, not they, he. 
 The old woman has never done anything but weep, since 
 she knew that I had found it all out. But I am losing 
 my thoughts. Where was I ? I feel as if I had wad- 
 ding in my head. Ah ! When I was a schoolboy, I was 
 living at Versailles. It was not till long after that I 
 knew who my father was. I used to call him M. Robert.
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 51 
 
 This was his first name, and he gave it to me for 
 my surname. I believed him to be my godfather. I 
 used to see him in Paris on holidays at the house of 
 relatives of my mother who were my guardians. It 
 was through them that I learned many things after- 
 ward. My father was married, as I told you before, 
 and had other children. He had a very good office, 
 chef de bureau in the Ministry of the Interior, where 
 M. Corbieres was usher. You begin to understand? 
 My father had never been willing that his wife and his 
 other children, the legitimate ones, should know of my 
 existence. He had had M. Corbieres under his orders 
 for years. In his last illness, he intrusted to this man 
 the sum which he had been able to lay aside from his 
 property enough, as he thought, to complete my 
 education, thirty-five thousand francs, if I am correct 
 in my figures." 
 
 " And you believe that M. Corbieres took this money 
 for himself ? " I interrupted. " But that is impossible. 
 Why should he do it ? I know how they live, he and 
 his wife. They are the most simple, upright, honest 
 people " 
 
 "These honest people have plundered me all the 
 same," sneered Pierre Robert, shaking his head, and his 
 face expressed that bitterest of all contempts, that of 
 the despised man who can in his turn despise. " Why ? 
 Yes, why ? Their son, monsieur, how have they 
 brought him up? He was able to finish his military
 
 52 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 service in one year ; he has had his medical education ; 
 and with what money ? A man who is a doorkeeper in 
 a Ministry has no fortune, of course. And you think it 
 would be by his own savings that that man had laid 
 aside money to keep his son a student to the age of 
 thirty ? Come, now! It was my money, I tell you, that 
 they spent ; you understand me, my money" 
 
 " But you confess yourself that you have not a single 
 proof of what you say," I protested; and while I was 
 protesting, I was overwhelmed by the evidence that he 
 spoke the truth. His words were like the key to a page 
 of cipher, which makes the whole clear. The feeling 
 that I had so often had of a mystery connected with the 
 elder Corbieres ; the sadness which made the background 
 of their lives, so little in keeping with their devotion to 
 their son; the latter's confidential talks with me re- 
 cently, even this very morning: all was explained by 
 this revelation which Robert now made still clearer. 
 
 " A proof to offer in court was what I meant. Proofs 
 for myself, I have more than enough. Would you like 
 to know what they are? Before my father died, he 
 wrote me a letter. I have his letter here. He told me 
 that he was not my godfather, but my father. He for- 
 bade me ever to seek to see his widow or his other chil- 
 dren. He went so far as not even then to tell me his 
 own name. Monsieur, I have suffered greatly, I swear to 
 you, but I have always obeyed this order of the dead. 
 I have never asked anything from his widow or my
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 53 
 
 brothers. There are two; they are well off and would 
 help me. I am not willing. My father added that he 
 had provided for my future, that I should receive fifteen 
 hundred francs a year until I was thirty years of age, and 
 then a small capital. It was the amount of the income 
 which made me reckon the principal at thirty-five or 
 forty thousand francs. In his resolve to make an abso- 
 lute separation between the life of his regular household 
 and my life, he did not tell me from whom I should 
 receive this annual income and the principal in the end, 
 nor how he had planned that even this way of communi- 
 cating with his other children should be debarred me. 
 Afterward I knew, however. I knew that he died very 
 suddenly, and evidently without having time to take the 
 measures which he had deferred, perhaps with the ex- 
 pectation of giving me personally this little fortune 
 when I should attain my twenty-first year. Then he 
 employed Corbieres, because he was sure of his secrecy. 
 And this Corbieres, at that time, was an honest man. 
 How do I know this ? My income for the first and sec- 
 ond years was paid me. The third, not. This was the 
 year of the son's military service. The money for these 
 two years came to me semi-annually, in bank-notes in a 
 registered envelope, without other words than these, 
 By the wish of M. Robert. Very well ! monsieur, I have 
 since then had the handwriting of M. Corbieres, and 
 it is the same ! But I return to this year, 1873. The 
 money did not arrive. I had to make my military
 
 54 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 service. I had some debts; who has not? I had not 
 the means to seek the reason why my income ceased to 
 come to me or to undertake a lawsuit. Besides this, I 
 was very young ; and, at that age, one is careless. One 
 expects to have good luck. In short, I entered the 
 army, and the rest you know." 
 
 "But how did you find the Corbieres again?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "You mean, how did the Corbieres find me? For 
 it was they who sought me out. They felt remorse; 
 that was the reason. When one conies near the end, 
 one has these terrors, it appears. One would like then 
 to humbug le bon Dieu." He laughed again, with that 
 silent laugh which showed the black space of his tooth- 
 less mouth. "They wanted to know what had become 
 of me. They found me. How, do you want to know ? 
 I will not tell you that. Finding me poor, they 
 began to give me a bit of money now and then, to 
 quiet their consciences, and also to keep off bad luck. 
 They have not succeeded very well ! When I saw 
 old Corbieres for the first time, sitting where you are, 
 monsieur, I let him talk, just as I let you talk just 
 now. He said that he knew I was poor, and that he 
 came to help me a little. I can appear to believe 
 anything, don't you know? But I think it over by 
 myself. I said to myself: 'Well, old fellow, what do 
 you want of me ? Why have you come here ? ' I 
 couldn't understand it. Then he came again, and
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 55 
 
 his wife; first, every month; then, every week. They 
 brought me my week's living. This was their pretext; 
 but, in reality, they could not stay away. I attracted 
 them with a kind of fascination. I looked them in 
 the eye, and they dropped their eyes. They could 
 never look me in the face, monsieur. Why ? And 
 then the idea came to me that they had had 
 something to do with my affairs. I spoke to them of 
 the money that I ought to have had, and of my 
 father's letter. From that day I felt that I had them 
 in my power. Oh ! " he ended, " so far as my ill 
 will is concerned they are very wrong in being afraid, 
 and in wishing that I would go away. A five-franc 
 piece, now and then, to get something to drink ; and 
 I call it quits. If I cared, their son is rich. He 
 would give me back the whole. But if I had it all, 
 now, what could I do with it? I do frighten them 
 a little now and then, I admit. That is for my amuse- 
 ment. Life is not very amusing. Happily it won't 
 last always ! " 
 
 He broke out again with his sinister laugh. Then, 
 seeing the napoleon that I had placed on the table, 
 he picked it up, slipped it into the pocket of the 
 jersey which served as a waistcoat under his coat, and, 
 rising from his chair, made a gesture as if to usher 
 me out, saying, "I am much obliged to you, monsieur. 
 But will you tell them that it is not worth while for 
 them to send other charitable persons to me to advise
 
 56 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 me to leave Paris. It is not worth while. To all 
 who may come from them to all, you understand 
 I shall relate their story. And I shall never leave 
 Paris. I shall never leave it, and I shall go to their 
 house, and they will receive me, you may tell them. 
 Adieu, monsieur, adieu!" 
 
 It was not until I was outside of the room, where 
 I had listened to this tragic confession, that I realized 
 its immediate consequence with a shudder of alarm 
 that I do not remember to have experienced before or 
 since. Eugene Corbieres awaited me below. What 
 was I to say to him ? My fear of meeting his search- 
 ing gaze was so great that my knees bent under me as 
 I went down the steps of that staircase at whose foot 
 I must, however, arrive. And then ? I remember 
 stopping for several minutes on the landing of the 
 second story, trying to recover myself. I must at all 
 hazards find strength to ward off Eugene's questions 
 by replies calculated as well as might be to turn him 
 away from the pursuit of this frightful investigation. 
 The first condition was that my face should not belie 
 my words. Would my compassion for my friend, 
 threatened with this fearful revelation, have given 
 me this strength? I had not the occasion to put my 
 will thus to the proof. I had not taken into account 
 the fever of impatience by which Eugene was devoured. 
 As my absence became more prolonged, he had come, 
 himself, to the door of the house, then into the court,
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 57 
 
 then to the foot of the stairs ; so that when I came 
 to the last step, hesitating and upset as I was, he 
 appeared before me, with the question, " You have 
 been very long. What did he say ? " 
 
 "Nothing of interest," I rejoined. "It is what I 
 supposed. A poor wretch to whom your father had 
 given money." 
 
 " Why, then, are you so agitated ? " he went on. 
 "You tremble. You are pale." 
 
 "His wretched condition affected me," I answered; 
 and I added, seeking to drag him away, "come out; 
 a little fresh air will do me good." 
 
 "Yes," he said; then, stopping short, he fastened 
 his eyes upon mine. "No, there is something. I feel 
 it. I see it. You are not telling me the truth. You 
 will not? Well, then, I will go up myself." 
 
 "You shall not go," I said, barring his way. But 
 no sooner had I uttered the cry than I felt its impru- 
 dence, and I tried to repair the harm, saying, "It is 
 useless and dangerous. The fellow gets too much from 
 your father." 
 
 " You are not telling me the truth," Eugene repeated, 
 still more sharply ; and before I could be aware of 
 what he was about to do, he had flung me aside with 
 violence and was running upstairs, four steps at a 
 time. I stood still, paralyzed by emotion, and mak- 
 ing no further attempt to detain him. Knowing what 
 I knew, it seemed to me that I felt upon my brow the
 
 58 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 breath of fate, as I stood on the staircase of the miserable 
 house. That the two men should meet appeared to me 
 inevitable. It was better this should happen now, and 
 I be there to support my friend at the very moment 
 when he received this terrible blow if he must receive 
 it. I forced myself to hope, there in that dismal 
 barrack of poverty, that a last remnant of humanity 
 might stay the outcast's hand. The fact that he had 
 limited his demands for money to the elder Corbieres, 
 when he could so easily have levied blackmail upon 
 Eugene, struck me suddenly as very significant. He 
 had said it to me himself, and with a certain emphasis. 
 I tried to feel that here was the proof of a reluctance 
 to make so cruel a revelation, and one so unjustifiable 
 also. The son had had no share in the father's fault. 
 If he had profited by it, he had done so unwittingly, 
 and to denounce it to him was a savage act. Pierre 
 Robert had not shown himself, in his interview with 
 me, to be either unjust or savage. I reasoned thus, 
 and I forgot that a man insane from the habitual use 
 of liquor, as he was, is always ready, under the 
 moment's excitement, to commit acts the most con- 
 trary to his natural character and to his more consid- 
 erate will. He had thought, in his bad hours, of 
 addressing himself to the son, but had always recoiled 
 from it as an infamous deed. I was about to find 
 that the instinct for revenge, awakened unawares, was 
 to be the stronger. It was indeed astonishing that a
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 59 
 
 scruple, really of great magnanimity, could have held 
 out so long in a being so degraded. The victim of 
 alcohol had not been master of his words with me. 
 How could he become so once more in these few min- 
 utes that had passed, and in the presence of the per- 
 son who excited in his mind the bitterest memories ? 
 Without my very clear consciousness, all these contra- 
 dictory ideas struggled together in my mind, as I waited 
 for my friend's return. I was now outside of the house. 
 The need of relieving my excitement by motion had made 
 me leave the staircase and then the courtyard. I now 
 stood on the sidewalk, counting the minutes, asking 
 myself if I ought not again to go upstairs, a prey to 
 one of the deadliest agonies that has ever tortured me, 
 when Eugene Corbieres appeared upon the threshold 
 of this door to the house of woe. We looked at each 
 other. Robert had told him all. 
 
 IV 
 
 THERE are, in every great doctor, as in every great 
 dramatic author, and probably in every great actor, 
 certain faculties much nearer akin to the type of the 
 man of action than to that of the man of thought. 
 These complex professions, which require so much ani- 
 malism, presuppose also an exceptional capacity for per- 
 sonal affirmation, for immediate decision, for resolve 
 carried at once into action. They call for a direct grasp,
 
 60 THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 so to speak, of reality. There is needed that bodily 
 vigour which enables the man to conquer his nerves. I 
 have often had occasion to verify this remark in my 
 relations with the higher individuals of these three 
 intellectual species. Never more fully than in the 
 moments that followed the interview of Eugene Corbi- 
 eres with the man whom his parents had plundered, 
 have I witnessed this almost soldierly virtue of the 
 medical training. 
 
 Eugene was undoubtedly crushed with grief by the 
 revelation that he had just undergone. He had not 
 the least doubt of its truth; this I perceived at once in 
 his eyes. But not a gesture, not a word betrayed, even 
 to me, the fearful inner storm. He said to me simply, 
 "You will not mind leaving me at the rue Arnyot? 
 The carriage will then take you home." And upon my 
 affirmative reply, he gave the man his father's address in 
 a perfectly tranquil voice. 
 
 While the fiacre bore us along through the old quarter 
 of Val-de-Grace, he could see through the carriage window 
 the succession of street corners we both knew so well, 
 the fronts of shops, the hundred familiar aspects that 
 brought up to his mind, as it did to mine, the ghosts 
 of so many hours of his studious youth. Had we not 
 often wandered together along these sidewalks, he going 
 to a lecture and I accompanying him, or else perhaps I 
 going toward the Luxembourg and he with me, to pro- 
 long one of our interminable talks about ideas ? All
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 61 
 
 these hours, yes, all of them, those of ardent labours, 
 those also of noble pleasures, was it possible that 
 they were due to an abominable crime, that his father 
 and mother had stolen for him the opportunity, for them 
 all, from the wretched man whom we had just left ? If 
 this evidence overwhelmed with distress me, who was 
 but a witness, what must be the despair of him, the 
 living actor in this frightful drama a drama of which 
 he was the hero, and of which he had known nothing ! 
 He preserved, however, that absolute mastery of him- 
 self which I had often witnessed in him beside hospital 
 cots. He seemed to be present at his own death-bed, with 
 the same mental firmness he had shown in alleviating 
 so many other death pangs less agonizing than his own. 
 His face had the determination of a clenched fist, his 
 eyes were tearless, his lips shut. No more now than in 
 the previous drive did we speak to each other. Why 
 should we have spoken ? It was I, the person not con- 
 cerned, in whom emotion triumphed first over this 
 manly reserve. When he got out in the rue Amyot, I 
 could not help saying, in a tone smothered by anguish, 
 as I grasped his hand, 
 
 " Remember how they have loved you." 
 
 " It would have been better that they had hated me," 
 he answered; "I should be less angry with them 
 now." 
 
 These sacrilegious words were said in a tone vibrat- 
 ing with such an impulse of indignation, at once implac-
 
 62 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 able and cold, his look had such an intensity of contempt, 
 I felt that he had come to such a state of concealed 
 frenzy under his calm exterior, that I let him enter the 
 house and disappear without making him any answer. 
 And again, why should I have spoken ? I threw 
 myself back in the carriage, abandoning myself com- 
 pletely to the pity that overflowed my heart, and I could 
 only say over and over again the same words, 
 
 " Dieu ! those poor people ! those poor people ! " 
 
 The vision which wrung from me this cry of terror was 
 that of my friend appearing as a minister of justice 
 before this old man and this old woman, and disowning 
 them, heaping upon them reproaches for having made 
 him the accomplice in an infamous act, in this violation 
 of a trust left them by the dead. I saw the son enter- 
 ing that apartment that I knew so well ; I saw them, the 
 parents ; I heard their voices : " Will you kill your 
 mother, my son!" "It 'is not I who take your life; 
 it is yourself who have done it ! " The dialogue between 
 the eternal Clytemnestra and the eternal Orestes came 
 into my mind ; and I was afraid. 
 
 When, later, Eugene related to me through what 
 emotions he had passed during that hour which truly 
 was the hour of his life, that in which his life's destiny 
 was determined, I felt how rightly I had apprehended a 
 tragic scene, and a frightful denouement to this frightful 
 occurrence. 
 
 " My resolution was made," he said to me ; " I
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 63 
 
 intended to question them, to know the truth from them 
 also ; to curse them ; and then to kill myself." 
 
 It was with a heart shaken by emotions of such 
 violence that the unhappy son reached the door of his 
 guilty parents. In this acute crisis of inner revolt, his 
 past existence caused him such repulsion that it hurt 
 him to give the habitual double ring at the door; this 
 recognized signal, to which he knew they would respond, 
 represented to him, for an instant, the long years that 
 they had lived here together, they and he they, the 
 thieves, he, their accomplice. 
 
 Without doubt, if it had been his father's footstep that 
 approached, and if, the door being opened, he had been 
 confronted with a person of his own sex, his anger 
 would have wreaked itself in some irreparable outburst. 
 Fortunately, the old man was not in the apartment. 
 Eugene heard, through the thin door, the light step of 
 his mother, arid when the bolt had slidden back, he 
 found, to welcome him, the eyes and the smile of the 
 old woman tKose eyes whose painful feverishness he 
 understood now, that smile which played over features 
 whose change he had studied for days : to-day he knew 
 its cause. And suddenly, before this feeble creature, 
 who had carried him in her breast, who had fed him with 
 her milk, ill, because of remorse for the crime she had 
 committed for his sake, the son felt his indignant 
 revolt stop short, break down, dissolve in a poignant 
 emotion that made him tremble from head to foot.
 
 64 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 Meantime the old mother, whose aged eyes, in the half 
 darkness of the little anteroom, had not seen his face 
 clearly, reclosed the door with the accustomed precau- 
 tions, and began relating to him, as usual, the humble 
 domestic chronicle of her home. 
 
 "If I had only known," she said, "that you would 
 come this morning, I would have had a good breakfast 
 for you, eggs cooked with tomatoes, as you like to have 
 them. I saw some fresh eggs at the market in the rue 
 Monge when I was there this morning. And your 
 father has just now gone out. He was not very well 
 this morning. He has his suffocating fits all the time. 
 You must examine his heart. But, my child, what is 
 the matter with you ? " 
 
 As she talked, she had followed him into the dining 
 room, and now looking at him in the broad light, she 
 became aware that her son was suffering from some 
 extraordinary emotion. 
 
 "My child!" she repeated. "My child! Eugene! 
 Ah!" 
 
 She ceased speaking. The cry, which came from her 
 mother's heart, warned by the most overwhelming of 
 intuitions, stopped short before the explosion of despair 
 of him to whom she spoke. Corbieres had dropped into 
 a chair and burst into convulsive sobs. To find himself 
 knowing what he now knew thus in the midst of 
 these humble objects among which he had lived, in this 
 atmosphere which had been that of all his youth, was
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING 65 
 
 more than he could bear, and he was swept away by the 
 wave of violent emotion which rose within him. It may 
 be that this outbreak of tears saved him from madness 
 and suicide, breaking through the frightful tension which 
 had seemed to shrivel up his whole being; and in this 
 little domestic spot, where all the successes of the 
 schoolboy and the student had been feted, the mother 
 listened with terror to that storm of sobs and stifled cries 
 which a man's extreme suffering utters. As to its cause, 
 the unhappy woman could scarcely have a doubt. Long 
 had she dreaded the discovery by her son of the crime 
 she and her husband had committed committed for 
 him, but, all the same, a crime ! And she said, leaning 
 over him, throwing her arms about him, herself almost 
 frantic : 
 
 " My Eugene, it is I, it is your mother ! Look at me. 
 You are suffering ? What is it ? Why do you weep ? 
 Ah ! tell me " 
 
 Then, with violence : 
 
 " Speak to me ! Whatever you have to say to me, say 
 it ! You hurt me too much " 
 
 She had made this last appeal with such a fierce 
 energy of maternal love, that it had in it that irresist- 
 ible suggestion which goes to the very depths of the 
 soul and compels confession. The man raised his head 
 and said to her, putting into the words all his grief, 
 but, also, all the tenderness which now mingled with 
 it,-
 
 66 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 "My poor mother, I have just come from the rue du 
 Faubourg-Saint-Jacques." 
 
 She made no answer. Against his will, after having 
 spoken to her, he had looked at her. He saw her re- 
 coil, her aged hands outstretched as if to push some- 
 thing away, and she became so frightfully pale that 
 he thought she might be dying. The physician was 
 aroused in the son, and in his turn, he sprang toward 
 her, calling her by the same name that he would have 
 used twenty years before, if he had seen her grow pale 
 like that. 
 
 " Mamma ! " he cried. 
 
 " Leave me alone," she said, still shrinking away from 
 him until she had reached the other side of the room. 
 Then she turned, covered her face with her hands, and 
 knelt to pray. When she rose to her feet, after some 
 time, she had in her eyes, upon her brow, around her 
 mouth, a kind of serenity in the midst of despair, which 
 was a very marked contrast with the expression of deep- 
 seated worry which had caused her son anxiety for so 
 many years. 
 
 "It is better so," she moaned, with a strange exalta- 
 tion. "It has stifled me for too long. God has been 
 merciful to me. Yes," she continued, with still more 
 ardour, " I have felt that it would be deliverance if you 
 knew, if I could talk to you, explain to you, if I had this 
 suffering in the present life ! You would have known it 
 at the day of judgment, when all secrets will be revealed,
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 67 
 
 and then it would have been too horrible." Closing her 
 eyes and shuddering, she went on : " I am ready to 
 drink the cup. The good God has given me strength. 
 Tell me all, Eugene, tell me all that you know ; and I 
 will tell you what is true and what is not. You must obey 
 me, my child, because I am your mother, who has loved 
 you only too well. Question me, I command you, that 
 there may be nothing between us now but the truth " 
 
 "I will try," Eugene said, after a moment's silence. 
 He felt, in the presence of the suddenly firm attitude 
 of her whom he knew so anxious, so hesitating, a senti- 
 ment of respect, all the more strange because he had 
 come to have an explanation which, in itself, was an 
 outrage. But there is in the heroic acceptance of cer- 
 tain trials a secret grandeur, before which even the 
 judge who condemns must bow; and it was with this 
 emotion the noblest that he could have at that 
 moment, the only one which could save him from 
 moral parricide in this interrogatory that he went 
 on, " Is it true that the wretched outcast who lives 
 over there, in the rue Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, this 
 Pierre Robert, is the illegitimate child of a man who 
 once befriended my father ? " 
 
 " It is true," she said ; " he is the son of M. Pierre 
 Eobert Haudric. That is why he has his name. This 
 M. Haudric was your father's foster-brother. Your 
 grandmother was his nurse at Peronne. It is he who 
 gave us our place in the office."
 
 68 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 "Then," resumed the son, who could not find words 
 to express the hideous fact, " the rest is true also ? " 
 
 "That M. Haudric intrusted to us a sum of money 
 for this son ? That is also true." 
 
 " And that you have used it for me ? " Eugene 
 asked in a faint voice, scarcely audible, as if he feared 
 if he should hear his own words he might again be 
 seized with a frenzy of revolt against that disgrace 
 with which he felt himself covered. And it was almost 
 inaudibly that she answered him, 
 
 " It is true." Then, supplicating, with clasped hands 
 she went on : " Listen to me, Eugene, listen : we 
 have been very guilty ; but to understand us, you must 
 know all ; and, first, that this son of M. Haudric had 
 already caused his father great anxiety. He was in- 
 telligent, but a worthless fellow even while a boy in 
 school. On this account M. Haudric said to Corbieres, 
 ' He must not have anything before he is thirty except 
 just the money indispensable for his education.' The 
 sum he fixed was twelve hundred francs a year. 
 The entire principal was thirty-six thousand francs. 
 We were not to let him know us because M. Haudric 
 had a wife. The mother of Pierre Robert was a near 
 relation of his wife's, an own cousin. How could he 
 have been guilty of such a fault, and he such a worthy 
 man ! I used to judge him very severely, but I know 
 now that I was wrong, and that we should judge no 
 one. He had other children, and it was his wish that
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 69 
 
 the secret should die with him. I explain all this 
 to you that you may understand how we came to be 
 tempted. Your father was to keep watch upon the 
 boy from a distance. The first year we sent him 
 his allowance as we ought, and we knew that he 
 lived in the Latin Quarter, with disreputable women, 
 going about from one cafe* to another, attending no 
 lectures, nor working at any useful thing. He was 
 already a drunkard, at nineteen! The second year 
 we again sent his money ; he did the same and even 
 worse. Your father made inquiries and learned that 
 he had contracted many debts. The third year," 
 she stopped a moment, then, with the fervour of 
 one consummating her sacrifice, continued; "the third 
 year was the time for your military service. That 
 you might be let off with only one year, we needed 
 to pay fifteen hundred francs. We had not the money. 
 Our poor little savings seven thousand francs, laid 
 aside, sou by sou had been lost in a bad investment. 
 You were so industrious. You had done so well in 
 reaching the point where you then were. What could 
 we do? We could not endure the thought that your 
 studies must be interrupted ; and it was not merely 
 the question of a longer or shorter military service, 
 but of all the future. Oh ! if the other had been 
 like you; if we had been able to feel that the money 
 would not be wasted on him, that he would use it to 
 become somebody, the temptation never would have
 
 70 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 taken hold of us. I know, we had not the right. 
 The money was his, not ours. But you were so 
 worthy of it, Eugene, and he so unworthy ! And we 
 yielded " 
 
 "And you never thought," Eugene said, "that just 
 because of this very feebleness of character that other 
 had more need of the money than I ? Did you never 
 say to yourselves that, in taking away this little prop- 
 erty, you left him more helpless; that, with his lack 
 of energy, having no means, he would fall lower and 
 lower, and I, your son, would be the person responsible 
 for this ? " 
 
 "You?" cried the mother. "You, you responsi- 
 ble ? Don't say it, my child, don't think it ! Neither 
 you nor your father," she continued, smiting her 
 breast as she did in church. "I take it all upon 
 myself. It was I who had the idea of using a part of 
 the money for your military service. It was I who 
 persuaded Corbieres. He did not wish to do it, and 
 I urged him. Then he proposed to go on sending 
 the allowance, taking it out of the principal. I pre- 
 vented him. I was afraid that there would not be 
 money enough left for your studies. And so it was 
 done. I tell you, I loved you too well, more than my 
 eternal salvation, more than God. Here was my sin. 
 The rest followed naturally. I knew that I should 
 lose my soul, but it was for you. It is ten years, 
 Eugene, ten years since I have been to confession,
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 71 
 
 for fear the priest might tell me to give back what 
 was left of the money. You might need it. Yes, I 
 have loved you too well, my child; and through you 
 God has punished me from the very first. Not that 
 you have ever caused me pain, you, perfection upon 
 earth ! But for that very reason, because you were 
 so perfect, I began to have an anxiety, a presentiment, 
 that this would not last, that we should not succeed, 
 that you would be taken away, suddenly, in the midst 
 of youth and hope. I assure you, if we had had diffi- 
 culties, if you had been less industrious, I should not 
 have had this impression of a threat always hanging 
 over us because of what we had done. I tried to get 
 rid of this terror by punishing myself voluntarily; 
 your father the same. After he had allowed himself 
 to be persuaded by me, he deprived himself of every- 
 thing, tobacco, coffee, and he eats no more than just 
 enough to keep himself alive. We can do ourselves the 
 justice to say that we took nothing for ourselves. But 
 for all I fasted and mortified the flesh, I could never 
 get rid of the idea that the day would come when I 
 should be struck through you. The years have passed, 
 Eugene, and have brought me only reason to love you 
 more, and be more and more proud of you. And the 
 more I was happy through you, the stronger grew the 
 feeling that I had not the right to this happiness. I 
 hardly know how to express it. Every success of 
 yours, every time you gave us reason to rejoice, it
 
 72 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 was as if the debt grew larger. You can see that I 
 was right in thinking that we should have to pay it 
 all some day, since I am talking now like this. This 
 thought had grown so strong and haunted me so, that 
 two years ago I thought I would try to get a little 
 relief from it. Your father and I knew that the other 
 was in the regiment, and then in a school at Versailles, 
 and had been expelled for misconduct. Then we had 
 lost sight of him. I had the idea that if we could 
 find him and restore to him, not the whole but some- 
 thing could help him, I should be relieved from 
 part of the burden, should no longer have this terror 
 at my heart. And Corbieres sought for him, and at 
 last found him. Why did I also want to see him? 
 I could not help it. It seemed as if I must have him 
 before my eyes. Then I felt that I was having my 
 punishment. When I saw what he had become, remorse 
 seized me, and I was afraid, not for ourselves, but for 
 you. I said to myself what you said to me just now, 
 that perhaps, with this money of which we had de- 
 frauded him, he would not have fallen so low. I no 
 longer saw in this use of the money an unlawful thing 
 merely; I saw that it was a crime. You understand 
 the rest. My anxiety was so great that this man could 
 not help noticing it. Before his death, M. Haudric 
 had written to him what his intentions were, but with- 
 out giving his own name or ours. He knew that a 
 little money had been left for him. Two years he
 
 THE DAY OF KECKOXING 73 
 
 had received an allowance, but after that nothing. He 
 guessed it all ; and for the last fourteen months we have 
 lived with the idea that he would do what he has done 
 this morning, that he would speak to you, and that 
 you would judge us, condemn us, despise us. Ah ! " 
 she continued, in passionate supplication, "judge me, 
 condemn me, despise me, Eugene, but not your father! 
 Spare him. He is not guilty, I swear to you. It was 
 I who planned it all and carried it all out. I am the 
 only guilty one. The good God knows this, and the 
 proof is, that He has permitted you to find me alone 
 here. I should not have dared to ask Him for that. 
 It was more than I deserved. But He has forgiven 
 me now, I am sure of it. I have suffered so much. 
 I can bear it now. I can go to confession and com- 
 munion. Ah, Eugene, have pity upon your father!" 
 
 "I have not the right to judge either you or him," 
 Eugene said. This man, habituated by his profession 
 to contact with suffering, was entirely overcome before 
 this abyss of misery, on whose edge he had lived all his 
 youth without seeing it, or even suspecting it. Neither 
 had he suspected the frenzy of this mother's love, whom 
 he, of all men, could not possibly condemn. He had 
 before him a human heart laid bare, bleeding and 
 whose? That of his own mother. How had she suf- 
 fered, this poor soul ; and how repentance and faith had 
 marked her with their strong touch ! How in her secret 
 punishment she had been washed from her sin! She
 
 74 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 accepted all her chastisement, she claimed it all, taking 
 everything upon herself, only eager to expiate for both, 
 anxious to spare her accomplice the old companion of 
 her life this death-blow which had now fallen upon her. 
 In what recess of his heart could her son have found the 
 strength to judge her, or to act otherwise than he did 
 act ? He went to her, and clasping her in his arms, 
 
 "Mamma," he said, "my dear mamma, suffer no 
 longer, weep no longer. All can be wiped out, can be 
 made good. I shall be a rich man. I will pay the 
 money back. I will save this unhappy man. Look 
 at me. Smile once more. You know you can believe 
 what I say. I swear to you that I have in my heart for 
 you nothing but affection and respect. Your tears have 
 washed everything away, and I will do what remains 
 to be done. And we shall all be happy, I promise it 
 to you." 
 
 She had laid her head against the young man's 
 shoulder, and she heard him through without making 
 any reply, only shaking her poor white head, with a 
 gentle movement that seemed to say "no" to those 
 hopeful promises the resigned " no " of the dying to 
 whom one talks of exciirsions that they will never make, 
 of pleasures that they will never enjoy. And this mute 
 negative expressed so fully the truth of an irremediable 
 distress that at last he was silent too, still keeping 
 the old head against his shoulder, with many a caress, 
 until suddenly a well-known sound made them separate
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 75 
 
 abruptly. A hand was introducing a key into the lock in 
 the door of entrance. It was the father, returning home. 
 
 "Courage, mamina," Eugene said, "I promise you 
 that he shall not know " 
 
 "And I kept my promise," he said to me, when we 
 met later, and he related to me all that had taken place, 
 " with what difficulty you may imagine. I went into the 
 next room to dry my eyes and tranquillize my face. 
 Then I heard my father's voice, asking, ' Eugene is here ? 
 That is his hat.' And my mother said, ' Yes, he is look- 
 ing for a book in the library. It was very fortunate 
 that he came in this morning ; I was very ill after you 
 went out. He has been questioning me. But it is noth- 
 ing.' Her pious falsehood gave me an excuse for appear- 
 ing with red eyelids and signs of distress in my face. 
 Otherwise my emotion must have betrayed me. I left 
 them immediately. I could bear the strain no longer. 
 Would you believe this, it was the first hour of my being 
 alone that was the hardest of all. I walked on, uncon- 
 sciously, not knowing whither I went. I could have 
 wished to get away from myself, never to encounter my 
 own thoughts again. It seemed to me that they were no 
 longer mine, that I had stolen them, had stolen my intel- 
 lect, my ideas, all the best that is in me. These years 
 of study that had made me what I am, this science that 
 I had so loved, this culture I was so proud of I 
 repeated to myself that it was all stolen, stolen, stolen ; 
 that I had had it all at another's expense ; with another's
 
 76 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 money ; and that other, I saw him again in my thoughts 
 in that vile room, with his degraded face, speaking those 
 brutal words, and all his debasement recoiled upon me. 
 In vain I said to myself what my mother had said to me : 
 that I was not responsible for it. There are things that 
 no more admit of argument than life or death. It is so, 
 or it is not so. This responsibility was upon me, was 
 within me. If you chanced to learn that a jewel which 
 had been given to you, a ring, had been obtained by a 
 murder, you would not wear it for a moment, you would 
 pluck it off, you would throw it from you, that you might 
 not have blood upon your hands. But in my case, can I 
 pluck out my brain, and with it all that comes to me 
 from this other man's murder? For it is a murder 
 what they have done ! There are other ways of assas- 
 sinating besides with a pistol or with poison. You can 
 kill a living creature by taking from him all that would 
 have made him live. It was this, at the first moment, 
 that maddened me with shame and grief; that this 
 stolen money had become part of myself, of my mind ; 
 that I could not give back these funds which had been 
 thus misused for my benefit. But I will restore them ; 
 I will do it ! " 
 
 " Now you are reasonable," I said ; " your poor mother 
 was right when she said to you that you were not respon- 
 sible for what they had done for you, she and your 
 father. Believe me, your duty is perfectly simple, and 
 you discovered it at once when you followed the guid-
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 77 
 
 ance of your heart, which led you to have pity upon 
 your mother, to spare your father's old age this mortal 
 grief, and to relieve the poor fellow in the Faubourg- 
 Saint-Jacques. You owe to him, first of all, a restitu- 
 tion of the money which is his, and then to assist him to 
 free himself from this terrible slavery, to cure him of 
 the alcohol habit into which he has fallen, into which 
 he would have fallen, whether poor or rich, you may be 
 certain. If you succeed in this, you will be clear, upon 
 my honour ! }) 
 
 11 No," he said, and I saw in his steadfast eyes that 
 same admirable ardour of spiritual life which had made 
 me his friend at once, on that day in the Luxembourg 
 garden; "no," he insisted, "that is not enough." And 
 as if, by a mysterious mental telepathy, at this moment 
 of solemn confidence, the same thought came back to the 
 minds of both of us. " You remember," he said, " when 
 we met each other again, after we had left school, our 
 discussions about ideas and the reasons which had led 
 me to begin the study of medicine? I said to you 
 that I hungered and thirsted after certainty, and that 
 I believed I had found it, in a kind of alternative, 
 after the manner of Pascal. Do you remember it? I 
 dreamed of a way to pass my life that would be jus- 
 tifiable whether there were or were not a God ; whether 
 or not free agency ; whether another life or annihi- 
 lation. Well! I have come to a moment when this 
 double hypothesis is no longer possible to me. I am
 
 T8 THE DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 driven into a choice between the alternatives. You 
 speak of money restored and of care bestowed. But 
 though I should pay this man the amount twenty times, 
 thirty times, a hundred times over, though I should be 
 able to rescue him from his frightful vice, how shall I 
 restore to him his youth, all his lost possibilities, how re- 
 pair the irreparable? If there is no God, this is my 
 condition. But if there be a God, and if human action 
 has another horizon than ours, I might merit something 
 for this wretched man. This is not the first time that 
 this idea has haunted me. Since I have seen the sisters 
 in hospitals, taking care of the patients, with no other 
 support than the idea that they were meriting for others, 
 I have reflected much on what theologians call reversi- 
 bility. The whole question is, Does experience show us 
 this phenomenon in nature, or does it not? For some 
 years it has seemed to me the sole interpretation of very 
 many things, and I defy you to explain otherwise the 
 severe trial from which I now suffer. Yes, or no? 
 Am I smitten for my parents' crime ? And this Robert 
 himself, of what is he the victim but of his father's 
 wrong-doing? How many of these allotments have I 
 seen ! And, behind them, there must be a Power which 
 allots. If there are reversions of evil, there must be also 
 a reversion of good. These are not theories, they are 
 experience. And a matter of experience, also, is this 
 inevitable justice, in terror of which my poor mother has 
 lived these ten years by which she has now been
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 79 
 
 stricken down, through me, as she says. Behind justice, 
 there must be a judge. Behind the day of reckoning, a 
 creditor." 
 
 " And you infer ? " I said. 
 
 " I infer," he rejoined, " that if there is no God I can- 
 not make good the loss. I can if He exists. Ah ! would 
 that I could believe in Him," he added, with a sigh that 
 I still hear after sixteen years. 
 
 YES, it is now sixteen years since Eugene, under the 
 immediate stroke of the events which I have related, 
 expressed to me these convictions, whose logic I do 
 not discuss ; and in these sixteen years he has arrived, 
 through what inner storms I have never known, at 
 the solution which he indicated to me in this conver- 
 sation a solution which he so passionately desired, 
 while as yet his mind did not fully surrender to those 
 reasons of the heart that cried out in him. I repeat 
 what I said at first : I am but a witness narrating, 
 and expressing no opinion. Eugene to-day has neither 
 father nor mother. Both are dead : she, appeased by 
 her son's forgiveness; he, having never suspected that 
 his son knew all. Pierre Robert is dead, also, although 
 Corbieres strove hard to preserve his life. And Cor- 
 bieres himself his colleagues saw, with an amazement 
 that years have not dispelled, shortly after these three
 
 80 . THE DAY OF BECKONING 
 
 deaths, which occurred in rapid succession, abandon 
 his envied position as hospital physician, his important 
 Parisian clientele, the certainty of honours of every 
 kind, to enter the congregation of the Brethren Saint- 
 Jean de Dieu, devoted, as is well-known, to the service 
 of the sick. I was far away from Paris at the time 
 of this decision, and it is easy to see that, in any 
 case, I should never have ventured to question him. 
 We have not ceased to see each other, however, and 
 when by chance, in travelling in the south of France, 
 I pass through Marseilles, where the Order has a large 
 house, I never fail to visit their hospital, and to see 
 Father Saint Kobert. Under the black robe of the 
 brethren, I find my old fellow-student in philosophy, 
 the savant destined to a European renown, the child 
 of the two poor parents whom parental love led into 
 crime. And at each visit I find him more and more 
 tranquil, more and more irradiated by that certainty 
 which he so eagerly sought, with a freer expression 
 in his eyes, which are still singularly youthful. And 
 I comprehend two things : first, that he has now entire 
 and absolute faith ; and next, that, in putting his science 
 at every one's service, a wealth lavished because he 
 does not regard it as his own, he has discovered what 
 was perhaps the only way to solve the saddest problem 
 I have ever seen set before a man. He makes good 
 the trust to which his parents were unfaithful; and, 
 since he remains even under his frock a lover of classic
 
 THE DAY OF BECKONING 81 
 
 souvenirs, he quotes to me sometimes it would be 
 his only proselytism, if there were not his example also 
 the saying of the Phoenician merchant, cast by storm 
 upon the shore of Attica, where he meets a philoso- 
 pher, 
 
 " I came to port in making shipwreck." 
 
 Of all the men of my generation, I have never been 
 sure whether it were he whom I pitied, or whom I 
 envied, the most. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1898.
 
 II 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 I 
 
 A PARISIAN FAMILY: THE HUSBAND 
 
 IF you read many newspapers and who of us, now- 
 adays, has not this habit of wasting one hour of his 
 morning and another of his evening to discover in half 
 a dozen journals the same inaccurate information, the 
 same ardent sophistry, the same unjust partialities ? 
 you will have seen a hundred times, a thousand times, 
 the names of M. and Mine. Hector Le Prieux. Both 
 of them figure, and with good reason, in the front rank 
 of those who are called by common consent Parisian 
 notabilities : he, as one of the veterans of the dramatic 
 feuilleton and chronique boulevardidre, she, though the 
 wife of a mere journalist, as a fashionable woman, who 
 gives grand dinners that are mentioned by the daily press, 
 and is never absent from the first performance of a new 
 play or the opening of an exposition or, in short, from any 
 of those functions where that special, indefinable "All 
 Paris " which foreigners and people from the country 
 dream about is on view. This "All Paris" is not 
 
 86
 
 86 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 " society " ; the elements which make it up are too com- 
 posite for this heterogeneous mixture ever to repre- 
 sent, even imperfectly, the world of fashion. Still, it 
 is a world, and has its exclusions, its manners, its 
 hierarchy. The "beautiful Mme. Le Prieux," as she 
 is still called, despite her forty years and over, must 
 be surely one of its queens, if this royalty be decreed 
 from frequency of mention in the reports of this almost 
 daily parade. But to be very celebrated, it has been 
 said, is to be misunderstood by a great number of people. 
 The seeming paradox is as true of this odd Parisian 
 celebrity as it is of celebrity of every other kind. Do you 
 sometimes take the trouble to think of the married life 
 that two persons, so plunged in the social whirl as the 
 Le Prieux, are likely to have when you read, nearly 
 every day, the wife's name in the " Society Notes," arid 
 the husband's at the foot of an article. If you do, I 
 will wager that these are the images which present 
 themselves to your mind: him you imagine after the 
 legendary type of the boulevardier, of doubtful fidel- 
 ity as a husband, more or less a man of pleasure, duel- 
 list, frequenter of green-rooms in second-class theatres, 
 habitue of gambling saloons ; her you fancy after the no 
 less legendary type of the Parisienne in fashionable novels, 
 thoughtless even to "bad form," if she be not absolutely 
 disreputable. You are ready to believe anything of 
 them except that the brilliant Bohemianism of such a 
 couple can be legitimately associated with the idea of
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 87 
 
 a hearth and a home. And in thus thinking you are 
 at once right and wrong, as is usually the case when 
 opinions are too broadly generalized. You are wrong 
 as to this individual instance, for Hector Le Prieux, 
 journalist though he be, is, at the same time, the very 
 best husband that ever a respectable and anxious middle 
 class father could have wished for his "young lady"; 
 and Mme. Le Prieux, in respect to conjugal fidelity, is 
 the most irreproachable of wives. You are right as to 
 the principle, as to the paucity of chances for serious 
 and solid happiness that married life offers, lived under 
 such conditions and in such an atmosphere. 
 
 The domestic life of the Le Prieux rests, indeed, 
 upon an anomaly, which must be explained in order 
 to render intelligible the little emotional drama to 
 which these first reflections, and those which are to 
 follow, form the long, but needful, preamble. More- 
 over, to relate the history of this couple will give to 
 this very simple little story its full value as a social 
 lesson. The reciprocal situations of Mine. Le Prieux 
 and her husband do not result from the husband's 
 rather unusual profession. If he were making at the 
 Bourse, in business, or in manufactures, the twelve or 
 fourteen thousand dollars a year that he now earns 
 by the heavy labour of journalism, the singularity 
 of his relations with his wife would be quite the same. 
 This strange household, whose desolating scourge is, we 
 shall see, that special malady of the day, the passionate
 
 88 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 desire for the same luxury that others have, is exceptional 
 only in its circumstances. This desire to shine to the very 
 extremity of one's means, this wish to rise above one's 
 class, to equal, in every respect and at any price, in 
 their mode of living, their surroundings, their pleasures, 
 those whose station is next higher than one's own, 
 what else is this but an individual form of the great 
 democratic degeneracy ? One hesitates to use expres- 
 sions so serious when it is a question of such an every- 
 day incident, and of people who believe themselves so 
 simple and natural. But, if you reflect, the broad 
 changes in manners which history records are nothing 
 more than this : an indefinitely multiplied addition of 
 minute individual habits, like a vast tide, which is nothing 
 more than the advance of many milliards of tiny waves. 
 
 At the moment when begins this drama, without 
 great events and yet tragic, of which I speak, that is to 
 say, in the month of January, 1897, this family, the 
 Le Prieux, had already been in existence twenty-three 
 years, Hector at that time Leprieux in one word, so 
 spelt before it began to figure in the " Society Notes " 
 having married Mile. Mathilde Duret in 1874. The 
 marriage was celebrated in a very simple way, and was 
 far from giving any hint of the future elegance of the 
 " beautiful Mme. Le Prieux," in two words. Scarcely 
 was the ceremony mentioned by the two newspapers on 
 which the journalist was at that time employed. This 
 reticence had been desired by Hector himself, anxious
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 89 
 
 to avoid all allusion to the recent financial disaster 
 in which the father of his fiancee had perished. So 
 many occurrences of this kind have taken place since 
 then! No one, assuredly, remembers to-day that dar- 
 ing Armand Duret who, just before and just after 
 the fall of the Empire, set on foot such extensive 
 and venturesome enterprises, founded with so much 
 nourish the Credit Departemental, displayed such inso- 
 lent luxury, controlled so many newspapers, and ended 
 in a horrible scandal, with ruin and suicide. 
 
 The widow and daughter of this unfortunate speculator 
 were but just able to secure, after his death, a little 
 income of eight hundred dollars, no more than enough 
 to keep them from dying of hunger amid the few pieces 
 of furniture that had escaped the hammer of the auc- 
 tioneer and appraiser. On his part, his work for the 
 two newspapers gave Hector a thousand dollars a year, 
 as follows: on one of his two journals he had the posi- 
 tion of reporter of the courts, with a salary of four hun- 
 dred and eighty dollars ; to the other he furnished, 
 under an assumed name, a semi-weekly courrier de Paris, 
 at five dollars the article, to wit, five hundred and 
 twenty dollars annually. Three farms, leased in cooper- 
 ative farming, which he had the good sense to retain in 
 the Bourbonnais, his native province, represented the 
 least aleatory but most slender portion of his income, 
 bringing in, on average, a hundred and eighty dollars 
 yearly. These figures suffice to explain why it was at
 
 90 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 once decided that the young couple should live with the 
 mother. The two women demonstrated to the journal- 
 ist, profoundly ignorant of the affairs of everyday life, 
 that there was, in this family combination, a certainty of 
 economy. Mme. Duret, the widow, insisted, above all, 
 on the necessity of avoiding the purchase of new furni- 
 ture. Up to the time of his marriage, Hector had occu- 
 pied a furnished room in a little hotel in the rue des 
 Martyrs, near his two newspaper offices. 
 
 " Mamma is so kind ! She will let me have her salon 
 for my day," Mathilde had said, with a gratitude that 
 moved her lover to tears, while he might have perceived, 
 in this simple phrase, what a conception of their joint 
 future his fiancee already had. But where could the 
 young man, who did not know the true price of 
 anything, have learned to understand character, the 
 most difficult lesson of all? Himself an orphan, he 
 had no person who could outline for him, in advance, 
 the curve of his conjugal future, and indicate to him 
 what serious consequences would result from little faults 
 of generalship made early in his married life. Every- 
 thing contributed to render him the slave that he was 
 destined to remain his life long, without being conscious 
 of it : his being thus alone, then his education, his turn 
 of mind and feeling, everything, even to his race, even 
 to those first hereditary traits of temperament, which are 
 all the stronger in us because we ourselves are scarcely 
 conscious of them.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 91 
 
 I have said that Le Prieux to give him hence- 
 forward the semi-ennoblement of the separate Le was 
 a native of the Bourbonnais. His very name betrayed 
 his native province. In. the patois of Central France, 
 the peasant, fluent of speech, who is sent to carry 
 wedding invitations from hamlet to hamlet, is called 
 to this day a prieux or a sermonneux. Was this rdle of 
 rustic messenger filled with special unction by one 
 of Hector's peasant ancestors ? The modest archives of 
 Chevagnes, his native village, bear no testimony to such 
 a fact. They do, however, attest that the Leprieux 
 have been known at Chevagnes for many generations 
 with this sobriquet as a patronymic. They must have 
 lived there for many centuries, for their descendant 
 with his head broader than it is long, his rather flat face 
 with its round chin, his smooth hair remaining reddish 
 brown under the gray, his brown eyes, his powerful neck 
 and broad shoulders, his solid torso and short stature 
 presents the perfect type of the Keltic peasant who 
 occupied this part of France when Caesar appeared here. 
 It is an autochthonous race, whose characteristics remain 
 strikingly the same through history : a sagacious mind, 
 without strong creative imagination, a will patient but 
 without initiative, what scholars now call the gregarious 
 spirit, a desire not to act alone and almost a necessity for 
 being led. It is true that it is dangerous to generalize 
 in respect to characteristics like these. And still, the 
 annals of Auvergne and the Bourbonnais seem fully to
 
 92 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 justify us in this generalization. In the case of this 
 latter province, with which we are especially con- 
 cerned, through one of the humblest of her sons, the 
 predominance of the Keltic element impresses an evident 
 unity upon her history. Who sprang from this province, 
 during the long period of the Middle Ages and the 
 ancient regime, when local independence gave scope for 
 a freer expansion of native powers ? There were almost 
 no great soldiers, or very few ; almost no, or very few, 
 great artists as if the race were repugnant to such 
 excessive development. On the other hand, men of 
 prudent minds, lawyers and churchmen, were very nu- 
 merous. When a man is of his native land to the 
 degree that Hector is, its virtues and its defects always 
 reappear, even though he spend his life amid surround- 
 ings and follow a profession the most opposed, it would 
 seem, to this influence of the ancestral soil. Read one of 
 Hector's dramatic feuilletons, or one of his Causeries 
 Parisiennes, and you will find the cautious mind, the 
 narrow view, the judicial spirit, timidity, a slightly dull 
 accuracy, and a somewhat paltry sagacity. His is a 
 talent which too early lost its venturesomeness, and a 
 character which too early became enslaved. 
 
 While a passivity of soul, altogether hereditary with 
 Hector, explains why the household authority must im- 
 mediately have belonged to his wife, an enigma comes 
 before us which must be solved before showing this 
 control of Mine. Le Prieux over her husband's sayings
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 93 
 
 and doings : why, with this innate lack of the spirit of 
 enterprise, out of the many safe public careers with 
 fixed salary and pension, which are open in our time to 
 the Frenchman of sheeplike tendencies, choose the 
 most adventurous, the most fruitful in things unex- 
 pected, the least conformed to respectable and prosaic 
 prudence ? But here also, where he seemed to give 
 proof of courage and originality, the young man had 
 simply proved his docility to influences, and his lack of 
 confidence in his own strength. And in this way : the 
 most unforeseen of chances had brought it about that the 
 father of Hector, established as a doctor at Chevagnes, 
 renewed acquaintance at the springs of Bourbon-Lancy, 
 very near Chevagnes, with one of his old comrades in the 
 hospital, who was himself living near Nohant, and was 
 Mme. Sand's physician. Being invited to visit the 
 Le Prieux, the Berrichon doctor talked much of his illus- 
 trious patient in the presence of Hector, who was at that 
 time finishing his course in rhetoric at the lycee de 
 Moulins, and, like all the schoolboys of his age, secretly 
 composed poor poetry. A passionate admirer of Lelia 
 and Indiana, the young fellow ventured, after this con- 
 versation, upon the first bold act of his life. (This 
 present story will relate the second.) He wrote to the 
 mistress of Nohant a letter, in which he begged her 
 advice as to the direction of his religious ideas. With 
 that admirable generosity of the pen which she kept to 
 the end of her life, notwithstanding her vast literary
 
 94 OTHER PEOPLE S LUXURY 
 
 labours, George Sand replied to the schoolboy. She did 
 not anticipate that the four pages of her letter, in the big 
 round chirography, slightly backhanded, of her later 
 years, would exercise upon the future of her improvised 
 correspondent a most fatal influence. He replied to the 
 letter, and, emboldened, sent her some of his verses. 
 The former friend of Alfred de Musset was nearly as saga- 
 cious about poetry as she was about politics. To make 
 up for that, however, she excelled in building romances. 
 She constructed one concerning the young Bourbonnais 
 rhymester, solely because he had embodied in mediocre 
 verse a picturesque local legend. She saw him inaugu- 
 rating in France that provincial rustic poetry which had 
 always been a favourite dream with her. She encouraged 
 him by praise that dangerous, imprudent praise, of 
 which famous artists are not as sparing as they should 
 be. They do not measure its influence upon a beginner's 
 imagination. A visit at Nohant, where he was received 
 with the most cordial good-nature, still further turned 
 the youth's head, who now believed in his future as a 
 poet. The result was that, instead of beginning his medi- 
 cal studies on leaving school, as his father desired, he 
 begged to be allowed to take up law, seeing in that pur- 
 suit an opportunity for studies less definite and more ca- 
 pable of being harmonized with his secret wishes. Then, 
 upon his father's death, which very soon followed, the son, 
 free to act his own pleasure, he had lost his mother 
 when a child, quickly turned into money the small
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 95 
 
 inheritance left to him. In this first fervour of hope, 
 the three farms, which later constituted the solid portion 
 of his means, were spared only on account of the diffi- 
 culty of cancelling the leases. The study of law, which 
 from motives of economy had been begun at Dijon, was 
 abandoned; and the pupil of Mme. Sand established 
 himself at Paris, to lead there the life of a candidate for 
 literary fame. 
 
 This event for the departure of young Le Prieux to 
 Paris made a sensation in the district of Chevagnes, 
 where the late doctor had as many self-styled cousins, 
 that is to say, almost gratuitous patients, as there are 
 hamlets in this Bourbonnais Sologne this event, then, 
 occurred in 1865. The result was as you foresee : once 
 more Icarus burned in the fire of reality the wax of his 
 imprudent wings. In 1870, at the time of the war, dur- 
 ing which he did his duty bravely and simply, Hector 
 had published at his own expense two volumes of verse ; 
 the Gen&ts des Brandes, and the Rondes Bourbonnaises, 
 and also a novel, the Rossigneu, this is the patois name 
 of a red ox, the whole composed in that intentionally 
 rustic and provincial colouring which is a sort of conven- 
 tionality peculiar to authors who have come to Paris for 
 the purpose of being provincial. Taking them all to- 
 gether, the three works had sold to the extent of a hun- 
 dred and fifty copies. 
 
 Meanwhile, the author had learned to his cost what 
 brutal positivism, implacable vanity, and base self-inter-
 
 96 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 est are concealed under the pompous declamations or 
 the whimsical paradoxes of artistic Bohemia. Ilegarded 
 as rich and truly so, by comparison in the reunions 
 of the Latin Quarter, and, afterward, of Montmartre, 
 whither his literary aspirations naturally led him, the 
 country youth had soon experienced all the numer- 
 ous varieties of systematic exploitation which the argot 
 of the beer shops disguises under the familiar, joking 
 name of " tape." He had been the obliging comrade who 
 cannot enter a cafe without five or six of the men present 
 coming to sit down at his table, to rise, after long dis- 
 course upon the high aesthetics, leaving him to pay for 
 innumerable orders whose saucers pile themselves up in 
 monumental columns; then, when the host of the pre- 
 ceding evening next day enters the cafe, he hears the 
 refined aesthetes pass judgment upon his work and him- 
 self, with a " fa n'existe pas " (" he doesn't exist "), 
 which plunges like cold steel into the most sensitive 
 region of his self-love. Le Prieux had also been the 
 "gogo" who takes shares to the value of twenty -five 
 louis in a review destined " to defend young authors," 
 then finds in it some cruelly allusive article referring 
 to himself, with the vexation of having paid for being 
 slashed as other men pay for being commended. He had 
 been also, not once but fifty times, the Maecenas, at first 
 sympathizing, later browbeaten, who begins by opening 
 his purse to professional literary beggars ; then, at his 
 first refusal, encounters the insults of rascals whose
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 97 
 
 impotent and arrogant laziness he refuses longer to 
 feed. 
 
 But why enumerate annoyances so common ? What 
 happens less frequently is, that the young man who 
 experiences them does not lose his mental balance. 
 Fortunately, while Hector was striving to express in 
 prose and verse, systematically and laboriously made 
 simple, that poetry of the native soil which he had 
 foolishly left, the native soil wrought in him unawares. 
 The wary prudence of his peasant ancestors interpreted 
 these strange experiences. He got out of them, by 
 an obscure, irresistible instinct of self-preservation, a 
 clear view of the conditions in which he must live, 
 and he divined the surest way to put himself in har- 
 mony with the conditions. He reflected seriously 
 during the cruel campaign of 1870, in the field, and, 
 later, in Germany, where he was a prisoner. Finding 
 that he had reached, without any result, almost the 
 limit of his small capital, he became aware that his 
 dream of immediate fame was chimerical. He judged 
 himself, as poet and as novelist; and while still pre- 
 serving in petto a secret complacency as to his youth- 
 ful efforts, he sought to postpone the realization of his 
 ideal. He saw himself at the age of twenty-five, with- 
 out property, without helpful friends, without a career 
 begun. He said to himself that he must devote his 
 life partly to art and partly to a profession. Now, con- 
 sidering professions generally, he recognized that liter-
 
 98 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 ature was as good as any, if it were followed with the 
 virtues of assiduous labour and punctuality, which are 
 necessary in them all.. Here was the master-stroke of 
 the good sense which came from his peasant ancestry. 
 He said to himself that a great newspaper is, after all, 
 only a vast commercial workshop, involving a certain 
 quantity of positive work, regularly executed. He 
 resolved to be one of the good hands in one of these 
 workshops, and he carried out his intention with a 
 patience and a method no less worthy of the old farmers 
 whose slow and sagacious energy reappeared in him 
 under the most unexpected of forms. 
 
 His first care was to profit by the forced dispersal 
 of the literary groups of which he had more or less 
 made part to isolate himself from almost all his 
 former companions. Then, remembering that he had 
 passed a part of his legal examinations, he had the 
 courage to complete his studies, that he might be ad- 
 mitted to the bar and then apply for a place on some 
 small newspaper as chronicler of the courts. He 
 obtained it, thanks to one of his comrades of the 
 beer shop who, also acting with good sense, had gone 
 into journalism. The punctuality with which Hector 
 brought in his copy, the precision and clearness of 
 his reports, with which he took great pains, the amenity 
 of his character, soon made him appreciated in this 
 first journal. The managing editor spoke highly of 
 him to the proprietor, who was no other than Duret.
 
 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 99 
 
 The latter desired to gather about him human tools, 
 good and trustworthy secretaries, who would be to 
 him intelligent collaborators in the political fortune 
 which he hoped to rear upon his financial fortune. 
 He made Le Prieux's acquaintance. Thus Hector 
 entered, a petty reporter newly appointed, and by the 
 back stairs, the princely house that Duret at that time 
 possessed in the avenue de Friedland. The specu- 
 lator was at once pleased with him, and, struck by 
 his clear-headedness, formed the design of making 
 him a confidential clerk. The tragic circumstances so 
 well known and the collapse of the Credit Departe- 
 mental, abruptly interrupting Duret's prosperity and 
 driving him to suicide, seemed likely to put an end 
 to all relations between Le Prieux and the two women 
 who survived this disaster. Such was not, however, 
 the case. He put himself completely at the service 
 of the poor widow, who was only too happy to 
 find, amid the frightful confusion of this ruin, the de- 
 votion of the modest chronicler of the courts. The 
 young man lavished his services, with the fervour of 
 an ardent admiration for the beautiful and unfortunate 
 Mathilde. It is easy to conjecture the rest : the 
 increasing intimacy, and Hector's passion, at first too 
 timid even to dare to hope ever to please ; the pathetic 
 gratitude of the two women ; the almost frightened 
 rapture of the lover before the suddenly discovered 
 prospect of a possible union; and the result an inno-
 
 100 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 cent and delicious idyl whose recollection, a quarter of 
 a century after, made the heart of the middle-aged 
 journalist beat as if he were still the humble beginner, 
 twenty-nine years old, who superintended the transpor- 
 tation of his clothes and his books to his mother-in- 
 law's apartment a somewhat melancholy apartment, 
 it is true, looking into a courtyard, far out in the rue 
 du Rocher and scarcely dared to believe that his hap- 
 piness was real. 
 
 II 
 
 A PARISIAN FAMILY : THE WIFE 
 
 BUT, in truth, the first period of his married life 
 was for Hector completely, absolutely happy. It lasted 
 about seven years, and was the period during which 
 he made his reputation, during which, also, Mme. Le 
 Prieux formed an idea of her husband's work which was 
 destined to have an unfortunate influence upon their 
 common future. Mathilde was one of those women 
 whose extraordinary stupidity and noble face make such 
 a contrast that they confuse the observer without them- 
 selves having need to dissimulate, especially if that 
 observer be a lover. Her mother, a Mile. Huguenin, 
 was a native of Aix-en-Provence ; her father was the son 
 of a petty trader in the north. This crossing of races, so 
 frequent in modern families that it is scarcely noticed, 
 has often for result an heredity of contradictory ten-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 101 
 
 dencies which in finding their equilibrium paralyze each 
 other. Perhaps the cause of the decline of the race in 
 Prance may be found in this continual mingling of north 
 and south, of east and west, by intermarriage among 
 persons too dissimilar in origin. 
 
 From her father, Mathilde had retained the desire to 
 shine, an implacable selfishness, and that unemotional 
 nature which distinguishes gamblers of every kind, 
 especially those of the Bourse. From her mother's 
 family she had that admirable southern type which, 
 when it is very pure, has all the fineness and elegance 
 of a Greek coin. Her forehead, low and curving, joined 
 the nose in that almost straight line which has so much 
 distinction, and, under the masses of black hair, her 
 small head revealed that long oval build in which is per- 
 petuated the race of that homo mediterraneus, that fine 
 and supple brown dolichocephalus, praised by anthro- 
 pologists. With this, pretty teeth, white and regular, 
 between lips perfect in their outline, a firm and dimpled 
 chin, the neck set on like that of a figurine of Tanagra 
 with a graceful curve at the back, the shoulders of 
 Diana, the figure rather tall but well built, the feet and 
 hands of a child, and that gait that the Arlesian women 
 have rendered legendary. In whatever social position 
 Fate has cast a creature thus endowed with great beauty, 
 she only need be seen to exercise, even without adorn- 
 ment, an irresistible prestige. Nothing could be more 
 dangerous for a nature already inclined by instinct to
 
 102 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 make an undue use of her own personality. An excess 
 of continuous admiration quickly abolishes, in the women 
 who are its object, all capacity of judging. It is with 
 them as with princes too much nattered and artists too 
 famous. These victims of their own success end by 
 making their me the centre of the world, with a frank- 
 ness at once simple and savage. In the case of Mathilde 
 this autolatry had an excuse : Nature had completely 
 denied her a faculty, less common indeed than we 
 generally suppose, which for lack of a better term may 
 be called the altruistic spirit, that power of forming an 
 idea of another person's heart, understanding his ideas, 
 detecting his shades of feeling. Behind this fine, noble 
 masque of an antique goddess was hidden that kind 
 of mind almost animal, very frequent in the south, 
 whose thoughts one might say are purely objective. 
 She had been flattered by Hector's devotion, without 
 perceiving its secret principle the noble pity of 
 this poet, all the more poet in action because he 
 failed of being so in expression. She regarded as 
 natural this triumph of her beauty, and, in consent- 
 ing to become Mine. Le Prie-ux, honestly believed 
 she was making a sacrifice to her mother, who, much 
 more reasonable and much more emotional also, had 
 insisted upon this union. Mme. Duret, on her part, 
 had been really touched by the treasures of self-abnega- 
 tion of which she recognized the existence in her daugh- 
 ter's suitor. Herself enlightened by cruel experience,
 
 103 
 
 she saw in Hector qualities precisely the opposite of 
 the faults which had hurried her husband to his fright- 
 ful catastrophe. She had, therefore, implored her 
 daughter to accept a trustworthy protector; and the 
 latter had consented, justifying to herself the humble 
 character of this marriage as a self-immolation to her 
 mother's welfare. Though it was but little that the 
 young man brought into the family, still it was passing 
 at once from eight hundred dollars a year to two thou- 
 sand enough to employ at once a second servant 
 and relieve this poor mother of part of her domestic 
 cares. As to the inner drama which had been acted 
 in the soul of the poet-aspirant now an artisan in 
 prose; as to the secret aspirations that Hector still 
 cherished of pursuing yet, amid his mercenary labour, 
 the composition of some artistic work, a collection of 
 poems, a volume of stories, a novel Mathilde had 
 no suspicion of all this at the date of her marriage. 
 Nor had she after twenty years of married life and 
 before the occurrence with which this story deals. 
 She believed, and to this day she still believes, that 
 she has been the most irreproachable, the most devoted 
 of wives. She takes pride in having "gained a posi- 
 tion " for her husband, which means that she has 
 something like five hundred visiting cards to leave in 
 her own and her husband's name during the month of 
 January ! She will die without being aware that she 
 has sacrificed the most unusual, the most delicate heart
 
 104 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 that man ever had to the most contemptible, the most 
 selfish of all vanities a desire to play the part of a 
 woman of fashion, and to be mentioned in these society 
 articles of which I have spoken as the " beautiful Mme. 
 Le Prieux." Perhaps you will no longer be inclined to 
 smile at the epithet when we reach the end of this 
 analysis and you will have seen to what real distress it 
 corresponds. 
 
 It must be owned that, in the first period of his married 
 life, Hector began by enjoying this vanity, before suffer- 
 ing from it. It is very seldom that family tragedies fail 
 of having for their first authors the very persons who 
 are destined to be their martyrs. It is the fathers and 
 husbands, the wives and mothers, who most frequently 
 develop, in their children or in the persons who share 
 their conjugal life, the faults of which one day they 
 themselves will bitterly complain. True it is that so 
 many faults are graces, at first, falsehood begins as 
 compliance ; coquetry, as a desire to please ; hypocrisy, 
 as reserve, and so on. During the first years, Hector 
 saw with delight everything working together in his 
 house and in his life to set off to its utmost the 
 beauty of his young wife. How could he but rejoice, 
 from month to month, from year to year, in increasing 
 his labours, that he might be able to double the income 
 with which they began ? What a happiness to give 
 Mathilde those little luxuries so natural to a young and 
 beautiful creature that it was brutal to deprive her of
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 105 
 
 them ! Between a bonnet at five dollars and an exquisite 
 capote at fifteen, between a dress at thirty dollars and a 
 costume, very simple indeed, at sixty, between a jacket 
 or shoes bought outright and the same made to order, 
 the difference in style is so great, and the difference in 
 money so little ! At least, how could it fail to seem so, 
 to a very loving husband, when the figures in his con- 
 jugal account were thus translated: three hundred dol- 
 lars more, annually, under the item of toilette, would 
 mean twenty-four more articles to write, two a month, 
 at ten dollars each ; or, forty-eight more at five dollars 
 each, that is to say, one a week. One article more a week, 
 that is nothing. And, quite naturally, less than a year 
 after his marriage the journalist had added to his tasks 
 one weekly letter each to two great country newspapers, 
 and so Mine. Le Prieux's " tea-gowns " were provided for, 
 without her even knowing of this increase of work. Now 
 "tea-gowns," we must admit, require, of course, a salon 
 in which to show them off. This salon supposes " a day " 
 that "day" about which Mathilde had immediately 
 spoken to her fiance. The " day " aforesaid supposes a 
 man-servant to open the door, flowers in the vases, petits 
 fours in dishes to offer with the tea or chocolate, lamps 
 to make the room light. So many more expenses, in 
 respect to which Hector would have been the more 
 ashamed to hesitate for the reason that he was himself, 
 also, the dupe of a strange retrospective illusion. Dur- 
 ing the period of his engagement, whenever he chanced
 
 106 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 to notice in the poor apartment in the rue du Kocher 
 pieces of furniture which had once figured in the grand 
 house of the millionnaire speculator, he felt an emotion 
 akin to remorse. This remorse continued after his mar- 
 riage. It was as if Mathilde, in becoming his wife, had 
 sacrificed to him the possibility of again beholding these 
 splendours. It seemed to him that this past of luxury 
 gave the young woman a right to a broader life, more 
 elegant, more conformed to her original habits. 
 
 A like hypnotism emanated for Mathilde from these 
 pieces of furniture and these bibelots, wreckage from her 
 previous existence an existence still so recent that the 
 fall from this Olympus of sumptuous things was like a 
 dream to her. The mirage of former opulence, that 
 mental malady common to those who have lost a for- 
 tune, acted upon her, unconsciously to herself. It was 
 to become, without her suspecting it, the ruling idea of 
 all her thoughts and acts, and would lead her by degrees 
 to produce a copy, a parody rather, of the life that would 
 have been hers without the paternal downfall. The 
 earliest satisfactions accorded to this nostalgia of the 
 past took the form of little domestic expenses, which, 
 taken together, represented two or three hundred dollars 
 more for Hector to earn. But, almost immediately, the 
 occasion offered for nearly doubling his income; an illus- 
 trated journal offered him twenty dollars a week for a 
 chronique to be signed with a pseudonym. He took 
 O irony ! the name Clavaroche.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 107 
 
 And now the man-servant was put into a modest 
 livery: the flowers for the "day" came from a famous 
 shop, and so did the petits fours; there were new lamps, 
 and the chairs were re-covered; and all these elegances 
 ended in an indispensable change of residence. From 
 the dismal rue du Eocher, the tempter furniture, the 
 draperies of evil advice, the bibelots too loaded with 
 memories of the past, emigrated to a dainty little new 
 house in the Monceau plain, rue Viete. Another engage- 
 ment, this a daily one, to send every evening a hundred 
 lines to a French newspaper in St. Petersburg, was to pay 
 the rent. What is a hundred lines, when it is only to sum 
 up, as fast as the pen can move, and for foreign readers, 
 news that one breathes in with the air, in Paris ! And 
 neither Hector nor his wife took any note of this new 
 labour added to the rest. 
 
 Two serious events, however, at this time prevented 
 the Le Prieux household from going too far upon this 
 expensive road of mock fashion. One was the birth of a 
 daughter who was called Eeine, after her grandmother 
 Duret ; the other was the death, after a very painful ill- 
 ness, of Mme. Duret herself. The long detentions at 
 home which were imposed on Mathilde, first by her con- 
 dition, and then by her very slow recovery after the birth 
 of her child, and after that by her mother's fatal illness 
 and the period of mourning, deprived her of the opportu- 
 nity to enlarge her circle of acquaintances. This circle, 
 at that time, was quite limited. Not being Parisians by
 
 108 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 birth, neither she nor her husband had that group of 
 relatives in Paris which cousinship constitutes in the 
 middle class as well as in the aristocracy ; and neither 
 Hector, in the humble beginning of his literary life, nor 
 the late Duret, in the ostentatious displays of his quickly 
 gained and quickly lost wealth, had been able to attract 
 any large group of acquaintances. The financial schemer 
 had had at his entertainments, when he gave them, only 
 chance guests, almost all now vanished with his millions. 
 There exist, in Paris, hundreds of these demi-parasites, 
 enigmatically called boscards, by fashionable irony, who 
 form an escort to be had on demand, at the service of 
 every fortune ample enough to admit of dinners of 
 eighteen covers, and hunting parties, and balls with val- 
 uable gifts as favours in the German, and a box at the 
 opera. Among these professional boscards you will find 
 men of rank, more or less damaged, in search of means 
 to repair their fortunes ; intriguing artists in search of 
 an order bust or portrait; brokers in evening dress, 
 on the track of a profitable transaction ; foreigners 
 with doubtful references, who play "the gentleman" 
 with rather too decorative correctness. Add to this a 
 staff of more or less compromised women, and of gam- 
 blers, and, also, certain very practical epicureans frankly 
 in search of nothing more than the good dinner, the 
 choice cigar, the fine wines, and, in the season, pheasant 
 shooting of the best kind. This population of sharpers 
 is divided into gangs of different sorts, more or less
 
 OTHEK, PEOPLE'S LUXURY 109 
 
 choice in quality, according to the rank of the moneyed 
 man whom it is proposed to boscarder. The gang 
 gathered around Duret, a promoter of doubtful enter- 
 prises, could have been only second-rate. It is the same 
 with the guests of the nouveaux riches as with their 
 maladies. The doctor's remark to his parvenu patient, 
 the victim of excesses at table, "You are not entitled 
 to have the gout ! " contains a whole philosophy of the 
 social species. The shabby character of the boscards of 
 the Duret gang was shown by their immediate desertion 
 after his ruin, which ought to have disgusted Mathilde 
 forever with that half-and-half position to which those 
 are condemned who are determined to visit and enter- 
 tain, without having a position fixed by birth and kin- 
 ship. 
 
 But no. This disenchanting experience had passed 
 over the girl without being of any profit to the young 
 woman. So true is it that vanity will not learn from 
 experience, and precisely because of the lack which 
 the etymology of the word indicates, that radical lack 
 of solidity and truth, that desire to produce an effect, 
 at any cost, even though one knows the effect to be 
 deceitful and the people upon whom it is produced to 
 be contemptible. Accordingly, the proofs of cynical 
 ingratitude lavished upon her mother and herself, after 
 their downfall, by those who luid been constant guests 
 at the entertainments of the avenue Friedland, did not 
 prevent Mme. Le Prieux, immediately after her marriage,
 
 110 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 from making everything subordinate to a recovery of 
 position. She lived only to invite and be invited, to 
 receive and be received. If her father, in his brilliant 
 days and with his millions, had at his house only para- 
 sites of a low class, it may well be supposed that the 
 persons with whom the wife of the journalist exchanged 
 expensive civilities did not belong, to use the jargon 
 of the day, to the creme de la cr&me, the gratin du gratin. 
 There were three or four families, selected among those 
 of Hector's fellow-journalists, who also had set up some- 
 thing like an establishment. There were three or four 
 others, recruited, through the agency of those just men- 
 tioned, from among rich Parisian merchants ; for, since 
 the profound modification or, it might be more correct 
 to say, the complete disappearance of the great middle 
 class, as it existed still at the beginning of the Second 
 Empire, the men who have made fortunes in business 
 find it difficult to create a social place for themselves, 
 which leads them to seek the society, in some cases, of 
 politicians, in others, that of authors and artists. There 
 were also a few wives of lawyers, anxious to secure for 
 their husbands favourable notice in the reports from the 
 courts. There were but the enumeration of these gentry 
 would be as wearisome as their companionship. They, 
 however, composed " the salon. " of the little residence 
 in the rue Viete a gallery to which Mathilde could act 
 her part of the woman of fashion; a court over which 
 she could reign ; a public from whom she could receive
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 111 
 
 that homage to her beauty the sole true passion of 
 her life, to which an unforeseen circumstance was about 
 to furnish opportunity for development in a broader 
 scene. 
 
 This circumstance, strictly a professional one, and but 
 little freighted, it would seem, with social results, took 
 place during the year 1883. The manager of a great 
 Parisian newspaper offered to Le Prieux the post of 
 dramatic critic, left vacant by the sudden death of the 
 man who held it. Although the theatrical letter has 
 no longer its old importance, since the next morning's 
 report takes the place almost everywhere of the former 
 Monday feuilleton, made famous by a Gautier, a Saint- 
 Victor, a Janin, a Weiss, a Sarcey in earlier days, 
 not to mention others still living, no position is 
 more eagerly desired by journalists, and each vacancy 
 calls out twenty candidates. Le Prieux had not even 
 the trouble of making application. The sagacious plan 
 that he had formed, in entering the profession, and to 
 which he still remained faithful, was fulfilled step by 
 step. He reaped the fruit of that quality which in all 
 professions secures success the technical conscience. 
 While the constant appearance of his name at the foot 
 of articles, all carefully thought out and written, brought 
 him celebrity, he acquired that mysterious power which 
 we call authority by that very carefulness of his work, 
 by the fairness of his judgments, and by the accuracy 
 of his information. A word will tell the whole, to those
 
 112 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 who know the incredible thoughtlessness with which 
 newspapers are made up. Hector had never written 
 about a book until he had run through it. Moreover, 
 notwithstanding his evident luck, he had had, in his 
 early days, the gift of not exciting envy. This obscure 
 and implacable passion, the scourge of the literary exist- 
 ence, has the strange perspicacity of attaching itself 
 much less to successes than to persons. The man of 
 great talent does not envy the man of inferior talent who 
 succeeds where he himself has failed ; and it is the 
 inferior man who, at the moment even of his own vic- 
 tory, will envy the other in his failure. We are never 
 truly jealous with that jealousy that seeks to injure 
 its object of those whose superiors we, in our hearts, 
 believe ourselves to be. This was Le Prieux's strength, 
 at the beginning; neither by literary, nor personal, nor 
 social advantages did he humiliate any man. Envy 
 came later, with the fine acquaintances, the toilettes of 
 madame, and her coupe hired by the month. 
 
 In short, Hector's entrance upon dramatic criticism 
 would have passed unnoticed, like himself, had he not 
 immediately formed the habit of appearing at first per- 
 formances with his young wife, whom very few of his 
 comrades in the profession knew, as we have seen. The 
 beauty of Mathilde, at this time scarcely twenty-eight 
 years of age, was too brilliant not to be at once noticed 
 in the well-worn crowd that frequents these great Pari- 
 sian functions, where, as has been said, "it is always the
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 113 
 
 same persons who are getting killed." Among all those 
 faces, killed, in truth, by late hours, by nervous excesses, 
 by rouge and the rest, she obtained at once a very great 
 success as something new. Hector, as dramatic critic, 
 did not at first have the box or the baignoire available 
 for invitations, which later his wife induced him to claim. 
 Their places, at the Theatre-Franqais, the Vaudeville, 
 the Gymnase, the Varietes, the Odeon,. being only bal- 
 cony seats, all the opera-glasses in the house could freely 
 scrutinize that beautiful face, of a type so pure, which, in 
 repose, in fixed attention to the performance, was capa- 
 ble of a marvellous assumption of emotion and intelli- 
 gence. Mathilde would not have been the woman that she 
 was if she had not been in every fibre of her inmost being 
 aware of this triumph, and desirous to increase it by ex- 
 tending it as far as possible. Nor would Paris have been 
 Paris, had she not met among the habitual frequenters 
 of first performances some one to make himself the Bar- 
 num of this dawning success. These voluntary heralds 
 of a triumph which they foresee, and enhance by tak- 
 ing part in it, abound in this strange city, where there 
 prevails something like a mania, a mad infatuation for 
 whatever can shine, were it but for a day, in the change- 
 ful sky of fashion. There are those who cry up books 
 and pictures; others, foreign princes and explorers; 
 others still, plays and pretty women. Let me say at 
 once, so that no uncertainty may be possible and that, 
 at least, Mme. Le Prieux may incur no unjust suspicion,
 
 114 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 the Barnums of this latter sort are most frequently 
 Platonic patitos. They have usually some thought at 
 the back of their heads which has nothing to do with 
 that which our fathers gayly called " la bagatelle." If 
 they wish to profit by the success of the pretty woman 
 whom they seek to bring forward, it is for reasons of 
 vanity or interest. If they devote themselves to her, 
 it is very discreetly, as a father or a brother, accord- 
 ing to age. Their attentions consist in giving, at 
 elegant restaurants, dinners at which she presides, and 
 where she meets other women and other men, whom 
 it is for her advantage to know, and even more for 
 the advantage of her showman to cause her to know. 
 If the Barnum begs an appointment with her, it is 
 that he may accompany her as escort, and be seen 
 with her, in some of the places where this special 
 All Paris is on view: an Exhibition of Water-colours, 
 a Flower Show, the opening of the Horse Show, or a 
 special reception at the Academy. Usually, also, it is 
 not the patronage of one elephant-driver that the 
 pretty woman must endure, but there will be two or 
 three, or four of them, who watch each other as jeal- 
 ously as if they were really lovers instead of being 
 merely, in some cases, persons seeking to promote their 
 own interests, and, in others, only foolish, inoffensive 
 little " snobs," of a species so peculiar that it really 
 deserves a sketch. But this is not the place for it. 
 To indicate, to the eyes of readers who are familiar
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 115 
 
 with the masks of la comedie parisienne, the cate- 
 gory in which belonged the discoverer of the "beau- 
 tiful Mme. Le Prieux," it suffices to mention his 
 name. It was Cruce, the celebrated collector, that 
 adroit sexagenarian who, having lost his fortune more 
 than thirty years ago, obtained the means to support 
 a very expensive way of living by the private sale 
 of the objects of art in his collection, indefinitely 
 and mysteriously renewed. He had been, in this 
 character, one of the earliest frequenters of the Duret 
 house; then, in the same character, one of the first to 
 forget that the ruined speculator possessor through 
 his agency of some precious, half -false bibelots had 
 left behind him a wife and daughter. But meeting 
 this daughter again, now become a regal beauty, his 
 memory returned to him, and the more rapidly because 
 Mathilde was now the wife of one of the great lords 
 of the press, and at that particular moment Cruce 
 was in search of gratuitous advertising for a sale 
 which he had in view. He has, since then, carried out 
 this intention ; we all -remember with what tact and 
 address, and with what success! The old boulevardier 
 had caused himself to be again presented to Mme. Le 
 Prieux, tenderly recalling to her that he had known 
 her "no taller than that." And it was under the 
 auspices of this self-styled " friend of the family," 
 who would have been repulsive to her had not the 
 desire to shine stifled every other sentiment, that the
 
 116 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 young woman entered upon her profession of being a 
 great Parisian personality, whose balance-sheet must 
 now be shown here. Dry as figures are, their brutal 
 eloquence carries a power of instruction which any 
 commentary would diminish. 
 
 In 1897, then, I have already said that this was 
 the period when the domestic drama took place at 
 whose core we have placed these preparatory details, 
 
 the annual expenses of the Le Prieux household 
 were thus apportioned : sixteen hundred dollars rent 
 (the little house in the rue Viete having been ex- 
 changed for a large apartment in the rue du General- 
 Foy, better suited for receptions) ; twenty-four hundred 
 dollars for a carriage, the famous coupe by the month 
 
 which made Hector as many enemies as he had 
 fellow-journalists who went about in fiacres with its 
 two horses for alternate use. 
 
 How do with less where one must pay visits all day 
 and go out every evening ? For wages reckon eight 
 hundred dollars, keeping the number of servants as 
 low as possible : a steward, chambermaid, cook, kitchen- 
 maid, a "groom" for the antechamber or for errands, 
 and extras for dinners and receptions. To this 
 add twenty-four hundred dollars for the toilette of 
 Mme. Le Prieux and her daughter, and four hun- 
 dred for flowers, and we have seven thousand six 
 hundred dollars ; to which must be added about a 
 thousand for Hector's personal expenses. Notwith-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 117 
 
 standing his old habits of economy, he is obliged to 
 take a cab for himself when he returns from the 
 theatre, and the ladies are using the carriage. Then 
 there is his dress, in regard to which his wife is very 
 punctilious. These are the thousand and one little 
 expenses of his profession, from gratuities to the 
 ouvreuses at the theatre to the five dollars that he must 
 subscribe when one of his newspapers makes appeal 
 to public charity, with lists for some "very Parisian" 
 object. We have reached eight thousand six hundred 
 dollars. If now you take into account that Mme. Le 
 Prieux gives two great dinners a month, and that her 
 table is remarkably good ; that she has three or four 
 evenings of music and drama every season ; that her 
 gifts are mentioned among the richest in the reports 
 of a dozen marriages; also, that the family must live 
 the rest of the time, that certain articles of furniture 
 must be renewed, and that there must be provision for 
 unforeseen expenses, for illness, for visits to the sea- 
 shore, and who can tell what else, you will acknowledge 
 that three hundred and twenty dollars a month will 
 be no more than just enough, and we have slightly 
 exceeded the twelve thousand a year which Hector 
 earns an income which causes people to say of him 
 that he has " arrived." 
 
 Let us now go over the figures that represent in de- 
 tail the husband's work, insisting, for the honour of 
 the corporation of journalists, by turns too much extolled
 
 118 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 and too much calumniated, upon the integrity of this 
 hard-working penman. He has no knowledge of any 
 schemes for making money; all he has ever received has 
 been payment for work delivered. Le Prieux has, first, 
 twenty-four hundred dollars a year as theatrical critic 
 for, on an average, three articles a week, that is to say, 
 twelve a month. He has left the courts, naturally, but 
 is chroniqueur de tete in another great journal of the 
 boulevard where he has large pay, fifty dollars an arti- 
 cle. This gives him five thousand two hundred dollars 
 a year, for two articles a week, eight a month, that is to 
 say. Eemaining faithful to his early illustrated jour- 
 nal, which has prospered like himself, he has thirty 
 dollars an article for a weekly " Clavaroche" which 
 means fifteen hundred and sixty dollars a year, and 
 four articles a month. He sends a letter every fortnight 
 to a South American newspaper once more, two arti- 
 cles a month. He has the art criticism in a fifth news- 
 paper, which, with the report of the Salon, requires from 
 him about an average of thirty-six articles or para- 
 graphs to be written during the year, or, again, three a 
 month. A correspondence, daily and telegraphic, with 
 the most important nouvellistes throughout the country, 
 completes his total of receipts, which balances at 
 least, so he believes very nearly the total of expenses, 
 leaving him enough for a very small life insurance. 
 This shows, if you will add the figures given above, 
 an average of sixty articles a month, or seven hundred
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 119 
 
 and twenty a year. This is what the " beautiful Mme. 
 Le Prieux " calls " having gained a position." 
 
 Ill 
 
 A PARISIAN FAMILY: THE DAUGHTER 
 
 BUT how did Le Prieux himself regard this "posi- 
 tion/' he, George Sand's former pupil, the man whom 
 she used to call, in her letters, her " little Bourbon- 
 nichon," the poet of lonely heaths and misty lakes, who 
 came to Paris to win the fame of a Mistral of the Allier, 
 and is now transformed, by hereditary prudence, and then 
 by marriage, into a living machine for the making of 
 copy. Had his nature also, unresisting and patient to 
 the extent of docility, undergone the contagion of his 
 wife's malady, that fever of worldly egoism which com- 
 pels one forever to compare himself with his richer neigh- 
 bour and to go on increasing his expenses, complicating 
 his life, foolishly, sometimes tragically, sacrificing the 
 reality to the appearance ? Or did he, on the other hand, 
 remain, in the depths of his soul, the rustic, simple- 
 minded as before, and witness the triumphs of his 
 Mathilde as a lover who sacrifices himself with delight- 
 to the tastes of her whom he adores, only too grateful if 
 she deign to accept the sacrifice ? Or else, again, had 
 he judged this woman, and did he now belong to the 
 immense herd of resigned husbands, who make no at- 
 tempt to struggle against the pressure of circumstances,
 
 120 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 against the irresistible machinery in which they have 
 become entangled ? Very shrewd the man who could 
 have read the answer to these questions in the face of 
 the indefatigable journalist. The young fellow from the 
 cotmtry, timid and frank, had by degrees, as the years 
 passed, since 1866, changed into a man circumspect in 
 manner, distant, talking but little, except now and then 
 to relate some anecdote of Parisian life, in a tone of the 
 undeceived moralist, conformable to the character that 
 he adopted in his chronicles, that of a Desgenais of the 
 upper middle class. Grown a little heavier with years 
 but always vigorous and sturdy, the habit of being on 
 parade at the theatre, on the boulevard, at innumerable 
 dinners and still more innumerable receptions, had im- 
 pressed upon his whole person that air of importance 
 and prosperity, that almost official bearing which one 
 might call " I'air ancien prfet." The traces of his use- 
 less and enormous labours were visible in his complexion, 
 rendered leaden by late hours, and on his brow, crossed 
 with long furrows, under his grayish hair cut after the 
 military fashion. But what thoughts were astir be- 
 hind this fades of truly administrative coolness ? The 
 mouth, purposely ironical under the cropped moustache, 
 had never told this, and would never tell it. 
 
 For one who had the inclination and the time to 
 decipher faces but who has both ? Hector Le Prieux 
 was not the only enigmatic figure in his house. For 
 about two years, at this date of 1897, the frequenters
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 121 
 
 of first performances had been accustomed to see, from 
 time to time, when the play was of a nature suited to a 
 young girl, a play " with marriages in it," as the saying 
 is. the beautiful Mme. Le Prieux accompanied in her 
 box by a refined and beautiful young girl, dressed 
 almost exactly like herself, and resembling her, from a 
 distance, like a younger sister a Cinderella, one might 
 say. It was her daughter, that Heine who had almost 
 cost the mother her life. Like most children born 
 of a mother who has suffered too severely in their 
 ante-natal period, Eeine had a certain delicacy, almost 
 fragility, in contrast with her mother's opulent beauty, 
 whose fortieth year showed a Juno-like majesty. The 
 girl, at twenty-one, scarcely seemed eighteen. She was 
 fresh and yet frail, with slender shoulders and bust, as if 
 something hindered the full blooming out of her physi- 
 cal being ; while her look, too pensive for her childish 
 face, had a disquieting precocity of expression. She had 
 her mother's long oval head, straight profile, and regular 
 features ; but this handsome type of pure race was in her 
 case made more faint, so to speak, attenuated, and under 
 her clearly arched eyebrows there were, instead of the 
 brilliant black southern eyes of Mme. Le Prieux, the 
 brown, thoughtful eyes of her father. From this father 
 she also inherited the chestnut hair and the slightly full 
 lips, with a melancholy droop at the corners Never 
 was a blending of two types more visible. Was it to the 
 inner hesitations, the secret contrasts of an atavism far
 
 122 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 too duplex, that Mile. Le Prieux owed the singular melan- 
 choly of her look ? or had she, young as she was, passed 
 through some mysterious trial, and undergone one of 
 those emotional disappointments which, though mainly 
 imaginative, none the less profoundly affect a youthftil 
 soul ? When one spoke of Heine to her mother, asking 
 about the girl's health with anything like anxiety, Mme. 
 Le Prieux would reply, 
 
 " She is a little pale, is she not ? She develops slowly. 
 But that is her nature. She has never had two days' 
 illness since she was a child." 
 
 And if her mood was confidential, she would add, 
 
 "I do not say it because she is my daughter, but she 
 is perfection upon earth. I have never had to say one 
 severe word to her since I have known her. I have only 
 one fault to find with her, she is too good. She is not 
 young when I was of her age, a ball would make me 
 wild with pleasure. It amuses me still ! She goes to a 
 ball just as she used to do her writing lessons when she was 
 a child. You would say she went as a matter of duty. 
 Her father was like that, formerly. I must say he has 
 changed completely. Eeine will change also. But, for 
 the moment, nothing amuses her. It is extraordinary." 
 
 And there was a kind of haughty surprise in the eyes 
 of the "beautiful Mme. Le Prieux." You could divine 
 in the straightening of her figure, impeccably laced in a 
 corset of the latest style, the conscience of the wife 
 and the mother, maintaining her husband and daughter
 
 OTHEE PEOPLE'S LUXURY 123 
 
 in the social rank to which she had raised them by her 
 unaided efforts. If it happened that Le Prieux was pres- 
 ent when his wife thus gave her opinion as to Heine, he 
 never failed to say, shrugging his shoulders, the "Oh, 
 no, no ! " indulgently reproachful, of the husband who 
 thinks that his wife talks a little too much, and he would 
 turn the conversation by one of his favourite anecdotes. 
 Like all story-tellers, he has but a few of these, always 
 the same, and he relates them always in the same tempo, 
 with the same stress on certain syllables, the same effects. 
 This, alas! is his one weakness, and the story is too 
 often at the expense of some fellow-craftsman who has 
 committed the offence of abandoning the newspaper 
 for the book, and gaining from literature what he ought 
 to have continued to seek from journalism. 
 
 "Reine amuses herself quietly," he would say, "like 
 myself, that is true. That is all the difference. You 
 like to be amused in a noisy way. But she is too bright 
 and too sensible to fall in with the present fad of as- 
 suming to be bored at places of amusement, after having 
 done one's utmost to get there. I saw that thing when 
 it began. I remember now, and it was a long time ago, 
 when Jacques Molan, the novelist, came to my house in 
 the rue Viete, begging me to obtain an invitation for 
 him to the Countess Komow's animal party. After 
 a good deal of trouble I got it for him the good 
 countess was always so fond of us ! As it happened, that 
 night about eleven o'clock, before I had put on my
 
 124 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 costume, I went down to the office, and who should I 
 find there, surrounded by gazing reporters, but my 
 Jacques Molan, dressed as a bear, with the muzzle 
 pulled over his head like a hood, and his grand, 
 fatigued air, for the benefit of his humble comrades : 
 'I could not refuse the countess. She made snch a 
 point of it. Ah, boys ! it's a hard trade, going into 
 society ! ' ' 
 
 In these two sentences: "Reine is too old for her 
 age," and "Reine amuses herself in a quiet way," lay 
 the gist of hundreds of talks that M. and Mme. Le 
 Prieux had together in respect to their child. These con- 
 versations, so intimate, and so serious, also, since their 
 theme was the character, and consequently the chances 
 of happiness or misery promised to their only daugh- 
 ter, usually had taken place in the coupe which was 
 bringing them back from some first performance at the 
 theatre which it had not been suitable for Reine to 
 attend. These were the only opportunities of being 
 alone with each other which these two people had, 
 a devoted couple, nevertheless, or at least a couple who 
 believed themselves to be so. But, between the demands 
 of society upon the wife, and the demands of copy 
 upon the husband, at what hour could they have talked 
 with each other long and confidentially ? The necessity 
 for the dramatic critic to be at the office till one o'clock 
 in the morning to compose his article, or to finish it if 
 he had begun it at the dress rehearsal, had decided them
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 125 
 
 to have separate rooms. Hector needed to be able to 
 come in without disturbing his wife's sleep when she 
 had gone to bed early; and, on the other hand, when 
 it was she who was late, returning from a ball with her 
 daughter, she would not disturb him. Hector could not 
 have kept up with his enormous tasks without having his 
 mornings to himself. Seated at his table punctually at 
 nine o'clock, with entrance strictly forbidden, he did not 
 leave his chair till noon, at which time the greater part 
 of his day's work was completed. The circumstances 
 must be exceptional which would lead him to go to his 
 wife's room to take his black coffee and boiled egg, and 
 he saw her for the first time, as a rule, only at the mid- 
 day meal, where Heine was present too. Heine also was 
 at dinner, on the rare occasions when they dined at home. 
 At other hours of the day they were occupied, she with 
 her visits, he with his outdoor work, the remainder of 
 his writing, and his enormous correspondence. Like 
 another prolific journalist, Le Prieux made his corre- 
 spondents his collaborators, very frequently taking their 
 letters as subjects for his own articles. The evening 
 belonged to society and the theatre. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that the more serious conversations of this 
 married pair took place in the sole te"te-a-tete that this 
 existence granted to these two victims of Paris on their 
 return from the theatre ; and so it happened that the first 
 scene of the domestic drama to which, at last, I come, 
 was played in the interior of a hired carriage, between
 
 126 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 the door of a theatre and the door of a newspaper office. 
 This is the picture before us : the January night crowd- 
 ing down over the city an acrid mist through which the 
 gaslights can scarcely penetrate ; on the sidewalks the 
 rapid passing of shivering pedestrians ; the carriage roll- 
 ing silently upon its rubber tires, the coachman, his 
 hands icy under his heavy gloves, restraining his steam- 
 ing horse with jingling bells, who is looking forward to 
 his stable. Behind the mist-covered windows of the car- 
 riage, the figures of Mathilde and Hector : she in an 
 exquisite theatre bonnet of delicate colour, her Juno head 
 emerging from the white fur which lines her ruby velvet 
 cloak; he showing within the otter of his overcoat the 
 shirt-front with gold buttons and the white waistcoat of 
 the club-man. You would say, to see them, an idle 
 couple a fashionable man whom his wife was on the 
 way to leave at his club before returning home herself. 
 But the man is a hard-working journalist on his way to 
 earn this costly fragment of luxury by labouring, at this 
 hour, over his proof-slips, steaming from the press. 
 What a symbol of their entire life is this midnight 
 drive across Paris under these conditions ! I neglected 
 to say that the drama which they had just witnessed was 
 given at the Odeon, and that the newspaper on which Le 
 Prieux is the dramatic critic has its office in a building in 
 that rue de la Grange-Bateliere which shares with the 
 rue du Croissant the honour of having seen the birth 
 and death of numberless journals. Mme. Le Prieux had
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 127 
 
 without doubt counted upon the duration of this noctur- 
 nal drive to have, with her husband, the conversation 
 which she entered upon, as soon as the coupe, making 
 its way out through the crowd of the square, had begun 
 moving rapidly. 
 
 " Shall you be long at the office, mon ami ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Not very long," Hector said. " I wrote nearly 
 all of my article this morning, following the great 
 rule, ' Never put off till to-morrow what you can do 
 to-day.' Nothing has been changed since the final 
 rehearsal. A few words, to mention the success of 
 the play, and the proof -slips to look over it will take 
 me a short half hour. But why do you ask ? " 
 
 "Because I want to talk with you about something 
 of importance," Mathilde replied. This lady, even 
 in a conjugal te"te-a-tete, was always the "beautiful 
 Mme. Le Prieux." She still used the ceremonious 
 "vous." The familiar tutoiement of the middle class 
 husband and wife was always with her a special 
 grace, something like a derogation from her rank of 
 goddess. " If you are to be no longer than a half 
 hour, I will wait for you in the carriage." 
 
 " Will you wait ? " exclaimed Le Prieux. " In that 
 case I will not read the slips. That good fellow, 
 Cartier, will do it for me." This Cartier was the 
 secretary, and, as Hector had given him this position 
 in the office, was naturally willing in turn to oblige.
 
 128 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 Hesitating for a minute, he then put a question which 
 was an ingenuous proof to what a degree a certain 
 idea was in his thoughts : " Something of importance ? 
 Is it about Eeine's being married ? " 
 
 "It is," Mine. Le Prieux replied. Then with the 
 slightest possible hesitation on her part also, and 
 something like a shade of uneasiness, which Hector 
 remembered later, she continued, " Why did you think 
 so ? Has anything been said to you ? " 
 
 "To me? Oh, no!" he rejoined. "But when you 
 speak in that tone, what else could it be but some- 
 thing that has to do with Heine's happiness ? You 
 love her so, and you have so much reason to love her. 
 She is so much like you " 
 
 And he pressed his wife's hand with the extreme 
 affection which had just betrayed itself both by the 
 form of praise and the tutoiement of his last few words. 
 Mathilde had no need of these little signs of emotion to 
 know that this man of so faithful a heart and so unweary- 
 ing devotion was her lover as on the first day. Was she 
 touched, in being thus made aware, yet once more, of her 
 husband's profound feeling ? Or again, did this sponta- 
 neous homage to the lofty and precious virtues as wife 
 and mother which she believed herself to possess, 
 agreeably titillate some hidden spot in her self-love ? 
 Or, still again, apprehending objections to the idea 
 which she had been turning over for months behind 
 her narrow, tyrannical forehead, did she wish to crush
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 129 
 
 them at once ? The fact remains that she returned 
 the clasp of Hector's hand, and condescended also to 
 tutoyer him. 
 
 " I have only one merit," she said. " I have always 
 been a woman devoted to my duty, and you reward 
 me for this, I assure you. Listen," she continued ; 
 "Cruce last week came to speak to me about this. I 
 did not think it right to mention it to you before the 
 matter was more advanced, not to distract you need- 
 lessly from your work. To-day he came again, and 
 asked me, in the most distinct terms, this time, what we 
 should think of Reine' s marriage to young Faucherot ? " 
 
 "Edgard Faucherot?" exclaimed Le Prieux. "Fau- 
 cherot would like to marry Reine ? " 
 
 " And why not ? " Mathilde said. " What is it that 
 surprises you so much in this step? For the Fauche- 
 rots have taken a first step, you see. Cruce did 
 not profess to be an official envoy ; at most he was 
 only a very obliging messenger." 
 
 " What surprises me ? " Hector said. " Why, first of 
 all, Faucherot is not free. Have you forgotten that only 
 last autumn his mother was complaining to you of his 
 infatuation for that little Percy. She wanted me to 
 advise the girl to go to America, in order to get her away 
 from Edgard. But there she still is at the Varietes " 
 
 " This only means that he has given her up. He has 
 broken with her," said Mme. Le Prieux, "and just for 
 the reason that he is in love with Reine. Do not be
 
 130 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 anxious about that, mon ami. I have made inquiries 
 myself. Mme. Faucherot exaggerated the case. Being 
 a widow and having only one son, it was natural that she 
 should take alarm. The young man simply was vain of 
 the notoriety of being talked about in connection with an 
 actress who is the fashion. It was not one of those 
 liaisons which have a serious influence upon the whole 
 life, and might well cause anxiety to a girl's parents " 
 "That may be," Hector interrupted, "but I have 
 dreamed of another kind of souvenirs of youth for the 
 man to whom we shall give our charming Heine than 
 those of suppers with that little Percy ! Besides, there 
 is not only the little Percy, there is the mother. You 
 were several years, you will remember, before you would 
 receive Mme. Faucherot. You see her now only through 
 kindness, because she is a good woman I admit that 
 and because you are so good yourself. But if she 
 became the mother-in-law of Eeine, it would be family 
 relations that you would be obliged to have with her 
 you who have been brought up as une grande dame" 
 (He believed this, the Parisian newspaper man !) " And 
 she ? I don't reproach her for having begun as a sales- 
 woman in the Faucherot business before being promoted 
 to the rank of the proprietor's wife. There are sales- 
 women who are ladies. But she ! I am perfectly right 
 in saying that there is a strong perfume of the shop 
 about that woman, and all the millions of the late 
 Faucherot cannot help it. She has been able to take
 
 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 131 
 
 down the great gilt letters that I used to see on the 
 front of their balcony in the rue de la Banque when I 
 went that way going to the office: Hardy, Faucherot 
 Successeur, Sole et Velours, but she carries them with her, 
 stamped upon her whole being! She remains exactly 
 what she was behind her counter, and she always 
 will be that, whatever she may do, and with her ten- 
 thousand-franc horses ! She didn't fail to let us know 
 what they cost, just as she tells the price of the foies-gras 
 and the wines on her table ! And her invitations to 
 great celebrities whom she did not know at all, in the 
 hope of getting into society ! And her blunders ! Why, 
 they are famous. You, a woman of society, par excellence, 
 how could you endure them? My poor darling, even 
 with all your tact, fine as it is, you could not get along 
 with her ! " 
 
 Mme. Le Prieux had allowed her husband to go on; 
 he had acquired from his profession, it will be noticed, 
 a habit of talking somewhat as he wrote, in paragraphs 
 and at some length ; and while Mathilde was, as I have 
 said, totally lacking and her whole life showed this 
 only too clearly in that comprehension of the feelings 
 of another person which requires true refinement, she 
 had that other comprehension, so feminine that it is 
 woman herself, which consists in knowing perfectly that 
 which the most refined of the great classic poets long 
 since called " Man's weak sides and his moments." 1 
 i " Sola viri molles aditus et tempora nor as." VERGIL.
 
 132 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 She had had her reason for not abridging Le Prieux's 
 prolonged harangue. The main objection to this mar- 
 riage, for which she had long been scheming, was not 
 that which arose from the greater or less elegance of 
 Mme. Faucherot, of the house of Hardy, Faucherot Suc- 
 cesseur, Sole et Velours. In allowing her husband to 
 talk freely, she knew well enough that he would finally 
 let her see his underlying thought, and this is what 
 he did, in conclusion, after a few minutes' silence, which 
 was not interrupted by her. 
 
 "And then, even if I could tolerate the son and you 
 could tolerate the mother, we should still have to know 
 what Reine thinks." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the mother, in a singular tone, all sarcasm 
 and curiosity ; " do you know what Reine thinks ? It is 
 true. She is a little more frank with you. What has 
 she said to you, then ? " 
 
 There was silence again. The imperious woman, in 
 her desire to know if anything had been said to Hector, 
 had just touched the most secret and sensitive, and also 
 the most painful, spot in the heart of this husband and 
 father, a spot almost unknown to himself. In this respect 
 resembling all men with whom timidity is the result 
 not of circumstances but of their own nature, and who 
 even feel with timidity, Hector found himself completely 
 disconcerted in the presence of very reticent persons like 
 Reine. How often, in the eyes of his daughter, fixed 
 upon him, he had perceived, or rather divined, a mys-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 133 
 
 tery thoughts and feelings that he had at once a desire 
 and a fear to understand, perhaps because these feelings 
 and these thoughts corresponded to secret things in his 
 own heart that he would not consent to acknowledge to 
 himself ! Yes. He knew what Eeine was thinking, but 
 he would not know it. He knew that the sadness in the 
 eyes of this charming girl came from a profound, an in- 
 finite pity for himself, for his existence as a literary 
 galley-slave, held to his tasks, why, and by whom ? 
 To answer this question would have been to condemn 
 some one whom he loved with that ardent affection that 
 does not judge, however conclusive the evidence; and 
 that which made the mystery of his daughter's thoughts 
 and feelings more painful still to him was, precisely, the 
 fear that he might not be alone in suspecting its nature. 
 And so this sentence of his wife's had startled him, and 
 he replied, with a constrained smile, trying to feign an 
 indifference which he did not feel, 
 
 "What has she said to me? Why, nothing; abso- 
 lutely nothing. Do not suppose that she is any more 
 frank with me than with you. Besides, when could she 
 have any confidential talk with me ? I almost never see 
 her alone. But, without any words from her, I have " 
 an evident embarrassment made him hesitate for words. 
 He repeated : " I have impressions. And since we are 
 speaking on this subject, I have thought that I noticed, 
 if she preferred any one, it certainly was not Faucherot." 
 
 " And who is it ? " asked the mother, sharply.
 
 134 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 " It is her cousin, Huguenin," replied Le Prieux ; and, 
 as if defending himself from the lack of confidence which 
 his previous discretion on such a subject implied, he 
 added, "I repeat to you, this is a purely gratuitous 
 supposition. Heine has never, never spoken of it to 
 me, nor has Charles. You may be sure I should have 
 mentioned it to you at once." 
 
 "In any case," said Mme. Le Prieux, with a slight 
 shrug, " such an inclination is not at all to be encouraged. 
 You know how good I am to my own family," she went on, 
 " and how kindly I received Charles Huguenin, although 
 after all he is only a second cousin, and I had not seen 
 his father for years. But Charles has very little money. 
 He has no position. It is not a position, merely to have 
 finished his studies in the law and to have been admitted 
 to the bar in Paris. If he were to marry now, he would 
 be obliged, in order to support a wife, to go home to 
 Provence, to his father's, and make wine and oil and 
 raise silkworms. And frankly, do you see Heine on a 
 farm there in Provence, superintending workmen, and 
 no more theatre, no more visits, no more balls ? I 
 know I know she always says she is not fond of 
 society. Mamma also said this during the lifetime of 
 my poor father ; and then, when we were ruined, it was I 
 who had to cheer her up. But there is no occasion to 
 discuss the matter. Fortunately, Charles is no more 
 thinking of Eeine than Heine is of him. Let us return 
 to the Faucherots. What answer am I to give to
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 135 
 
 Grace ? I must tell you at once that the question of 
 dowry is settled. I have concealed nothing from our 
 good friend; and this worthy Mme. Faucherot who 
 has her weak points, I admit, but less than formerly ; 
 she is improving has always been most good-hearted. 
 She understands perfectly. One cannot do everything 
 in life. Her husband and she have made money; we 
 have made position. It is not your fault, mon ami, that 
 we have nothing to give to Heine. It is the fault of 
 your profession. I knew this when I married you; but 
 I have promised myself to spare our child, if possible, all 
 these troubles that we have had. Very well ! Here we 
 are at your office. Do not feel in a hurry. Take all the 
 time that you need. I will wait for you." 
 
 The coupe was just turning the corner of the rue 
 Druout as the generous Mathilde granted this magnani- 
 mous pardon to her husband, and condescendingly offered 
 to wait for him half an hour in a soft and well-warmed 
 carriage. Why did Hector, descending from this car- 
 riage, and ascending in his patent-leather shoes the con- 
 taminated steps of the staircase, suddenly have a vision 
 of Heine's brown eyes and the sadness of their gaze? 
 What relation was there then between that look and the 
 words which her mother had spoken ? Why, also, when 
 the good Cartier brought him his slips, did the journalist 
 see clearly, instead of the printed pages on which he 
 mechanically wrote in the cabalistic signs of corrections 
 why did he see the Provencal landscape which he had
 
 136 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 contemplated but once, for a dozen hours in the month 
 of September, passing through on his return from a 
 press congress the farm of the Huguenins, sheltered 
 from the mistral by the black screen of its cypress trees, 
 the lines of vine stocks displaying their denticulated 
 leaves and the opulence of their heavy bunches of purple 
 grapes above the red earth, a rose garden in flower, a 
 silvery olive grove near by, and rocks separating this 
 wood from the blue Mediterranean, white with sails? 
 How did this vision concern the writer who, with a 
 slender, well-kept hand, where sparkled two fine gems, 
 was now scribbling the few lines which completed his 
 article ? This hand had never touched any rustic imple- 
 ment since early childhood. And still, was it nostalgia 
 of the soil that seized the renowned journalist? Was 
 it the man of the country reappearing in the Parisian, 
 after thirty years and more ? Or, indeed, did he divine 
 that the happiness of the daughter, who resembled him 
 in her soul as she did in her eyes, was there far, far 
 away from young Faucherot's millions, far from Paris 
 far from what and from whom, also? But already the 
 vision had vanished. Hector had gathered up the cor- 
 rected slips and had given them to Cartier ; he had but- 
 toned his overcoat, and touching his hat coldly and with 
 dignity, as befits one of the princes of criticism toward 
 mere reporters late at work, he left the editorial room, 
 and he did not overhear the remarks which the petty 
 journalists, thus saluted, interchanged concerning their 
 superior.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 137 
 
 " That is another of our fine crush hats, old Le Prieux," 
 one observed. 
 
 "And to think that at his age you perhaps will be just 
 as much of a ' snob/ " said another ; and he added, laugh- 
 ing, " and just as infirm ! " 
 
 " The fact is, he is a perfect cipher ! His last chron- 
 icle was infantile. How has he made his way, a fellow 
 like that ? " 
 
 "New method of making one's way, by Hector Le 
 Prieux, in one volume, 3 fr. 50," said the good Cartier, 
 jokingly ; " axiom : first, you marry a very pretty 
 woman." 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " asked the other. 
 
 "I mean just what you mean," rejoined Cartier, who 
 had just pressed a button, and interrupted his chaffing to 
 say to the boy who answered the bell, "Notify the com- 
 posing room that Le Prieux will make a column and 
 three-quarters. I am looking over the proof. You shall 
 have it in ten minutes " 
 
 And the man under obligations to Hector " the snob," 
 Hector the infirm, Hector the husband who had suc- 
 ceeded because of his pretty wife, carefully filled a 
 meerschaum pipe, and lighted it, with his sly air of being 
 an excellent fellow, while he looked over the slips that 
 Le Prieux had already corrected, to clear them from any 
 remaining typographical error. This was his way of 
 paying his debt toward his benefactor. The secretary 
 was sincere in his defamation, and no less sincere in the
 
 138 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 good-will with which he rendered this service to the 
 senior journalist. He was grateful to him, and he en- 
 vied him, not for his literary position but for his car- 
 riage by the month, his acquaintance in fashionable 
 society, and, most of all, for being the husband of the 
 " beautiful Mme. Le Prieux ! " 
 
 IV 
 
 THE COST OF THE SHOW 
 
 ON the morning after this conversation whose 
 second part was a repetition of the first, with this 
 difference only, that Hector's objections finally gave 
 way, one by one the refined and beautiful child who 
 had been unconsciously its subject, Reiiie Le Prieux, 
 rose as usual before eight o'clock. It was under- 
 stood in the family that she did not need much sleep. 
 In reality, the young girl, when she had been out 
 the evening before, and waked at this early hour, felt 
 herself very tired, very much exhausted. But she 
 never acknowledged to this fatigue, which took the 
 colour from her girlish cheek, made dark circles around 
 her beautiful brown eyes, and sometimes drove into 
 her temple a stinging point of headache; for, if she 
 had not allowed this fable to pass for truth, how could 
 she have been able, herself, to superintend, as she did 
 every morning, the little details of her father's study ? 
 It was she who arranged, with delicate, careful hands,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 139 
 
 the letter-paper and envelopes in their pigeon-holes 
 over the desk ; she who changed the calendar to the 
 day's date ; she who put new pens into the pen- 
 holders; she who took care that the writing-pad had 
 leaves enough for the day's articles. While she was 
 busy with these little cares an inexpressible emotion 
 sometimes saddened her face. When she had finished 
 her pious task she would often look long at a portrait 
 of her father, banished hither by Mme. Le Prieux, 
 which represented Hector at a very early age, and 
 quite sufficiently Bohemian in dress to justify this 
 exile from the salon. A comrade of the Latin Quarter 
 had painted him in a red jacket, a foulard around his 
 neck, his hair long, in the act of writing, with the 
 paper on his knee. This studio skit had the merit 
 common to work done with verve it had life in 
 it, and gave a true idea of what the young peasant 
 of the Bourbonnais had been, in his early years of 
 ingenuous fervour and enthusiasm, with light upon 
 his brow and in his eyes. How pathetic it was to 
 Reine when she compared this remote image of her 
 father with that father himself, as he would look 
 when he came to sit down in that arm-chair, before 
 that table which she had prepared, putting on his 
 harness for a labour which the attentive Antigone 
 could measure materially by the rapidity with which 
 the thickness of the pad diminished ! And she would 
 go to the bookcase and take down three volumes, more
 
 140 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 carefully bound than the others, containing the two 
 collections of poems and the novel by Le Prieux, those 
 Gen&ts des Bmndes, those Rondes Bourbonnaises, and 
 that Rossigneu, which the gentle child was now the 
 only person in the world to re-read and admire. She 
 was not a literary person, Reine, and was not capable 
 of judging these feeble poems and this not very origi- 
 nal novel. She turned their pages with the ardent 
 partiality of one who loves. She knew nothing in 
 the world which seemed more beautiful to her more 
 beautiful and more pathetic. For, while she had not 
 the critical sense to discern the insufficiency of these 
 first attempts, her heart made her feel, with the most 
 painful clearness, what mutilations their author must 
 have practised upon his own soul in order to become 
 the literary job-hand that he now was. By what 
 miracle of affection had this quiet creature, so naive, 
 so inexperienced, divined the secret life-drama of the 
 unsuccessful artist, which he had never even related to 
 himself? Emotional resemblances between a father 
 and a daughter produce phenomena of moral second 
 sight. The father feels in advance the sufferings that 
 merely threaten the daughter. The daughter pities 
 her father for the griefs that he undergoes without 
 being willing to admit them ; and, for this reason, it 
 was that during her morning visits to this laboratory 
 for copy, Beine turned her eyes away from another 
 portrait, that of her mother, placed on the desk,
 
 OTHEE PEOPLE'S LUXURY 141 
 
 representing her as indeed the "beautiful Mme. Le 
 Prieux," in the dress of a princess of the Renaissance 
 which she had worn with brilliant success, at a cos- 
 tume party. The great photograph, in its frame of 
 chiselled silver, dominated the paper, pens, ink, blotter, 
 all the humble implements of the patient labour which 
 had paid for that toilette, and for how many others ! 
 Did the young girl already judge her mother, that she 
 seemed to have a horror of this portrait, or did she 
 fear that she might do this, and, like her father in 
 this respect also, did she refuse to acknowledge to 
 herself certain impressions, obscure and too painful, 
 which lived and throbbed, nevertheless, in the depths 
 of her soul ? 
 
 This sympathy, whose hidden bond thus united Hector 
 Le Prieux to his daughter, must have been very strong, 
 for, as she had guessed his secret, he found that, almost 
 without a clew, he had become aware of hers. If he had 
 been able on that January morning to follow her in the 
 coming and going of her thoughts, he would have ascer- 
 tained that in mentioning the name of Charles Hugue- 
 nin, the night before, he had not been mistaken as to 
 Seine's preference. But he believed that she merely 
 had a preference for her cousin, as he had said ; while, 
 in fact, she loved him. This love owed its existence, as 
 happens often when one is twenty years old, to a reac- 
 tion. We almost always begin by loving some one 
 against some other person or against something. This
 
 142 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 pity that Heine Le Prieux felt for her father translated 
 itself into an instinctive, irresistible, and almost animal 
 aversion toward the environment of which her father was 
 the victim. Too delicate and too scrupulous to hold her 
 mother responsible for what she regarded as a misfortune 
 of destiny, she laid the blame on everything which this 
 mother loved, and she herself at once detested. Not dar- 
 ing to condemn her in her person, she condemned her in 
 her tastes. She hated, accordingly, with this unreasoning 
 hatred, all this stage-setting, whose cost she knew too 
 well, Paris, and society, and dinner-parties, and balls, 
 and receptions, and first performances, and toilettes, and 
 luxury. The vision of the Provencal farm which, the 
 night before, had so strangely crossed the imagination of 
 the journalist as he corrected his slips, had never left her 
 since the September day when that nook of southern 
 country had been visible to her also. She saw herself, in 
 thought, dwelling in that quiet house, living a simple 
 life there, with some one who would love her in a simple 
 way, and this cousin Charles, this shy young fellow, 
 three-quarters Provencal, had found the road to her 
 heart by his very awkwardness. She had taken pleasure, 
 in the innocent privacy of their cousinship, in striving 
 against a certain ambition in him for a more brilliant 
 existence, which was urging him, a very remarkable 
 student as a lad, and now a prize-winner in the Law 
 School, to make his career at the Paris bar. And, out 
 of endless conversations and much giving and accepting
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 143 
 
 of advice, the two cousins had reached at last, each for the 
 other, that stage of feeling which has need neither of 
 declarations nor of promises to communicate and affirm 
 itself, a feeling penetrated with enthusiastic respect on 
 the young man's part, and with confiding modesty on the 
 part of the girl which had invaded their souls till it 
 enveloped them like an atmosphere, without any words 
 too definite, any glance too ardent, any too lingering 
 pressure of the hand. And when the moment had come 
 for the definite avowal, it had seemed to them, so 
 sure had they both been of each other's hearts, that 
 they had long before confessed that they loved each 
 other. 
 
 This inevitable avowal, which was destined to over- 
 throw the skilful plots of those two Macchiavellis in 
 petticoats, Mme. Le Prieux and Mme. Faucherot, and 
 of that third Macchiavelli in evening coat, the subtle 
 Cruce, had been exchanged only the preceding week. 
 The thing had happened under those conditions of half 
 badinage which were due to the friendly, almost frater- 
 nal familiarity of the relations between the two cousins. 
 It was at a grand ball given by the president of a bank, 
 an invitation to which Mme. Le Prieux had obtained for 
 the young man, who, of late, had been much less shy 
 than formerly. The mother, blinded, as parents often 
 are, by her preconceived ideas as to the character of her 
 daughter, had expressed to the latter that very evening 
 her gratification at the change. And Eeine, taking her
 
 144 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 cousin's arm to go to the buffet after a quadrille, had 
 reported to him the maternal commendation. 
 
 "Then you think," Charles had asked at once, "that I 
 am no longer disagreeable to her ? " 
 
 "You have never been that," Eeine rejoined eagerly; 
 " but now you are a great favourite. I shall have to ask 
 you to speak for me, when I have any difficulty with 
 mamma ! " 
 
 "I will, cousin," the young man replied, smiling and 
 growing red, as he spoke. " And perhaps," he continued, 
 " now would be the time for me to write to my mother, 
 and ask her what I have so much desired to ask ; and 
 still, I scarcely dare." 
 
 " What, then ? " Reine had asked, she also with a smile 
 on her parted lips and a thrill at her heart. She had with- 
 drawn her arm, and stood still for a minute as if to fan 
 herself. Although it was scarcely the place, this corner 
 of a ballroom, in front of a loaded buffet, to speak certain 
 solemn words, the young girl expected to hear them 
 spoken. Had they been alone anywhere, her modesty 
 would not have allowed her to hear them, and Charles 
 would not have ventured to speak them ; but here, with 
 the excitement of the soft rhythm of the music, so shel- 
 tered and yet so isolated amid these couples light 
 gowns and black coats gliding past, returning, revolv- 
 ing, within a few steps from them, he was not afraid to 
 say, 
 
 "I shall not do it, unless you are willing, cousin. I
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 145 
 
 should like, then, to ask my mother to write to yours, to 
 know if she may come to Paris to make a certain pro- 
 posal. In a word, cousin, if I begged you to change 
 your name, and become Mme. Charles Huguenin, what 
 should you say ? " 
 
 While Charles was speaking, Heine could see that he 
 also was agitated. An extraordinary emotion had seized 
 her, and with a tremor in her voice she had replied, 
 
 " If my father and mother say yes, so will I. Please 
 say no more," she had added, and he had simply 
 answered in a half-suppressed voice, 
 
 "I will write to-morrow. In four days your mother 
 will have the letter. How long four days will seem 
 to me! And yet, cousin, I have loved you for two 
 years." 
 
 As some one at this moment drew near, who chanced 
 to be no other than M. Cruce himself, Reine had 
 been excused from replying to this too tender sentence. 
 How grateful she had been to her cousin for at once 
 disappearing ! He had appreciated her agitation at 
 hearing words to which no scrupulous child could listen 
 without the feeling that she ought to let her mother know 
 at once what had been said to her. And how grateful, also, 
 that during the four days he had never once appeared in 
 the rue du General -Foy! Although she feared objections 
 on her mother's part, the young girl never doubted that 
 her parents would leave her free to follow the dictates of 
 her heart, in her reply to the proposal made by the
 
 146 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 parents of Charles, and neither did she doubt that they 
 would make this proposal, which would mark for her the 
 beginning of a new life. This little fever of love and 
 hope which had stirred her since the conversation at the 
 ball did not fail of having, as may be supposed, contra- 
 dictory impressions. And it was these impressions 
 which, on that January morning, rendered Reine so 
 nervous before her father's portrait, while she was 
 completing her usual arrangement of his table. She 
 felt too strongly that when once she was gone, the 
 solitude of the journalist would be entire ; and, as it was 
 now the sixth day since the ball, and Mme. Huguenin's 
 letter to Mme. Le Prieux must have arrived, she reflected 
 on the future : 
 
 "Poor dear P6e," she said to herself, employing in her 
 thoughts the little patois abbreviation he had taught her, 
 " it is too bad I should want to leave him ! Who will 
 arrange his papers for him as he likes them, when I am 
 not here any more ? Mamma could not. And then she 
 does not rise early enough in the morning. Who will talk 
 with him about his plans ? Who will encourage him 
 to write at least his book on Bourbonnais poetry ? " 
 This was, in fact, one of the plans cherished by Le 
 Prieux. This humble ambition was his last artist-dream. 
 No longer hoping to find leisure for a work of imagination, 
 or to recover that elasticity of the whole being which is 
 necessary for poems or novels, he had undertaken a labour 
 of special erudition, which satisfied at once his need for
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 147 
 
 some non-mercenary work and his early and still enduring 
 taste for the literature of his native soil. He had proposed 
 to himself to write a study of the poets of his province, 
 Jean Dupin, Pierre and Jeannette de Nesson, Henri 
 Baude, Jean Robertet, Blaise de Vigenere, Etienne Bour- 
 nier, Claude Billard, Jean de Lingendes. These names 
 and others still, unknown even to the most prying bib- 
 liophiles, were familiar to him and, through him, to 
 the young girl who had copied with her own hand all 
 the extracts from these authors destined to appear in the 
 volume. 
 
 She went on with her monologue : " But no ! He shall 
 finish his book at our house. He will come to stay with 
 us in the summer when there are no new plays to be 
 criticised, instead of going to Trouville, where it is so 
 expensive. I will give him a room looking out upon the 
 pines, and perhaps he will find inspiration again: who 
 knows ! " And in thought she beheld him seated by the 
 open window, the wind in the pine forest filling all the 
 air, mingled with the far-off sound of the waves upon 
 the beach and the shrill cry of the grasshoppers. Reine 
 saw her father's hand upon the table and his pen scrib- 
 bling incomplete lines, which were verses ! Then 
 another image presented itself : " And mamma ? " she 
 queried, "how will she endure this banishment to the 
 country ? Oh, we can take her out among the neigh- 
 bours. We will plan some parties for her. Charles is so 
 kind ! He has so many ideas ! He will find some way
 
 148 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 to amuse her. Besides, if P6e writes this volume, it will 
 be the Academy ! " 
 
 This desire that, at the end of his long career, the 
 journalist should wear the coat with the green palms and 
 deliver, beneath the dome, the official address in presence 
 of the usual audience on these occasions, was the one 
 sentiment in common held by Mme. Le Prieux and her 
 daughter; and the latter found, in this union of their 
 wishes on one point, a secret solace for the remorse she 
 felt every time she was constrained to recognize her 
 mother's egotism : " Mon Dieu ! " she said to herself, " it 
 has so often been said to us: 'If M. Le Prieux would 
 only write a book, he would be chosen at once.' Charles 
 and I will make him do it now, when he comes to stay 
 with us. And we will have poor dear Fanny, too " 
 
 "Poor dear Fanny" was an elderly demoiselle, Perrin 
 by name, who had given Beine her earliest lessons on 
 the piano, and remained attached to the family as a 
 species of " companion." For a small salary, she came 
 in from remote Batignolles where she lived, sometimes to 
 take the young girl out for a walk, sometimes to share 
 Reine's solitary meal and evening when her parents had 
 gone out to dinner or to the theatre. This modest, good 
 creature was E-eine's only real friend, notwithstanding 
 her mother's astute endeavours to impose upon her the 
 elegant comradeships of aristocratic lectures, "select" 
 catechism classes, and well-supported charitable works. 
 Beine included all these distinguished intimacies in her
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 149 
 
 insurmountable antipathy to the life of luxury and chic. 
 And the idea of an escape from these burdens of false 
 friendship was another of the reasons that rendered so 
 attractive to her the dream of life in the remote Pro- 
 venqal mas, surrounded by those who truly loved her. 
 Among this number, she included poor Fanny, that 
 aged child of the Parisian suburbs, and fancied her 
 happy, with a rather comic and entirely out-of-placo 
 happiness, in these surroundings of Southern rural life. 
 Heine was smiling at her own thoughts, as Perrette in 
 the fable smiled at her hopes from the milk-pail, and 
 was so completely magnetized by her vision of the future 
 that she did not hear the entrance of her father, who 
 waited at the door a moment to observe her, as she stood 
 dreamy and motionless, before he spoke to her. 
 
 And in truth she was an adorable picture of grace and 
 youth, in that little literary workroom, its walls adorned 
 with books, and its one window, which looked into an 
 inner courtyard, supplying it on this cold January 
 morning with only a yellowish, foggy, and, so to speak, 
 impoverished light. Already dressed for the day, and 
 her chestnut hair in its usual simple arrangement, with 
 gloves protecting her hands and an epauletted apron of 
 gray silk protecting her dress, she looked the most ex- 
 quisite household fairy that ever gave poetic charm to 
 the little duties of domestic life. In thus surprising her, 
 so pretty, so dainty, just now busy with such humble 
 little cares with so much quiet application, how could the
 
 150 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 father fail to think of his recent conversation with his 
 wife, in which all the future of this exquisite creature 
 had been at stake ? And how could he fail to experience 
 anew the shock which he had received when Mme. Le 
 Prieux had spoken the name of Edgard Faucherot ? 
 Was that fellow the husband to whom this girl ought to 
 be given ? A temptation seized him to question her, 
 there, at once, and to make her say " no," that the affair 
 might be immediately abandoned. And then he remem- 
 bered his promise, renewed that same morning at his 
 wife's bedside, whither he had gone to take his first 
 breakfast a sign of grave deliberation. He had there 
 formally agreed not to put this question to Heine. He 
 kept his word, in fact, though with a little stretching of 
 the conscience, very unusual with him, as a rule scrupu- 
 lous in his fidelity. The young girl at last saw him, 
 and came forward to receive his kiss. 
 
 " Well ! little moigne," he said, also using, as he spoke 
 to her, one of the pretty little words of his province. 
 Moineau (sparrow) became moiniau, and from this came 
 moigne, which is the affectionate word of the peasants 
 for their baby girls. "Were you gone to the moon? 
 Of what or of whom were you thinking?" 
 
 " Of nobody and of nothing, in particular," Reine said, 
 colouring slightly, and she continued quickly : " How are 
 you this morning? You were not kept very late at 
 the office last night. Were you satisfied with your 
 article ? "
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 151 
 
 "Fairly," the father said, "except that there was a 
 bad typographical error. Cartier is getting spoiled." 
 
 " Ah ! " Reine interrupted eagerly, " if I could go to 
 the office and read the slips ! " 
 
 " That's all I need," Hector replied gayly ; " but I 
 am wasting time. It is a busy day with me," and, 
 holding up the handful of newspapers that he had 
 brought with him, he added : " I ran over these, as I was 
 dressing. Not a subject in any one of them, and it is 
 the day for my Clavaroche. Then, observing a pile of the 
 morning's letters on the table : " Happily, some of these 
 good correspondents of mine will help me out! And 
 you, Mademoiselle Moigne, are expected by mamma. 
 She has something of importance to say to you. Do 
 not tell her that I told you. But try, in answering 
 her, to be sure that you know what you wish. Don't 
 ask me anything. Only be sure that you remember 
 Goethe's fine sentence: We are free at our first step; 
 we are not free at the second. We say that more simply 
 at Chevagnes : Qui ne se m$le ne se dem&le. Kiss me, my 
 dear, dear child." 
 
 Although Heine, quiet and gentle, accustomed to live 
 much within herself and to take life rather seriously, 
 had not that light-heartedness natural to her age, the 
 period of gay hope, how could she fail, as she kissed 
 her father with infinite gratitude, of interpreting as a 
 glad promise this transparent allusion to a marriage pro- 
 posal? Without doubt Mme. Huguenin's letter had
 
 152 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 arrived. Her parents had deliberated upon it, and 
 would leave her free to dictate the answer. Once 
 more, for a minute, in her imagination, she heard the 
 sound of the wind in the pines, and the shrill chirp of 
 the grasshoppers; once more she saw the little mas, in 
 its atmosphere of much-desired peace ; and, flinging her- 
 self into her father's arms, she whispered, "How good 
 you are to me, and how I love you ! " 
 
 "Can it be true, as her mother thinks, that she is 
 favourably disposed toward this Faucherot marriage ? " 
 Hector asked himself, as he sat down at his table and 
 began counting the leaves destined for his Clavaroche. 
 " She understood perfectly well that her marriage was 
 under consideration, and she is too acute not to have 
 guessed the person unless " And the good man 
 rested his head upon his hands, in an attitude of pro- 
 found meditation. For the first time in many years he 
 sat there, his paper ready before him, without a thought 
 about his task. Yet he dared not translate his " unless " 
 into its true significance, nor again put into words the 
 idea uttered by him the night before, and rejected by her 
 with such scornful irony. The sway of strong characters 
 over weaker ones is exercised in the domain of thought 
 before being exercised in the domain of will. The 
 energy with which Mathilde had protested against the 
 supposition of any affection on the part of Heine 
 for Charles Huguenin still influenced Le Prieux, and, 
 doubting his own intuition, he sighed heavily, un-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 153 
 
 covered his inkstand, and began to write, saying to 
 himself, 
 
 " Nobody but a mother can understand her daughter. 
 I must wait till they have talked together." 
 
 While the paper creaked under his pen, at last 
 started, the two women indeed were talking, a few steps 
 away, in the bedroom of Mme. Le Prieux, separated from 
 the narrow workroom by the yet narrower bedroom of the 
 literary craftsman. Certain it is, that this indefatigable 
 pen would have dropped from his hand in his amaze- 
 ment if, the frail partitions suddenly falling down, he 
 had surprised in its cruel reality the conversation 
 between mother and daughter. The latter, for the first 
 time in years, since the moment when her pity for her 
 father's servitude had begun to awaken, had entered 
 Mme. Le Prieux's room confidingly, with open heart, her 
 filial affection shining in her eyes, ready to show itself 
 in grateful and happy tears, the confession of her ingen- 
 uous love almost on her lips. And immediately this first 
 impulse had been, not destroyed, but, as it were, arrested, 
 merely in meeting the look of the domestic despot, upon 
 whom her heart's future depended. At the moment 
 when the young girl entered the room, Mme. Le Prieux 
 was in her bed, having lain down again as she did every 
 day, not to rise till late in the morning after her bath, 
 which she took with conditions of temperature and dura- 
 tion prescribed by her physician. The practical charac- 
 ter of the Southern people, so positive in all that they
 
 154 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 wish or comprehend, caused her to observe with extreme 
 strictness the slightest precautions of the regime which 
 was to preserve her health and, with it, her beauty. 
 Many details in the room attested, besides, that the cult 
 of Mme. Le Prieux for this beauty never relaxed, even 
 outside of her hours of exhibition, or rather that she 
 was always on exhibition, even when the spectators were 
 only her husband, her daughter, and her maid. Accord- 
 ingly she had, for this hour passed in reposing after her 
 bath, a complete set of fine morning jackets of foulard, 
 of surah, of cre"pe de chine, of batiste, according to the 
 season. This morning she was wearing one of old rose 
 bengaline. A lace scarf was drawn over her hair which 
 she kept loosely braided by night, and artificial waves 
 framed her forehead. These she used, until she dressed 
 for the evening, to save her own hair from being waved 
 twice. The general colour scheme of her room its walls 
 hung with yellow silk, in stripes alternately dull and 
 lustrous, the dark mahogany of its furniture in the style 
 of the Empire, and its delicate green carpet had been 
 skilfully combined to harmonize with her colourless bru- 
 nette complexion. 
 
 She had before her, placed upon an eider-down quilt 
 of yellow silk, which matched the shade of the walls, a 
 broad movable table with short legs, on which lay the 
 blotter destined for her correspondence, and beside it the 
 box containing all the little implements of manicure. 
 
 She was occupied, when Keine approached to say
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 155 
 
 good morning, in rubbing with the polisher her nails, 
 lustrous as enamel. A slight and refreshing fragrance 
 of amber and verbena had already been vapourized in 
 the room, which was almost cold, notwithstanding the 
 supple flame on the hearth, the windows, upon which 
 was designed a fantastic foliage of frost, having been 
 hygienically open for more than a half hour. Thus 
 surprised at this work, and with this toilette, in these 
 surroundings and this perfumed air, Mme. Le Prieux 
 would have given an impression of incurable childish- 
 ness, had not her face, white with powder, been rendered 
 tragic by the traces of age imprinted, notwithstanding 
 all, upon her eyelids, around her temples, in the lines of 
 the mouth and the creases of the neck. Everything, 
 even to the intentional contrast between the wall 
 colouring of the room and her own pallor, brought out 
 the singular hardness of her features, still beautiful, but 
 with an almost sinister beauty, augmented still further 
 by the black splendour of her eyes. She fixed them at 
 once upon Reine's, while her mouth, so imperious in 
 repose, opened to say the first inquiries as to the sleep 
 and the health of each being exchanged 
 
 " My dear child, I want you to give me your whole 
 attention. I want to have an interview of extreme 
 importance with you." 
 
 " Mamma, I am listening, I am ready," Reine replied. 
 Although her ardent hope of the moment previous was 
 already changed, at the mere sound of this voice, into
 
 156 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 a fear that her mother would make very serious objec- 
 tions to her marriage with their cousin, she had no 
 doubt that it was this marriage about which her 
 mother was going to speak ; and the thought that she 
 would have to strive for her love brought a little flash 
 of pride to her beautiful face, as she said, " Father has 
 told me " 
 
 " Ah ! your father has anticipated me ? " said Mme. Le 
 Prieux. "He had promised, however, that he would 
 let me speak to you first 
 
 "He told me only that you desired to see me," the 
 girl interrupted, colouring slightly, because of this 
 half falsehood, which, also, only half deceived the 
 mother. Again Mme. Le Prieux had to read the 
 depths of her child's heart the same sharp look 
 with which she had questioned her husband in the 
 coupe, when she had asked him, " Do you know 
 what Reine thinks ? " She had there, hidden in her 
 blotter, Mme. Huguenin's letter, received the evening 
 before, with its request almost in due form 
 for the hand of Eeine for her son. This letter 
 Mme. Le Prieux considered it her duty not to mention 
 at all to Eeine; and it was her intention not to speak 
 of it to her husband till later, when the Faucherot 
 marriage had been announced. She justified herself 
 for this double silence by the absence of the final 
 formalities in the step taken by Charles's mother. 
 She justified herself for it especially by the conviction
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 157 
 
 that she was working for Eeine's happiness. After 
 all, was she to blame for conceiving of th^s happiness 
 in accordance with her own nature ? Was she to blame 
 considering her husband as a visionary, a person of 
 weak character whom she had been obliged to protect, 
 for not consulting him in a decision whose true motives 
 could not be, and must not be, made known to him ? 
 She was about to tell them to her daughter, these 
 true motives, and that amount of frankness justified, 
 in her eyes, the silence she preserved upon another 
 point. 
 
 " My child," she began, after having observed that 
 Eeine's brown eyes remained, as usual, impenetrable 
 under hers, " I must go back a long way. You will 
 soon understand why." Then after a silence : " When 
 I married your father, you know that we were not 
 rich, and you also know why. We should have been 
 rich, if your grandfather had done as so many financiers 
 are doing at the present time who have a few more 
 millions after each failure. He was a great and honest 
 man, as you know; and thanks to him and to your 
 grandmother, we can look every one in the face. 
 We wronged no man out of a centime, in our disaster. 
 Your father and I began our married life with just 
 enough not to die of hunger. Yes, that is the point 
 from which we started, to gain the position in society 
 which is ours to-day ours, and, consequently, yours. 
 Ah! I can do myself the justice to say that I have
 
 158 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 laboured for years at nothing else, and, as for your 
 father, he has spared no effort to assist me. It was 
 not an easy thing. Society is prejudiced against liter- 
 ary men, especially against journalists. And I admit 
 these prejudices are often well founded. Your father 
 was faultless. He never wrote a single article with- 
 out remembering that he was a man of the world. I 
 must add that this has been appreciated. And I tell 
 you this that you may always be grateful to that 
 poor man who has laboured so hard." 
 
 Unconsciously arrogant, Mme. Le Prieux accom- 
 panied with another brief silence and a sigh this 
 eulogium which she decreed to the conjugal day- 
 labourer whom she had exploited, whom she continued 
 still so implacably to exploit. Reine had felt, as she 
 listened to this exordium, that sensation of cold at 
 her heart which she knew only too well from having 
 endured it whenever she encountered certain senti- 
 ments of her mother's. This vague uneasiness was 
 still further increased by the solemnity with which 
 Mme. Le Prieux seemed to invest this preparatory 
 address. For what purpose this evoking of the memo- 
 ries of her own life ? Reine would not, however, leave 
 without response this appeal to her filial gratitude, 
 and she said, 
 
 " I know how much father works, and how much 
 I owe to him. I assure you that I am not ungrate- 
 ful. I even feel that he works too much "
 
 V 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 159 
 
 She had not measured the scope of these words, which 
 had escaped her so involuntarily that she was discon- 
 certed by them herself. She was still more confused 
 on seeing her mother take them as a text for a new 
 and very serious confidence. 
 
 "I perceive with great joy that you so fully under- 
 stand me, my sweet Reine," the mother had replied. 
 " You feel the same anxiety about this poor man that I 
 do. It is true. He works too hard for his age. He 
 fatigues himself. He would work harder yet if he 
 knew what you are about to know. But you must 
 swear to me, understand me perfectly, you must swear 
 that this secret shall die with us." 
 
 " I promise you, mamma," Eeine said, and added not 
 another word. But if Mme. Le Prieux had again bent 
 her scrutinizing gaze upon her daughter, she would 
 have noticed that the girl trembled. Why all these 
 preambles before the question that she expected, that 
 seemed to her so simple to ask: "Your cousin Charles 
 wishes to marry you. What answer shall we give 
 him ? " And instead came these words : 
 
 " The secret, my daughter, which is entirely unknown 
 to your father, is this that, notwithstanding his exces- 
 sive labour, and prodigies of economy on my part, we 
 have not been able to secure that social position of 
 which I just now spoke, without our expenses during 
 the last ten years and each year more and more 
 exceeding our income. You know our home life, how-
 
 160 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 ever; you see, yourself, that we economize at every 
 point in respect to the table, when we are alone, and 
 in our dress. You know the care I have always taken 
 to avoid any marked styles, so that we can make our 
 clothes last. You know how often they are made over 
 or repaired, in the house. We go to the great makers 
 only when it is necessary that we should. We have a 
 cheap milliner, a cheap jeweller. We keep no horses. 
 When we travel, your father always applies for a pass, 
 and we avail ourselves of his connection with the press 
 to obtain the lowest rates at hotels. In respect to all 
 this I make no complaint, although I was brought up in 
 ignorance of these annoyances. What is cruel for me is 
 this, that with all the trouble I have taken for him, 
 that he might have the social position which he has, 
 notwithstanding his profession, and for you, that you 
 might have, as a young girl, the acquaintances that 
 you ought to have I have not been able to avoid that 
 which my dear mother taught me to hold in the greatest 
 detestation. One word will tell you all, my child: we 
 are in debt." 
 
 " In debt ? " repeated Heine, whom the sentence as 
 to the expenses incurred for her sake had struck to the 
 very heart. It was indeed true that nothing had been 
 spared in her education, her adornment, her pleasures. 
 She no longer thought of asking herself the reason for all 
 this confidence now reposed in her by her mother. She 
 felt only how devoted her mother had been to her, after
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 161 
 
 her fashion, doubtless, but it had been devotion all the 
 same, and the voice of the lovely child sank very low 
 as she answered : " In debt ? You have incurred debts, 
 and for me ? Ah ! mamma, you are quite right not to 
 let father know this. But how can they be paid unless 
 he can work still more than he does ? Mon Dieu I " 
 she added timidly, "now that our position is made, 
 as you say, is it not possible to restrict ourselves ? " 
 
 " And in what ? " said the mother, " and why ? To 
 lose all that has been won with so much difficulty ? No, 
 my child, you are ignorant of life. In Paris, to reduce 
 one's style of living is social suicide. Once in my life, 
 when I was at your age, I had the experience of that 
 fatal facility with which the world forgets those who have 
 been unfortunate. Besides, there is no need of exag- 
 gerating. It is only that we have run behind. We owe, 
 among the various people we deal with, about forty thou- 
 sand francs; and this trifle would be soon paid even 
 with your father's working less than now, if " 
 
 " If ? " asked the girl, with more anxiety than ever. 
 Although she did not allow herself to judge her mother, 
 she could not but understand her character, and she 
 knew, by the very tone in which this word "if" had 
 been spoken, that here was the important point in the 
 conversation. Yes, she knew it by the tone of voice, 
 altered almost imperceptibly, but altered, nevertheless, 
 with the changed subject by the look, also, which, 
 fearing to meet resistance, grew more gentle, almost sup-
 
 162 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXUKY 
 
 plicating. Evidently the confidential disclosure of the 
 previous moment was only a preliminary but to what ? 
 Between the simple life in the little Provencal mas and 
 the payment of the eight thousand dollars of debts 
 that enormous sum, as it seemed to her Eeine could 
 not establish the connection. Her heart beat violently 
 as she perceived suddenly what it was, while she 
 listened to Mme. Le Prieux's commentary upon this 
 formidable " if." 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! it is perfectly simple. If, pretty and well 
 bred as you are, there should be found some good fellow 
 who had money, a great deal of money, and, consequently, 
 had no occasion to require a dowry ; if you were thus 
 married, well married, what a relief it would be to your 
 father ! And I, too, should be rewarded for the sacrifices 
 of a lifetime. What is it that I have desired, I ask you 
 again? One thing only that your father and you 
 should have a real position in the world. You would 
 have it and for life. The rest would become easy. We 
 could then economize, pay our debts, and your father 
 could take some rest. Do you not see how it is ? When 
 a girl is very closely bound to her parents, as you are to 
 us, there are a great many little ways in which she can 
 be useful to them. We should have the same acquaint- 
 ances. If you received every week, for instance, I could 
 make my dinners and receptions less frequent. The 
 civilities that you offered would count for both. You 
 would have a place in the country in Touraine, say,
 
 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 163 
 
 not too far from Paris. Naturally, we should be there 
 two months in the year. Your father could come and 
 go, keep on with his work, and get a little fresh air, and 
 our household expenses would be just so much lessened. 
 It is a dream, is it not? But there are dreams which 
 come true. All we need is that my charming Eeine 
 should meet at a ball, at a dinner, wherever she goes, 
 in her home, even a young man who would appreciate 
 the treasure that she is, a young man who would under- 
 stand, too, what we are, and to whom we should bring 
 what is lacking to himself, a valid social position, and 
 who would bring to you that which your father and I 
 to our despair cannot give you." 
 
 " And do you know this young man ? " E-eine asked. 
 " Tell me his name, mamma, I beg you. It is " 
 
 "There is such a young man," the mother replied. 
 " It is Edgard Faucherot." 
 
 " Edgard Faucherot ! " Eeine exclaimed. " Ah ! it was 
 to speak to me about Edgard Faucherot that " She 
 stopped. The image of her father came before her 
 mind, and the recollection of what he had said, and the 
 emotion they had both felt. "And does my father 
 know that Edgard Faucherot wishes to marry me?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the mother. 
 
 "And he approves of this marriage?" Eeine continued. 
 
 " Why should he not ? " replied Mme. Le Prieux ; and 
 she added, "and yet the dear man has no idea of our 
 situation in regard to money."
 
 164 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 Such a pallor had spread itself over the young girl's 
 face, her smothered voice revealed such a shock, that 
 the implacable woman was struck by it. She was not 
 a monster, this "beautiful Mme. Le Prieux," although 
 her prolonged exploitation of her husband's labour in 
 the interest of a vain passion for luxury was very nearly 
 ferocious; and very much like ferocity, also, was her 
 present procedure in forcing her daughter to a cruelly 
 utilitarian marriage. It was simply that her conscience 
 had been vitiated by the germs of corruption with which 
 the social atmosphere is filled a corruption which 
 current morality, solely concerning itself with breaches 
 of the seventh commandment, scarcely at all notices. 
 Mme. Le Prieux believed herself a good woman, and 
 so she was, in the ordinary meaning of the word. On 
 the other hand, the world had completely abolished 
 in her, by daily abuse of compromises, that noble virtue 
 of uncompromising veracity, which would not have 
 suffered her to conceal from her husband and her 
 daughter the advances made by Mme. Huguenin. But, 
 when one has spent years in receiving cordially the per- 
 son one despises, in complimenting the person one hates, 
 how and why should one hesitate to practise, with a 
 motive considered beneficent, toward one's family, the 
 convenient old maxim that the end justifies the means ? 
 When one has, during these same years, invariably 
 found, behind even the least acts of life, money, 
 always money ; when one has seen on every side, this all-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 165 
 
 powerful money solely and constantly respected, how 
 and why fail to make wealth the supreme condition of 
 happiness ? The world teaches further to the common- 
 place nature and, do not deceive yourself, vanity of 
 whatever kind implies some coarse and brutal streak in 
 the character this sad truth, that, in the end, need is 
 victorious over feeling, and that, especially in marriage, 
 the surest chance for harmony lies in the union not of 
 hearts but of interests. And so let us give due credit to 
 this mother, who was so serenely preparing to sacrifice 
 her daughter, for the scruple which made her say now 
 to the young girl, 
 
 " But what is the matter, Reine ? You are agitated, 
 you are pale!" 
 
 " It is nothing, mamma," the girl said. " I was so 
 unprepared for what you have just told me. I was 
 taken by surprise, that is all." 
 
 "Answer me frankly," said the mother. "There is 
 no one else ? If you love any other person I am 
 your mother, you must tell me. If you would prefer 
 to marry some one else ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, mamma," interrupted Heine, and 
 her voice grew more steady as she went on : " There 
 is no one else that I should prefer to marry. Only " 
 she added, with a half smile, in which quivered, in 
 spite of herself, the revolt of her youth, asking, 
 imploring, a little respite before the sacrifice the 
 respite of Jephthah's daughter, going away into the
 
 166 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 mountains to weep there her adieu to life, and hope, 
 and love " only, I should like to have a few days 
 to accustom myself to the prospect of so great a change, 
 to the idea especially of leaving you and my father. 
 It is now Tuesday. Will you give me until Saturday 
 to reply to M. Faucherot's proposal? I expect to 
 say yes," she had the strength to add; "but," and, in 
 turn, her voice grew solemn, "I am not willing to say 
 it, until I have had time to think very seriously on 
 the subject." 
 
 " Very well," rejoined the mother, " we will wait 
 till Saturday." She would undoubtedly have preferred 
 an immediate acceptance, enabling her to set Cruce at 
 work at once. This same half remorse, which had 
 driven her to question Heine, now made it impossible 
 for her to refuse to the girl this few days' grace. In 
 replying, as she did, so indulgently, did she not deceive 
 herself into thinking that she respected her child's 
 free will ? This, at least, is what she said to Hector 
 when, as soon as Heine had left the room, he came in, 
 testifying thus to the solicitude he felt, and showing 
 that, notwithstanding his work, he had been watching 
 for this interview to terminate. " Well ? " he said 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Well ! " the mother rejoined. " She was very much 
 disturbed, very much touched, also. Very much dis- 
 turbed at the idea of leaving us, which was perfectly 
 natural ; very much touched also by the feeling which
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 167 
 
 Edgard's advances reveal." She already called young 
 Faucherot by his Christian name, so positively did 
 she already regard him as her son-in-law. "I did not 
 wish to urge her. I gave her until Saturday to reflect; 
 but she said to me that she should accept him. Ah ! 
 mon ami, if you knew how happy I am ! " 
 
 MME. LE PRIEUX'S " DAY " 
 
 WHILE this devoted mother as she believed herself 
 to be was announcing in these terms to her husband 
 the result of her interview with their daughter, what was 
 that daughter doing, that other victim, but alas ! a more 
 clear-sighted one, to the social ambitions of this terrible 
 woman? At the first moment, as we have seen, Reine 
 had been, so to speak, struck down by the double revela- 
 tion which had broken in upon her dream of happiness : 
 she had shuddered with pity at the gloomy financial 
 situation of her parents ; and with disappointment a 
 disappointment that was akin to despair on being told 
 by her mother that her father desired this marriage with 
 young Faucherot's millions. She had shuddered, and, 
 shuddering, she had also yielded. In saying, as she 
 had" done, that she should probably accept, she had but 
 thought and felt aloud. This suddenness in renouncing 
 what she considered her own happiness will appear 
 singular only to those who have forgotten their own
 
 1C8 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 youth and how ready the soul is, at that age, for mag- 
 nanimous impulses. In any case, Heine would have 
 found it hard to repulse an appeal like that which her 
 mother had so artfully addressed to her. Resistance 
 became impossible when her father also asked of her 
 this sacrifice ; and, as we have seen, it was Mme. Le 
 Prieux's supreme diplomacy to make her believe that 
 he did ask it. Yet, as we have also seen, the gentle 
 Iphigenia of this domestic tragedy, without refusing 
 herself to the knife, had asked a respite. Why ? For 
 the reason that, in accepting the idea of self-immolation 
 to her parents' will, she could not fail to remember that 
 she must also sacrifice, at the same moment, another ; and 
 she would not she could not consent to this second 
 immolation, without having flung out in different words 
 toward this other, the cry of the real Iphigenia : 
 
 " Heaven has not to the life of this unfortunate 
 Attached the happiness of your destiny. 
 Our love deceived us " 
 
 This had not taken the distinctness of a plan in her 
 thoughts. No. She had only, while her mother was 
 talking, felt a great place in her heart that where her 
 dream of a life with Charles grew and blossomed begin 
 to quiver and bleed. She realized the whole truth of the 
 martyrdom to which filial love was about to condemn 
 her only when she was alone in her room, waiting for 
 by a cruel irony of fate, this Tuesday was Mme. Le
 
 OTHEII PEOPLE'S LUXURY 169 
 
 Prieux's "day" until it was time to dress and aid her 
 mother in receiving the fellow-actors in this social drama, 
 where she herself was about to play a cruelly tragic 
 rdle. 
 
 The young girl sat down in her little room after she 
 had locked the door, and then began, as she looked around 
 her, to weep big, continuous tears, which ran down her 
 cheeks as she sat there, silent and motionless. She was 
 bidding adieu to the Heine not very happy, but still 
 always hopeful who for years had lived her best hours, 
 those that she could win from society, within the four 
 walls of this narrow cell, surrounded even there by the 
 symbols of that contradiction which underlay her whole 
 life. It was a room decorated by one person and lived 
 in by another. Mine. Le Prieux, from her daughter's 
 earliest infancy, had resolutely trained her to luxury, 
 as other mothers train theirs to economy. This appar- 
 ent eccentricity had its motive ; determined, even then, 
 to select a rich son-in-law, she had, as it were, pre- 
 pared Heine for her future position ; and this young girl's 
 bedroom told the story of the strange maternal romance, 
 in its hangings of pink muslin over delicate blue striped 
 silk, its silk curtains of the same tone, its lacquered 
 white furniture also covered with blue silk, and the 
 many silver objects of the toilet-table. But the photo- 
 graphs scattered through the room were Heine's choice, 
 not her mother's ; and they spoke not of luxury and dis- 
 play, but of family affection and simple friendships.
 
 170 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 These portraits were not of the rich and stylish young 
 acquaintances whom, her mother had sought out for 
 her: there were the likenesses of the grandparents at 
 Chevagnes, whom she had never seen ; a picture of her 
 father in his youth, and one of her mother, before the 
 epoch of the social successes, in a very simple gown; 
 there was a group representing the Huguenin cousins, at 
 the door of their mas, the father and mother, and Charles 
 himself, in the background. There was also, in this 
 museum of Heine's affections, a picture of the not very 
 aristocratic Fanny Perrin this was all ; no cotillon 
 favours, none of those souvenirs of fetes that are the 
 usual decorations of a girl's bedroom. 
 
 In a corner by the window, a little old Auvergnat 
 writing-table of walnut that Mme. Le Prieux had 
 retained as of the nature of a bibelot, with the chair 
 belonging to it, had been the property of Hector as a 
 boy. Upon the two shelves above it were the books 
 which Heine specially preferred : her father's three 
 volumes, of course, and with them the gifts of this 
 father, who had delighted to cultivate in his child 
 the tastes akin to his own: the tragedies of Kacine, 
 among the classics, and, among modern writers, the 
 Marie of Briseux, the Stances et Poemes and the 
 
 s 
 
 Epreuves of Sully-Prudhomme, and the Dernieres Pa- 
 roles of Antony Deschamps. A few religious works 
 filled out the upper shelf, and below there were certain 
 mysterious volumes, unusually tall, with merely dates
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 171 
 
 stamped upon the back. These contained, cut out and 
 pasted upon leaves which were afterward bound, year 
 by year, those of her father's newspaper articles which 
 Reine's ingenuous idolatry had led her specially to 
 admire. 
 
 Among all these poor objects old, faded photo- 
 graphs, old provincial furniture, beloved books, at 
 home, in short how miserable and deserted the sacri- 
 ficed girl felt herself ! Into what an unspeakable abyss 
 of misery she had suddenly fallen with that instan- 
 taneousness of submission which was due to the appeal 
 her mother had had the skill to make. Alone with 
 herself, how she again felt herself ruled by a duty 
 which she was incapable even of questioning! When 
 the master feeling of her life had been, for years, a 
 pity every day growing more intense for the slavery 
 under which her father was smothered, how could she 
 see a chance of lessening that slavery, and refuse it? 
 And this was more than a chance, it was a certainty. 
 While her mother went on talking, the sum of the debts 
 that had been thus revealed to her was translated instantly 
 in her thoughts into the amount of labour that the jour- 
 nalist must undertake in order to pay them. She had 
 so often made this mental translation, when her mother 
 had taken her to the dressmaker's or the milliner's and 
 discussed in her presence the order of a gown or a 
 bonnet with which she could so easily have dispensed. 
 What was this expenditure, which had always caused
 
 172 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 her a slight remorse, and the labour corresponding to it, 
 in comparison with the eight thousand dollars confessed 
 by Mme. Le Prieux, and the frightful number of pages 
 that must be blackened to earn them ? 
 
 Eeine computed them anew, these pages, in the soli- 
 tude of her room, and she was all the more crushed 
 because she knew well her father's scrupulous integrity. 
 She knew well that from the day when he should learn 
 the truth he would have no rest until every bill had been 
 paid in full. And it rested with her that these arrears 
 should be liquidated without effort ! How could she have 
 the strength to hesitate, even for a moment ? To her 
 mother's unanswerable arguments, which showed her, 
 in the opulence of her future life, an almost daily relief 
 for her parents, what could she reply ? Nothing, except 
 that her affections called her in another direction. The 
 question lay, therefore, between her happiness and their 
 happiness; and when a generous heart, at twenty years 
 of age, recognizes a dilemma like this, it is at once 
 resolved. But to renounce one's happiness is not to 
 lose the right of weeping, of weeping for oneself, and it 
 was these tears of the suicide that wet the young girl's 
 face, in the virginal cell where she had had, for com- 
 panions of her solitude, so many sweet, innocent dreams 
 of the future, and whither she had now fled, not to 
 argue with herself, but to suffer. And she wept 
 silently, how long she could not have told, until the 
 moment when an idea presented itself to her mind,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 173 
 
 and brought her at once to her feet. Her slender hands 
 wiped the tears away, she threw back her head with a 
 gesture of resolve, and said aloud, 
 
 "If I have no more courage than this, how can I 
 give any to Charles ? " 
 
 The brave girl completely ceased thinking of herself. 
 To feel for others was the natural instinct of the exqui- 
 site sensitiveness which, while she was still very young, 
 had developed itself as pity, in divining and in shar- 
 ing the quiet and hidden sadness in her father's destiny. 
 And now she was thinking only of Charles. She knew 
 that he loved her so truly. She herself loved him, with 
 an affection which was all devotion how he would 
 suffer in knowing that she was the wife of Faucherot, 
 without himself having, in bearing this grief, the im- 
 perative reasons of filial duty which would support 
 her, which were already supporting her! She took 
 up the photograph in which he was represented stand- 
 ing behind his parents. It was only the work of an 
 amateur of herself made at the time she visited 
 Provence, and though it was far from distinct, and 
 the figure of the young man in the background was 
 the most confused of all, it was still perfectly recogniz- 
 able, the hair, the eyes, the smile, and a certain car- 
 riage of the head, slightly to one side, which was familiar 
 to her. In an hallucination that vanished as suddenly as 
 it came, Reine saw him thus, as he would be, withdrawn 
 to his own home, devouring his heart with sadness while
 
 174 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 she would be the wife of another, and what another ! 
 The vision caused her such distress that she laid down 
 the picture, and began to walk up and down in the 
 prison of her narrow room, turning over in her mind 
 the one question on which all the living strength of 
 her soul was absorbed: "In what way shall I make 
 known to him this frightful news, and what shall I 
 say ? " 
 
 Yes, what could she say ? And yet, it must be that 
 she herself should speak to him. Heine was too loyal 
 to her heart's core not to understand that, from the 
 moment when she accepted the idea of marrying another 
 man, after the conversation she had had with Charles, 
 she owed to him an explanation, and owed it to him 
 immediately. Had she not authorized him to have his 
 mother make advances the idea of which now increased 
 her distress ? Having too much confidence in her own 
 mother to imagine that the latter could have received 
 this communication from Mme. Huguenin and concealed 
 the fact from herself, Eeine trembled, now, lest this 
 letter lately so much desired should be on the way. 
 If only Mme. Huguenin had delayed, if the letter had 
 not yet been sent, if there were still time to prevent 
 its being written, and to spare this mortification to 
 the parents of him she loved ? On this account she 
 must speak, and at once. To this point she continually 
 returned to speak ; but how ? An interview, in 
 which she would see her cousin suffer, and suffer at
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 175 
 
 her hands, appeared to her at once inevitable and 
 impossible. What pretext could she find to justify a 
 withdrawal from the promise given an act which she 
 herself, with the fine strictness of the emotional con- 
 science that one has at twenty years of age, would have 
 characterized as monstrous, if she had seen a friend 
 guilty of such a thing, without knowing its real motive, 
 and this real motive must, at all risks, be kept secret 
 from every one, most of all from Charles. Even though 
 a solemn promise had not prohibited it to her, all her 
 family feeling, all her modesty of soul revolted also 
 at the thought of admitting the man she loved into 
 this sad domestic secret, the hidden martyrdom of her 
 fath'er, her mother's ways of feeling. She still refused 
 to judge them her mother's ways of feeling even 
 now, but she had not the least doubt what Charles's 
 opinion of them would be. But alas ! if she did not 
 confess this to him, and she would rather die, how 
 explain to him her own conduct, so that he should not 
 judge her, herself also, with severity ? What could 
 she say to him? That she had reflected and found 
 that she did not love him ? After their so recent 
 conversation at the ball, when she had spoken to him 
 so frankly, he would not believe her. And then, some- 
 thing in herself protested against thus calumniating 
 her own heart. The very young have a scrupulous 
 respect for their emotions, because they are also proud 
 of them. And this too legitimate pride, this desire to
 
 176 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 show herself in the truth of her deepest feelings, with- 
 out revealing their mysterious cause, at last inspired 
 the romantic girl, after prolonged and painful medita- 
 tion, with the most na'ive and audacious of projects, 
 the most unreasonable and the most touching yes, 
 she would see Charles as soon as possible, and she 
 would see him alone. She would appeal, in this inter- 
 view, to his esteem, to his confidence in her, to his 
 love. She would ask him to believe her, to believe 
 that she had spoken the truth to him, that she had 
 not changed, and should never change in her affection 
 for him; and she would at the same time declare to 
 him that they must renounce their dream of marriage, 
 and must do this for an insurmountable, a sacred reason, 
 which it was impossible for her to reveal to him. She 
 would implore him, if he loved her, not to seek to know 
 this reason. She would appeal to his faith in her, and 
 he would understand her suffering in this appeal and her 
 sincerity. She would understand it, if it were addressed 
 to her. Their secret betrothal would be broken, and it 
 would be a frightful moment for both. But at least she 
 would leave him, feeling sure that he did not despise her. 
 A woman who loves, though she be as ingenuous and 
 as free from all spirit of intrigue as was this innocent 
 and pure-minded child, is always a little tempted to 
 excuse the means that she employs in the service 
 of her affection, even were they as tortuous as the 
 liea of the Agnes or the Rosine of comedy. Keine
 
 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 177 
 
 was neither an Agnes nor a Rosine. She was one 
 of those charming girls of the old French bourgeoisie, 
 all acuteness, but all truth. She had an innate horror 
 of falsehood which made her hesitate, at the moment of 
 carrying out her plan, before one thing to be done in 
 its execution, which will seem very childish to the 
 emancipated of contemporary feminism. The cause 
 of hesitation was this : to talk with her cousin alone 
 was impossible in the house. He himself would never 
 have asked to be received by Heine in her mother's 
 absence, and at the mere thought that perhaps he 
 would come on their "day," and that, under her 
 mother's eye, she must see him without being able 
 to speak to him frankly, the young girl felt herself 
 grow faint. But time was slipping away. The 
 next day, in the morning, she was to go, accompanied 
 by the faithful Fanny Perrin, to one of the fash- 
 ionable lectures, in the rue Eoyale, that her elegant 
 education required her to attend. Very often, when 
 the day was fine, she would walk for some time with 
 her chaperon, before returning to the house. Her first 
 idea was to send word to Charles to meet her at the 
 Tuileries or in the Champs-3lysees, in the morning. 
 They could meet, as if by chance, and walk a short 
 distance together. This also had often happened. Yes, 
 it was a very simple and very sure way. Heine went 
 to her table and took a little blue telegram, and then, 
 as she was about to dip her pen into the ink, stopped
 
 178 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 short. Another thought came to her suddenly; it was 
 not the writing of a note or the making of an appoint- 
 ment that suddenly alarmed her. Not infrequently 
 Mme. Le Prieux had desired her to write a note to 
 her cousin to change the date of an invitation, or 
 to offer him a seat in their box at the theatre ; and 
 on the other hand, she had a right to say to herself 
 that in planning this meeting she was obeying only 
 the noblest of motives. Nor was it doing a thing with- 
 out her mother's knowledge that disturbed her thus. 
 That fair-mindedness with which natures capable of 
 resolute action judge themselves, made her institute 
 something like a comparison between this lack of con- 
 fidence and the sacrifice upon which she had decided, 
 for this mother. 
 
 No ; the image which, at this first moment, prevented 
 her from writing her generous, imprudent note, was 
 that of Mile. Fanny Perrin, that good creature whom 
 she knew to be so scrupulous, so attached to her duty. 
 She knew also that Fanny had the blindest faith in 
 her, that never a doubt would arise in the chaperon's 
 mind as to the accidental character of a meeting with 
 Charles, nor any objection if Eeine were to leave 
 her and go a few steps forward with her cousin, offer- 
 ing no explanation to her. To deceive this discreet 
 and humble friend was intolerable to the young girl. 
 And then then, love gained the victory; and for the 
 first and last time in her life the scrupulous Heine
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 179 
 
 abandoned herself to the most venial, certainly, and 
 most excusable, of compromises with conscience. She 
 promised herself that she would tell Fanny Perrin, 
 in proposing to go to the Tuileries, that she was expect- 
 ing to meet Charles there. If Fanny objected to going, 
 Eeine would give it up. There would be time to 
 make some other plan. If Eeine had been perfectly 
 sincere with herself, she would have confessed she 
 ran no great risk of being obliged to make a new effort 
 of the imagination. She was too sure that Fanny, 
 who adored her, would never be able to refuse. How- 
 ever, this reservation made it possible to resume her pen 
 and to write the following note : 
 
 " MY COUSIN : I beg you, to-morrow morning, between 
 half-past ten and eleven, to be on the terrace of the 
 Tuileries, on the side toward the Seine, near the Or- 
 angery. If I have not come by eleven o'clock, it will be 
 because something absolutely insurmountable has pre- 
 vented me. You will understand, after I have spoken 
 with you, how powerful was the motive which has 
 inspired this step on the part of 
 
 " Your devoted cousin, 
 
 LE PRIEUX." 
 
 After she had written the address of this card tele- 
 gram : M. Charles Huguenin, 54 Eue d'Assas, it occurred 
 to her to re-read the lines, so cold though written with 
 burning fingers, and she added this postscript, underlin-
 
 180 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 ing it, " I also beg you not to come to the house to-day." 
 Then, having sealed the little blue paper, she carried it 
 herself to the servant who was laying the table for 
 breakfast, and sent him out with it immediately. She 
 was somewhat pale in doing this thing, for her so extraor- 
 dinary, so far outside anything she had ever done or 
 thought of doing. But inasmuch as she did it openly, 
 frankly, without concealment, at the risk of being sur- 
 prised by her father or mother, she said to herself that 
 she was incurring danger for the honour of her affection. 
 And this was enough to save her from shame or fear. 
 
 Now, she must wait ; and the tranquillity that the fact 
 of action had restored to her was to be worn out, minute 
 by minute, second by second, during the twenty-four 
 hours which separated her from this interview with 
 her cousin. She was obliged, first, to endure, at the 
 breakfast table, the glances of her mother and her 
 father the former, triumphant and grateful; the lat- 
 ter (and this aspect could not but increase the girl's 
 discomfort) as if touched, surprised, and questioning. 
 Happily, he went away very early, having to attend a 
 rehearsal. " The fourth this week," he groaned, as he 
 took leave of his wife and daughter. Mme. Le Prieux 
 also disappeared very soon, to prepare for her "day," 
 that "Tuesday," to which had been subordinated her 
 own existence, and her husband's, and Keine's! This 
 weekly task had never been agreeable to the girl. She 
 accepted it ordinarily with the good-humour of her age.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXUKY 181 
 
 She even felt remorse, being pious, that sometimes she 
 found this light cross painful. That afternoon the 
 string of visits could not but be, and was, physically, 
 almost intolerable. "Has Charles received the despatch? 
 Yes, if he is at home. Mon Dieu! if only he does not 
 come to-day ! If he has received it, what does he think of 
 me? If only he does not misjudge me ! He must know 
 that there is something serious. If only he is not too 
 much distressed ! I ought to have explained to him. I 
 could not in writing." These were the sentences spoken 
 within her, while she was attending with her habitual 
 carefulness to the small duties assigned to her, before 
 the appointed three o'clock, at which hour the two salons 
 began to fill. She looked at the flowers in the vases, and 
 at the growing plants, at the bibelots in the cabinets, 
 and at the fire on the hearth. She saw to the dining 
 room where the luncheon was laid. Mme. Le Prieux 
 had increased her available space for receptions by mak- 
 ing the doors of this room slide in grooves, so that it 
 could serve as an extension of the grand salon. These 
 very prosaic duties were not of a nature to silence the 
 low voice within her which reminded the young girl of 
 the near approach of the formidable interview, any more 
 than were the remarks to which she must listen, when 
 the usual guests began to arrive. 
 
 And yet, it was rather a curious sample of contem- 
 porary Paris, this " day " of the journalist's wife, and 
 the aspect of the three rooms, about five o'clock, proved
 
 182 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 that, if Mme. Le Prieux had no comprehension of the 
 feelings of others, she had in the highest degree the 
 social instinct that peculiar and indefinable gift of 
 making desirable acquaintances. Her success was due, 
 as all successes are, to a correct foresight as to causes. 
 The events which followed her father's ruin and death 
 had revealed to this woman of the south the prime 
 and fundamental truth that everything has its price, 
 in society ; and she was able to understand exactly 
 how much her husband's means enabled her to give 
 to that society which she so eagerly loved. She also 
 had discerned this further truth, that in the Paris of 
 our day there is not one circle of fashionable society, 
 but twenty or thirty of these circles ; and that a married 
 couple like themselves, without family support or any 
 past, must be contented with a somewhat peculiar posi- 
 tion, must not push themselves into any one coterie 
 but make their own for themselves, touching upon 
 all but making no effort to belong completely to any 
 one. She had recognized, lastly, this third truth, that 
 it is in social relations as it is with coins. To have 
 a louis is the same as having twenty francs; to have 
 a hundred francs is equivalent to having five louis. 
 There are acquaintances of prime importance that give 
 you at one stroke ten or twenty others, and there are 
 those of secondary value that give you only them- 
 selves. 
 
 The influence of these practical axioms was shown
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 183 
 
 in the very make-up of this salon, on the Tuesday 
 which, this time, seemed to Reine as if it would never 
 end. Why had the journalist's wife a Dowager-duchess, 
 Mme. de Contay, and her daughter, the pretty young 
 Countess de Bee-Crispin, seated there on one of her 
 sofas except because Mme. Le Prieux had found 
 means, in virtue of the first of these three principles, 
 to put at the service of certain charities in which the 
 old duchess was passionately interested the influence 
 of Hector in the theatres, and with the press ? Why, 
 on this same Tuesday, had she there, talking with 
 these two representatives of the purest aristocracy, 
 Mme. Jacques Molan, the wife of the celebrated novel- 
 ist, and Mme. Maxime Fauriel, the wife of the no less 
 renowned pastellist? This was because, in virtue of 
 the second principle, she had never made the mistake 
 of breaking with a society that, in the depths of her 
 soul, she described as Bohemian. She had striven to 
 render her salon amusing by making it a kind of 
 neutral ground where people belonging to a more 
 exclusive circle could meet the very flower of artistic 
 and literary Paris. Why, still on this same Tuesday, 
 were the Countess Abel Mose and her cousin, the 
 Baroness Andermatt, there, who had, each of them, 
 nearly as many million francs as the hard-working 
 Hector wrote articles, yearly ? This was because the 
 two beautiful Jewesses were particularly grateful to the 
 journalist for having, at the opening of the anti-Semitic
 
 184 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 campaign, taken that position of moderate liberalism 
 which he still holds, and for having taken it with 
 absolute disinterestedness. It may be guessed by 
 whose advice. And notice the keen scent of old 
 Grace's pupil : Mines, de Contay and de Bee-Crispin 
 are good for more than ten acquaintances in the best 
 society; with Mme. Molan and Mine. Fauriel, a place 
 is retained in the two houses where young literary 
 Paris is always to be found; with the presence of 
 the Countess Mose* and the Baroness Andermatt, invi- 
 tations are secured in all the high society of Israel. 
 Who can wonder that a house frequented by these 
 heads of columns should never be scant of guests, 
 and that forty persons, ladies and men, may be 
 counted there on this particular Tuesday? And is it 
 not legitimate that she who has created this "salon," 
 should regard with pride the fresh or faded faces 
 that smile under the bonnets, in the light of the elec- 
 tric lamps? She knows both what to say to bring 
 this smile to each visitor's face, and what the cost 
 was of the bonnet. She knows the value of all these 
 toilettes, and how to please each one of these decorated 
 vanities. One thing, however, escapes her knowledge 
 and that is, how tired Heine is of pouring tea or 
 chocolate and offering cake to these indifferent peo- 
 ple, and how worn out with all this talk, which she 
 knows by heart. How wearisome, for instance, to 
 hear the duchess narrate her plans for a charity fe~te,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 185 
 
 the five hundredth that she has organized ! She is 
 an enormous person, with the look of a market woman 
 from the Halles, very red and very haughty, who has 
 a very grand air with a stout figure, and talks in a 
 loud voice, cutting her sentences off with a " not more," 
 inexplicable unless it be because she has begged too 
 often : 
 
 "This time we should have to have the Palais de 
 1' Industrie, and for two days. Not more. At twenty 
 francs admission, and five francs each visit to one of 
 the compartments. Not more. There will be twenty of 
 these compartments, not more, and in each one, for a 
 half hour, during those two days, all the famous men in 
 Paris would come and work under the eyes of the public, 
 just as in their own rooms or studios. Not more. Do 
 you see ? Allowing eight hours a day, that would give 
 us thirty-two half hours. We should ask the thirty 
 most famous writers. For the poor, they would not 
 refuse to do it. Yes, we should ask them to sit down 
 for just thirty little minutes at a table, not more, and 
 write what they pleased, the musicians to play what 
 they pleased, the artists to paint what they pleased. 
 The thirty most famous lawyers would argue on any 
 subject they pleased for half an hour, not more ; or else 
 they might prepare a speech. The doctors would bring 
 their students, and give a lecture on whatever they 
 pleased. If we have this in May, when strangers are 
 in Paris, we should have ten thousand visitors. Not
 
 186 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 more. That would make two hundred thousand francs 
 for our poor consumptives ; and each person would visit 
 at least four of the compartments, which would be 
 another two hundred thousand francs. Ask M. Le 
 Prieux what he thinks of my idea ? " 
 
 Yes, how weary Eeine is of being obliged, again to-day, 
 to lend an appearance of attention to one of the fantas- 
 tic projects in which the activity of the grande dame 
 expends itself, while her mother smiles at sentences 
 behind which the girl, with her sensitive susceptibility, 
 discerns that ingenuous and insulting conception of the 
 famous artist which women too high of rank are so apt 
 to form they are curious animals to be placed on 
 exhibition. 
 
 In like manner, other sentences interest the mother 
 prodigiously to judge by the expressions of admiration 
 wherewith she punctuates them which appear almost 
 offensive to the sensitive Reine. These pass between 
 the two cousins, Mme. Abel Mose and Mme. Andermatt, 
 talking not less frankly than the duchess, without sus- 
 pecting for they are generous and kindly the sar- 
 casm that, in this atmosphere where elegance is a feat 
 of legerdemain, is contained in their frank allusions to 
 certain figures of expense. 
 
 "Yes," says Mme. Andermatt, after relating the 
 details of a separation between a husband and wife, 
 who are nearly connected with herself, "Solomon" 
 (her own husband) "succeeded in convincing Saki"
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 187 
 
 (the husband in the story) "that he must act like a 
 ' gentleman.' No matter if they could not get on to- 
 gether, there was nothing really wrong about Esther. 
 She is the mother of his two sons. He owes it to himself 
 that she should be able to live decently. Saki admitted 
 it all, and what do you suppose he allows her ? " 
 
 " Kich as he is," Mme. Mose emphasized, " for he 
 has at least fifty millions." 
 
 " Very well," resumed Mme. Andermatt, " sixty thou- 
 sand francs a year six thousand a month. Why, she 
 used to spend as much as that on her lingerie. How is 
 she going to live ? " 
 
 Yes. How was the young baroness, Esther Wismar, 
 going to live ? This is the question put to each 
 other, with evident compassion and the most amusing 
 seriousness, by the five ladies who listened to this reve- 
 lation of the ungentlemanly conduct of Saki Wismar, the 
 rich banker. Heine would have considered this com- 
 passion as gently comic, had it not been that one of 
 these five ladies was her father's wife, and had she not 
 known what she did know about the condition of their 
 affairs. She has not time, however, to abandon herself 
 to this painful feeling, for she has just heard Mme. 
 Molan whom she has approached for the purpose of 
 offering her a second cup of tea say to her friend, Mme. 
 Fauriel, 
 
 " Tiens, Laurence ! Here comes Snobinette ; and the 
 duchess and the countess are just leaving ! Tableau ! "
 
 188 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 "Marie, Marie," rejoins Mine. Fauriel, "Reine will 
 scold you ; she has a weakness for Mme. Faucherot." 
 
 And, indeed, it is Edgard's mother who has just 
 entered, and as if to justify, on the instant, Mine. 
 Fauriel's little mischievous remark, she makes her 
 way, through the groups whose idle talk fills the 
 two rooms, to where Reine stands. She kisses her, 
 the poor girl, who grows icy cold under the kiss. Reine 
 is too acute herself not to be conscious that Laurence 
 Fauriel is annoyed that she should have heard Mme. 
 Molan's not particularly witty sneer. But why, unless 
 it were that the plan of her marriage with Edgard 
 Faucherot is already known and commented upon ? 
 And then, the mother of Edgard has, in this sudden 
 affection for herself, a kind of entering into posses- 
 sion ; and this idea sends through the girl's veins the 
 shiver of a gazelle under the paw of a lioness if, 
 indeed, such a comparison is permissible in speaking 
 of a person so far from leonine as the former sales- 
 woman of the house of " Hardy, Faucherot, Silk and 
 Velvet." This individual, six times millionnaire, is 
 a little woman of forty-five, who has remained very 
 slender and still young in her appearance. She pos- 
 sesses, if you observe her in detail, all sorts of traits 
 which should make her a distinguished woman: small 
 feet and slender hands, a fine figure, regular features, 
 large, brown eyes with finely pencilled eyebrows, and 
 regular white teeth. She is dressed in the latest style,
 
 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 189 
 
 and the blue fox that she wears would not disgrace the 
 shoulders of a princess of the blood. With all this 
 explain the mystery ! there is, as if diffused over her 
 whole being, a character absolutely, irremediably com- 
 mon. She is, so to speak, the exact inverse of the 
 duchess, so impressive, with all which would naturally 
 render her vulgar, in appearance, colour, figure, and 
 toilette. During the moment that they were together 
 on the threshold of the door, the contrast in exterior 
 conditions was apparent, as one compared the huge 
 figure of Mme. de Contay and Mme. Faucherot's slender 
 figure, the latter's elegant furs and the faded and yellow 
 old sable of the former. And yet, even at a glance, no 
 person could have failed to know which was the duchess 
 and which the bourgeoise. By what sign ? By the ease 
 of the former, and the stiffness of the latter ? By the 
 kind of imposing good-nature and gay certainty of the 
 one, and the too emphatic arrogance of the other? 
 Who will ever be able to define that assemblage of noth- 
 ings that are summed up in the word " race " ? These 
 nothings are doubtless only the showing through of 
 secret and uncontrollable elements hidden in the inner- 
 most depths of the soul which forbid or command certain 
 methods of thinking. The person whom Mme. Molan 
 had called by the sportive nickname of " Snobinette " 
 gave still further proof of this by saying to Heine, after 
 the first effusiveness, 
 
 " Is it not the Duchess de Contay who has just gone
 
 190 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 away? And I wanted so much to meet her! Why 
 did you not let me know ? See how unlucky I was. 
 I missed seeing her by being detained in a block of 
 carriages. I told my coachman to come through the 
 narrow streets. After all, there's nothing so disagree- 
 able as to have a pair of horses that have cost ten thou- 
 sand francs. One is always afraid of their getting 
 injured. You are quite right, you and these ladies, in 
 having them by the month. Then you're not afraid to 
 move " 
 
 And Edgard's mother continues, without remarking 
 the ironical smile on the lips of the two sly Parisian 
 women as they listen, nor the sad look that her foolish- 
 ness brings into the eyes of the young girl whom she 
 has chosen for a daughter-in-law, until at last Eeine 
 interrupts her, saying, 
 
 " Will you have tea or chocolate ? One ought to take 
 something warm, the day is so cold." 
 
 "Which did the duchess take?" Mme. Faucherot 
 asked ; and, on being told : " Then I will take some tea, 
 like her. Tell me, does she come here often? Oh, if 
 I had only known ! And I had been so pleased to buy 
 those horses of Mme. de Candale ! For they were hers, 
 you know. They were sent to Tattersall's, and I said 
 I would have them at any price. And see now what 
 they have made me miss ! "
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 191 
 
 VI 
 
 CHARLES HUGUENTN 
 
 ONE of the poets whose verses Hector Le Prieux had 
 taught his daughter to love the subtle and sensitive 
 Sully-Prudhomme is the author of this line, so strong 
 in meaning while so simple in words, 
 
 " Et les heures arrivent toutes," 
 
 a profound expression of the twofold sadness of expect- 
 ancy that of the steady passage of time, and that of its 
 rapid passage. Eeine had experienced the former, while 
 she endured the lazy hours of her mother's " Tuesday " 
 and of the social duties which followed, for Mme. Le 
 Prieux had required her presence at a dinner-party and 
 two balls that evening. And when at last she was at 
 home, and free to remain alone with herself, she began 
 to suffer the other pang that of feeling how brief and 
 few were the moments which separated her from her in- 
 terview with Charles. Twelve times sixty minutes, eleven 
 times, ten times, nine times and she would be face to 
 face with her cousin! What should she say to him? 
 Lying in her little bed, in the darkness, she heard the 
 ticking of the clock fill the room with that implacable 
 sound which is like the irresistible footsteps of Time, 
 and she strove to frame in her thoughts the sentences 
 that to-morrow she must speak. The more she sought 
 for words, the more she found herself powerless to
 
 192 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 express what she desired to say all her love, and this 
 was a farewell; all her fidelity, and this was to break 
 off; all her grief, and it was her absolute duty to con- 
 ceal the sacrifice. After many prayers she slept, with 
 a feverish sleep from which she awakened more tran- 
 quil. The necessity for action, with its strain upon her 
 nerves, was, for the moment, as it will sometimes hap- 
 pen, a tonic. It was her intention to give her morning 
 glance at her father's room so early and so rapidly that 
 she would escape meeting him, fearing that, if he spoke 
 to her, she might lose her self-control, and might betray 
 herself, before the irreparable act was done. This she 
 accomplished so well that her daily inspection was over 
 when Le Prieux, himself somewhat earlier than usual, 
 came to his work. Oh, the misunderstandings of heart 
 between a father and his child, when each has for the 
 other only respect, devotion, adoration ! Hector had 
 taken pains to be early on the spot, in the hope of find- 
 ing his daughter there, as he so often did, and, without 
 seeming to do it intentionalty, bringing about an expla- 
 nation with her as to the Faucherot marriage, which 
 still caused him anxiety. The sovereign ascendency 
 that his wife exercised over him had prevented him, 
 the day before, from asking Heine to come to him alone 
 that he might question her. He felt quite sure that his 
 daughter would be glad to meet him alone, and it was 
 a real disappointment when he entered his room, and 
 saw his table arranged, the paper lying ready, the pens
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 193 
 
 in their place, the fire burning brightly, and the gentle 
 fairy gone, who had made the room ready for him. 
 
 "She was not willing to have me talk with her 
 about this marriage," he thought to himself, " and 
 why ? " 
 
 While the father was putting this question to him- 
 self and could find no answer and dared not go to 
 his daughter's room, out of deference to what he 
 regarded as her wish, Reine was saying to herself, 
 
 "Now he is calmly at work. He is satisfied. If 
 he knew what it has cost ! May he never know ! " 
 
 She was perfectly sincere in what she said, and still 
 the idea of her father's unconsciousness was so pain- 
 ful to her that she experienced a sensation of being 
 really consoled the first feeling of anything but 
 distress that she had had since the fatal interview of 
 the preceding morning when, at about half-past nine, 
 she beheld appearing before her the ugly but affectionate 
 face of Fanny Perrin. This elderly person was short 
 and stout, with a head much too large for her body. 
 Her thick lips and her flattened nose gave her a 
 bull-dog look, corrected by her blue eyes of a frank 
 sweetness almost charming in this face. Her faded 
 complexion, rendered sallow by habitually poor food, 
 looked more withered still from the colourless tone 
 of the hair, still blond but as if washed out or as if 
 faded by the sun. With this, poor Fanny, who had, for 
 many years, worn no other clothes than the cast-off
 
 194 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 things of her rich patronesses, was always arrayed in 
 the garments, at once conspicuous and caricatural, of 
 the poor relation. The material was always sumptu- 
 ous and shabby, the style elaborate and no longer 
 fashionable, the fitting complicated and incorrect. It 
 was the same with her shoes and her bonnets. " I 
 shall never have anything really new and made for 
 me till I have my coffin," the clever creature would 
 say. The misery of such an existence lies more in 
 presents than it does in privations. The insolence 
 with which a favour is done, usually, to these half- 
 parasites, so frequently forces them to be ungrateful 
 that they experience infinite thankfulness toward the 
 considerate benefactor whose gifts they can acknowl- 
 edge, not with the lips only, but with the heart. 
 Reine's thoughtful kindness toward poor old Fanny 
 had been repaid by the most ardent devotion on the 
 part of the latter, and, though in no way akin, it had* 
 seemed to give her that power of discernment in the 
 things which concerned Heine which is a tender 
 mother's privilege, and this she proved anew on the 
 morning of which we speak. No sooner had Mile. 
 Perrin remarked the young girl's pallor and her look 
 of extreme fatigue, than, without any reference to 
 merely physical health, she asked at once, 
 
 "What is it, Eeine? Something has happened 
 something very serious. Do not deny it. I am 
 sure "
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 195 
 
 " Something has happened," the girl replied. " But 
 do not ask me. What I can tell you, I will: and all 
 the more because I expect a great service from you. 
 But I want you to understand that I shall not be dis- 
 pleased if you feel that you must not do what I ask." 
 
 "I have no fear," rejoined Mile. Perrin; "what could 
 my darling Eeine ask me to do that would be wrong ? " 
 Then, as the young girl remained silent, she continued, 
 with a timidly inquiring tone, like a person who antici- 
 pates a sad confession, and seeks to be forgiven for 
 foreseeing what it is to be, " This thing which has 
 happened, Eeine, has something to do with your being 
 married, is it not ? " 
 
 " It has something to do with my being married," 
 Eeine answered, in an almost inaudible voice. 
 
 "And to some one whom you do not love?" Fanny 
 ventured to say. 
 
 "And to some one whom I do not love," Eeine 
 repeated. 
 
 And now it was Fanny's turn to be silent. She had 
 long since divined Eeine's feeling for her cousin, with- 
 out ever alluding to it, and she would not have dared 
 to be the first to speak of it now. On her part, Eeine 
 was already repenting that she had said so much. She 
 took the hand of her humble companion. 
 
 "I have expressed myself badly," she said implor- 
 ingly. "Do not suppose that any one wishes to force 
 me to this marriage. It has been spoken of to me,
 
 196 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 and I feel that it is more reasonable for me not to 
 refuse. However, this has nothing to do with the 
 request I have to make. I want very much," and she 
 put into the words, emphasizing them by repetition, 
 all the sad energy of a supreme appeal, "I want very 
 much to speak with some one for a few moments alone. 
 I have written to this person to meet me on the terrace 
 of the Tuileries when we come from the lecture. If 
 you tell me that you are not willing to go with me, I 
 shall not go. In regard to the motive which requires 
 me to do this, spare me all questions, I beg you, if 
 you love me. Only be sure that I have too much 
 respect for you to involve you in anything that is 
 wrong ! " 
 
 "Dear Seine," interrupted her visitor, eagerly, "I 
 know it ; " and without direct reply to the request made 
 her, "Come," she continued, "we shall be late for the 
 lecture. Fortunately, it is fine weather for a walk, 
 this morning." 
 
 There was, in this last little sentence, accompanied 
 by an affectionate glance, all the feminine finesse of 
 which old Fanny, aged fifty-five, was capable, not will- 
 ing to say a distinct " yes," to a request too manifestly 
 connected with a love affair, and yet saying "yes," 
 and feeling greatly upset by this complicity. In fact, 
 when, two hours later, the two, after the close of the 
 lecture, found themselves upon the sidewalk of the 
 rue Boyale, and started, without a word of explanation
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 197 
 
 on either side, as if by tacit accord, toward the place 
 de la Concorde and the gate of the Tuileries, the one 
 whose heart was beating quickly was not Reine. 
 Twenty times over, during the five minutes in which 
 they were going this short distance, the scruples of 
 the chaperon came near being stronger than her 
 implied promise; and, each time, a glance at Eeine, 
 and the earnest and suffering look on that noble face, 
 arrested the objection in her conscience and upon her 
 lips. 
 
 Thus they arrived, without having exchanged a word, 
 upon the terrace of the Orangery, where they perceived, 
 and this time with equal, though so different, emotion, 
 the figure of Charles Huguenin, who awaited them. 
 It was indeed an ideal scene for an adieu like that 
 to which Eeine came, this spot in prosaic Paris, on 
 this icy and misty winter morning. In the place 
 de la Concorde, clear and light, the marine divinities 
 of the two great fountains rose aloft, all covered with 
 glittering ice. The obelisk between them looked pink, 
 and in the distance the Arc-de-Triomphe was indistinct 
 through the mist. A white sun was coming up in the 
 sky, without clouds, yet as if draped with a veil of 
 frost. The basin of the Tuileries, at the foot of the 
 terrace, was covered with ice, grayish, and streaked by 
 skaters, three little boys, whose steel blades, in the 
 silence of the vacant garden, were heard to grate upon 
 the smooth mirror ; and in the centre of the basin, the
 
 198 
 
 jet which rose but a little way still kept, with a 
 smothered sob, a trifle of water alive and supple. Be- 
 tween the trunks, slender or robust, of the young or 
 old chestnut trees the stone statues seemed also to have 
 been chilled motionless by the cold of the day. Other 
 ponds of water, frozen under the shrubbery of the 
 alleys, shone here and there like fragments of broken 
 metal that had fallen upon the dull surface of the 
 sand, and a dull, all-pervading sound, the noise of the 
 great city, enwrapped the deserted terrace. Not a 
 person was there besides the two women who had 
 just come and the young man who awaited them 
 but one old lady, a foreigner, in a sealskin coat, who 
 was throwing a ball for two large collies with long 
 tawny hair, who barked furiously as they ran. 
 
 Yes, what a scene of sadness and farewell! But 
 Charles Huguenin was a lover, and for a lover who 
 knows himself loved, no scene is sad but that where 
 she is not. He had seen Heine appear on the sidewalk 
 at the corner of the rue Koyale, frail and slender in 
 her astrakhan jacket, and, for him, the air became mild, 
 the veiled sky was full of radiance, this landscape of 
 bare branches and frozen waters adorned itself with 
 the gay hues of spring. She was coming, his exqui- 
 site fiancee; long had he desired to call her by this 
 name, without even daring to hope for it, she who, 
 by her advice, her sweet, persuasive influence, had 
 saved him from being ensnared by the factitious life
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 199 
 
 of Paris, who had revived in him the love of his distant 
 home, and an affection for a true and simple exist- 
 ence; she would soon be his wife; he would take her 
 away to that beautiful land, to his father's house, so 
 white amid the dark cypress trees ; and the dear face, 
 whose thinness tortured him at times, would grow 
 round and rosy and brilliant in the fragrant southern 
 air. It is true that, the evening before, on reading 
 his cousin's despatch, Charles had had a feeling of 
 surprise and anxiety, but only for a moment, how- 
 ever. His character possessed one of the charming 
 traits of the southern nature that nature, complex 
 and contradictory, whose hard realism can be so im- 
 placable, as in Mme. Le Prieux; whose supple sensi- 
 tiveness can be so graceful, as in Charles. This heir 
 of the Huguenins, those old provincial vine-dressers, 
 so profoundly, so absolutely sons of the soil, had that 
 optimistic patience into which there enters a little of 
 the indolence of too mild a climate, but also a little 
 of that eurythmia of which those Mediterraneans 
 par excellence, the old Greeks, made a virtue. The 
 young man had said to himself, " Cousin Mathilde 
 has made objections, and my poor Eeine exaggerates 
 them." And he had smiled tenderly at this idea 
 of the childish alarms of his fiancee. Why should he 
 doubt for a moment of final success, having on his 
 side Heine's love, first and above all, and then Le 
 Prieux's sympathy, of which he was sure, and, lastly,
 
 200 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 ties of kindred with Mine. Le Prieux, which would ren- 
 der impossible any very serious objections from her ? 
 Though Charles was a fellow of unusual native intelli- 
 gence, as was indicated by the unconscious distinc- 
 tion of his manners, the extreme refinement of his 
 features, his quiet smile, the vivacity and gentleness 
 of his black eyes, great Arab eyes, in a brown, almost 
 amber-tinted face all these signs of the nervous tem- 
 perament and of instinctive shrewdness did not pre- 
 vent him from having kept, all through his four years 
 of the Latin Quarter, a rustic way of regarding certain 
 Parisian things. For instance, the true position of 
 his cousins Le Prieux escaped him completely. He 
 regarded them as rich, sharing in the common opinion as 
 to the enormous earnings of newspaper men ; but it had 
 never occurred to him to think what would or would 
 not be Eeine's dowry, or whether she would have any. 
 Himself an only son, and secure of a liberal indepen- 
 dence, if he should decide to live on the paternal 
 domain, in that fair land of vineyards and olive 
 trees which lies along the bay of Fos, a few leagiies 
 from Martigues, it never occurred to him that money 
 had any more to do with this marriage than it had 
 had to do with his affection. Neither had he reflected 
 upon the anomalies that a young Parisian would have 
 discerned in the social position of his cousin's parents. 
 " Society " seemed to him, as it does to most young 
 men of his class, indefinite and undefinable, a kind of
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 201 
 
 vague territory, in which people who were seeking " to 
 get on " of whom he was not one gave themselves 
 up to clever intrigues, matrimonial and other, while 
 simple-minded persons, like himself, were frightfully 
 bored with duties at once frivolous and necessary, when 
 by any chance they were obliged to be connected with 
 it. To Charles Huguenin, M. and Mme. Le Prieux 
 were people in society, as his own parents were coun- 
 try landowners, by some original conformation which 
 he accepted as a fact without attempting to understand 
 either its conditions or its causes. It was so; and 
 that was all there was to it. 
 
 With this turn of mind and these ideas, could he even 
 suspect the realities against which Heine had struggled 
 since the previous morning, and the motives of the unex- 
 pected decision she came to announce to him ? Poor, 
 romantic Beine, who little dreamed, herself, what inter- 
 pretation she risked by this step, which would be so 
 completely inexplicable to the young man! But they 
 had met, and Charles had stammered awkwardly 
 enough, be it said to his honour a few words des- 
 tined to show to the chaperon his amazement at an 
 unexpected meeting, interrupted by Heine, both to spare 
 him the little falsehood, and to save her companion from 
 the embarrassment of a false position. 
 
 " No, no, cousin," the girl said, " Mademoiselle Fanny 
 knows that I asked you to be here. She loves and 
 esteems me enough to be sure that the reason why I
 
 202 
 
 wished to meet you, was because I must. You had faith 
 in me, Fanny ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," was the reply, and stopping short Mile. 
 Perrin made a sign to the cousins to go forward. The 
 humble old woman had expressed so much serious feel- 
 ing, so much dignity, in this gesture which might have 
 been so servile and the seriousness of Reine's voice 
 had been so solemn, that Charles became aware that he 
 had not read between the lines in the despatch that 
 he had received : this appointment, which had seemed to 
 him natural enough, after their secret betrothal, was 
 of exceptional gravity. His mobile face ceased to 
 express its gay tenderness of the moment earlier, and 
 he said, 
 
 " Why, what is happening, cousin ? You seem so dis- 
 turbed, so agitated. You said you were obliged to have 
 this interview with me, as though it were painful to you. 
 But our last conversation, and my mother's letter " 
 
 " Has your mother written the letter ? " Reine inter- 
 rupted, with an eagerness that disconcerted Charles. 
 
 " But why do you ask me in such a strange way ? " he 
 said. " Ah, Heine ! have you forgotten all that we said 
 to each other that evening, and what you allowed me 
 to hope ? Could you doubt that I kept my promise, and 
 at once ? I wrote to my mother that very night, and 
 she. replied by return post with what joy she would have 
 you for a daughter, and with what affection for yourself 
 you will be touched by it ! Her letter to your mother
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 203 
 
 was sent by the same post. It must have reached your 
 house Monday morning at the latest. When I received 
 your despatch, I supposed that Mme. Le Prieux was 
 making some objection, and you wanted to tell me about 
 it. But, Eeine, you are ill ! What is it ? " 
 
 While he was speaking Heine had grown deadly pale. 
 It was a pang of singular sharpness that she had felt 
 in suddenly learning that her mother had received this 
 letter, asking for her hand. And this mother had said 
 no word of it to her had not given her the liberty 
 of choosing between happiness and self-sacrifice ! Mme. 
 Le Prieux's hardness of heart, from which she had so 
 often suffered and been unwilling to acknowledge it 
 even to herself, was once more evinced, and with it 
 even worse ! came the evidence of her mother's du- 
 plicity. She controlled herself, however, and passing 
 quickly over this point of danger, "I am not very 
 well this morning," she said, " and it agitated me 
 when you spoke of Mme. Huguenin's joy and her kind 
 feeling toward me." Then, beseeching and resolute at 
 once, she continued, "Listen to me, Charles; do you 
 believe me capable of falsehood ? " 
 
 " You ? " he said, more astonished yet. " I know that 
 I have never heard you say a word that was not truth 
 itself." 
 
 "Ah! thank you," she answered; "say it to me again. 
 It does me so much good. Tell me once more that you 
 believe in me, and that you always will believe in me."
 
 204 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 " I believe in you, I always will believe in you," 
 the young man repeated with docility; then, suddenly 
 rendered anxious by Reine's evident excitement, he 
 asked, " But why ? " 
 
 " Why ? " she said, " because I need to feel that you, 
 you also, have faith in me ; or else I could not have the 
 strength to speak to you as I must. Yes, I must do it," 
 she repeated, and, as if plucking the sentences out of the 
 depths of her heart, " Listen, Charles. I made this ap- 
 pointment with you this morning at the risk of having 
 you think ill of me, because I was not willing to have you 
 hear from any one but myself a thing which will not 
 grieve you any more than it grieves me, I swear to you ! 
 
 " Cousin, let me finish," she went on, as Charles was 
 about to speak ; " it was my wish to tell you this thing 
 myself, so that I could also say that to you, and could 
 ask you to feel sure that I did not deceive you the 
 other night in letting you see that I shared your feel- 
 ing. Yes, Charles, to bear your name, to devote my 
 life to you, to be your wife, to live there with you in 
 Provence, would be happiness to me. I ask you to 
 believe this," and in repeating yet again this word 
 "believe," her voice became still more intense, as if 
 she hoped to communicate to the young man who lis- 
 tened to her, and had now himself grown very pale, 
 the fervour of renunciation which possessed her. " And 
 I ask you again to believe me when I tell you that I 
 must renounce this happiness, and for a reason which
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 205 
 
 I can neither escape from nor reveal to you, and about 
 which you must not question me." 
 
 Her charming face, ordinarily so reserved, so closed 
 by the delicate modesty of her own feelings, had never 
 shown more clearly the almost wild ardour of her 
 deepest affections. Never had those soft brown eyes 
 been lighted by a flame more intense, and the smothered 
 tones which came into her voice revealed the extreme 
 emotion of her heart, whose throbbing Charles could 
 almost detect through the thick jacket that she wore. 
 At any other moment he would have pitied this evident 
 distress, but he was himself a prey to surprise too cruel 
 and too violent to think of anything else; and when 
 Heine ceased speaking, this surprise broke out in a cry 
 of almost brutal revolt. 
 
 " It does not seem possible to me that I have under- 
 stood you correctly," he said. "Let me think for a 
 moment," and he passed his hand over his forehead 
 as if to collect his thoughts. "And yet it is true, 
 I am not dreaming. You are here, B/eine, and you 
 tell me that now you will not marry me ? " 
 
 " That now I cannot marry you," the girl interrupted 
 him, with a voice so feeble that her cousin scarcely 
 heard it, so carried away he was by the violence of 
 his own emotion. 
 
 " And you wish," he went on, " that I should accept 
 this resolution, without even seeking to know whence 
 it comes, who has inspired it, why you have changed ? "
 
 206 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 "I have not changed," she again interposed. 
 
 "You tell me that you were sincere with me the 
 other evening," continued the wounded lover, without 
 taking any notice of her interruption, " and that you 
 feel the same to-day that you did then. If this is true, 
 what is the matter, then ? What has happened ? All a 
 man's joy in life, all his hope, is not to be taken away 
 from him without his having the right to defend that 
 happiness and that hope. No, Heine, it is not possible ; 
 for you to speak to me as you have just done, after 
 having spoken to me as you did speak on Wednesday, 
 something must have happened, I tell you again, some- 
 thing very serious. But what mon Dieu ! what is it ? 
 Is your father opposed to this marriage, or your mother ? 
 No. Since they have not told you that mamma's letter 
 has reached them. Or perhaps you, yourself, have told 
 them ? I beg you, Heine, to tell me is it that ? " 
 
 " No," she found strength to say. 
 
 " Then," he insisted, " if the obstacle comes neither 
 from your father nor your mother, it can only come 
 from yourself. It is, then, an idea of your own, which 
 has led you to change your decision. There is nothing 
 else that it can be." And if the innocent Reine had had 
 some knowledge of the depths of man's heart, she would 
 have known that this sentence revealed the recoil at a 
 certain thought, and the sudden appearance of jealousy. 
 "Well, then," he implored, "whatever this idea is, tell 
 it to me, Reine. I believe you. I believe that you love
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 207 
 
 me, as I love you. It is not a matter which concerns 
 my happiness alone, but yours as well. Do not sacrifice 
 it to a chimera ; for this cannot be a real thing, I am 
 sure. Tell me your reason. Let us talk it over. If it 
 is a secret, you surely know that I can keep a secret, if 
 it concerns you. When once you have told me, you will 
 be surprised yourself to see how it will vanish. Come, 
 for your part, have confidence in me ; speak to me " 
 
 " Ah ! " she moaned, in a tone of anguish that this 
 time struck to his very heart; "if I could have told 
 you, should I not have done it at once ? I asked you 
 to have faith in me," she continued, joining her hands, 
 which trembled as she spoke ; " I hoped from you that 
 you would believe in me. I ask you again, believe me. 
 Believe that if I came to tell you that I cannot be your 
 wife, it is because I cannot ; and that if I do not tell you 
 the reason, it is because neither can I do that. No," 
 she repeated, with almost savage energy, " I cannot ! " 
 
 There are, in conversations like these, where the very 
 depths of the nature are involved, moments when one 
 will or the other asserts itself so forcibly that the dis- 
 cussion stops short. When Reine had thus spoken her 
 last " I cannot," Charles felt himself in the presence of 
 the unconquerable. The two walked on a few steps 
 silently : she, exhausted by the energy she had just dis- 
 played ; he, as if maddened by the shock of having flung 
 himself for the first time in his life against the impene- 
 trable in a woman's heart the worst of tortures in love.
 
 208 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 He looked at her with feelings which he would have sworn 
 he could never feel toward her, irritated even to rancour. 
 The good honest fellow had never dreamed to what 
 irresistible frenzies the sharp sting of passion drives a 
 man's soul, suddenly maddened by the excess of power- 
 less grief. He looked at her, and the girl's soft brown 
 eyes, the ideal nobleness of her profile, the grace of 
 the thin cheek, the fine lines of the expressive mouth 
 with its slightly full lips, the supple silk of her chestnut 
 hair, her slender figure, all that charm of youth which 
 usually made him so gentle toward her, now excited 
 in him a cruel desire to break, to crush her, so much 
 did her invincible resistance exasperate his whole 
 being. 
 
 What was that mysterious motive, powerful enough 
 to make this fragile creature, whom he had seen so 
 much his own, so touching in her self-surrender, sud- 
 denly withdraw herself from him ? At the first moment 
 he had thought that it might be some religious scruple. 
 Although in Reine's equable, well-balanced nature reli- 
 gion had never gone to extremes, who could tell if she had 
 not, in the fervour of her fifteenth year, made some vow 
 which she had suddenly remembered. But no. She 
 would not have had that evident terror as to confessing 
 such a motive. Charles continued to look at her, and 
 the same frightful suspicion which had presented itself 
 before and been repulsed, besieged him anew: "What 
 if she loves another ? " It was an insane suspicion, for
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 209 
 
 she had just told him the contrary, and everything 
 proved her veracity, words, voice, and look ; an out- 
 rageous suspicion, too, for if Heine loved another man, 
 her attitude toward her cousin, the other evening at the 
 ball, and now, was the vilest of coquetry ; and when had 
 she given him the right to believe her even capable of 
 a wrong feeling ? Alas ! Insane and outrageous ideas 
 are exactly those that jealousy aAvakens in us the most 
 instinctively, and its fatal intoxication prevents us from 
 recognizing either their madness or their injustice. Let 
 this be the excuse of Charles Huguenin for having, 
 though but for an hour, been unjust toward the adorable 
 child who walked at his side along the terrace on the 
 water's edge. The frosty gravel creaked under their 
 feet ; the whistle from the tug-boats came to them over 
 the banks of the Seine, very near and green between 
 its quays of stone ; and these sounds appeared not more 
 foreign to himself than did the sound of the words that 
 his own lips now uttered. Was it really he who was 
 speaking thus, and to Reine, to his dear Heine, sur- 
 rounded till that moment by a love respectful as a cult, 
 idolatrous as devotion? 
 
 "Very well," he had begun, "I shall respect your 
 wish. I shall not seek to know the motive that 
 causes you to break my heart. There is, however, 
 one question that I have a right to ask you, and to 
 which you owe me a reply. Tell me that you do not 
 recall your promise because you wish to marry an-
 
 210 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 other man. Tell me this, and I will submit. I 
 shall leave Paris to-night, and you will never hear of 
 me again. But tell me. I wish to know." 
 
 He saw that she grew pale and trembled more than 
 ever, but she remained silent, and, his frenzy increas- 
 ing by what he conjectured lay behind her silence, he 
 went on in a still more harsh, rough tone : 
 
 " It is true, then, since you dare not say no ? It is 
 true ? " 
 
 "I cannot answer you," she said, in a voice that 
 was scarcely more than a breath, so stifled she was 
 with emotion. 
 
 " Not to reply is replying," he said. " And so you 
 are going to marry some one else ! " he repeated, " some 
 one else." Then, all the rage of jealousy blazed in his 
 eyes, and no longer measuring his words, he went 
 on : " But this is infamous, this, that you have done ! 
 It is an outrage ! Have I deserved being treated 
 like this? The other evening it was so easy to do 
 when I spoke to you, why did you not stop me at 
 once? And before that, you knew well enough that 
 I loved you! Why did you let me believe that you 
 felt the same toward me ? Why do you come here 
 trying to make me believe it still ? Ah ! it is abomi- 
 nable ! It is abominable ! " 
 
 " Charles," she interrupted, imploring, " stop ! you 
 hurt me too imich. Have pity you do not know. 
 You promised to believe in me."
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 211 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, " how do you expect me to believe 
 in you now?" 
 
 " You no longer believe in me ? " she said, stopping, 
 as if she could not take another step. 
 
 "No," he said brutally. He had no sooner flung 
 at her this terrible monosyllable than remorse for 
 his blasphemy entered his soul, when he saAV the 
 change that came in her face. Her eyelids quivered, 
 her lips parted as if gasping for breath, and she 
 leaned against a tree like a person about to fall. 
 He approached to offer her support, but she repulsed 
 him with a gesture. The colour came back to her 
 face. She opened her eyes again, and the indigna- 
 tion of her despised sincerity shone in her beautiful 
 glance, which fixed itself upon him with a strange 
 intensity. Then, instead of speaking, she turned away 
 abruptly, and began running like a person who seeks 
 to escape from some intolerable thing toward Mile. 
 Perrin, who was not far off; and she called to her, 
 in a voice which had regained its firmness, "Fanny, 
 Fanny ! Come ! We must go. We have only just 
 time to get home." 
 
 The young man made no attempt to speak to her 
 again; he made no attempt to detain her, or to fol- 
 low her. He did not even take leave of the two 
 women. Eeine and her companion had already turned 
 the corner of the Orangery, while he still stood near 
 the tree against which the young girl had leaned, as
 
 212 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 if he were hypnotized by the horror of what had 
 just occurred. He heard the barking of the collies, 
 who had gone off in another direction with their 
 mistress and were now returning. He saw, through 
 the bare branches of the trees, the skaters going and 
 coming upon the icy basin, the gray statues relieved 
 against the sky, the place de la Concorde undulating 
 with carriages, the obelisk lifting its pink shaft be- 
 tween the fountains with the divinities on each side 
 cuirassed in glittering ice, and the dark figure of 
 Heine going away, farther and farther. All these 
 details of the scene in which he and his cousin had 
 parted were very real and true. The truth of the 
 words they had exchanged became very real also to 
 him, especially those that he had himself spoken; 
 and when Heine had finally disappeared from his 
 sight, he sat down upon a bench: "Wretch that T 
 am ! " he groaned, " she will never forgive me." 
 He no longer doubted her. And this was worse ! 
 
 VII 
 
 REVELATIONS 
 
 CHARLES HUGUENIN was not deceived by his own 
 remorse; his cousin's abrupt departure was not the 
 indication of one of those lovers' quarrels which will 
 be followed by a happy reconciliation when next they 
 meet. No; the feeling excited in Seine's heart by
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 213 
 
 her cousin's lack of confidence in her was of the 
 kind that drives a young heart to the most desperate 
 extremes. It is the charm and it is the danger of 
 emotions in the very young when first they meet the 
 shock of life, that their entire character predisposes 
 them to uncompromising decisions, too easily irrevo- 
 cable. The same lack of experience which gives them 
 their fervour of aspiration toward the ideal, incapaci- 
 tates them from forming a correct estimate of the impor- 
 tance of their first disillusions in the impulse toward 
 happiness. They dream of an absolute in the emotions, 
 which is not of this world, and to perceive this fills 
 them with despair. Eeine went to meet her cousin, 
 her heart lifted up, it will be remembered, with the 
 thought that she could, by appealing to his affection, 
 perform what she considered to be her imperative 
 duty as a daughter, remain silent as to her motives, 
 and still not be misunderstood. The result was that 
 Charles had told her that he did not believe in her. 
 The only consolation that she could have in her 
 mortal sacrifice was taken from her at once. At 
 the same time, she seemed to herself to have dis- 
 covered in the man whom she loved, a some one whom 
 she did not know, and whom she regarded with terror. 
 What a look of hatred she had surprised in his eyes, 
 what a cruel agitation upon his lips, what a savage tone 
 in his voice! And what completed her desperation 
 even more than this disappointment and this terror,
 
 214 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 was her indignant revolt against so harsh injustice. 
 This thrill of revolt increased within her as she re- 
 flected, while she walked on beside the gentle Fanny 
 Perrin, and her step grew more rapid and more excited, 
 as if fleeing in all haste from that terrace where she 
 had heard those words whose unjust brutality pursued 
 her, that "no," which had struck her to the heart, 
 and rankled like an arrow broken in the wound. She 
 went on, blinded by the intolerable grief of this thought : 
 "He does not believe in me!" and saw neither the 
 streets nor the passers-by, nor yet her quiet companion, 
 who dared not speak to her; and it was like the 
 awakening from a trance of somnambulism, when in 
 the square Delaborde, as they were about to enter the 
 rue du Ge'neral-Foy, the timid Fanny at last decided 
 to speak to her. 
 
 " I do not ask you any question, Keine ; I have not 
 the right ; and still, before we separate, I want to beg 
 two things of you. I have proved my love for you 
 and my esteem, have I not?" 
 
 " Dear Fanny ! " said the girl, and grasped her friend's 
 hand with a gratitude that emboldened the other to 
 continue. 
 
 "Since you feel this, you must be very, very sure 
 that I speak to you for your own interest, as far as 
 I understand it. Even before to-day, you know, I 
 knew many things. My first request is, that you 
 promise me to wait a little before you decide about
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 215 
 
 this marriage that they want you to agree to. The 
 second " 
 
 " Well, the second ? " Reine insisted, as Fanny hesi- 
 tated. 
 
 " The second is," said the other, with crimsoning 
 cheeks, "not to be unjust to your cousin." 
 
 They had reached the door of the house where the 
 Le Prieux lived before Heine had made any reply to 
 either the one or the other of her humble friend's 
 entreaties. When they were on the landing of the 
 stairs, and Eeine was about to ring the bell, she said, in 
 a voice whose tremor betrayed her inward disturbance, 
 
 " Pardon me, Fanny, for not answering you sooner. 
 As to your first request, I can make no promise. As 
 to the second, you have no idea how mistaken you are 
 in regard to me and " She had her cousin's name 
 upon her quivering lips, but she could not bring her- 
 self to utter it. "No," she insisted, "it is not I who 
 am unjust." And she repeated, " It is not I." Then, 
 with a sign to Fanny that she must say no more, and 
 her finger pressing the bell, she added, "I thank you 
 for what you have done for me ; " and as the door 
 opened, kissed Mile. Perrin, saying in a low voice, but 
 in a tone that indicated determined resolution, " Adieu. 
 You must leave me. That will be for the best." 
 
 One last look to repeat again, with thanks for so 
 much affection shown, the final entreaty to be left to 
 her fate, and Reine disappeared into the anteroom.
 
 216 OTHEII PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 The door was closed, and Fanny Perrin began to 
 descend the sumptuous staircase a quiet staircase 
 with balusters of carved wood, with windows, with 
 plants in pots, a red carpet, and the warm breath 
 everywhere from invisible hot-air pipes, well suited to 
 give that impression of a private house which, of 
 necessity, made part of the programme of the "beau- 
 tiful Mme. Le Prieux." Ordinarily these trumpery 
 splendours deeply impressed the poor music teacher, 
 who herself felt, in her way, the prestige of other 
 people's luxury. But at this moment, entirely absorbed 
 in the scene she had just witnessed, she no longer 
 made mental comparisons between the cold flags of her 
 sixth floor in the Batignolles, and the soft richness of 
 these stairs on which her feet usually stepped with respect, 
 almost with compunction. She was saying to herself, 
 " To whom is it that they want to marry Reine ? " 
 In her thoughts she went over all the young visitors 
 of the salon Le Prieux whom she knew either by 
 Reine's mention of them or by having met them her- 
 self in her vocation of companion or music teacher. 
 The image of Charles came before her mind, among 
 many others, and finally took precedence of them all. 
 She beheld him as he came forward to meet Reine on 
 the terrace by the river, his face animated and radiant, 
 his eyes full of light ; and then, as the interview was 
 closing, his displeased look, his hard eyes, his threat- 
 ening gesture, and she argued,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 217 
 
 " Separated ? These two handsome young creatures, 
 so well suited to each other ! They love each other, that 
 is evident. If only M. Le Prieux knew how his daugh- 
 ter feels. He is so kind. Would there be any harm in 
 telling him the truth ? " 
 
 And already a vague scheme began to take shape in 
 the mind of old Fanny, who was as romantic, notwith- 
 standing her ugliness, as Reine herself could be the 
 insane project of giving a warning to the father. Yes, 
 what if she should go and tell him that, in preventing 
 the marriage of Charles Huguenin and his daughter, 
 he was causing unhappiness to the latter, would it be 
 betraying Heine's confidence ? To let the father know ? 
 But when and how ? All women, however nai've they 
 may be, and however unfeminine, have an intuition infal- 
 lible as instinct when it is a question of a love affair. 
 Mile. Perrin neither knew the name of Edgard Fauche- 
 rot, nor had she any idea of the conversation that had 
 taken place between Reine and her mother, or of 
 the letter sent by Mine. Huguenin. She knew none 
 of the secret details of this domestic drama, the 
 ambitions of Mine. Faucherot, the debts of Mme. Le 
 Prieux, the brokerage of Grace. Yet she divined, to 
 the point of feeling an almost insupportable anxiety, 
 that not only the days but the hours, and even the 
 minutes, were numbered. 
 
 And it was only too true that, at that very moment 
 when, standing still on the sidewalk, she looked up at
 
 218 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 the windows with their little Louis Seize panes, an 
 event which came very near being irrevocable was 
 taking place in one of the rooms lighted by one of 
 those windows with the little curtains of foulard silk 
 and guipure ; and this room was that very same bed- 
 room of Empire style, with light green carpet and yel- 
 low silk hangings, where, the day before, had been 
 made known to Reine the cost of the stage setting in 
 which her youth had been spent. 
 
 As soon as she had come in from her walk, and 
 without even going to her own room to take off her 
 hat and jacket, the unhappy child had inquired for 
 her mother, and on being told that Madame was in 
 her own room, she had gone thither at once. She had 
 found Mme. Le Prieux seated at her writing-table, 
 dressed for the afternoon's expedition they were to 
 go together to see an exhibition at a club and occu- 
 pied in writing letters. She wore a gown of heavy 
 cloth of a silvery gray, with velvet panels embroidered 
 with great flowers of the same shade and an edge of 
 chinchilla. The perfect fit of this attire gave it, so to 
 speak, an aspect of a uniform, a parade dress; while, 
 at the same time, the order and complication of the 
 objects ranged upon her writing-table testified to the 
 task of an immense correspondence, that of a woman 
 who had never committed the slightest error in polite- 
 ness. How many "expressions of her sincere sym- 
 pathy," how many "cordial felicitations," how many
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 219 
 
 "affectionate compliments," she had written in her 
 big handwriting, so hackneyed in its lofty aristo- 
 cratic air, and upon paper all of the correct size and 
 tint! At the bottom of how many answers to invita- 
 tions had she put that Duret-Le Prieux, which had 
 been adopted by her as her signature, in imitation of 
 the etiquette of the Faubourg-Saint-Germain, which 
 couples the wife's title to the husband's ! On seeing 
 her mother thus, just as she had always known her, 
 continuing to practise the smallest rites of her social 
 rdle with the automatic strictness of a smoothly working 
 machine, and without the least suspicion of the moral 
 catastrophes occurring about her, Eeine again had 
 had that feeling of chill at her heart that she had so 
 often experienced before and all the more severe 
 this time because she now knew of the letter which 
 had been sent by Mme. Huguenin. But what was this 
 shiver of hurt sensitiveness in comparison with the 
 frightful suffering which still overwhelmed her, and 
 had, in the short half hour between the Tuileries and 
 the rue du General-Foy, brought on nothing less than 
 an attack of hidden insanity. By what other name 
 could be called that frenzy of grief which had led her, 
 in that thirty minutes, to the mad resolution sus- 
 pected by Fanny Perrin to have done, at once and 
 forever, with Charles, who could be so unjust, and to 
 place between herself and him a barrier forever impas- 
 sable. Everyday language has its familiar expression,
 
 220 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 coups de t&te, for these rash acts of wilfulness so com- 
 mon in youth, when, the violence of emotions being 
 more intact and more intense, the soul is thrown off 
 its balance completely by the shock of certain ob- 
 stacles. And too often, alas ! with irreparable damage. 
 This something irreparable, as Heine's ill luck would 
 have it, was at the moment within her reach. It 
 needed only that instead of waiting till Saturday as 
 had been agreed she should consent at once to the 
 proposition of marriage with Edgard Faucherot. The 
 special characteristic of these coups de t&e is the 
 haste with which, in executing them, we use whatever 
 energy is at our command at the moment, as if we 
 were not sure of having it at any later period. And 
 later, indeed, after having rallied from the first attack 
 of acute suffering and indignation, scarcely would Reine 
 have had the strength to say the words which she now 
 at once said to her mother: 
 
 " Mamma, I have reflected seriously upon our conver- 
 sation of yesterday, and I can give you my answer now. 
 If M. Edgard Faucherot asks my hand in marriage, I will 
 accept him." 
 
 As she spoke, her voice was abrupt and, so to speak, 
 metallic, her eyes glittered painfully, and her burning 
 cheeks completed the revelation of the fever within. 
 All these signs, and the sudden change in so serious a 
 resolution, should have enlightened Mme. Le Prieux, 
 especially because, in the letter of Charles's mother,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 221 
 
 she might have read between the lines the secret of 
 the two cousins' romance. But, on the one hand, she 
 was too convinced that she was securing her daughter's 
 future happiness, to feel the least remorse ; and, on the 
 other hand, she had too much practical sense to seek 
 the causes of a consent given more promptly and easily 
 than she had expected. Was it not wise to take advan- 
 tage of this favourable disposition, no matter whence it 
 came? And who can tell? the satisfaction of this 
 woman devoted to worldliness was so intense, at the 
 idea of the social advantage represented to her by the 
 Faucherot marriage, that there was perhaps something 
 as near unselfishness as so self-willed a creature is 
 capable of in the impulse of affection with which she 
 clasped Keine in her arms, saying, " Ah, my child, 
 I expected nothing less from you; and I want to say 
 to you, now that you have decided freely, and I run 
 no risk of influencing you, you could do nothing which 
 would better prove to me how much you love me nor 
 anything more sensible. Some day you will bless me 
 for having proposed this marriage to you. It is some- 
 thing I have long thought of, you may be sure. But 
 let us go and tell your father. Poor dear man, how 
 happy he will be also ! " 
 
 And taking Heine by the hand, she hurried her away 
 to the journalist's little room, where he was just then 
 it was twelve o'clock numbering the pages of his 
 third and last article for the morning. The tension
 
 222 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 of labour had wrinkled his brow, and swollen his red- 
 dened eyelids, and accentuated still more the wearied 
 droop of his mouth. Besides, his hair, a little ruffled 
 by the pressure of his hands, upon which he had rested 
 his head while reflecting, showed its gray more plainly 
 than usual. Thus, taken by surprise, this hard-worked 
 man of letters looked ten years older than he was. 
 Although Eeine was, at the moment, in that half- 
 insensible condition which accompanies the carrying 
 out of certain resolutions which are nothing less than 
 moral suicides, this forecast of her father's old age 
 touched her heart very deeply, and still more did the 
 look with which that father received the announcement 
 of her approaching betrothal. But both impressions 
 had the one effect of only strengthening her in her 
 fatal resolution. 
 
 " Mon ami" Mathilde had said, with that blending 
 of familiarity and solemnity in which she excelled, 
 "I present to you the future Madame Edgard Fauche- 
 rot ; " and, at a gesture which he made, " Oh, yes ! " 
 she said, " Reine has given .me her answer. She 
 accepts ; and, from the moment she does accept, we feel, 
 she feels, that it is only right at once to notify the 
 good friend who has undertaken this embassy. I am 
 going to write to Cruce." 
 
 " She accepts ? " the father had said, and while say- 
 ing these words, in a voice trembling with emotion, he 
 had looked at Eeine. The girl saw in his eyes that
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 223 
 
 indefinable expression of astonishment and pity that 
 she had already noticed the preceding day, and that had 
 so much disturbed her. She had believed that it ex- 
 pressed remorse for the sacrifice asked from her. She 
 now turned her eyes away, and, in his own mind, the 
 father attributed this visible embarrassment of his 
 daughter to a kind of shame. Knowing nothing of the 
 conversation that the mother and daughter had had 
 together, why should he not believe that Heine had 
 consented to marry a rich man merely because he was 
 a rich man? Something, however, protested within 
 him against a supposition which contradicted to that 
 degree all his ideas in regard to her. Then, as Mme. 
 Le Prieux was there, radiant, and with so imperative 
 an authority emanating from her, scarcely did this feeble 
 man find courage to reply, "But is she very sure of 
 having reflected sufficiently ? Tell me, Heine, do you 
 not need to think about it longer?" 
 
 "I have thought about it," Reine said; "I have 
 reflected." 
 
 "Are you quite sure you would not prefer to wait 
 a few days longer?" he urged. 
 
 "I offered her more time," said Mme. Le Prieux; 
 and she continued, turning to Eeine, "Your father 
 is right. We should both feel much better satisfied 
 if you would take a few days more." The clear- 
 sighted woman was too certain of her daughter's re- 
 ply; the girl shook her head, and answered firmly,
 
 224 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 " What is the use ? You said yourself, mamma, the 
 sooner the better ! " 
 
 Never did father and child, who loved each other 
 with all their hearts, exchange so cold a kiss as that 
 with which Hector Le Prieux and Heine sealed this kind 
 of compact, ordinarily so touching, when a daughter, 
 sounded in respect to a proposal of marriage, replies 
 to her parents that she will consent! Never was 
 family repast, taken in circumstances which ought 
 to be so happy, more taciturn, more painful, more 
 weighted with an indefinable uneasiness than the one 
 which followed. Never, through all the years in which 
 he had dragged the weight of his crushed ambitions, 
 of his fallen Ideal, of his life's failure, did the jour- 
 nalist feel his heart more heavy than when, after this 
 gloomy breakfast, he crossed the threshold of the door 
 of his house, outside of which was already in waiting 
 the coupe of Mme. Le Prieux. The husband was 
 about to go, either on foot or in a fiacre, to one of the 
 innumerable committees on charitable fetes of which 
 his wife's acquaintances were perpetually making him 
 president or member. This time there was a per- 
 formance to be arranged in aid of the victims of an 
 earthquake in the Ionian Islands. Ah ! at moments 
 and these moments became more numerous as life 
 advanced how incapable the envied husband of 
 the "beautiful Mine. Le Prieux," the chronicler whose 
 appointments other men desired, the servile producer
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 225 
 
 of copy, felt himself of pitying any other misfortunes 
 than his own, so lamentable a failure did his life 
 appear to him ! As a rule, it was the thought of 
 his wife and child that restored to him his needed 
 energy. And now, to think of them was a strange 
 grief to him. One of the two, his wife, had, since their 
 conversation in returning from the theatre, appeared 
 to him as so unlike the image that he wished to 
 have of her and that, in fact, he did succeed in hav- 
 ing ! He succeeded, but like all who love and will 
 not judge the person beloved he did this by an effort 
 of which he was, in spite of everything, conscious. 
 He had, in the depths of his soul, a dark place into which 
 he never looked. Here silently were accumulated the 
 proofs of Mathilde's savage egoism, which he never 
 acknowledged to himself, while yet his sensitive af- 
 fection took account of them, notwithstanding this 
 systematic blindness. Without any doubt, he loved 
 her as ardently as ever. She was always to his eyes 
 the person whom he had seen so unhappy after the 
 paternal disaster, the fatherless girl upon whom he 
 had felt he could never sufficiently lavish the compen- 
 sation of all possible prosperity, elegance, luxury, and, 
 if it had been in his power, magnificence. But all 
 the indulgences, all the kindnesses of this passion, 
 which twenty years of married life had not worn 
 out, did not prevent his having suffered cruelly from 
 the horrible faults of character in the companion of
 
 226 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 his life, even though he would not admit them to 
 himself. 
 
 For the first time in these twenty years this recog- 
 nition forced itself upon him, for the reason that, also 
 for the first time, an affection equal to that which he 
 bore his wife came into play. That which the hus- 
 band had never dared on his own account, the father 
 would dare on his daughter's. And, indeed, he had 
 already dared. His wife, Hector had never judged. 
 He now judged the mother of his child. From the 
 moment when Mathilde had mentioned the name of 
 Edgard Faucherot he had struggled in vain against this 
 unquestionable evidence : no, a mother who loved her 
 daughter would have no such marriage as that for 
 her ! She would not accept, at the first opportunity and 
 with joy, the idea of giving a creature like Reine, a 
 flower in refinement and innocence, to such a fellow 
 as this Faucherot, so commonplace, so low in intelli- 
 gence and feeling, simply because he is rich ! It is 
 true that Mme. Le Prieux could urge in her defence 
 the consent of Reine herself. It was here that the 
 father asserted himself, and spoke more loudly than 
 the husband. Although the consent had certainly 
 been given, and he had heard Heine, with clear, firm 
 voice, speak the fatal words, " I have reflected," which 
 excluded all idea of an unfair advantage or an act 
 of tyranny, something within him protested, and would 
 not be silenced. His relations with his daughter, from
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 227 
 
 her earliest infancy, had been quite different from 
 those which united him to his wife. He had always 
 felt that Eeine was entirely transparent to him. In 
 thinking of her, he never had that feeling of secret 
 restraint which he so often had with Mathilde. The 
 one mysterious point in his daughter's character was 
 only too clear to him. That which he had read in 
 those sweet and sad brown eyes was pity for his toil- 
 some life, was a comprehension of his hidden griefs, 
 was a regret for his artist ambitions sacrificed ; and it 
 was also something more. That something more he 
 refused to read, that condemnation of the mother's 
 egoism, and yet he did read it there, nevertheless. 
 That a young heart of such refined susceptibility and 
 such strength of affection should have accepted instantly 
 the idea most odious to a girl of her age a brutally 
 mercenary marriage, entirely unjustified by any kind 
 of romantic pretext this was something the father 
 could not believe. He detected, behind his daugh- 
 ter's submission, an enigma whose solution escaped 
 him. He had an idea that Mathilde had not told him 
 the whole truth, that between herself and Eeine words 
 had passed of which he knew nothing. A clandestine 
 drama was going on in his house, around him, whose 
 plot he could not understand; and the impression was 
 doubly cruel to him. In the first place, all his 
 Eeine's future happiness was involved. And then, to 
 admit this secret drama in his family was to admit
 
 228 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 the duplicity of the wife and the cruelty of the 
 mother. And with that, how continue to maintain 
 the self-deceit which his love required ? 
 
 Such were the thoughts which accompanied Hector 
 as he left the house, and began going down by the left 
 sidewalk toward the church of Saint-Augustin, when 
 he saw emerge from the rue de Lisbonne and hasten 
 to meet him, almost running, a woman in whom he 
 recognized with amazement the usual companion of his 
 daughter's walks, none other than Fanny Perrin. She 
 had been lying in wait there, since leaving Reine, 
 neither quite decided to go up again to the apartment 
 and ask for M. Le Prieux, nor yet to go away. She 
 had let the minutes pass, forgetting both her breakfast 
 time and a more unusual oversight in a person so 
 punctual and so poor the hour for a music lesson she 
 had to give in the Batignolles. She awaited M. Le 
 Prieux, but without having formed any precise resolu- 
 tion as to what she should say to him. But she waited, 
 with throbbing heart and parched throat, as if con- 
 strained by some force outside of her own will, with 
 remorse at betraying Heine's confidence if she spoke, 
 and yet feeling it impossible to let the marriage take 
 place of which the young girl herself had told her. At 
 least, she would let the father know the truth. How ? 
 And in what terms ? For the good creature, all whose 
 days were passed in such calm monotony, amid occupa- 
 tions so limited and so regular, these last few hours
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 229 
 
 contained more events than she had ever experienced 
 before in her whole life. She had consented to accom- 
 pany one of her pupils to a rendezvous ! She had be- 
 come the depositary of a secret upon which depended the 
 destiny of this pupil, whom she loved to the degree of 
 sacrificing to her her own professional conscience. And 
 this secret she was making ready to reveal ! All the 
 coarse features of her simple face were distorted by 
 emotion, at the moment when she accosted Reine's 
 father. Her thick lips, where rested ordinarily the 
 foolishly amiable smile of an inferior always exposed 
 to rebuffs, expressed genuine anguish; and her words 
 came hurriedly, almost incoherently, mingled with 
 phrases which betrayed the habits of speaking that 
 were appropriate to her humble station, and imploring 
 exclamations, revealing at once her perturbation of mind, 
 and the scruples she felt at her own lack of fidelity 
 toward Reine. But her passionate desire to save the 
 young girl outweighed everything else. 
 
 "Monsieur Le Prieux," she said, "you will excuse 
 the liberty. I must speak to you. I am only a poor 
 woman, Monsieur Le Prieux, and I know that this is 
 a step which it is not proper for me to take." Then, 
 as if to ward off inquiries, she continued : " Do not 
 question me. I could not answer you. I ought not. 
 I ought not to be here. But it concerns Mademoiselle 
 Reine, who has always been so good to me. There is 
 something that you ought to know, Monsieur Le Prieux,
 
 230 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 you ought to know it," she repeated. "If Heine is 
 married as you wish, she will die of grief. She loves 
 some one. Do not ask me who it is. I must not tell 
 you. But do not compel her to be married against her 
 heart. I tell you again she would die of grief. Ah ! 
 mon Dieu ! there are those ladies now ! They will see 
 me ! Monsieur Le Prieux, never let Reine know that 
 I have spoken to you ! Never, never ! " 
 
 And leaving her interlocutor literally paralyzed with 
 surprise at the street corner, she fled through the rue 
 de Lisbonne, never turning to look back, like a person 
 who has just committed a crime. She had noticed 
 that the coupe which had been standing motionless was 
 just starting from under the porte-cochere of the house, 
 not more than fifty feet away, and coming toward 
 them, and before Eeine's father, who had turned to 
 look up the street at the exclamation : " There are 
 those ladies, now ! " had entirely recovered his wits, 
 the carriage passed him. The horse was going slow. 
 Le Prieux observed that the coupe was empty and 
 called out an inquiry to the coachman, who stopped to 
 
 " The ladies are going out in half an hour. Madame 
 has given me a letter to carry to M. Cruce." 
 
 " I am going that way myself," Hector said, who, as 
 he leaned forward, perceived the letter in the letter-box 
 of the carriage. He opened the door and took it out, 
 saying to the coachman, "You can return and wait
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 231 
 
 for the ladies. And say to raadame that I have taken 
 charge of the letter." 
 
 These two brief scenes the appearing of Fanny 
 Perrin, her words, her sudden flight; and then the 
 arrival of the carriage, its stop, and the taking of the 
 note intended for Cruce had been so rapid, one had 
 followed the other so unexpectedly, that Hector Le 
 Prieux might have thought he had been dreaming, if he 
 had not found himself standing on the corner of the rue 
 de Lisbonne with his wife's letter in his hand. In taking 
 it from the coupe as he had done, and saying to the 
 coachman what he had said, he, the well-balanced man 
 par excellence, had obeyed the most violent and irrational 
 of impulses. He knew, too, what this envelope con- 
 tained, whose address he looked at in a stupid way : 
 
 "A Monsieur, 
 
 Monsieur Cruce, 
 
 96 Rue de La Bo'etie" 
 
 and beneath: "A porter, presses." Mathilde had left 
 the breakfast table to write this note, with his appro- 
 bation. Why, then, had he intercepted it ? Why was 
 he now, with hasty steps, walking through the rue de 
 Lisbonne, and then along the boulevard Malesherbes, 
 in the hope that Fanny Perrin might have waited for 
 him, that she would reappear, and talk with him 
 further? What had she, however, to tell him that 
 he did not already know? The few words she had
 
 232 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 said corresponded too closely to his own feelings, 
 their tone was too evidently sincere, for him to have 
 any doubt as to their truth. As to the name, which 
 old Fanny had declared she would never reveal, had 
 the father any need of being told what it was ? As 
 certainly as if Fanny Perrin had gone to the very end 
 of what she had to tell, he knew that the young man 
 beloved of Eeine was Charles Huguenin. But all pas- 
 sions are alike in this twofold and contradictory char- 
 acter: a certainty of intuition, and yet an eagerness, 
 a frenzy to hold positive proof of that which one does 
 not in the least doubt. When he was thoroughly con- 
 vinced that the music teacher would not return, Hector 
 hailed a fiacre, and gave the man an address which 
 was neither Cruce's nor was it that of the place where 
 the committee were assembled over whom he was 
 expected to preside. He would go to the rue d'Assas, 
 where Charles Huguenin lived. As for Mme. Le 
 Prieux's letter, he had torn it into fifty fragments, al- 
 most furiously, and the wind had scattered these scraps 
 of perfumed paper under the feet of pedestrians, under 
 the hoofs of horses, in dusty corners of the pavement, 
 behind the carriage in which Hector was seated, a 
 prey to the most violent emotions that he had experi- 
 enced for years. 
 
 "No," he said to himself, as the fiacre went on 
 down the boulevard Haussmann, through the rue 
 Auber, the avenue de 1'Opera, the place du Carrousel,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 233 
 
 toward the Seine ; " no, she shall not be married against 
 her heart. She shall not be Mine. Faucherot. I will 
 not have it. / will not have it!" Against whom was 
 this most intense resistance of his whole being directed 
 in this outburst of resolution ? And his inward mono- 
 logue went on, one idea calling out another with that 
 involuntary logic which disconcerts all our resolves and 
 sometimes all our affections: "I knew well enough 
 that it was not possible that she would accept that 
 Faucherot if she were not forced to it. Forced ? She 
 believed herself forced. But by whom ? And by what ? 
 We left her free, however. Again, just now, we asked 
 her to wait." Against what idea was the father defend- 
 ing himself, as he repeated that mendacious "we"? 
 "And she confides her feelings, not to us, but to a 
 stranger. Does she not know that her happiness is 
 our sole care, that we live only for her? When she 
 was to go and talk with her mother about this pro- 
 posed marriage, I spoke to her, and she understood 
 me. At least, it seemed so. I remember her saying, 
 'Oh, you are so good to me, and I love you so!' 
 And then, this silence, this distrust! It is inconceiv- 
 able. Perhaps she thought that the person who wished 
 to marry her was Charles, and finding she was mis- 
 taken, became vexed, perhaps even desperate. She 
 must have thought that her cousin did not love her." 
 And then he sought to make objections himself. "Is 
 it really Charles whom she loves? I will know about
 
 234 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 that. But how? I should have done better to find 
 Mademoiselle Perrin and make her tell me, to wring 
 from her the whole story. What if it is not he, after 
 all, whom Heine loves, and if he has never thought 
 of his cousin? In any case she shall not marry 
 Edgard Faucherot. I will not have it!" 
 
 At the moment when Hector, speaking aloud, repeated 
 this determination, the carriage was rolling over the 
 pavement of that long, narrow rue des Saints-Peres, 
 one of the rare arteries of Paris which has not changed 
 at all in thirty years, except at the point where the 
 boulevard Saint-Germain is cut through it. The jour- 
 nalist's excessive labour rarely permitting him to go 
 anywhere for his own pleasure merely, he came but 
 seldom into this part of the city, which was closely 
 associated with the far-off memories of his exodus 
 from Chevagnes to Paris. At that time he had taken 
 lodgings in a little hotel in the rue des Beaux-Arts 
 simplicity of a country lad pining for fame ! 
 because of the name of the street, and of the house, 
 which was h6tel Michel-Ange. By what subtle trick 
 of his overwrought sensibility did the aspect of this 
 quarter, where he had cherished the disappointed 
 ambitions of his youth, give Heine's father an irre- 
 sistible desire to see once more this rue des Beaux- 
 Arts, very close at hand, it is true; but what relation 
 could there be between the asylum of his own youth 
 and the step he was proposing to take, to save from a
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 235 
 
 detested marriage the youth of his daughter? Was 
 it that he wished, suddenly perceiving the extraordi- 
 nary difficulties of this step, to plan its details more 
 fully, and have a little time for reflection ? Or, 
 knowing that he should have a formidable struggle to 
 go through with, on his return home, did he go, as 
 if driven by some instinct, to seek an increase of 
 strength from the vision of the Le Prieux that he 
 once was, passionately enamoured of art and of the 
 Ideal, and profoundly, absolutely a stranger to the 
 miseries of social struggles ? More simply still, had 
 the emotions experienced by him during these forty- 
 eight hours, in regard to his daughter, brought into 
 sharp outlines certain ideas which he had so long 
 refused to acknowledge to himself, and did an irra- 
 tional desire get the mastery of him to ascertain 
 whence he had come, where he now stood, and why 
 he stood there? Certain it is that, reaching the rue 
 Jacob, he knocked on the window of the carriage and 
 ordered the man to stop, and instead of going on 
 toward the rue d'Assas, he got out, paid his fare, and 
 walked in the direction of his former abode. 
 
 He was at one of those singular moments when the 
 resemblance, or rather the identity, of one's own 
 destiny and the destiny of those from whom we derive 
 life, or who derive life from us, awakens in the depths 
 of one's being an intense and almost overpowering 
 feeling of race. Having just suffered a misfortune
 
 236 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 which one's father endured in like circumstances, or 
 seeing one's child about to receive a blow that oneself 
 once received, the profound unity of blood reveals 
 itself, and strangely disturbs the heart. Directed 
 toward the past, toward those who have bequeathed 
 to us their virtues and their weaknesses, this impression 
 results in a kind of almost pious melancholy which 
 pardons all the faults, and is grateful for all the bene- 
 fits. Turning toward the future, toward those to 
 whom we have transmitted that family soul of which 
 we are but a moment, this impression is transformed 
 into a profound and poignant desire to lessen for 
 them, to spare them, if we can do it, the hereditary 
 trials. This gives one those indefinable hours hours 
 in which he does not know if it is himself who is 
 concerned, or his father, or his child. And thus in 
 evoking, along the sidewalks of those old Parisian 
 streets, and before the unchanged faqade of his student 
 abode, the images of his remote youth, Hector could 
 not have told whether it was of himself or of his 
 daughter that he thought, so almost unendurably clear 
 to him was the similarity between his own fate and 
 that which threatened Heine. What else did it say 
 to him that faqade of the hotel Michel- Ange, before 
 which he was now standing motionless but that there 
 was once there, in one of the rooms of that cheap 
 lodging-house, the second on the fourth floor counting 
 from the right, a youth, sensitive as Eeine, capable, like
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 237 
 
 Heine, of the most subtle and exalted feelings; and, 
 then, that this young man had been unable to main- 
 tain in the struggle with life that Ideal of art which 
 had been the romance of his youth, as Eeine at the 
 very first encounter was finding herself unable to 
 maintain that Ideal of love which was the romance 
 of her youth. What element of weakness was con- 
 cealed in the inmost nature of them both, that they 
 should be at once so refined in their ways of feeling 
 and so powerless to mould their existence in accordance 
 with their hearts ? But was it weakness in themselves ? 
 Was it not merely that they had been obliged to struggle 
 against a stronger will than theirs ? No, the young man 
 who came up to Paris, to conquer fame by writing mas- 
 terpieces of literature under the eaves of the poor hotel 
 Michel-Ange, was not a weakling. He was simple- 
 minded, doubtless, and did not measure the appalling 
 distance that separated him from his dream ; but Hector 
 now was aware, looking back across the years, that 
 this youth was a patient, persistent toiler, and would 
 have realized, if not all, at least a part of that dream, 
 had not And a woman's figure appeared, whose 
 black eyes darted despotism, whose proud mouth was 
 set in implacable rule, whose beauty, as of an idol, 
 commanded homage. Was it then she who had actu- 
 ally made him fail of his destiny? Was it then she 
 whose imperious authority was constraining Heine to 
 bend also before her wish ? This double vision was
 
 238 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 so painful to the disappointed literary man, the dis- 
 tressed father, that he repelled it with all the strength 
 of his old and ever living love for this woman, so de- 
 votedly obeyed and served for so many years; and 
 now turning his steps toward the rue d'Assas, he 
 argued with himself: 
 
 "The fault is not my poor Mathilde's. How could 
 she ever know that I desired a different life? Did I 
 ever speak of it to her ? She is so true, so upright, 
 so devoted ! She believed that it was for the best, 
 as she now believes that the Faucherot marriage will 
 be for the best. The fault was in my silence, in this 
 timidity that has always prevented me from letting 
 even her see me in the complete truth of my aspira- 
 tions. Reine is like me in that respect also. Even 
 to me, she has not said that there was some one whom 
 she loved. When we talked about her marriage, the 
 other evening, her mother and I if I had only known 
 what I know now! But I knew nothing except as 
 a matter of intuition. I must have positive facts, a 
 confession. Mathilde would be the first one to give 
 up the idea of this marriage, which was abhorrent to 
 me by instinct ! Mon Dieu I I hope Charles is at home ! 
 But is it Charles whom she loves ? Why not ? Of all 
 the young men we know, he is the only one who de- 
 serves her! And how happy they would be, there in 
 Provence ! " 
 
 Hector had now just reached the garden of the Lux-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 239 
 
 embourg. He had come from the rue des Beaux-Arts, 
 absorbed in thought, and mechanically taken the route 
 formerly so familiar to him when, unconsciously home- 
 sick for the oak groves of Chevagnes, he had been wont 
 to seek a sensation of nature in looking at the trees 
 and dreaming in the Luxembourg garden. He passed 
 through the entrance adjacent to the gallery, and en- 
 tered that avenue of old plane trees where stands the 
 monument of the pathetic and powerful Eugene Dela- 
 croix. These fine trees, his early favourites, lifted their 
 enormous bare branches against the icy sky of the after- 
 noon. And as if, at contact with the mute witnesses of 
 his youth, the poet, dead in youth, revived within him, 
 the journalist began to think, with inexpressible sadness, 
 of the unbroken flight of time, this succession of sum- 
 mers and winters, of leafage upon trees, and of human 
 lives. Lines of Sainte-Beuve, long forgotten, which he 
 had formerly loved, came to his memory and to his 
 lips : 
 
 " Simonide Vet, dit, apres V antique Homere: 
 Les generations, dans leur presse epfiemere, 
 Sont pareilles, helas ! auxfeuilles desforets 
 Qui verdissent une heure et jaunissent apres, 
 Qu'enleve VAquilon, et d'autres, toutes fratches, 
 Les remplacent deja, bientot mortes et seches. . . ." 
 
 He had recited, in this place, this divine elegy of the 
 least appreciated of our great lyric poets, when he was
 
 240 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 himself in the springtime of life, in that age of fresh 
 hopes and radiant beginnings where now Heine and 
 Charles were, age so brief, hopes so quickly vanished, 
 beginnings so soon ended ! At least it must not be that 
 these children, through any fault of his, should lose, 
 without enjoying them, this point and this moment of 
 their youth and their love ! For certainly it was Charles 
 whom Eeine loved. All doubt of this was now gone 
 from the father's mind. He remembered the young 
 man's look, as it rested upon his daughter; Reine's 
 excitement when her cousin was coming; countless lit- 
 tle signs, which he had summed in a single word, when 
 he had said to his wife. " I have impressions." 
 
 As he remembered these things, the blood coursed 
 through his veins more rapidly, as if the idea of these 
 two young people's love for each other had brought his 
 own youth back to him. He resumed his walk toward 
 the rue d'Assas with an alert and rapid step, and his 
 heart beat quickly as he inquired of the concierge if 
 M. Hugueuin were at home. He was, the man replied ; 
 and the father's emotion had so much increased, as he 
 went up the stairs, that he was obliged to stop, before 
 the door on which was fastened with four tacks the 
 modest card: Charles Huguenin, Avocat d Za Cour. At 
 last he has rung the bell. Steps are heard within, the 
 door opens. Charles appears, and, perceiving who it is, 
 leans against the wall, very pale, and stammers, with an 
 emotion that is a confession,
 
 OTHEB PEOPLE'S LUXURY 241 
 
 "You, Monsieur Le Prieux! You! Oh! thank you 
 for coming ! " 
 
 The words " thank you ! " uttered by the young man, 
 were a natural sequence of the thoughts which had 
 followed one another in his mind since his cruel con- 
 versation with Reine. The first stress of despair having 
 abated, there had come to him the renewed energy of a 
 love which, after all, knows itself to be shared. He 
 had risen to his feet, saying to himself, "I love her. 
 She loves me. I cannot lose her in this way ; " and 
 had hastened to his lodgings, as if expecting to find 
 some word from Eeine awaiting him. A mad hope, 
 which proved how sure he was of his cousin's heart, 
 strongly as he had declared his loss of faith in her! 
 But there was no letter. The disappointment had cost 
 him bitter tears, alone in his little student-lodging. Then 
 he had rallied again and had begun to reflect, asking 
 himself what steps he should now take. The passions, 
 however hot, of men of the south of pure race are 
 almost always accompanied by a certain lucidity of 
 mind which reminds one of southern skies, all light 
 as well as heat, and also recalls their Latin heredity. 
 Charles felt, even in his grief, a necessity for under- 
 standing the matter clearly, and he had been striving 
 to ascertain in the present situation what were the 
 unquestionable facts. The first, the most evident, the 
 one to which he had clung instantly, as we have seen, 
 by that instinct of self-preservation which our passions,
 
 242 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 like living creatures, have, was that Reine loved him. 
 The second, and not less evident, was that some obstacle 
 had arisen. Charles could fix this as having occurred 
 within the last forty-eight hours. It had not existed at 
 the time of the ball, when he and his cousin had tacitly 
 become engaged. The insane frenzy which, two hours 
 before, on the terrace of the Tuileries, had wrung from 
 him his unjust insult to Reine's sincerity had passed 
 away. He believed that she had been sincere in pledg- 
 ing herself to him, and sincere also in begging him, 
 with impassioned entreaty, that he would not seek to 
 divine the mysterious hindrance before which she 
 trembled, overcome with terror. This was a third posi- 
 tive fact. And a fourth was, that her marriage with 
 another man was under consideration. That this project 
 had very recently come up was, still further, clear to 
 Charles. In any other case, Reine at the ball would not 
 have been toward him what she was. That, also, her 
 parents were intimately connected with this sudden 
 project of marriage Charles inferred from this, a fifth 
 fact: Mme. Le Prieux had not spoken to her daughter 
 of Mme. Huguenin's letter. At the moment, swept 
 away as he was by jealous anger, he had not given 
 to this singular fact its extreme importance. He now 
 became aware that this silence on the part of Reine's 
 mother signified a very matured purpose not to give 
 the young girl an opportunity to choose between a 
 marriage with her cousin and this other marriage
 
 243 
 
 with whom ? And supported by what arguments ? 
 Here Charles could go no further. He was aware that 
 Mme. Le Prieux had found means to convince Kerne 
 by terrorizing her. He could not divine reasons which 
 lay deep in the history of this family of "the non- 
 classed " (to employ a word created by one of the most 
 generous historians of difficult life in Paris). He had 
 turned this enigma over and over in his mind during 
 these first hours of passionate reflection, and he had 
 only discovered in this mystery still another : why had 
 not Reine's parents had at least the charity to give to 
 him an explanation, now that they knew, from his 
 mother's letter, both his feelings and his hopes ? Thus 
 far he had gone in his fruitless analysis, when the ring 
 at his door had made his heart leap in his breast. He 
 had opened the door with again the mad hope of some 
 word from Heine, and at finding himself face to face 
 with Hector Le Prieux had cried out that " thank you ! " 
 so unintelligible to the latter. But there was one thing 
 that was only too clear to the father, after Mile. Perrin's 
 appeal and his own reflections namely, the cause of 
 Charles's evident distress. This proof of the young 
 man's affection for Reine corresponded so well to Hec- 
 tor's own secret wish that it was in the tenderest, the 
 most indulgent of tones that he spoke : 
 
 "Oh, come, Charles! cheer up," he said; "take 
 courage. You have no occasion to thank me. I am 
 only doing my duty as a father. What a condition
 
 244 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 you are in ! Ah ! my poor boy ! " For Charles, in 
 his amazement at these words and the manner of 
 speaking, so unexpected by him, had flung himself 
 into the arms of Le Prieux, sobbing again, and re- 
 peating, " Oh, yes ! thank you, cousin ! thank you ! 
 How good you are ! how good you are ! " The father 
 himself was deeply moved by this outburst of despair. 
 But he was too much concerned to learn all the truth as 
 to the relations of the two young people, not to make 
 an effort to obtain it instantly. He had drawn Charles 
 into the little office which served also as a salon for 
 this lawyer without clients, still uncertain as to his 
 definite establishment, a charming asylum for reve- 
 ries, whither Le Prieux had come but once, but that 
 visit had sufficed to win the journalist's sympathy 
 for the young occupant of the room, such an atmos- 
 phere of thoughtful and romantic youth pervaded it, 
 with the worm-eaten walnut of its old Provenqal 
 furniture; with its choice engravings on the walls, 
 each representing some fine edifice of Aries, Nimes, 
 or Aigues-Mortes ; the well-arrayed books, evidently well 
 read, in the bookcase, and the papers on the table ; and 
 the trees of the Luxembourg beyond the little balcony. 
 He seemed to himself to breathe, as it were, a perfume 
 of the poetry of his native soil, preserved in Paris 
 amid all contrary temptations. The room was a faith- 
 ful image of the little moral drama that had been 
 going on in the young man's heart, divided between
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 245 
 
 nostalgia for his home in Provence and the charm of 
 life in the city; and it was this aspect of the things 
 about him that had long ago given Le Prieux the 
 idea that Charles would be the husband to be desired 
 for Reine. Perhaps there was a recurrence of this 
 now distant impression, in the affectionate persistence 
 with which he sought to make the young man confess 
 all the secret of his feelings. 
 
 " No," he began, " it is not goodness in me ; and once 
 more I say, you have no cause to thank me. I tell 
 you I am only a father who is doing his duty. But 
 you must do yours, as well, and respond to my ad- 
 vances with absolute sincerity. Come, speak to me 
 freely, frankly, and tell me all." 
 
 "But," Charles replied, "what can I say that has 
 not already been said to Madame Le Prieux and you, 
 in my mother's letter? I understood, as soon as I 
 saw you, that you came to tell me again what I already 
 knew from Eeine, that the marriage was impossible. I 
 ought to have known it sooner, when you did not send 
 for me on the receipt of my mother's letter. And 
 still, Monsieur Le Prieux, I swear to you that I would 
 have done everything to make Heine happy; I would 
 have devoted my life to her. I am not a person of 
 any consequence, I know; but what little I am, I 
 would have given to her without reserve; and my 
 mother has also told you in her letter, I am sure, 
 that she and my father think as I do."
 
 246 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 If the revelation of Mme. Le Prieux's silence as to 
 the steps taken by Mine. Huguenin had been a great 
 shock to Reine, who knew that a letter was to be 
 written, what a blow it was for the father, in no way 
 prepared for it! In the flash of a sudden light, he 
 had a glimpse of the truth. Was it possible his wife 
 could have been so lacking in frankness toward him, 
 that she could have answered him the other evening 
 as she did answer him, if this letter had really been 
 sent and received? Yes. And that shade of anxiety 
 in her manner, as she said, "You have been ap- 
 proached also ? " was explained. Besides, the young 
 man's tone left no place for doubt, and Heine's father 
 understood it so well that he turned his eyes away to 
 conceal from his interlocutor the pain that he felt 
 at this discovery. He wished, however, to make 
 further inquiries, and he put one of those questions, 
 aside from the main point, which a person will put 
 who has not the strength to express his entire 
 thought. 
 
 "You say that Eeine told you that some difficulty 
 had suddenly arisen ? She knew, then, of the step 
 your mother had taken?" 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur Le Prieux," said the young man, 
 " I beg you, do not think ill of her, and do not think 
 ill of me. My cousin has no reason to reproach her- 
 self, I give you my word. I had never spoken to her 
 of my feelings, never until, last week, it is true,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 247 
 
 when I asked her what her answer would be if my 
 mother wrote that which she has written to you. I 
 know it I know that this was not right. I ought 
 to have addressed myself first to you and Madame Le 
 Prieux. And yet, it is only natural that I could not 
 remain in uncertainty, loving her as I do, and that 
 I tried to know what she thought." 
 
 " Then she authorized you to have this letter writ- 
 ten to us ? " the father said. 
 
 " I understood that she did not forbid it." 
 Le Prieux paused a moment in this questioning, 
 where every word, throwing a cruel light upon certain 
 incidents of the last few days, deepened the darkness 
 upon others. The attitude of his daughter toward 
 himself, at the moment when she left him to go to 
 her mother, became clear to him. She had evidently 
 believed that her mother had sent for her to speak 
 to her of Mme. Huguenin's letter. On the other hand, 
 what had passed between the mother and daughter was 
 rendered more mysterious than ever by this under- 
 standing between Reine and her cousin. How and 
 why had she suddenly changed her mind ? Then 
 Reine had seen her cousin in the meantime, or she 
 had written to him ? Having just discovered in his 
 wife such a lack of frankness toward himself, Hector 
 was shocked at the idea that his daughter could have 
 clandestine interviews, or perhaps maintain a secret 
 correspondence. This thought was so insupportable
 
 248 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 to him that he grasped the young man's arm violently, 
 and exclaimed, 
 
 " Charles, you are not telling me the whole truth ! 
 This is wrong. No ; it is not the whole truth ! " he 
 insisted. "Do not interrupt me again. You acknowl- 
 edge that you and Eeine had an understanding in 
 regard to your mother's letter to us. Eeine had con- 
 sented, then, to marry you. This you acknowledge. 
 You also acknowledge that she has informed you that 
 this plan is impossible. She has seen you, then, or 
 written to you. You have seen her ? Where ? How ? 
 And you expect me to believe that you have nothing to 
 reproach yourself with nor she ? " 
 
 "Well, then! I will tell you all," the young man 
 said, with a manifest effort, "both for her sake and my 
 own. You, at least, will not suspect her," he continued, 
 with a change of tone, in which trembled the remorse 
 he felt for the injustice of which he himself had been 
 guilty toward her. "Yes, I saw my cousin this morn- 
 ing, at eleven o'clock, at the Tuileries. A third per- 
 son was present. I give you my word of honour that 
 it was the first time that we had ever met in this way. 
 Here is the proof that what I tell you is true." And 
 he drew from his pocket-book Reine's little blue de- 
 spatch, and held it out to Le Prieux. "My cousin 
 wished to speak to me, through pity, as I now 
 understand, that I might not learn roughly, and from 
 some other person, the destruction of my dearest hope.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 249 
 
 And what we said to each other I can repeat to 
 you, so that I may prevent you from being, in your 
 turn, unjust to her." And he began narrating the inci- 
 dents of that sad interview of the morning, the im- 
 pression that the note had made upon him, her arrival 
 on the terrace, and how he had perceived the serious- 
 ness of the step she had taken by her extreme pallor, 
 and the words that she had spoken, and his replies ; 
 lastly, his suddenly aroused jealousy, and the end. 
 
 The father listened to the story of these simple and 
 poignant episodes, his daughter's letter in his hand. He 
 looked at the writing and perceived its agitation with 
 a passionate pity for the gentle, refined child, who had 
 traced these characters in a moment of distress. He 
 now understood both the feverish brilliancy in her eyes, 
 on her return from this cruel interview, and the deci- 
 sion in her voice as she refused the delay that her 
 parents offered; he understood also the step taken by 
 Fanny Perrin, who was undoubtedly the third person 
 indicated by Charles, the innocent witness of this inno- 
 cent rendezvous between the two cousins. And, amid 
 these thoughts, one point remained darker than ever: 
 what motive had Heine for wishing this marriage with 
 Faucherot when she had freedom of choice ? The 
 answer to this enigma, he knew, alas ! only too well, 
 where to seek. But honour required him to seek it 
 alone. He must not associate with himself in this 
 inquiry at whose end lay, he felt sure, his wife's
 
 250 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 unscrupulous machinations and her discreditable rdle 
 the young man whom, from that moment, he regarded 
 as their son-in-law. He had risen to his feet, when 
 Charles's confession was ended, and he paced the room, 
 back and forth, in a silence that the other dared not 
 disturb. Although Charles, also, found Reine's posi- 
 tion more inexplicable than ever, since he knew that 
 the father was so favourable to him, he understood, 
 with native tact, that Le Prieux's silence must be 
 respected. His heart beat violently when Le Prieux 
 suddenly stopped before him, and looking at him 
 steadily for some time, said at last, with the solemnity 
 in face and gesture of one who has taken a very seri- 
 ous resolution, and makes known to another an irrevo- 
 cable decision, 
 
 " You have answered me like an honest man, Charles, 
 loyally, bravely; and I will speak to you in the same 
 way. You love Heine, and you are worthy of her. She 
 loves you, and it depends upon herself alone whether 
 she will be your wife, understand me, upon herself alone. 
 There has been another proposal made for her recently, 
 it is true. I can scarcely believe that that is the 
 obstacle to which she referred. There must be some 
 misunderstanding that I cannot now explain. Later 
 I shall know what it is. I repeat this to you, she 
 shall be your wife whenever she chooses. From this 
 day forth, you have my consent. I accepted your word 
 of honour just now, and this gives me the right to
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 251 
 
 require it a second time. I require you to promise 
 that you will not try to see her until I authorize you 
 to do so. There is great wisdom in our old French 
 precedent you must be conscious of it yourself that 
 requires the intervention of parents in the marriage 
 of their children. If you had obeyed it strictly, if 
 you had come to me, a few days ago, to speak to 
 me before you spoke to her, you would have spared 
 her much useless suffering, and would not have 
 offended her, perhaps irreparably. She is keenly and 
 deeply sensitive, and your doubt of her must have 
 hurt her frightfully. Leave it to me to probe the 
 wound ; and further, since there is a misunderstand- 
 ing to be cleared up, to clear it up myself. I have 
 your promise that you will do nothing more except 
 upon my suggestions ? " 
 
 "You have it," replied the young man, in a trans- 
 port of gratitude, grasping the hands of Le Prieux. 
 
 " And you will obey me in everything ? " 
 
 "And I will obey you in everything. Ah, Monsieur 
 Le Prieux! I loved you before, but now " 
 
 " Now," interrupted the father, visibly afraid of his 
 own emotion, "you will begin to keep your promise 
 by sitting down here and writing a letter to Heine, 
 begging her pardon for your words this morning. You 
 are surprised ? But I have a plan ; I have a plan. 
 Come," he added, with that gentle sarcasm which 
 older men like to employ toward younger, at whose love
 
 252 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 affairs they smile, while envying them secretly, "shall 
 I have to dictate this letter? Write and say what- 
 ever you like. I will give it to Reine unopened. Does 
 that content you?" 
 
 VIII 
 
 M. LE PBIEUX'S PLAN 
 
 "I HAVE a plan." With these words repeated still 
 again, Hector Le Prieux took leave of his daughter's 
 lover, taking with him the letter for Reine and also 
 Reine's despatch. "I will return it to you," he had 
 said further, "when I let you know how things are 
 going on. At present I have need of it." 
 
 The despatch must have touched him very deeply, 
 for Charles Huguenin, who had stepped out upon 
 his balcony to watch his visitor's departure, saw Le 
 Prieux taking his way under the leafless trees of the 
 Luxembourg, the little blue leaflet open in his hand. 
 The father walked on, dwelling upon each word of this 
 dear handwriting, lost in the thoughts that this contem- 
 plation called up, to the degree that he did not notice 
 where he was until he found himself at the gate 
 opposite the rue Soufflot, having crossed the whole 
 garden as in a dream. He recognized the familiar 
 sidewalk, the omnibus station, the shops some changed, 
 others still the same. He had been used, in the early 
 days of his literary career, to go to read the news-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 253 
 
 papers in one of the cafes near the Odeon, and 
 thither he now directed his steps, without being really 
 conscious that he did so, as, in moments of extreme 
 mental confusion, we do things almost automatically. 
 As it happened, the place was unchanged. Decorated 
 in earlier days by artists who had thus paid arrear- 
 ages in their scot, it exhibited in its interior four 
 incongruous panels, representing, one, a Venus rising 
 from the sea; another, a stag dying in a thicket; a 
 third, Pierrot looking at the moon; the fourth, a girl 
 of the Latin Quarter. The Bohemianism of this 
 smoky tavern contrasted no less with the delicate 
 romance of Eeine and her cousin than with the habits 
 of elegance to which the "beautiful Mme. Le Prieux" 
 had trained Hector. But, for the latter, the radiance 
 of his own youth lighted up this resort of students 
 and rapins. He took his seat at a corner table, vacant 
 at the moment, without even remarking the attention 
 excited among the men and girls who frequented the 
 place, all of them rather slipshod in their appearance, 
 by the presence of a man past fifty years of age, 
 attired like a president of the Council, the ribbon of 
 the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole, who called 
 for writing materials. Then, with rapid and steady 
 hand, he indited upon this accidental paper a letter 
 of two pages, which he ended with a signature almost 
 aggressive in its decisiveness. It was addressed to 
 Cruce, and he despatched it at once by a messenger.
 
 254 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 Is it needful to say that these few lines cut short in 
 advance, in his own name and his wife's, the matri- 
 monial advances of the Faucherots? This task accom- 
 plished, which was the first detail in his plan, he 
 looked at his watch. He knew that in returning home 
 at this moment he should find there neither his wife 
 nor his daughter. It occurred to him, as it so often 
 did, to go to the office and get neAvs from the editor- 
 in-chief for his chronicle of the next day. Then the 
 mere idea of the slightest contact with his daily life, 
 before having gone through the two scenes for which 
 he was preparing himself, appeared to him odious. 
 
 A recollection of the habits of his youth came to 
 his mind : " Why not work here as I used to do ? " 
 He desired the waiter to bring him a fresh half dozen 
 sheets of writing-paper and a new pen, also to fill up 
 the inkstand; then, picking up one of the soiled 
 newspapers of the morning which lay open on an 
 adjacent table, he sought, in the Faits Divers, some 
 material for his article. The rather commonplace 
 incident of a demi-mondaine defending herself against 
 her dressmaker caught his eye, because of the aston- 
 ishing sum at which the vanities of the young woman 
 were rated, $750 for a costume! And he began writ- 
 ing out, with a hand no less deliberate than usual, the 
 reflections which this extravagance suggested to him. 
 Six o'clock struck while he was still there, finishing 
 his twelfth page. His chronique for the morrow was
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 255 
 
 written. He read it over with singularly mingled pride 
 and sadness; for the first time, perhaps in years, he 
 had written something of which he was not in his 
 heart ashamed, and it was because he had written, 
 not as a matter of duty, but to please himself, as he 
 had formerly dreamed of writing both poems and 
 novels, when he used to come to talk or scribble in 
 this humble cafe more than thirty years before. This 
 impression, so well in harmony with the rest of his 
 day, would have further strengthened Le Prieux in 
 his desire to spare his daughter the grief of a destiny 
 unfulfilled, had not his nerves been already strained to 
 that degree where the whole being is nothing but will 
 and energy. It was, indeed, this over-excitement of his 
 entire nature, rendering the time insupportable to 
 him, which he had beguiled, so to speak, by writing, 
 one of those phenomena of professional automaton- 
 ism which are found in all vocations, and prove, by 
 the way, how one's trade becomes a kind of second 
 nature, the instinct within us of a veritable social 
 species. This diatribe against luxury and the slavery 
 which it imposes had not merely had the result of help- 
 ing the journalist to pass his two hours. It went on 
 acting upon him in two ways, first, by auto-sugges- 
 tion, as happens often to literary men, so easily intoxi- 
 cated with their own utterances, and then, by recalling 
 to his mind the facts and figures of which he had been 
 thinking.
 
 256 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 " Six o'clock," he said to himself, as he left the 
 cafe, " and I will take a carriage from the Odeon. In 
 twenty minutes I shall be at home. That will be 
 about the time of their return. Then I can talk with 
 Heine before dinner. I must make sure to save the 
 poor child from a night's distress. How glad she will 
 be to have this letter from Charles ! Fanny Perrin 
 was right. The other marriage would have killed her. 
 But why did she consent ? That I shall know, in the 
 end." By this time he had stopped an empty fiacre and 
 taken his seat in it. The question to which his mind 
 had reverted incessantly since the preceding day again 
 had him in its grasp. " Yes," he continued to him- 
 self, " what is it that Mathilde said to her to overcome 
 her resistance, which she would not repeat to her 
 cousin? What is this mysterious reason which evi- 
 dently terrorizes her ? But Mathilde herself, why did 
 she seem to be so very anxious for this marriage ? 
 These Faucherots have nothing to recommend them 
 but their money. Money ! money ! But Mathilde 
 is not so fond of money. She is very generous. And 
 still, in this absurd life that we live, we need it almost 
 as much as that wretched girl about whom I have just 
 been writing. Thirty-seven hundred and fifty francs for 
 a costume ! Mathilde has never been so extravagant as 
 that; but with all her economies and all her good 
 management, she goes to the most expensive places, 
 and since Heine has been out it costs double."
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 257 
 
 Le Prieux, like all husbands and fathers, only knew 
 approximately what were the expenses of his wife and 
 daughter. By an unavoidable association of ideas, he 
 suddenly asked himself, " I wonder how much they do 
 really spend ? " and, like a flash, through his attempt to 
 estimate closely these expenses, an unlooked-for hypothe- 
 sis crossed his mind, which he vainly sought to banish. 
 "Mon Dieu!" he said to himself, "what if she has 
 run in debt, and dares not tell me ? What if she has 
 incurred obligations to Madame Faucherot? What if 
 that were the motive, both of her desire for this mar- 
 riage and of Eeine's consent to it ? No, that would 
 be too horrible ! It cannot be ! It cannot be ! " 
 
 Thus we see that the unconscious working of a mind 
 under the influence of very intense feelings, whose 
 deep and secret life this mental action is, had led this 
 husband, no inquisitor by nature, to the very edge of 
 the truth. He "burned," as children say in their game 
 of hide-and-seek. But this divination would make still 
 more painful to him the execution of the plan he had 
 mentioned to Charles, which was in the main this : 
 to give Heine her cousin's letter, and in her first excite- 
 ment at receiving it, obtain from her a confession and 
 a consent. He would then have to overcome his wife's 
 objections, and it was for this use that he had kept 
 the little blue despatch. Even after so many accusing 
 signs, he did not doubt, he would not doubt, Mathilde; 
 in the presence of a proof so unquestionable as this
 
 258 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 of their daughter's inclinations she would not persist 
 in a project whose savage cruelty she certainly had 
 never suspected. The mysterious reason that Eeine 
 had refused to reveal would prove to be a misunder- 
 standing, as he himself had called it. Though he 
 hammered this idea into his mind, with all the strength 
 of his love for his wife, this man, clear-sighted, not- 
 withstanding his affections, did not succeed in driving 
 out the other idea, sprung, it seemed, from the most 
 accidental putting together of facts ; and when he in- 
 serted into the lock of his door the little gold night- 
 key a gift from his wife, of course which he wore 
 as an elegant bibelot on his watch chain, this other 
 idea again oppressed him, in a way singularly painful. 
 How else should have recurred to him, in these cir- 
 cumstances and at this moment, the words of one of 
 the great Parisian publishers, whom he had chanced to 
 meet at a first performance not long before ? "I am 
 establishing a review, Le Prieux," the publisher had 
 said; "suppose you write your reminiscences for me. 
 Afterward I would publish them in a volume, and 
 we should make it pay twice. What do you say ? " 
 And the newspaper man had replied, "My reminis- 
 cences ? How could I have any ? I have never had 
 time to live ! " 
 
 Why did this conversation recur to his mind, as he 
 stood on the landing at the door of his apartment, 
 except because he was already thinking how he could
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 259 
 
 find means to increase his income for the present 
 year ? He saw before him the possibility of a new 
 engagement, besides all that he now had to do. What 
 deficit was he then trying to make good? But, no 
 sooner had he entered the antechamber than something 
 unexpected turned the current of his thoughts. He 
 perceived a visitor's overcoat and cane on the table; 
 and the groom, who was on duty as footman, replied 
 to his inquiry, that M. Cruce was in the salon with 
 madame. 
 
 " And also mademoiselle ? " Le Prieux asked. 
 
 " Mademoiselle is in her own room," replied the boy. 
 " She has not been out this afternoon. She is not well." 
 
 Cruce there, at that hour this implied, without 
 doubt, that Mathilde was already informed of the domes- 
 tic coup d'etat by which Hector had substituted his 
 letter breaking off negotiations for the letter of ac- 
 quiescence which he had offered to carry, and under 
 what conditions ! It meant, also, that an explana- 
 tion between husband and wife was now inevitable, 
 and must be immediate. Le Prieux did not hesi- 
 tate. First he must see Heine, and have from her full 
 power to act. He said to the little groom, "It is not 
 necessary to disturb madame. Do not announce my 
 return." Then he went to his daughter's door and 
 knocked. The " who is it ? " so faintly spoken that he 
 could scarcely hear the words, touched him almost to 
 tears, such lassitude did it indicate, and still more, the
 
 260 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 total darkness in which he found himself, on entering 
 the room. Under pretext of the coming on of an attack 
 of neuralgia, Eeine had retreated to bed, with the shut- 
 ters closed, the curtains let down, in that intentional 
 darkness in which all women have the instinct to hide 
 themselves, to bury themselves, when they suffer with 
 one kind of suffering, as if even the light were to them 
 one of the brutalities of life. And when she had 
 turned on the electric light, under that hard white 
 glare, which brings out more crudely the stigmata on 
 a face, her father saw such marks of suffering that he 
 was afraid for a moment of the shock of joy that she 
 was about to receive. But already she was leaning on 
 her elbow on the embroidered pillows of her little bed, 
 as she had so often done when, as a child, he had come to 
 take her by surprise and kiss her before going out in the 
 evening ; and now with childish grace, and that care for 
 others, a lovely trait, which was the natural expression of 
 her tender and exquisite nature, she said, 
 
 "You must not be disturbed about me, dear Pee. I 
 was a little cold, in returning from the lecture; here 
 in bed, I shall soon get warm again. And in the morn- 
 ing, to-morrow, your busy day, I shall be up early to 
 have your things all in order for you." 
 
 "You will be able to sleep late to-morrow," Hector 
 said, drawing from his pocket the pages scribbled in the 
 cafe. "My morning's work is done in advance. Your 
 Pee will have no need of you, Mademoiselle Moigne,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 2G1 
 
 and for once you can be as slothful as you please. 
 And besides," he said, after a minute's silence, and in 
 a tone which he strove still to render playful, while 
 his concealed anxiety trembled in the feigned gayety; 
 "besides, some one has given me a letter for you." 
 And he held it out to her. 
 
 " Some one ? " Reine said ; and when she had the let- 
 ter in her hands and recognized the writing, the colour 
 rushed to her face, and she trembled with an almost 
 convulsive movement that shook her whole frame, 
 while her father strove to comfort her. 
 
 "Read your letter, my adored child," he said, "and 
 do not be afraid. Take courage ! If I bring it to you, 
 you must know that Charles has told me all, and that 
 I approve. We must have no more misunderstand- 
 ings. My sweet lovely Moigne, read your letter. Do 
 not speak to me till after you have read it. I love you 
 so, my daughter, my little girl ! " And once more with 
 that attempt at playfulness in his petting, which seeks 
 to shelter from the excesses of feeling a sensitiveness too 
 young and too keen to bear them, he continued, " If 
 you do not read it, this letter of yours, I shall take it 
 away and read it aloud to you myself." 
 
 While Le Prieux spoke, the blood rushed again to 
 the forehead and cheeks of Reine, and even to her soft 
 and slender neck rising from the soft batiste of her 
 night-dress, over which lay the long, loose braid of her 
 hair. The open, ruffled sleeves showed her arms, slender
 
 262 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 and very white, with their delicate network of bluish 
 veins. Scarcely was the coverlet of quilted silk lifted by 
 her form, so slender, so very delicate, almost too frail 
 for her age ; and the man who watched her open the 
 envelope with her trembling hands was still further 
 touched by this vision of his child's fragility. He was 
 overcome, in her presence, by that absolutely peculiar 
 pitifulness which makes a father and a mother the 
 passionate slaves of the least wishes of a creature whose 
 delicacy seems to them so exposed to harm, so easily to 
 be wounded ! They would give their own lives to spare 
 their child the least suffering, the least touch of hurt. 
 The sight of any pain inflicted upon this fragile organ- 
 ism is to them almost a physical anguish, touching them 
 at the most sensitive point of their natures. And so it 
 was that, in seeing Reine's face suddenly contract and 
 turn white as she read Charles's letter which begged 
 forgiveness, her eyes close, her head sink back upon 
 the pillow in a half swoon of too intense emotion, Le 
 Prieux was struck with a sudden terror which made him 
 start forward and clasp his daughter in his arms, and 
 kiss her forehead, and say to her, 
 
 "Reine, calm yourself, Heine, Reine! How could I 
 be so abrupt and stupid ! And I thought she would be 
 glad. My child ! my child ! Joy makes you ill. Smile 
 at me. Ah! you open your eyes, you smile. Thank 
 you ! But how could you keep this secret in your poor 
 heart ? The other day, when your mother talked with
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 263 
 
 you, why did you not say to her, ' I love my cousin ; we 
 love each other ' ? But all that is over now ! Smile at 
 me again. He asks your hand. You are going to marry 
 him. Why do you shake your head?" 
 
 " Because I shall not marry him," the girl said ; and 
 even in her feeble tones, overcome as she was by the 
 excitement of the moment, her father again detected 
 that singular firmness which had struck him so forcibly 
 when she had refused the offered delay. 
 
 " You will not marry him ? " the father repeated ; 
 "but why not?" 
 
 " Because I have reflected seriously," Reine answered, 
 in a still more decided tone, "and I do not think we 
 should be happy together." 
 
 "No, my child," said Le Prieux, sadly, and he laid 
 his hand upon her lips, " do not begin again your attempt 
 to deceive me. You see, now that I know all, it is no 
 longer possible. Yes, I know what passed at the ball, 
 what Charles said to you then, and what you replied. 
 Would you have spoken in that way if you had not 
 already reflected, and been sure that you would be happy 
 with him and that you would make him happy ? When 
 you kissed me before going to your mother's room yester- 
 day morning, I know what you thought. Shall I re- 
 peat it to you? You thought that your mother was 
 about to tell you of a proposed marriage with Charles, 
 and you were very, very happy. Do not deny this. I 
 read it in your eyes that moment, though I did not quite
 
 264 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 understand. But now I do. You had already reflected 
 at that time, surely. And I know, further, that you 
 wrote to your cousin yesterday, and that you met him 
 this morning. Do not blush, my love, nor tremble. If 
 you could read my heart, you would find there no feeling 
 except remorse that I could not have understood yours 
 before. But that heart is transparent to me now. 
 And I also know the reason which prevents you from 
 being willing to marry him whom you love this reason 
 that Charles begged in vain that you would tell him. 
 It is our situation that prevents you. You have said 
 to yourself, 'If I marry Edgard Faucherot, I shall be 
 rich, and my father will not work so hard.' Confess 
 it, this is what you thought. You are like your mother ; 
 you are unhappy in seeing me have so much to do. But 
 it is my life, this writing. I am an old horse that must 
 go on in harness. If I stopped, I should die. What I 
 need is not to work less ; it is to be able to say to 
 myself, as I sit at my table, ' My little Moigne is 
 happy.' And as to our debts " he watched his 
 daughter's face, as he said the word, so terrible for 
 him. If Heine did not start up with an impulsive 
 denial, it would be true that they were in debt, and that 
 she knew it. She did start, but it was only with sur- 
 prise, and without daring to deny what he said ; and the 
 father went on, inventing, to convince his daughter, 
 one of those deceptions that surely are not inscribed 
 above, in the book of our sins : " As to our debts, I
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 265 
 
 shall not have to work any harder in order to pay 
 them. I have had an offer lately for my two farms at 
 Chevagnes." (They had been, alas! mortgaged long ago 
 to the utmost extent their value would allow.) " I shall 
 have no need of them now/' he continued, " now that I 
 can go to you in Provence, by and by, when I am old. 
 For you will say yes, I am sure, and marry your cousin. 
 Come what if I make your mother ask you to do 
 it?" 
 
 " Ah ! " Reine moaned, " mamma never will consent." 
 " But if she does consent, and even asks you herself ? 
 Would it be yes, then, tell me ? " 
 
 " It would be yes," the young girl said, so softly that 
 this avowal of her feeling for her cousin and renuncia- 
 tion of her great sacrifice, came from her lips rather 
 as a sigh than a word; and passing her arms around 
 her father's neck, she hid her face, covered this time 
 with shy and happy blushes, against his shoulder the 
 shoulder that was a little higher than the other, from 
 the innumerable hours spent at his writing-table, pen 
 in hand. How little did this embrace resemble the 
 cold kiss of the morning, which had sealed Reine's con- 
 sent to her marriage with young Faucherot, when the 
 father came very near believing in his daughter's most 
 woful vanity, and the daughter in the father's most 
 woful blindness, if not his most selfish abandonment ! 
 At this moment, clasped in each other's arms, they 
 enjoyed that absolute communion of two souls in
 
 266 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 happy affection the absolute fusion that love with 
 its jealousies and its disturbance of the senses so rarely 
 knows, and even friendship so rarely which is the 
 divine poetry of family life, the compensation for its 
 wearisome, everyday duties, its depressing monotony, 
 its limitations, and its mediocrity. 
 
 An arrival that might easily have been foreseen 
 but how could Eeine and her father have thought of 
 it? was about to drag them roughly from the ineffa- 
 ble sweetness of this perfect mutual comprehension, and 
 awaken, in the father, an energy and presence of mind 
 which he had never before had, and would never have 
 again, for any interests of his own: Mine. Le Prieux 
 just then entered the room. Hector knew too well all 
 the phases of expression on this haughty, beautiful face 
 that he had so much loved, that he still loved so much, 
 to be deceived for a moment, especially knowing that 
 Mathilde had just received a visit from Cruce. She 
 arrived, angry and indignant. That he should have 
 dared what he had, that he should have intercepted her 
 letter, upon which they had already agreed, and sub- 
 stituted for it another written by himself and in terms 
 exactly contrary, was an act so unprecedented that 
 she could hardly believe it had taken place. The out- 
 break of her indignation was, so to speak, restrained 
 by her stupefaction; and she did not attribute the 
 responsibility to Hector. The glance which she cast 
 at her daughter made it evident that, in her mind,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 267 
 
 Heine was the true culprit. But her imperious lips 
 had not even time to question her two victims, hereto- 
 fore so silent, so docile under the dictatorship of her 
 egoism. She had not taken two steps in the room before 
 Le Prieux had started up, with an enthusiasm she had 
 never before seen in his usually placid face, saying to 
 her, in a tone at once affectionate and imperative, in 
 which she felt, with still greater surprise, an authority 
 that admitted of no dispute, 
 
 " I was coming to look for you, Mathilde, to bring 
 you here to talk to this great girl of ours, who had 
 no confidence in us, who woiild not understand that 
 we only desired her happiness, and only spoke to her 
 about young Faucherot because we believed her heart 
 was free. And she has just confessed to me that it 
 is not, that she loves her cousin Charles and is loved 
 by him. And this other big child, Charles, who did 
 not dare to come and speak to us and say to us, ' I 
 love Reine ! ' could one think children would be so 
 foolish! If I had not seen Charles to-day and com- 
 pelled this confession, first from him and then from 
 her, we never should have known it. Do you under- 
 stand, she would have done this thing to you and 
 me, to you, her mother, and to me, her father, marry- 
 ing against her inclinations ? Go, Heine, kiss your 
 mother and beg her to forgive you; beg pardon of us 
 both, for having doubted us, when we implored you 
 ourselves, this very morning, to take more time to
 
 268 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 reflect and answer us. You knew that we wished to 
 leave you free, that you were the absolute mistress of 
 your choice. That is so, Mathilde, is it not?" 
 
 "Reine has always been free," replied the mother, 
 literally suffocated by what she heard, "and if she 
 loves her cousin, I do not understand why " 
 
 " If she loves him ! " interrupted Le Prieux ; and 
 he added with noticeable firmness, looking his wife 
 steadily in the eyes, "Oh, yes! she does love him, 
 and she will marry him." Then, seeing that Mathilde 
 was about to interrupt him, he continued, "Fortu- 
 nately, we had not replied to our cousin Huguenin. 
 Reine does not know that she wrote to sound us. 
 The poor dear lady lives in the country. She felt 
 obliged to be so careful that we should not know her 
 son had asked her to write ; and was she not, Mathilde ? 
 We supposed it to be altogether her own idea. But 
 you were quite right to insist that Reine ought to be 
 told about it, and I was wrong to keep you from 
 telling her. But it is all made right now ! " 
 
 At this mention of the letter from Charles's mother, 
 Mme. Le Prieux was so disconcerted that she had 
 not the strength to make any reply. Hector then 
 knew of the arrival of this letter and her concealment 
 of it. How could he know? And he forgave her 
 dissimulation. He did more. He was endeavouring 
 to prevent their daughter from suspecting it. And in 
 her amazement and her increasing confusion Mme.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 269 
 
 Le Prieux had not the strength to resist her hus- 
 band's hand, drawing her toward Heine's bed ; and 
 he continued, 
 
 "Do you know why this wicked girl concealed her 
 feelings from us ? It was because she thought it her 
 duty to be rich, that she might save me from over- 
 work. That was your fault, mon amie. Yes, that 
 was your fault. You set her the example. Why did 
 you fear to tell me yourself what you told her, that 
 we were a little in arrears ? You also were afraid I 
 should be writing a few more articles confess it ! 
 But what is that if I do, compared with the grief of 
 seeing our daughter unhappy ? I should never have 
 forgiven myself." 
 
 Did he really believe what he said, the poor literary 
 day-labourer, or was this a second falsehood even more 
 generous than the first, to complete the saving of the 
 mother's prestige in the eyes of the daughter, and at 
 the same time destroy the strongest objection that 
 Mathilde had been able to bring forward against 
 the marriage with Charles ? Love is sometimes as 
 blind as that. But, also, love is sometimes extremely 
 delicate, even though clear-sighted; and indulgent, even 
 when the wrong-doing is past all doubt. Whatever 
 may have been the motive which Hector obeyed, 
 his words indicated an extreme of generosity which 
 would have touched to tears any other person than 
 Mathilde. But this woman's pride was rendered still
 
 270 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 more implacable by the strange depravity of con- 
 science which made her believe that she had always, 
 in all circumstances, laboured for her husband's and 
 her daughter's best interest. What she suddenly be- 
 came aware of, in her husband's words, was that Keine 
 had broken a promise given her. How could this 
 wife, accustomed to see in the journalist the most 
 credulous and easy-going of husbands, have guessed 
 at the labour of induction and diplomacy which had 
 brought him to a discovery of the truth? Her 
 maternal indignation against what she believed to be 
 her daughter's treachery had that ingenuousness in its 
 violence which is the sole excuse of these predatory 
 natures. The excess of their personality would be 
 too inhuman, were it not to a certain degree simple- 
 minded and irresponsible. And then the "beautiful 
 Mme. Le Prieux" was horribly humiliated to find her- 
 self caught in flagrante delictu of imposture by a man 
 whom she had always known hypnotized with idol- 
 atry before her. There was a solace to this painful 
 feeling in the attitude of indignant hauteur that she 
 had the right to take, toward another person, but 
 in his presence. Her instinct of savage egoism in- 
 stantly seized upon this revenge. Scarcely had Hec- 
 tor ceased speaking before she had freed her hand 
 from his, and, turning away from her daughter's bed- 
 side, she said, 
 
 " And I will never forgive Keine for having betrayed
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 271 
 
 to you what I desired to conceal. Well, yes, it is true"," 
 she continued; "it was my wish to conceal from you 
 certain embarrassments in our situation. I had the 
 right to do it more than that, it was a duty. It is 
 true that I saw, that I still see," and she laid stress 
 upon this affirmation, "in this marriage with Edgard 
 Faucherot a most reasonable alliance, one most suited 
 to his position and to ours. Still, if she had spoken 
 to me as she has to you," and the secret jealousy she 
 had always felt at Keine's preference for her father be- 
 trayed itself in these words, " I should have allowed her 
 to decide in accordance with what she believes to be her 
 feelings. There was no need of this duplicity for that." 
 
 " Mamma ! " Heine implored, clasping her hands. 
 
 " She has not deserved to have you speak to her thus," 
 the father said in his turn. " She told me nothing. I 
 divined it myself." 
 
 " She made her plans so that you could divine it," re- 
 plied the mother, " and that is worse. I repeat to you, 
 that I shall never forgive her. As to the other matter," 
 she concluded, with concentrated bitterness, " you are her 
 father and the head of the family. It is your wish that 
 she marry her cousin. She will marry him. She will 
 go to live in the country, far from Paris, in a small way, 
 an exile from society. Then, she will be truly unhappy ; 
 and the one thing I require of you and of her is, that no 
 complaints of this misfortune shall ever be made to me. 
 I have done all that I could to prevent it."
 
 272 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 She went toward the door, flinging at her daughter 
 and at Hector this malediction, pronounced in the name 
 of that " struggle for high life " which had become to 
 her a kind of dogma, a religion. She did not even turn 
 her head to reply to a second appeal from Eeine, who 
 again implored her, 
 
 " Mamma, do not go away like that. Let me explain 
 to you " And when Mine. Le Prieux had closed the 
 door, the young girl threw herself into her father's arms, 
 moaning, "Ah! mamma does not love me! She does 
 not love me ! " 
 
 " Never say that, my child ! " cried Le Prieux, in a 
 tone of real distress ; " never say it, never think it ! It 
 is because your mother loves you so much, on the con- 
 trary, that she has been so disturbed about your mar- 
 riage. She will get over it. I will talk with her about 
 the matter. She will understand. Or if she does not 
 entirely, you must feel that it is your fault. You are 
 like me, my poor Reine, you cannot show your true 
 self. All that your mother has done in this case, as 
 in every other, she has done for what she believes to 
 be our good, yours and mine. She has had the same 
 ambition for us that she would have wished others to 
 have for her. You can expect anything from others, 
 you know, except that they should change their way of 
 regarding life. She was born a great lady ; and you and 
 I are, at heart, at the very bottom of our souls, peasants. 
 We do not belong to Paris. She cannot know this. And,
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 273 
 
 especially, do not blame her for anything on my account, 
 as I have sometimes seen you tempted to do, my child. 
 I said the truth to you just now. A few articles more 
 or less to be written what does that matter to me ? I 
 understand. You always dream of my writing books 
 poems, or a novel. It is too late, too late. If I were at 
 liberty, and had all my time for myself, I could not do 
 it now. I have let you feel far too long that this made 
 me sad. It is true, I often have been sad, these last 
 years. I have seemed like a man who has made a failure 
 of his life. You have believed me when I complained, 
 my sweet Heine, and you should not have done it. 
 And you have been tempted to blame your mother. 
 Do not say no. Now look at me," and taking the girl's 
 hands in his he made her look at him full in the eyes ; 
 and all the pride of a generous soul, in which rises the 
 consciousness of what it has wished, suddenly lighted the 
 face of this great lover. " You can read me to the bottom 
 of my heart, my child," he said. "I am sincere with 
 you as I should be in the presence of death. No ; I have 
 not made a failure of my life. When I was twenty years 
 old and wished to be a poet, what did I understand by 
 that? To have beautiful dreams, and to realize them. 
 Very well ! I have had the most beautiful of dreams, 
 and I have realized it, for I married the woman I loved, 
 I made her happy, and I have you, my daughter. Your 
 mother's happiness that is my work!" Then, as if 
 somewhat afraid of his own emotion and of the things
 
 274 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 he had begun to say about himself, he shook his head, 
 and with the glimmer of a smile he added, in a familiar 
 tone of professional sarcasm, "Not the whole of my 
 work. It is only the first volume. There is a second 
 your happiness. Aid me in getting it ready for pub- 
 lication. And tell me, do you know, in all literature, 
 many books that are worth as much as these two ? " 
 
 IX 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 NEARLY three years have passed since the second 
 volume of Hector Le Prieux's " Complete Works " 
 
 to continue his own harmless professional joke 
 
 was published, under the form of the marriage 
 bans of Mile. Reine-Marie-Therese Le Prieux and M. 
 Charles-Photius Huguenin; and it is almost two years 
 since the birth of a granddaughter, baptized under the 
 invocation of Sainte Mathilde, offered an opportunity to 
 Eeine's mother to become reconciled with this charm- 
 ing pair of married lovers at home there, on the shore 
 of a sapphire sea, under the clear southern sky, among 
 the olive trees and the Aleppo pines, with old Fanny, 
 now promoted to the rank of nursery-governess, on 
 the one hand, and the Huguenin parents on the other, 
 in the ancestral mas, defended from the mistral by a 
 black screen of cypress trees against which roses are in
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 275 
 
 bloom. But one must believe and this is the excuse 
 to be made for the " beautiful Mme. Le Prieux " 
 that this lack of comprehension of others' feelings, from 
 which her husband and child suffered so much, is really, 
 in certain natures, an infirmity which no experience can 
 correct. One is compelled also to believe and this 
 is the condemnation of the brilliant and factitious envi- 
 ronment of which this woman is the living incarnation 
 that this existence, with its intensely stimulated van- 
 ity and its besetting envy of one's neighbour's luxury, 
 is not merely fruitful in follies. It ends by being a 
 deterioration of the heart, which withers and fades, 
 as does the most brilliant complexion, under a daily 
 regime of dinners and -balls. What proves this is that 
 Heine's mother kept her word. By one of those anoma- 
 lies of conscience which we observe but cannot explain, 
 she will not pardon in her daughter a happiness which 
 she persists in regarding as the most abominable in- 
 gratitude. In this social campaign, entered upon for 
 the purpose of winning and maintaining what she calls 
 " a position in the world," she thinks of her daughter 
 with sentiments akin to those which Napoleon must 
 have felt when he saw the Saxons go over to the enemy 
 on the battle-field of Leipsic. But no more than the 
 emperor was is she one of those wills that yield; and 
 you will see her, if you yourself are a slave to the 
 deadly tasks of All-Paris, continuing alone to meet its 
 least requirements, to perform its least rites, aimless,
 
 276 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 now that the establishment of her daughter is no longer 
 her object, and hopeless for honour's sake ! Her 
 name figures this morning in the " Society Notes " of 
 the various journals of snobbism, among those who have 
 sent presents on the occasion of a fashionable marriage, 
 such as she hoped Eeine would make: "M. and Mine. 
 Le Prieux, a crystal and gold box." It figured 
 yesterday under the same heading and in the same 
 column of the same journals, among the list of guests 
 at a " very elegant dinner given by Mme. de Bonnivet at 
 her handsome residence in the rue d'Artois. The stair- 
 case of carved wood (a marvel of art), the salon, and 
 the dining room (also a marvel) were adorned with 
 flowers and potted plants, the powdered footmen in 
 livery ct la franqaise." You also saw it, this same name, 
 day before yesterday, always in the same place in the 
 same newspapers, in the account of a concert given for 
 a charitable object, in which the excellent Duchess 
 de Contay is interested, under the consecrated head- 
 ing, "Among those present we noticed, etc." And, on 
 a recent evening, if you were at the Theatre-Frangais, 
 on the occasion of the first performance of Kene 
 Vincy's poetic drama, "Hannibal," so hotly discussed, 
 you saw Mme. Le Prieux enthroned in the baignoire 
 at the right which has been for many years allotted 
 to the celebrated dramatic critic. She sat in front 
 with the young Countess de Bee-Crispin, and she was 
 more bejewelled, more tightly laced, more elaborately
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 277 
 
 costumed in short, more the "beautiful Mme. Le 
 Prieux " than ever. And if, by any chance, you could 
 have listened to the remarks made in the baignoire oppo- 
 site, by the Molans and the Fauriels, who were also 
 there for the purpose of keeping their rank among 
 "Parisian personalities," you would have heard this 
 world of all artifices and all displays judge, by the 
 mouth of two very pretty women and the two crafty 
 artists, their husbands, the heroic labours of this vet- 
 rane of this sacred battalion. 
 
 " She is marvellous, Mme. Le Prieux," Laurence 
 Fauriel said. " I never saw her more beautiful than 
 she is this evening. Mme. de Bee-Crispin actually looks 
 older than she does. Certainly there are lucky hus- 
 bands! Look at that Le Prieux, common as a man can 
 be, and a bore, and no talent, he marries the Venus 
 of Milo, and she is a good woman, who has never been 
 talked about " 
 
 "And will get him into the Academy some day," 
 said Marie Molan. " Don't you think so, Jacques ? " 
 
 " Why, certainly," replied the playwright-novelist. 
 " He sounded me only the other day as to my intentions, 
 in a way that showed he was thinking of it himself. 
 That is the reason why he has just published that 
 poor stuff that he calls his ' Souvenirs.' There must 
 be at least one book, to give that energetic wife of his 
 the shadow of a shade of pretext. She is capable of 
 recruiting fifteen votes for him and he such a bore!
 
 278 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 What a nice woman she is, though ; and what a pity 
 she should be handicapped like that!" 
 
 "She is fichtrement belle, all the same," observed 
 Fauriel, whose aspect of a gentleman having a London 
 tailor has never been able to cure him of studio slang 
 unless, indeed, that is his way of making himself pleas- 
 ing to the fashionable ladies whose portraits he paints. 
 And, with his artistic eye, he analyzed Mme. Le Prieux 
 through his opera-glass. " Such a beautiful outline of 
 head ! And how it is set on the neck ! What a curve of 
 the frontal arch ! How that woman is built ! At sixty 
 at seventy, if she doesn't grow fat, she will still be 
 superb. It is in the blood ! Her daughter was so 
 pretty ; what became of her ? " 
 
 " She is living in the south ; she married that young 
 cousin we used to see sometimes at their house," re- 
 joined Laurence Fauriel; "it was an absurd marriage 
 and a great grief to the mother a rash act, that the 
 silly girl must be sorry enough for by this time. She 
 was in Paris a few days last autumn. I met her. She 
 is as pretty as ever ; but it is quite plain that Mme. Le 
 Prieux no longer sees to her gowns." 
 
 " Heine in Paris for some days, and you did not 
 tell me!" exclaimed Mme. Molan. "And she did not 
 come to see me ! That was not nice of her." 
 
 "Nor me either," rejoined Mme. Fauriel; "she has 
 none too much heart. I am not sure that she even 
 loves her mother. If she had loved her, why did she
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LUXURY 279 
 
 not marry here, among her mother's circle of acquaint- 
 ances ? And such an excellent mother, too ! " 
 
 " The girl was probably envious of her," said Jacques 
 Molan, by way of concluding the subject. This writer, 
 always an imitator, this finished type of the arriviste 
 and prqftteur, whom we have known in his novels and 
 plays as successively naturalistic, psychological, con- 
 cerned with fashionable life, then with eroticism, then 
 with social questions, appears to have adopted definitively 
 that tone of the superior scoffer who tranquilly observes 
 the infamy of human nature. He made no account of 
 his remark, as if this were in the current order, and 
 then, with another glance at the baignoire of the 
 Le Prieux, he added, "Besides, the girl might take 
 after her father. Ladies," he continued, " let us 
 follow the play ; it is probably very good just now, for 
 that old hack of a Le Prieux pretends to be absent 
 and pay no attention." 
 
 And absent he was, in truth, the husband of the 
 "beautiful Mme. Le Prieux," so justly named an "old 
 hack " by one of the masters of the realistic school, him- 
 self so magnanimous, so considerate, so indulgent to 
 other men's talent ! Hector was, indeed, hundreds of 
 miles away from the baignoire where his wife enjoyed 
 her triumph, and from the one where these remarks 
 were interchanged between these two poor mercantis of 
 art and their wives leagues and leagues distant from 
 the scene where soulless actors were delivering before
 
 280 OTHEK PEOPLE'S LUXURY 
 
 this blase" public the skilfully fabricated lines of the 
 most famous of the poetic carpenters of to-day. The 
 dramatic critic in thought was sitting in the little salon 
 of the mas, watching Eeine's smile, which came to him 
 from far away so sweet, so tender, somewhat sad 
 because of their separation, but so grateful ! This vision 
 was enough to send inexpressible happiness through 
 the old journalist's veins and all the more because he 
 observed, when they entered the theatre this evening, 
 that his wife's beauty again received the homage of 
 admiration which is still so precious to her. With half- 
 closed eyes, he sits unmindful of all the articles that 
 he must write to complete the payment of their debts 
 and there are still over three thousand dollars to be 
 paid! He forgets the shower of hostile notices that 
 greeted his modest volume of " Souvenirs." He forgets 
 the arm-chair under the dome, and the computation of 
 the academic votes with which Mathilde again occupied 
 herself on the way to the theatre. He forgets his 
 weariness over the worthless page and his incurable 
 regret over abandoned art. He forgets all in the 
 intense pleasure of feeling that the two he loves are 
 happy, each in her own way, and that it is he who has 
 made them happy. No, his life has not been a failure ! 
 He was right in saying to his daughter, that he has 
 realized his Ideal. He came to Paris, as he said, to be 
 a poet. And who is a poet, if he is not ? 
 1899 - FEBRUARY 1900
 
 Ill 
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS
 
 Ill 
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 I 
 
 THE TALISMAN 
 
 THE story I am about to relate was told me by one of 
 the most celebrated artists of our time, one also most 
 hostile to all efforts for notoriety, all self-advertisement, 
 all confidential disclosure. I shall not give his name, not 
 wishing to ask the permission, which he would doubtless 
 refuse me, to repeat this anecdote, although it concerns 
 his very early youth. I shall observe the same reticence 
 as to the character of his talent whether he is sculptor 
 or painter, musician or architect, poet or dramatist. My 
 absolute silence upon this point seems to me to authorize 
 a narrative which carries with it a very human lesson, 
 for it deals with the psychology of childhood, and hence 
 with educational psychology. I remember that this was 
 my motive in writing down, as I did at once, this confi- 
 dence at some points puerile, at others somewhat too 
 minute in detail of a man who, as a rule, very seldom 
 enters the confessional. I saw in it a proof, and a strik- 
 
 283
 
 284 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 ing one, of these two truths : one, that the evil passions 
 of the man already exist, in their germ and ready to 
 awaken, in the innocence of the child ; the other, that the 
 surest remedy against these precocious vices lies in the 
 high-mindedness of the mature educator. 
 
 I will add, to give this narration its exact setting, that 
 the artist who related it to us had just obtained one of 
 his most brilliant successes. On this occasion a comrade 
 of his early days had basely slandered him in a newspaper. 
 He had been the first to mention this article to us. 
 When the conversation extended itself to the subject 
 of envy, that odious passion which is the professional 
 vice of those who aspire to fame, we all began denying, 
 more or less sincerely, that we had ever experienced it, 
 when, to our great surprise, our comrade, whom we knew 
 to be so generous in his renown, so enthusiastic as to 
 his rivals' talent, so remote from the meanness of petty 
 rivalries, interrupted us by saying, "Well, as for me, I 
 was born envious, I may as well confess it. And it is 
 just that fact which makes me indulgent toward such 
 fellows as " naming his defamer. "When I read a 
 thing like that and am on the point of being angry, I 
 remind myself of a shameful act I once committed my- 
 self, through envy ; and if I had not then met, to make 
 me ashamed of it, one of those right-minded persons 
 whom you never can forget, who can tell to what a 
 height this vile instinct of hatred at sight of another's 
 happiness would have grown within me! I will not
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 285 
 
 make myself out any better than I am. I find this 
 instinct still in the depths of my soul at wicked minutes. 
 And I go home, and I look at a talisman that this man 
 left me. Here it is," he added, pointing to a bronze 
 statuette on his writing-table, which served at the time 
 as a paper-weight. "It is a Hermes, as you see, the 
 Psychopomp, Leader of Souls. His gesture and his cadu- 
 ceus indicate this. You shall see that, for me, he is well 
 named. It is probably a Roman reproduction of a rather 
 fine Greek original. For thirty-nine years I have always 
 had this bibelot with me, and I am now fifty years old, 
 which shows that the base act of which I am thus forever 
 reminded dates back to my eleventh year." We were 
 amazed at this date, which contrasted too violently with 
 the severity of the language our comrade had used. He 
 replied by a confession that I give in his own words, un- 
 changed except by the omission of two or three details 
 which would designate too clearly the scene and the 
 hero of this childish tragedy; and may he pardon 
 this indiscretion of his friend and listener! 
 
 As I have just said to you, the souvenirs evoked 
 for me by this little bronze are connected with my 
 early childhood, that is to say, with the years immedi- 
 ately following the establishment of the Empire. I 
 was living at that time in a little city of central
 
 286 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 France, -which had distinguished itself by its Republi- 
 can fervour in 1848. It distinguished itself by its 
 Bonapartist fervour in 1855, to the extreme indigna- 
 tion of a few persons, of which number was the 
 uncle who had charge of my education. This maternal 
 uncle taught mathematics in the Faculte of the little 
 city. He was unmarried, and my parents, living in 
 the country, had intrusted me to him under the 
 avowed pretext that he should superintend my studies ; 
 but really with the secret hope that later he would 
 make me his heir. This excellent man who, as the 
 saying is, would not have hurt a fly, was an ardent 
 Jacobin, in whom the Revolution of February had ex- 
 cited a real frenzy of hope; and the coup d'etat of 
 the second of December that healthful sewerage 
 scheme which we all dream of had struck him like 
 a personal misfortune. I smile when I remember 
 the amazing conversations to which I listened, baby 
 that I was, between this dear uncle and his friends, 
 worthy professors like himself for the most part, 
 who, being burdened with families or else merely 
 enamoured of their profession, had been obliged to 
 take oath under the new regime and swear fealty to 
 the tyrant! They avenged themselves for this harm- 
 less formality by calling, in classic wise, a Tiberius 
 and a Nero, the easy-going Caesar who at that time 
 dreamed at the Tuileries. They extolled as prophets 
 all the dangerous or grotesque Utopians, of revolution-
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 287 
 
 ary socialism: the Fouriers, the Saint Simons, the 
 Proudhons, the Louis Blancs. These pedagogues, these 
 functionaries, these townsfolk, lamented that the Feb- 
 ruary government had been deficient in Terrorist en- 
 ergy meanwhile placidly correcting exercises, if they 
 taught in the lycee, or superintending baccalaureate ex- 
 aminations, if in the Faculte. At the time, my childish 
 imagination, nourished upon the De Viris, made me 
 regard these words as sublime, and these characters 
 as grand. Their pathetic comedy amuses me at this 
 distance, as I recall them one after another 
 the associate professor of history, M. Andre, known 
 as the Barbarian, on account of the thesis on Theo- 
 dora which he was preparing; his namesake, M. 
 Andre, the physicist, called Andre phi, to distinguish 
 him from the other ; M. Martin, the Hellenist, disre- 
 spectfully called "the Idler." I see especially my 
 old uncle's alter ego, Dr. Leon Pacotte, professor of 
 obstetrics in the medical Faculte the man from 
 whom I received this talisman against envy, this little 
 Hermes, "Leader of Souls." 
 
 This old doctor, an old man then, he was seventy 
 at that time, remains in my memory a whimsical fig- 
 ure so long and lean he was, with a hatchet face, 
 which an endless nose bestridden by round-eyed spec- 
 tacles would have rendered a very caricature had it 
 not been for the look in his eyes, which were black, 
 in a pale, almost bloodless face. Such power of will
 
 288 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 emanated from them, such intellect also, and such 
 goodness, that merely to meet those brilliant eyes 
 froze the mocking, boyish laugh upon my lips. His 
 pallid skin, his narrow, bony shoulders, the emacia- 
 tion of his body and limbs, betrayed in the old man 
 a feeble temperament, kept alive by a miracle of 
 regime. He lived to boast of both. How often I 
 have heard him say, 
 
 "Dupuytren, my teacher, gave me up as phthisic 
 when he took me as interne in my twenty-first year. 
 I buried him in 1835. Broussais, the great Broussais, 
 agreed in this diagnosis. I buried him in 1838. 
 Orpila said the same. I buried him in 1853." 
 
 And he would laugh quietly, with the sarcastic 
 laugh of the old practitioner vaunting the superiorities 
 of his own method. How did this excellent man rec- 
 oncile such strange, grave-digger's joy at his own 
 survival, with his tenderness of heart, his ardent devo- 
 tion in friendship ? Let him solve this problem who 
 can. As for me, I feel to this day the little shiver 
 that ran through me when he would lay his big 
 doctor's hand upon my shorn schoolboy head, his 
 bony fingers exhaling that surgical odour that no 
 amount of soap ever entirely dissipates, that musty 
 hospital smell ' compounded of iodine and aromatic 
 wine and phenol and chloroform all combined, and 
 his old experience would begin to indoctrinate my youth- 
 ful thoughtlessness.
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 289 
 
 "You are like your grandfather," he would say; 
 " I knew him well. He was cut out to live a century. 
 He never would listen to me. I used to say to him : 
 the stomach is the arsenal of the body ; eat at regular 
 hours ; never read after eating ; take exercise. He 
 laughed at me. I buried him in 1847. Take warning. 
 Look at me ; I have only one lung ; I have been 
 given up as incurable, and I was incurable. I am 
 alive now because I was determined to live, and I 
 took pains. I measured the capacity of my thorax, 
 and now these fifty-five years, listen to me, I take 
 at each meal just the correct weight of food that the 
 digestive muscles may not have to work to excess. And 
 so in other things." 
 
 And it was true that this astonishing regularity of 
 habits made him a figure of the most picturesque origi- 
 nality. I can see now the sunny dining room where 
 my uncle and I would pay him an unexpected visit 
 now and then, after his breakfast or his dinner. On 
 the sideboard were seven little vials in a row, corked 
 with especial care, into which he poured every Monday 
 just the quantity of old Bordeaux which he should use 
 for the week. I see him, crossing his interminable legs, 
 and under his turned-up trousers the thick leather of the 
 heavy boots which he constantly wore, for fear of the 
 dampness. In winter he wore, outside of the boots, 
 clogs, whose wooden soles clacked on the stone steps of 
 our staircase, when he came to visit us. I can still hear,
 
 290 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 after all these years, the old doctor's automatic step. I 
 see his long, brown coat with its velvet collar, the form 
 and colour unvaried throughout my childhood, his eter- 
 nal white cravat, rolled twice around his long neck, 
 above which appeared the two round corners of his shirt- 
 collar, his tall hat, lustreless and broad-brimmed, and 
 the knitted mittens that he wore over his leather gloves. 
 And, especially, I see the salon, where, on Sunday 
 afternoon, there met a real club of free-thinkers and 
 Jacobins, consisting of my uncle, the professors hostile 
 to the Empire, and a few lawyers, landowners, and gen- 
 tlemen of means, who shared the radicalism of the mas- 
 ter of the house. Again, how mysterious that this ju- 
 dicious hygienist, all observation and all realism, should 
 profess in politics doctrines the most contrary to experi- 
 ence ! I have observed this phenomenon so many times 
 in the case of other doctors that I ought not to be sur- 
 prised at it any longer, and yet I always am surprised. 
 This anomaly was the -more remarkable in the case of 
 Dr. Pacotte, because this irreconcilable hater of kings 
 and priests, this frantic admirer of the fanatics of the 
 convention, who spoke of Danton, Saint Just, and Robes- 
 pierre, that triumvirate of sanguinary brigands, with 
 idolatry, was, at the same time, an ardent lover of old 
 France, an amateur and enthusiastic collector of all 
 precious debris of ancient times scattered through our 
 province. His salon was crowded with treasures that 
 he bequeathed to the municipality, making the museum
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 291 
 
 of this little provincial city one of the richest in our 
 country. It was there that my boyish eyes were first 
 caressed by the warm, brilliant colours of Limoges 
 enamels. The doctor had fifteen plaques, representing 
 scenes of the Passion, all of the best period, that of the 
 high altar of Grandmont, with those beautiful grounds 
 the colour of lapis lazuli, those draperies of a soft water- 
 green, that red-brown of hair and beard framing the 
 soft flesh tint of the faces. Where did he discover this 
 treasure ? No one knows. Where, those magnificent 
 episcopal chairs carved by some fine Burgundian artist 
 of the fifteenth century ? Where, those panels of 
 painted wood that the piety of some noble in the reign 
 of Charles VIII must have brought back from Italy ? 
 Where, that tapestry which perhaps had adorned the 
 tent of one of the followers of Charles the Bold? He 
 was reticent about his purchases, as a true lover about 
 his lady's favours. Moreover, researches in one of 
 Caesar's camps, in our neighbourhood, had given him 
 an interest in Roman things, and a glass case contained 
 a quantity of small objects in bronze, turned green by 
 the passage of time, gold jewels friable and, as it were, 
 bleached out by use, discoloured pottery, rings with 
 combats engraved on the stone, heads of terra-cotta 
 statuettes, in short, a mass of bibelots, some extremely 
 rare, among which once figured this Hermes you shall 
 hear in what circumstances, and also why it did not 
 remain in the collection.
 
 292 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 ii 
 
 It was in this familiar salon, and in the afternoon of 
 a fine October Sunday, that I met for the first time the 
 being who was destined to inspire me with this passion 
 of envy in all its unjust wrath a passion that seems 
 even more than commonly hateful in a child. It is 
 explained, it is almost excused in some unhappy creature 
 who, in old age, takes revenge for fate's humiliations 
 by insulting the happiness of others. But a child ? 
 Well, I believe from my own experience that a child 
 can be envious of another child as a grown man is 
 envious of another man, with the same savage irrita- 
 tion in the presence of advantages which he does not 
 possess. You will judge as to this. I have still before 
 my eye the autumnal colouring of that radiant October 
 Sunday, when I first was seized by this evil feeling. 
 The vision of it is all blue and tawny the in- 
 tense azure of the sky, and, relieved against it, in 
 warm brown masses, the foliage, already withered but 
 still intact, of the chestnut trees of the promenade. My 
 uncle had taken me with him, as usual, to Dr. Pacotte's 
 house. I knew that an event was to occur there that 
 afternoon which these gentlemen considered important : 
 the presentation to them of a personage whose name even 
 to-day is probably not quite unknown a M. Montescot, 
 author of two or three carefully studied articles upon 
 public instruction under the old regime. At that period
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 293 
 
 this man enjoyed a species of fame in the little univer- 
 sity world in which I lived. He had, at the time of the 
 coup d'etat, given in his resignation with all possible 
 publicity, and quitted the chair of philosophy which he 
 held, though a very young man, in the lycee Louis-le- 
 Grand in Paris, after an address of protest delivered to 
 his pupils. This tirade would have consigned him to 
 prison, if the imperial government had been the tyranny 
 that my uncle and his friends stigmatized weekly among 
 the radical doctor's bibelots. Instead of this, his dis- 
 missal sufficed. Montescot was a native of our town. 
 He had distant cousins there, of the same name with 
 himself. It was quite natural that he should return 
 thither. But for maniacs of persecution, like the 
 habitues of the Pacotte salon, this arrival of the dis- 
 missed philosopher became at once some dark machina- 
 tion of the nation's oppressors. 
 
 " They prevent him from earning his bread in Paris," 
 solemnly remarked M. Andre, the Barbarian ; " ah ! the 
 brigands ! " then added in a tone of mystery, " Fortu- 
 nately Tacitus already lives in the Empire." This 
 quotation, which frequently recurred in the worthy 
 man's talk, signified that the Professor of History was 
 preparing an essay on the Twelve Caesars, full of the 
 severest allusions to the present regime. 
 
 " They feared his eloquence," replied Andre phi, a 
 comrade of Montescot at the iScole Normale. This 
 brotherhood with the martyr gave him importance.
 
 294 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 "If you had heard him speak! At the school, we 
 were not suspected, we scientific students, of a partiality 
 for the students of literature, and especially for the 
 philosophers. We used to call them chatterers. But 
 he ! Ah, he ! " and seeking a term of comparison, the 
 physicist, who in all history knew only the Revolution, 
 added, thinking to decree a wreath to his friend, "He 
 is a Vergniaud!" 
 
 " They will be punished," interrupted my uncle, whose 
 Republican convictions, exalted spiritual nature, and 
 constant astronomical studies had fused themselves into 
 a marvellously imaginative conception of the migration 
 of souls to the stars. Each would inhabit an inferior 
 or a superior star, according to his virtues ; and the 
 gentle savant conscientiously peopled with virtuous 
 Jacobins the plains of Jupiter, where reigns an eternal 
 springtime, and with infamous reactionaries the regions, 
 torrid or glacial, of Venus, which has no temperate zone. 
 "Yes," he continued, "they will be punished, on this 
 planet or another, and Montescot will be rewarded. 
 The Absolute cannot but be right." 
 
 "Meanwhile," concluded Dr. Pacotte, who, while a 
 good Republican, was even a better materialist, "since 
 we are neither in Jupiter nor in Saturn, and since 
 the Absolute would not concern itself with keeping 
 Montescot in food, I propose, to-morrow, to seek pupils 
 for him among my patients. Is your friend married ? " 
 And on the negative reply of M. Andre phi, "Then we
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 295 
 
 will make life very easy for him, in spite of prefect, 
 rector, and police. You will bring him to me as soon 
 as he arrives, will you not, Andre ? If they thought 
 they should bring him down by persecution, they will 
 find they were mistaken ! " 
 
 After talk like this, do I need to explain what a place, 
 in my childish dreams, was at once taken by this modern 
 Cato, this contemporary Thrasea, this Seneca of Louis- 
 le-Grand, pursued by those mysterious torturers, whom 
 I imagined as presided over by the executioner-in-chief, 
 poor Napoleon III, whose benign face, seen on coins, 
 bewildered me a little, certainly child though I was. 
 But I had, for my uncle and his friends, a foolishly 
 credulous respect that outweighed evidence. And then, 
 strange as this aberration may appear, these worthy 
 men were perfectly sincere in believing themselves 
 crushed by a regime that left them thus free of opinion 
 and of speech. As the sincerity of grown persons 
 acts in the most contagious manner upon the young, 
 when the arrival of the proscribed Montescot was 
 announced for the coming Sunday, I passed the week 
 in a real fever of imaginative expectation. It must 
 be that this was a very strong habit in my character; 
 for I have felt almost the same feverish impatience and 
 ardour every time in my life when I have been expect- 
 ing to meet a person whose talent I admired, and 
 almost every time I have felt the same sudden dis- 
 appointment which was inflicted upon me at the house
 
 296 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 of Dr. Pacotte, when the man entered around whose 
 brow I had distinctly seen the martyr's halo. 
 
 M. Montescot was a man of thirty -five, who looked 
 forty-five, with a pensive, pitiful face which showed 
 the suffering caused by enfeebled health. He was 
 short, with bent shoulders, and he was already bald. 
 An invincible timidity gave awkwardness to his every 
 movement, still further augmented by very marked 
 myopia, and the eye-glasses which he wore were always 
 insecure upon his very short nose. I have since heard 
 that there was a little Russian blood in his veins, 
 and he had in fact that half-Asiatic type of face, broad 
 and somewhat flat, which is so often found among the 
 Slavs. But the physicist who was his introducer, 
 after having been his herald, had told the truth : this 
 pitiable face became transfigured when the man spoke. 
 Nature, so capricious in the distribution of her powers, 
 had given him the organ of a great orator, one of 
 those enchanting voices which are a music to the ear, 
 and irresistibly persuasive in their fascination. There 
 lay the absolute superiority of this incomplete man. 
 This also must have been the reason of his inefficiency. 
 The long years of his exile, which might have been 
 fruitful, were to be passed in the country, talking 
 instead of writing, overflowing in interminable talk, at 
 my uncle's house, at the house of Dr. Pacotte, wherever 
 his audience vibrated in sympathy, instead of preparing 
 himself by strenuous study for the almost certain return
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 297 
 
 to power of his party. But it was only later that 
 the personality of Montescot was thus outlined in 
 ray thoughts ; at the moment I had only a confused 
 impression of disappointment, immediately dominated 
 and driven out by another, of astonishment, interest, 
 and curiosity. The newcomer led by the hand a boy, 
 evidently of just my age, whose existence had never 
 been mentioned in the conversations that had gone on 
 around me in the last few days. 
 
 "I take the liberty to bring with me my ward," he 
 said simply to Dr. Pacotte, " not to leave him alone at 
 home." 
 
 " And you did right," the doctor replied ; " he will 
 have a little comrade. What is his name ? " 
 
 "My name is Octave," said the boy himself. 
 
 " Very well, Octave," replied our host, laying the 
 boy's hand upon my arm. "Here is a little fellow 
 with whom you will make a pair of friends. Go play in 
 the garden." 
 
 in 
 
 What family tie united the charming boy, who at 
 once went down with me into the doctor's great garden, 
 to the expelled professor who presented him to us as 
 his ward ? Certain details occur to me now which lead 
 me to believe that this self-announced guardianship 
 concealed the fact of paternity. Though Octave was
 
 298 CHILDEEN'S HEARTS 
 
 as graceful and distinguished as M. Montescot was 
 awkward and clumsy, there were marked resemblances 
 between them: the colour of the eyes, which was the 
 same in both, a very light blue, almost gray; that of 
 the hair, a reddish blond; the slightly flattened form 
 of the face ; and the voice especially, with very similar, 
 almost identical intonation. And still, if the boy was, 
 as I think, the son of the philosopher, he was illegiti- 
 mate, and once again passion had wrought this miracle 
 of a transfigured heredity. All the mother's grace must 
 have passed into the child. What mother? How 
 could this man, of high intellectual qualities, but so 
 very unattractive, have found a mistress who could 
 have given him a son of such beauty? What had 
 become of her? Why had not this disciple of Kant 
 made her his wife ? To these enigmas no answer was 
 ever given. It is probable that this woman's death 
 had been coincident with Montescot's return into the 
 country, obligingly attributed to imperial tyranny by 
 my uncle and his friends. I must do justice to these 
 good people, in whom political fanaticism was a form 
 of simple-mindedness if they suspected that M. Mon- 
 tescot was not speaking the truth in introducing his 
 ward as an orphan, a distant relative of his own, they 
 never allowed themselves to speak of it, even to each 
 other. Yes, they were good people ; and as I think of 
 them, I see what a strong and substantial France this old 
 provincial bourgeoisie would yet give us, had not the
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 299 
 
 revolutionary error, within the last century, misdirected 
 the action of so many virtues ! 
 
 But I return to this October afternoon in the doctor's 
 garden. It was a kind of park, half uncultivated, and 
 enclosed by walls. It, as well as the house, had 
 once belonged to a Capuchin monastery, suppressed 
 near the end of the last century. The old doctor re- 
 tained this ground from the same hygienic motives 
 which actuated all his conduct on account of its 
 exposure to the sun and its fine tall trees, whose faded 
 foliage, on that Sunday afternoon, made a fairy scene 
 of crimson and gold. Just as we reached the flight of 
 steps, I felt a little impulse of vanity leading me to 
 say to Octave, "Do you want to see how many steps 
 I can jump ? " And with that I ran down two or three 
 and leaped the rest. I looked back toward my new 
 companion, who was standing at the top; I expected 
 some expression of surprise from him, for I had been 
 rather afraid to take the leap, and considered myself 
 very brave for having ventured it. Octave, however, 
 did not express admiration by any word or gesture ; 
 but with amazement I beheld him, his feet close to- 
 gether, his arms stretched forward in the classic atti- 
 tude recommended to us by our teacher of gymnastics, 
 prepare for his spring, bend his legs twice, and, at the 
 third time, leap the whole flight. He had not, as I 
 had done, reduced the distance by running down the 
 first three or four steps. Having accomplished this feat,
 
 300 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 which was really a feat for a child of his size and age, 
 his pride manifested itself only by a look, to which I 
 replied with the uncontrollable cry of all wounded van- 
 ity, " I can do it, too ! " and ran up the steps. Ah ! how 
 long they looked to me ! But I met my companion's 
 gaze, and I jumped in my turn. Was it awkwardness 
 produced by fear of failure ? Or was the distance really 
 too great for me ? My feet struck on the lower steps, 
 and instead of landing upright, I rolled down upon the 
 gravel of the walk, bruised and bleeding, my trousers 
 torn, in short, having had a fall which might have 
 broken both legs, but from which children, like drunken 
 men, rise whole, though with many bruises. Octave 
 was at my side pale with alarm. His voice trembled 
 as he said, " You haven't hurt yourself ? " 
 
 " Not at all," said I, picking myself up ; and to prove 
 the truth of this heroic lie I began running about in 
 the garden, though it hurt me badly to move. But the 
 humiliation had been too great, and a feeling of real 
 hatred throbbed in my heart against my young com- 
 panion, whose sweet nature showed itself, however, in 
 the silence that he maintained as to the character of my 
 fall, when we went indoors after having played in the 
 garden awhile, and I said, to account for my bruises and 
 the state of my clothes, that I had slipped on the steps. 
 
 " How do you like your new companion ? " my uncle 
 asked when we were alone Dr. Pacotte, my uncle, and 
 I after the departure of all the others. This was also
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 301 
 
 one of the Sunday customs. These two old bachelors, the 
 mathematician and the doctor, dined, or, as they say in 
 the country, supped, together at half -past five, and they 
 placed me at table between them like some little domes- 
 tic animal whose presence scarcely caused them a thought. 
 What conversations have I thus heard between these 
 two men who lived for ideas only men so admirable 
 when they did not talk politics ! I was not old enough 
 to understand their superiority. I felt it, I breathed it 
 in like an atmosphere, and it was the best, the most effect- 
 ual instruction. When one of my two elderly friends 
 spoke to me, I usually replied with entire confidence 
 with that openness of heart so natural to a well-treated 
 child. It must have been that the evil germ of antipa- 
 thy deposited in my schoolboy heart by this first mis- 
 adventure with the ward of M. Montescot was already 
 germinating, and also that I was vaguely conscious of it, 
 for I experienced for the first time in my life an instinc- 
 tive embarrassment in saying what I thought. I mum- 
 bled a few evasive words, in which I criticised Octave, 
 while my cheeks grew hot, and it seemed to me was 
 it an illusion? that the doctor's look, that singular 
 look of the diagnostician, so acute, so reflective, rested on 
 me with a penetration that confused me. It was but a 
 flash ; and at once, to my uncle's further question, " You 
 will be kind to him in school, will you promise me ? " I 
 replied, " Oh, yes ! " with sudden and sincere eagerness. 
 How complex and how contradictory are these childish
 
 302 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 feelings that a prejudiced person believes so simple ! I 
 felt an almost physical need to have that look, which I 
 could not have defined, disappear from the eyes of Dr. 
 Pacotte ; it was as if he had distinctly read in me some- 
 thing shameful, of which I had not myself been aware. 
 
 IV 
 
 I have dwelt upon this first episode in my acquaint- 
 ance with Octave because it contains the complete 
 type of his character and mine at that period of our 
 existence. The little drama enacted between us on those 
 garden steps was as the image, altogether puerile 
 our joint ages amounted to twenty-four years of 
 the relations of rivalry which at once established them- 
 selves between us. Is it true that a proud boy, feeling 
 himself in an exceptional situation, develops exceptional 
 energy also? I have often thought this, in observing 
 the efforts of which very poor lads are capable. In no 
 case have I ever seen stronger or more constant efforts 
 toward superiority than in Octave's. He was a boy of 
 only ordinary mental ability and physical vigour; but 
 he had, young as he was, a power of applying his will to 
 the present action and a kind of cool persistency which 
 placed him above all rivalry, in the matter of studies as 
 well as in the matter of sports. He was even at that 
 time a mature person, whereas our other comrades and 
 myself were still only rough sketches of our future
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 303 
 
 selves. I do not know what he would have become had 
 he lived ; and, indeed, this supposition is not open to 
 consideration. He could not live ; maturity is in all cre- 
 ation the end, and Octave from his eleventh year was a 
 matured soul. We perceived this as soon as he entered 
 our class, and in the first answers that he gave to the 
 master. His actual knowledge in Latin and Greek was 
 no greater than ours, but it had in his mind and in his 
 words a clearness, precision, and, so to speak, certainty, 
 which placed him at once in an exceptional rank. It 
 was the same in his written work. We had been given 
 for translation into French a page of Livy of consider- 
 able difficulty for the class. The preceding year, I had 
 obtained the prize for translation from Latin, and I felt 
 that the first place in this game was mine by right. I 
 remember it well. When we came out of school, one 
 Tuesday morning, after the work was done, I asked Oc- 
 tave to let me compare his translation with mine. He 
 handed me his exercise-book, containing the first draft of 
 his work, and its mere appearance revealed the precocious 
 manliness of the boy. The handwriting was so strong, so 
 legible, so finished! The absence of erasures attested 
 his capacity for doing his work mentally, while the 
 rest of us did ours with corrections written in. I felt, 
 merely at sight of the page, that he must have succeeded 
 better than I. I read what he had written, and if he 
 had not been there I should have wept with vexation 
 to find that in truth his translation was far superior to
 
 304 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 mine. This vexation rankled in my heart all the week 
 until Saturday, the day when the head-master went 
 through the classes announcing the result. I usually 
 awaited the coming of this formidable authority with 
 much anxiety. This anxiety was actually painful on 
 that Saturday, and when he unfolded the list and 
 began to read it, I would have been glad to escape 
 from the great room where we stood to hear, Octave his 
 victory, for he was first, I my defeat, for I was only 
 third; and a manifest proof that it was indeed Octave 
 who excited my jealousy, he personally I felt not the 
 slightest bitterness toward the other schoolmate who, 
 ranking second, had also defeated me. How did I feel 
 when on the day following that fatal occasion, Sunday, 
 I found myself with my fortunate rival in Dr. Pacotte's 
 salon ? I still can hear my uncle's voice, complimenting 
 M. Montescot on his ward's brilliant delnit, as he said, 
 
 " My nephew has a strong opponent to encounter, it 
 appears." 
 
 "That is well," rejoined M. Andre, the physicist; 
 " the schools in Paris are what they are because of this 
 competition of good scholars." 
 
 " They will be Nisus and Euryalus," remarked M. An- 
 dre", the Barbarian, who did not scorn quotations from 
 Latin. 
 
 " His amor unus erat, pariterque in bella ruebant." 
 
 I knew enough Latin to translate this line on the 
 friendship of the two young Vergilian heroes, and their
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 305 
 
 fraternal sympathy in their strife. But the feelings in- 
 spired in me by the schoolboy Euryalus whose Nisus I 
 was, according to the simple-minded professor, were of a 
 very different character. Hardly could I endure the 
 chorus of praises of which he was the object, and again I 
 had to encounter Dr. Pacotte's eyes, fixed upon me with 
 that same surgical acuteness, going to the very bottom of 
 my conscience, and again causing me shame. Then, 
 as if he had really possessed the gift of reading my 
 youthful sensitiveness like an open book, he said to 
 me, 
 
 " You must go and show my butterflies to your young 
 friend. I am sure he has not learned to know aboiit 
 them in Paris." And when Octave said that he had not, 
 " Explain them to him," the good doctor continued, turn- 
 ing to me, "you can do it, for you know them as well 
 as I do myself." He was aware that I needed, at that 
 moment, some proof of my superiority to save me from 
 being overpowered with envious rage; and he gave 
 me the opportunity for it. 
 
 Alas ! the trifling gratification afforded to my suffer- 
 ing egoism by the old doctor's intelligent kindness 
 was but brief, and bad luck would have it that my 
 uncle, being a mathematician, united to admirable vir- 
 tues of heart a complete lack of comprehension of human
 
 306 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 realities. When I recur in thought to that winter 
 of 1855-1856, when this evil passion of envy developed 
 so strangely in me its fatal vegetation, I am always con- 
 scious that my poor uncle's awkwardness was, unknown 
 to himself, its most powerful auxiliary. His familiarity 
 with the abstract sciences had given him in education 
 the same fault as in politics : he reasoned, instead of 
 observing. He never suspected that he began immedi- 
 ately to torture me, with his daily eulogy of Octave's 
 perfections as contrasted with my faults. He believed 
 that he could thus improve me, and he did not perceive 
 that, in proposing to me as a model the very boy whose 
 resolute and orderly nature was most opposed to my 
 own, he plunged me deeper into my own faults. I was 
 never more disorderly, more irregular, less painstaking 
 than during this period, by an instinctive reaction 
 against these remarks, incessantly repeated, "Look 
 at Octave. Why don't you keep your exercise-books 
 like his ? Why are you not as punctual as he is ? See 
 how neat he keeps his clothes." And my uncle in- 
 creased still further the disastrous effect of this con- 
 stant comparison by testifying for my little comrade 
 an affection which exasperated my jealousy. He had 
 formed a very strong friendship for M. Montescot. A 
 philosopher and a geometer are naturally made to go 
 astray together, and the two visionaries soon could not 
 do without each other. Both were at work in the morn- 
 ing and walked after the noonday meal. My uncle had
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 307 
 
 been accustomed to take me with him, and these walks 
 had been a delight to me when we were alone with each 
 other. They became a task, and a very sad one, when, 
 every day, M. Montescot and his ward accompanied us. 
 We usually went to call for them, because they were 
 nearer than we to the Botanic Garden where we walked 
 before the afternoon class. The dismissed professor 
 had chosen for his abode a little apartment, furnished 
 dismally with the few poor things that he had brought 
 from Paris. The chairs were few in the four rooms, 
 which had on their floors some old felt carpeting much 
 worn and pieced. And yet, the order and neatness of 
 this little place contrasted with the wilfully careless 
 dress of the metaphysician. My uncle called my atten- 
 tion to this neatness, and imparted to me the secret of 
 it. He had it from our maid-servant, who was friendly 
 with the housekeeper at the Montescots. 
 
 "That little Octave," he had said to me, "is really 
 a remarkably good child. You have noticed now neat 
 his guardian's rooms are ? Every day, when their 
 woman comes, the boy helps her in putting them in 
 order before he goes to the lycee. He finds time pre- 
 viously for his exercises and his lessons. Does it not 
 make you feel ashamed you, who are so reluctant 
 to get up in the morning, and never put even your 
 own table in order?" 
 
 We were just entering this little apartment, which 
 I detested. This very order of the furniture was a
 
 308 CHILDREN'S HEAETS 
 
 mute reproach, to my disorder, and the affectionate 
 gesture with which my uncle smoothed the soft dark 
 curls of his "little friend," as he used to say, was 
 all the more intolerable to me by its contrast with 
 the absolute coldness of M. Montescot toward my- 
 self. All the philosopher's affection was concentrated 
 upon his so-called ward. It was only too natural that, 
 for him, I should not exist. A conversation began 
 between the two men, into which the philosopher did 
 not fail to introduce some words in praise of Octave, 
 which my uncle echoed; I saw an ingenuous grati- 
 tude light up my comrade's face, and I envied him 
 both the praise and the apartment. Yet everything 
 in it spoke of poverty. M. Montescot had found al- 
 most no pupils, notwithstanding Dr. Pacotte's efforts. 
 He made shift to live on a small income, six or 
 seven hundred francs, and his ill-paid labour on some 
 of the vast publishing enterprises which abounded at 
 that time. With these means, there were two to be 
 fed and clothed, and the cost of schooling for the 
 boy. The only luxury in this abode was a small glazed 
 bookcase on whose shelves were a few rare books and 
 five or six objects that the master of the place had 
 brought home from a mission to Italy, at the time when 
 he was in favour with the government. There were 
 two marble heads, a Juno and a Bacchus ; a very fine 
 Etruscan vase with black figures on a red ground, 
 representing the Sphinx between two Thebans; and
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 309 
 
 this bronze, this Hermes Psychopompos, at which I 
 arrive, as you see, by a long way round. These an- 
 tique bibelots were the only adornment of this abode, 
 and their owner's great joy. M. Montescot was very 
 proud of them, and he would now and then say, in 
 his interminable conversations with my uncle on the 
 principles of aesthetics, "If you have observed my 
 Sphinx " or, " You can see that in my Juno " or, 
 " You have the proof of that in my Bacchus " or, " It 
 is so in my Hermes." And he would smile almost as 
 proudly when, on Sundays, at Dr. Pacotte's, he would be 
 asked, 
 
 " Well ! Octave still leads ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And how many times in succession is it?" 
 
 And the guardian, radiant with delight, would 
 reply with a number that increased each week, until 
 the Easter vacation came and with it the announce- 
 ment of what were called the prizes of excellence. In 
 the four years that I had been at school I had always 
 received the first prize. This year I could only expect 
 the second, and how inferior, after Octave's continuous 
 successes ! He had failed but once in obtaining the 
 first place. Although this result, which was only an 
 addition of points, was mathematical, and I expected 
 it with as much certainty as my uncle expected an 
 eclipse of the moon announced by the Observatory, I 
 could not become accustomed to it or patiently accept
 
 310 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 this constant defeat. This evil feeling of revolt was so 
 strong in me that I feigned illness to escape being 
 present on the Saturday when the head-master would 
 read the list of prize winners. I felt that I could not 
 bear it. I passed the whole morning in my bed, com- 
 plaining of headache, which was cured as if by magic 
 when my uncle spoke of sending for Dr. Pacotte. 
 I dreaded the penetrating glance of this old man, who 
 now, as my odious passion grew stronger, nearly always 
 looked at me with severity. The scene is present to me 
 as if it were of yesterday, for it was then that happened 
 the evil deed of which I spoke to you an act which, 
 in the simple region of childish feelings, was absolutely 
 villanous. I can see myself, as soon as my uncle had 
 mentioned the doctor's name, declaring that it was not 
 worth while and that I already felt better. The rather 
 obtuse mathematician had not the time to marvel at 
 this sudden cure, for just at the moment that I sat 
 up in bed, with the intention of rising, the bell rang, 
 quickly and joyfully. 
 
 "Who can that be?" my uncle said. "It is half- 
 past ten. I am sure it is Octave coming to inquire 
 after you as soon as school was out. He is such an 
 affectionate boy, and he is so fond of you! Yes, here 
 he comes, and he has brought your prize. Nobody 
 could be kinder." 
 
 Octave came in at that moment, a book in his hand, 
 the meagre volume which represented my second prize,
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 311 
 
 and of which he had taken charge. He had only gone 
 home for a moment to announce his success to M. 
 Montescot, and he had under his arm the two big 
 gilt-edged books which represented his first prize, from 
 which his quite excusable pride would not allow him to 
 part. But it was not the contrast between his prize and 
 mine which maddened my envy to a real paroxysm. 
 It was when I saw him unfasten from his waistcoat 
 a chain which I had never seen before and take 
 from his pocket an object which, also, I had never 
 before seen, and this was at the end of the chain, and 
 of gold, like the chain a watch, with his monogram 
 on the back. He handed it to me, and said, 
 
 "See the present that my guardian has given me, 
 for my prize ! " 
 
 I held the precious object in my hand. That you may 
 fully understand the feelings agitating me at that mo- 
 ment, I must tell you that the only watch I had was a 
 very ancient silver turnip. To have a watch like this 
 one, whose yellow metal glittered before my eyes, 
 was one of my passionate desires, you know, one of 
 those secret fancies in which the imagination of an 
 eleven-year-old boy envelops infinite felicities. My 
 uncle, when I had spoken to him of this wish, 
 had said to me, "You shall have a gold watch the 
 day you graduate from the lycee. I did not have one 
 till after the Ecole Normale. It is a great luxury, and 
 you must deserve it." The modest professor had in his
 
 312 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 moral make-up that substratum of Jansenism, so com- 
 mon at that time among our middle-class country people. 
 When he had used this word luxury, I knew that his 
 decision was irrevocable. And this treasure, promised 
 for my eighteenth year, as the reward of an examina- 
 tion which appeared to me a very formidable affair, 
 my lucky companion possessed at this present moment ! 
 I could not thank him for the book which he had 
 kindly brought me ; I could not even congratulate him 
 on his success. I returned him the watch with such 
 a sad face that this amiable boy lost sight, for the 
 moment, of his own happiness. He did not take time 
 to put the watch into his pocket again, but laying it 
 on the bedside table so that he might the sooner grasp 
 my hand, he exclaimed, " You are in pain ? What is 
 the matter ? " in a tone that ought to have melted my 
 vile and shameful rancour into affection. Alas ! I have 
 often since observed, in others, that an enemy's gen- 
 erosity almost always has the effect of increasing the 
 hatred that he has inspired. I could see it in my 
 own case, in this crisis, at once tragic and puerile. 
 Octave's evident affection for me was insupportable, 
 and, sinking back upon my pillows, I said, 
 
 " I thought I was better. But I believe I am not. I 
 am very tired " 
 
 " Would you try to sleep ? " my uncle asked, and as 
 I made a sign in the affirmative, the worthy man and 
 Octave said good-by to me. They went away with
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 313 
 
 soft footsteps, after closing the shutters and lowering 
 the curtains, in the hope that darkness would help me 
 to fall asleep. 
 
 I was now alone, in this artificial night broken only 
 by one ray of sunlight appearing where these curtains 
 failed to meet, and I was ill, ah ! how ill I was ! The 
 poisoned bite of envy tortured my soul, and all the 
 incidents in which my rival had unconsciously humili- 
 ated me, returned to me at once. I saw him all at one 
 single glance of my impotent anger seated in school 
 at the honorary desk where the first scholars had their 
 seats, never again to leave it ; running in the school field 
 always more rapidly than I ; saluting my uncle with a 
 grace of manner that contrasted with my awkwardness ; 
 spinning his top with a skill that I could never equal ; 
 and, finally, drawing from his pocket this gold watch 
 which completed the exasperation of my jealous fury. 
 
 And now, in the silence of the darkened room, a 
 sound, at first almost imperceptible so much was it 
 confused with another sound, made me lift my head. 
 I listened. It came from the marble of the bedside 
 table, where I was accustomed to place my old silver 
 turnip. I recognized its tic-tac, rather loud, but doubled 
 as it were by another- tic-tac, more musical, clear, and 
 sharp. It was as if two insects of metal were running, 
 unseen, past my pillow, each with its own step. I 
 lighted a match and looked: Octave's gold watch lay 
 there with its chain. In his distress at seeing me
 
 314 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 suffer the affectionate boy, though so orderly in general, 
 had left it there, forgetting it. 
 
 Yes, the watch was there. Instinctively I seized it 
 with my hand. I felt it palpitating in iny fingers like 
 a living creature ; a sudden fury possessed me, as if it 
 really were alive and in its existence were embodied all 
 the superiorities of him to whom it belonged. Brutally, 
 instinctively, insanely, with a strange feeling of glutting 
 my hatred, I threw the watch with all my strength upon 
 the marble of the little table, and listened. From the 
 floor, where it had fallen, the same tic-tac came up to 
 me, sarcastic now, and like a challenge. The shock 
 had not broken its mainspring. I rose, and opened the 
 curtains that I might see. I picked up the poor watch, 
 whose crystal had been broken by the fall. I placed 
 it on the hearth, and taking the fire-shovel, I began 
 beating the fragile object with frenzied blows. I saw, 
 successively, the hands broken off, the enamel of the 
 face split, the case dented and finally crushed. I kept 
 on with this savage vandalism until only a shapeless 
 fragment remained at the end of the chain. Then, 
 hastily, feverishly, like a malefactor with discovery 
 close on his heels, I rolled the fragments and the chain 
 together in a piece of paper. I listened again. I trem- 
 bled lest I should hear the footsteps of my uncle or of 
 the maid. But there was nothing. In haste I put on 
 my trousers and waistcoat. My window opened upon 
 a little terrace, at whose farther end was the mouth
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 315 
 
 of an immense zinc conduit which collected the rain- 
 water, and delivered it into a cistern built, after the 
 manner usual in this country which has no rivers, under 
 the very foundations of the house. I slipped out as 
 far as this orifice, and dropped into it the little pack- 
 age which might have denounced me. After all these 
 days, I still hear the splash into the cistern of the 
 broken watch and its chain. I returned in haste to 
 my room. I still had presence of mind to pick up the 
 fragments of glass that were on the floor near the bed. 
 Those I merely threw out upon the terrace. I then 
 closed the windows, the inside shutters, the curtains, 
 and I slipped into bed. I was saved. 
 
 VI 
 
 There is certainly in evil a kind of strength which 
 sustains our whole inner nature and breathes into us 
 a hitherto unsuspected energy. Every bad act makes us 
 capable of a worse one. Almost all crimes are explained 
 by this sinister law of progression in wrong-doing, in 
 which Christians see the work of an evil spirit, and the 
 mechanist-psychologists of the present day are pleased 
 to find a resemblance to the acceleration in the fall of 
 heavy bodies. For my part, I do not understand its 
 principle, but I have always felt it in the course of my 
 deviations from the right path as a man and, for the first 
 time, in a striking way, in this moral obliquity as a child.
 
 316 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 I was, by nature, a boy who spoke the truth. My 
 slightest fibs came to light at once by my awkward- 
 ness in telling them. Well ! no great actor could have 
 better played the part of innocence and surprise than 
 I did, perhaps twenty minutes after envy had caused 
 me to commit the act of barbarism that I have related 
 to you. The anxiety as to my illness which had pre- 
 vented Octave from remembering to put the watch back 
 into its fob, had also prevented him from noticing its 
 absence when he was taking leave of my uncle and 
 going downstairs. By chance he met at the door M. 
 Andre, the Barbarian, and walked a few steps with 
 him. When they separated, Octave began to fear that 
 he should be late in reaching home, and it occurred to 
 him to look at his watch. Then, for the first time, he 
 perceived that the watch-pocket was empty. This dis- 
 covery filled him with terror. He retraced his steps, 
 carefully looking on the pavement as he did so, till he 
 reached our door, when suddenly he remembered that 
 he had given me the watch to look at. He ran up 
 our staircase, four steps at a time, with the hope, almost 
 the certainty, of immediately recovering his treasure. 
 Remorse began to spring up in me, at sight of his 
 charming face full of anxiety and distress, when, my 
 uncle and he having entered my room, I pretended to 
 awaken from sleep, and when, the window being opened, 
 nothing was to be seen on my bedside table but the 
 silver turnip, my own. I spoke to you just now of the
 
 CHILDHEN'S HEARTS 317 
 
 strength of evil. Would you believe that I was hypo- 
 critical enough to rise, to look in my bed and under it, 
 to shake the bedclothes and the pillow, and finally to 
 say, after all this search, 
 
 " It seems to me as if you put the watch back into your 
 pocket. In that case, you must have hooked the chain 
 carelessly. At any rate, it is not here." 
 
 " Yes, that is it," Octave replied ; " I must have been 
 careless about hooking the chain ; " then with a tone that 
 very nearly wrung from me the confession of my base 
 act, he continued, "and what shall I say to my guar- 
 dian who took so much pleasure in giving me the watch 
 this morning ? No, I never shall dare to see him again ; 
 I had had the watch only two hours, and I have lost it ! 
 Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! " 
 
 He began to cry, and his big tears seemed to fall upon 
 my heart and burn as they fell. I have been sufficiently 
 explicit as to my bad feelings to have the right to tell you 
 that I did not experience, in the presence of this grief, 
 the hateful satisfaction of triumphant envy in seeing its 
 victim suffer. In glutting my anger, I had exhausted it, 
 and now I was horrified at my own work. Still, shame 
 was again stronger than penitence, and I had made no 
 confession when Octave went away, accompanied by my 
 uncle. 
 
 " We must go to the police at once," my good uncle had 
 said, " and report the loss. Then I will go home with you 
 to M. Montescot, and I promise you you shall not be
 
 318 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 scolded. You are the chief sufferer from your careless- 
 ness. But it is incredible. The street is paved. If your 
 watch fell to the ground, it must have made a noise. 
 Besides, you know exactly where you lost it, for you had 
 it when you were at our house. Somewhere between our 
 house and M. Andre's. Unless some one has stolen it ? 
 But who?" 
 
 " Some one stole it from him, no doubt," said Dr. Pa- 
 cotte the next day, when the incident quite an event 
 for the little group of M. Montescot's friends was dis- 
 cussed at his house. It was the usual Sunday session, 
 but the philosopher and his ward were absent. They 
 had been expecting to be absent for a week at Easter, 
 visiting friends in the mountains. They had carried out 
 their plan, notwithstanding the loss of the watch, com- 
 mitting to my uncle the care of keeping them informed 
 as to the efforts made for its recovery. This absence had 
 been a great relief to me. I could not have endured to 
 meet my comrade in the presence of the doctor. I knew 
 the latter to be so clear-sighted that I always was afraid 
 of his glance, even when innocent. How, then, could I 
 bear it when guilty ? While he repeated these words, 
 " Some one has stolen it," I was sure that those pene- 
 trating eyes were fixed upon me, although, apparently 
 absorbed in a book of engravings, I had turned away 
 my head. " To rob these poor people was doubly abomi- 
 nable. To give the boy a gold watch, M. Montescot must 
 have deprived himself of so much ! And we know how
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 319 
 
 little of the superfluous there is in his life. The person 
 who has stolen this watch can have only one excuse, 
 that he did not know this. If he knew it at all, he would 
 be a monster ! " 
 
 No ! It was not possible that the old doctor could be 
 thinking of me when he said these things. Yet why did 
 his words seek out, in the depths of my consciousness, the 
 wounded spot, and redouble the remorse that grew and 
 grew in my soul ? Why did his face express, when I met 
 his eyes, a severity more displeased than ever ? Was 
 it enough for that observer to see me come in, that Sun- 
 day, to divine that I had the weight of a secret upon my 
 heart ? Had he watched me, by stealth, while my uncle 
 related the loss of the watch, and had he noticed that, 
 as the story went on, I turned the pages .of the book 
 more and more nervously ? And this narration of the 
 facts, mentioning that Octave had taken off the watch to 
 let me examine it, did it suggest at once to this judicious 
 thinker the true explanation ? Certain it is that from 
 the mere tone of the old man's voice I felt sure that he 
 already had the idea that I was the culprit. I can still 
 hear him argiiing the matter. 
 
 " Besides, this rascal is not only a monster, he is 
 a fool, like all rascals. Doubtless he does not know 
 that every watch has its number on the case, and so, 
 whenever he should try to sell it, he would be caught." 
 My uncle's best friend believed me a thief, then ! 
 Explain who can the strange subterfuges of human
 
 320 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 pride, always similar, even in a boy eleven years old ! 
 Doubtless it was a very criminal act to have, from 
 envy, destroyed, as I had done, a valuable watch 
 which had cost the ex-professor all his poor savings 
 of a year. But I had not been so vile as he thought. 
 I had not stolen the watch to sell it, and that the 
 doctor believed me capable of an act so infamous 
 made me raise my head indignantly and look him 
 in the face. An outcry of protest was upon my lips, 
 but did not escape them. All the usual Sunday guests 
 were present, and how could I have endured to speak 
 before them? But no, I must have been mistaken, 
 for Dr. Pacotte had already changed the subject of 
 conversation, and neither during the rest of the after- 
 noon nor at supper, when I sat near him, did he 
 make allusion again to the disappearance of Octave's 
 watch. He was, on the contrary, particularly affection- 
 ate toward me, as if he had really calumniated me and 
 owed me a kind of reparation. Explain this, also: 
 his severity for some months had been very painful 
 to me; the unjust suspicion detected in his words had 
 made me indignant; and now his petting was almost 
 more than I could endure. I felt too strongly that I 
 did not merit it. When I went away, I was literally 
 smothered with shame. 
 
 How long would this condition have lasted, with 
 alternative desires to confess and to keep silent? 
 Should I ever have come to the point of revealing to
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 321 
 
 my uncle my misconduct ? or should I have borne 
 this burden upon my soul indefinitely until I should 
 next go to confession, which would be when ? My 
 good uncle being a free-thinker, I fulfilled only the 
 minimum of my religious duties. Who knows ? I 
 might even have lied in this confession, being hardened 
 by my silence, and perhaps by a recrudescence of my 
 envious passion. Fortunately I had near me, in those 
 days of youthful susceptibility, in the person of the 
 old doctor, one of those great connoisseurs in emotional 
 suffering, who seek to do good to those around them 
 less through charity than from an intellectual relish 
 for law, and from a love of health in themselves and 
 those around them. This fanatic of hygiene had for 
 his patients somewhat the feeling that the classic poet 
 attributes to the goddess of wisdom: "I love them 
 as the gardener loves his plants." He was about to 
 treat me as he would a tree in his garden, and use 
 the pruning-knife just where it was needed, that the 
 moral nature, an instant led astray, should again 
 become normal and be healed. But why make any 
 commentary upon this fine, intelligent benevolence ? 
 Kather let me show it to you as it was. 
 
 It was Wednesday afternoon, that is to say, more 
 than four times twenty-four hours had passed since 
 I had committed my misdeed, and, as I had been doing 
 incessantly ever since that moment, I was thinking 
 about it, with that insanity of conjecture that haunts
 
 322 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 a criminal. What if, in sweeping the terrace, any- 
 one should pick up some bit of glass which had escaped 
 my notice, and should recognize it as part of a watch- 
 crystal ? What if it became necessary to clean out the 
 cistern, and the watch itself should be found? If 
 how could I have imagined, among so many possibili- 
 ties, the one which was to be realized, and to efface all 
 traces of my detestable villany ? It rained slightly, 
 and my uncle and I were indoors, he at work before 
 a blackboard on some problem in mathematics, I read- 
 ing, or trying to write. The door-bell announced a 
 visitor. The maid being out, my uncle bade me go 
 to the door. I opened the door with beating heart. It 
 was one of my terrors that the doctor might go to 
 the police to communicate his suspicions. It was 
 the doctor himself, but alone, and with a smile on his 
 lips, kindly but mischievous. He took off his clogs, his 
 muffler, his mittens, carefully and slowly, as his custom 
 was. He wiped his spectacles, clouded by the rain, 
 saying, 
 
 " Bad weather for rheumatic people ! Andre phi 
 sent for me this morning. He is caught by the leg. I 
 said to him, 'You have no disease, you have a 
 wine cellar. No more wine, no more alcohol, no more 
 pain ! ' But it was just so with poor Darian, the head- 
 master. A colossus ! He could have killed me with 
 one blow of his fist. We were born the same day. I 
 buried him in 1845. Without his good wine, he would
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 323 
 
 not have had the gout ; and without the gout, he would 
 be alive now." 
 
 Then, after a quiet laugh, and when my uncle had 
 invited him to take a seat by the fire, he drew, with 
 his long fingers, from the pocket of his everlasting 
 chestnut-colored coat, an object wrapped in paper and 
 began to undo it, saying, "What do you think this 
 is ? It is the Hermes Psychopompos of our friend 
 Montescot. And where do you think I found it ? 
 You must have wondered how the poor man obtained 
 money to buy that gold watch which was stolen from 
 his ward. I did, too. But I inquired into it. I went 
 to two or three watchmakers Is there anything the 
 matter with you ? " he asked me, suddenly breaking 
 off his remarks ; and, in truth, these opening words 
 had made my heart literally stand still. On my reply 
 in the negative, he went on, "At last I laid my hand 
 on old Courault, the jeweller in the rue des Notaires. 
 He did not wait for me to speak. ' Ah ! monsieur le 
 docteur,' he said, just as soon as he saw me, 'I have 
 something for you an antique bronze ; and there ! it 
 is a masterpiece.' With that, he pulls out of his 
 drawer this ! " And the old collector held out to us 
 the bronze statuette, this Hermes, which I at once 
 recognized. "I compelled old Courault to confess," 
 he continued, "and at last I found out how Mon- 
 tescot had been able to give his ward an object 
 of such value. You know what store he sets by those
 
 324 CHILDKEN'S HEARTS 
 
 things in his glass case, his Apollo, his Juno, his 
 Greek vase, this Hermes ? You know, also, how he 
 loves Octave, and how good that boy is ; how his con- 
 duct has been ever admirable since they have lived here ! 
 It seems as if he understood that he ought to make 
 amends to his protector for all that that martyr has 
 suffered for the sake of his faith. Montescot wished 
 to reward so much industry, earnestness, perfection. 
 Probably the boy, who never asks for anything, in 
 passing by Courault's shop may have said, looking at 
 the showcase in the window, 'How I should like to 
 have one of those watches ! ' And this worthy Mon- 
 tescot, instead of coming to me, who would have given 
 a suitable price for this Hermes, simply bartered it 
 for the watch, to give Octave a present which would 
 cause him real pleasure. Well, it was that destitute 
 boy's pleasure, it was that poor, unfortunate man's 
 happiness, that the thief stole with the watch. But 
 what ails you ? " 
 
 "Yes," repeated my uncle, turning to me; "what 
 ails you ? " 
 
 Convulsive sobs shook me, through which I cried 
 out, " No, doctor, I did not steal it ! I did not 
 steal it!" 
 
 " You did not steal it ? " said the doctor, with a 
 gesture to my uncle to be silent. "Then what did 
 you do? Come, tell us the whole truth." 
 
 "At his age! A thing like that! Is it possible?
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 325 
 
 Is it possible ? " my uncle groaned, while I confessed, 
 through my sobs, all my madness all that I knew 
 about it, at least: my jealousy of Octave, and how 
 I had been unwilling to go that day to hear the prize 
 announced, my emotion when I saw the watch, and all 
 that followed. 
 
 "Do not scold him," the doctor said gently, when I 
 had finished this recital of my shame and my remorse. 
 "He has been punished enough. And besides, he has 
 had courage to confess. It was very well done, very 
 well done ! Besides, all is made good. Yes," he con- 
 tinued, drawing a little package from another pocket, 
 " I have found the watch myself, and to-morrow it shall 
 be sent to its lawful owner, who will never know who 
 took it from him or who returns it." And he showed 
 us a watch, in every respect identical with the other, 
 which he had bought at the watchmaker's. "Old 
 Courault will keep our secret. So let us say no more 
 about it. But I require from you a promise," he con- 
 tinued, laying his big hand on my head and speaking 
 very gravely. " You are to take this little bronze and 
 swear to me that you will keep it with you always. 
 Keep it hidden in your drawer, that Octave may not 
 see it; but whenever, in your life, you are tempted 
 to envy the good fortune or the .success of another, 
 look at this Hermes, and I have no fear that you 
 will ever again fall." 
 
 And indeed I have kept the Hermes with me al-
 
 326 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 ways. In my hard artist-life it has been to me an 
 infallible talisman against the most hateful of all hate- 
 ful passions. The old man had cured me, as I believe 
 one can always cure a child, by making me feel all the 
 villany of my act, and forgiving me for it. 
 
 APRIL 1898 
 
 II 
 
 PRECOCIOUS FEELINGS 
 
 I HAVE found the following pages among papers left 
 me by my dead friend, Claude Larcher. These leaf- 
 lets were doubtless part of notes to be used in the 
 great work on Love, upon which Claude was occupied 
 when he died, for he had them arranged with many 
 others in a case, inscribed: "Precocious Feelings." I 
 have kept this title, and have only changed the names 
 of persons, having ascertained on inquiring that the 
 story was strictly true. Had he lived, Claude him- 
 self would have made this correction, and several 
 others doubtless. I have not felt myself at liberty 
 to make other changes. Pardon the faults, therefore, 
 of these pages which deal with the inner life. 
 
 Among my recollections of childhood, this one re- 
 mains the most disturbing of all. My experience of 
 life lights it up now with a pathetic gleam, and the
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 327 
 
 drama of the affections which I then witnessed without 
 fully comprehending it, wears for me, across the years, 
 a poetry of mystery, poignant and tragic. My imagi- 
 nation was awake, however, in those remote days, 
 for it allowed me to feel at the time that there 
 was a mystery. But how could my innocent school- 
 boy revery, at the age of thirteen, compass the verity 
 of certain emotions ? I am surprised myself that I 
 divined, notwithstanding that innocence, what I did. 
 And then, thinking of the singular child that I was, 
 I say to myself sometimes that nature gives to those 
 whom she destines to be painters of the passions 
 something like a premature power of intuition, an 
 instinctive comprehension of grief, in advance of their 
 age and their own individual thoughts. 
 
 I was thirteen years old at the time, and I was liv- 
 ing with my grandfather, who had been a lawyer, 
 and my grandmother, in a little city of central France. 
 They had taken charge of me, an orphan. I can see 
 it still, this little city, as if I were still the boy with 
 close-cropped hair who, four times a day, his cartable 
 on his back, walked with his grandfather from house 
 to school and from school to house. It lay on a little 
 hillside, the last spur of a range of high hills, and all 
 its streets were on a slope. They were paved with 
 pointed pebbles, on which the wooden soles of my 
 sabots had hard work not to slip, in the wintry 
 months. These streets were narrow and winding,
 
 328 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 a useful precaution against the north wind, which 
 came straight from snow-covered mountains and cut 
 your face as with a knife. With the same intention, 
 the tall houses of black stone were crowded close, 
 heaped up one against another. Oh! the dismal, 
 cold city ! And yet, it is my city, the only place in 
 which I am not a stranger, a mere transient visitor 
 who may never return. My city is part of myself, 
 as I am part of her. There is not a bend in one of 
 those gloomy lanes where some phantom cannot evoke 
 man or woman more or less involved, often most 
 unconsciously, in the history of my soul. 
 
 I think, as I write these lines, of the masculine figure 
 who, at the period of my thirteenth year, played the first 
 rdle in my imaginative thoughts, and certainly had no 
 idea that he was doing this. He was a man about thirty 
 years of age, who had come from Paris the year before 
 to fill among us a position not very romantic, it would 
 seem, or likely to fire the dreams of a boy: M. de Norry, 
 for that was his name, was counsellor art the prefecture. 
 It is true that, at this time, near the beginning of the 
 Second Empire, the administrative body was admirably 
 recruited. The government saw its advantage here, and 
 attracted to it distinguished young men of the best 
 families. I can now see that my ingenuous admiration 
 for the elegant counsellor was, in reality, a divination. 
 I have said that he came from Paris, and it was through 
 him that I received, unconsciously, my first impression
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 329 
 
 of Paris. He was rather tall, slender, with fine black 
 eyes, very soft and velvety, and a complexion somewhat 
 too pale. Was it this pallor which struck me, on his 
 first visit to my grandfather's house, and the contrast 
 between this fatigued colouring of the man of pleasure 
 and the solid ruddiness of the provincial faces which 
 surrounded me ? Was it other very simple peculiarities ? 
 But there is nothing simple to the complicated observa- 
 tion of some children. From the first time I saw him I 
 had remarked, for example, that M. de Norry wore on 
 the little finger of the left hand a ring of a kind I 
 had never before seen, composed of two little snakes 
 entwined, with two sapphires for heads. I had observed 
 the fineness of his shoes and the freshness of his linen. 
 I still inhale, across the quarter of a century, the faint, 
 fresh perfume of his handkerchief, and I hear my grand- 
 father's voice saying to my grandmother, with a sneer, 
 when the counsellor of the imperial prefecture had 
 gone out, 
 
 " Those brigands have sent us their fleur des pois. 
 But this fine fellow will waste his time here. It must 
 be one of R.'s ideas. Our ladies will not let them- 
 selves be caught." 
 
 I was quite incapable of translating into its true bru- 
 tality the remark of the old Orleanist lawyer, and I still 
 doubt whether the Minister of the Interior, in 1859, had 
 the na'ive Machiavellic design of sending a professional 
 charmer into our department to gain over the feminine
 
 330 CHILDREN'S HEAKTS 
 
 opinion to the new regime. A liberal distribution of 
 licenses to sell tobacco and of red ribbons was quite 
 enough ! But my grandfather's enigmatic comment 
 emphasized too strongly the exceptional character per- 
 vading the whole personality of M. de Norry for me not 
 to form at once a passionate curiosity as to this new- 
 comer in our city. Even the unusual term, fleur 
 des pois, stimulated this curiosity. What connection 
 could there be between the flower which I knew so well 
 from having so often seen it whiten the green rows 
 in our vegetable garden, and this young man, with his 
 handsome hands and his fascinating smile ? Who were 
 the " brigands," of whom my grandfather spoke with 
 so evident bitterness, who had sent M. de Norry to us ? 
 And why ? How was R. concerned in it all, a former 
 lawyer here, once a partisan of the July monarchy, like 
 my uncle, now on bad terms with him, and a minister ? 
 If I had not " crystallized " around these first sensations 
 with all the imaginative strength of my thirteen years, 
 it is probable that the little tragedy to which I am 
 coming would have passed unnoticed by me; and if I 
 had been a more tranquil boy, less apt to be lured by 
 fancy into paths dangerous at my age, it is very probable 
 also as a man that my life would have been happier 
 and less battered. But it was written that, thus early 
 in life and in this peaceful nook in the country, the 
 poetry of guilty affections should be revealed to me 
 before its time. We shall see in what manner.
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 331 
 
 ii 
 
 We lived in the old city, on the third floor of an 
 ancient house, built I could not say when, without 
 much architectural character. The rooms were very 
 lofty, and behind the house lay a very beautiful large 
 garden, of which we shared the use with the proprietor, 
 on the floor below us. He was a M. Franqois Real, 
 one of the three or four great landowners of the 
 country, concerning whom the petty proprietors of 
 our acquaintance were wont to use, with respect, the 
 word millionnaire, and he himself had that breadth 
 of shoulder, that manner of walking, saluting, laughing, 
 talking, which marks the man of importance. When 
 I remember him at this distance, with his big face 
 and its broad features framed in short, reddish whiskers, 
 with the shining yellow of his sly and joking eye, 
 with the insolent pout of his lip, I am conscious that 
 in him I beheld a finished type of the country boor, 
 who has but three strong tastes, for the chase, for the 
 table, and for his money. How did this odious brute 
 happen to marry a creature as high-bred as he was 
 vulgar, as pretty and refined as he was coarse? It was 
 the everyday incident of the marriage of a moneyed 
 man, the son and grandson of usurers, takers of 
 the public loans, with a young lady noble and poor. 
 Mme. Keal was, on the father's side, a Visignier 
 one of those Visigniers whose ruined chateau remains
 
 332 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 a place of interest in the region. Prom this union, 
 which this coarse Real had evidently desired through 
 brutal plebeian pride, was born one daughter, older 
 than I by four years, an adorable child, exactly like 
 her mother, and naturally my playmate all through my 
 early childhood. But for some years I had scarcely 
 seen her. She was finishing her education in a con- 
 vent, reputed aristocratic, which occasioned from my 
 grandfather who had in a degree the Voltairean 
 prejudices of a middle-class admirer of Louis Philippe, 
 this other remark, still more emphatic to me than 
 that concerning the Jleur des pois: 
 
 "If this upstart of a Real wanted his wife to turn 
 out badly, he could not do anything different. He was 
 lucky to have that daughter. It was the mother's salva- 
 tion. And he sends her to the Sacre-Cceur, through van- 
 ity ! You will see what will happen. Alone, not happy 
 there will be confrerie. It is inevitable ! And that 
 charming creature ! What a pity ! " 
 
 How many times these inexplicable words recurred to 
 my mind while, instead of being at my lessons, I watched, 
 hidden behind a curtain, through the window-panes, the 
 pretty Mme. Real, Marguerite by name, walking, a book 
 in hand, along the sanded alleys. I saw her figure, so 
 young and so graceful, with her thirty-five years. Her 
 delicate profile was relieved against the background of 
 verdure and flowers, if it was summer ; and if it was au- 
 tumn, against the russet masses of withered foliage.
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 333 
 
 The silky gold of her hair shone under her garden hat. 
 Her hands, very white through the lace of her black mit- 
 tens, opened or closed her book. Her little feet escaped 
 from under the edge of her dress, with the rhythm of her 
 walk, and she lifted her eyes from her book to let them 
 wander over the horizon of mountains which notched the 
 sky above the walls of the garden, clothed with ivy 
 through which the wind sent a shiver. I repeated to my- 
 self my grandfather's observation without understanding 
 it at all, except that some danger threatened this sweet, 
 ideal creature, and the inexplicable words, some comic 
 and low, others pathetic, made me dream indefinitely. 
 " Turn out badly ? " I had heard it said of one of my 
 cousins that he had turned out badly. He had enlisted 
 in the cavalry as a common trooper ! " confrerie ? " I 
 knew of one confrerie, that of the Scapulary, to which my 
 grandmother belonged, who was as pious as my grand- 
 father was the reverse. " What a pity ! " This touched 
 a pity in me which extended by a feeling which I could 
 not understand from the mother to my little friend, the 
 pretty Isabelle, with whom I had so often raced over the 
 sand of these same alleys, before paternal vanity, blamed 
 by the old free-thinking lawyer, had imprisoned her in a 
 convent ; and when I sat down to my studies again, dis- 
 tress at the mysterious danger suspended over these two 
 beings seized me sometimes so strongly that I could 
 have wept.
 
 334 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 in 
 
 What was the precise moment when my childish 
 mind began to associate the image of the man who had 
 produced so strong an impression upon me, at the time 
 of his first visit, with that of the unhappily married 
 mother of my absent playmate ? This I cannot tell ; 
 it was only natural that M. de Norry, as an official at 
 the prefecture, should have become acquainted with 
 the principal citizens; and his presence, more or less 
 frequent, in a house where two of them lived, my 
 grandfather Maitre Gaspard Larcher and M. Francois 
 Real, would not, certainly, have excited my notice, 
 if again this worthy grandfather, who decidedly did 
 not sufficiently take into account my mental precocity, 
 had not made another imprudent remark in my hearing. 
 We were returning from a walk, about four o'clock in 
 the afternoon. There had been no school that day, 
 therefore it must have been either a Sunday or a Thurs- 
 day, in the autumn of 1859. Before the door of our 
 house a carriage was standing. It was a two-wheeled 
 " buggy," the only one in the place, and it belonged to 
 the man whom I so much admired. There was har- 
 nessed to it a very stout pony of a build also unique in 
 our land of mountain nags that were shaped like goats. 
 The counsellor's animal had enormous withers, a broad 
 chest, and the back and crupper of a cob. He was very 
 shaggy, with short black legs under his dappled-gray
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 335 
 
 body. His mane was cropped close, and in his polished 
 leather harness, with a count's coronet in the proper 
 places, the pony was as much of a marvel to me as his 
 master was. Or rather my two raptures of admiration 
 were blended into one, when the young man passed in 
 this light carriage, at the long trot of this agile pony. 
 I gazed at him as I should have gazed at the Phaeton 
 of Ovid's Metamorphoses (which I was translating at 
 the time), had that personage driven the chariot of 
 the Sun over the pointed pavement of our city streets. 
 No sooner had I espied this equipage in the distance 
 than I exclaimed, "Why, that is M. de Norry's car- 
 riage ! " 
 
 "Where is it?" asked my grandfather, whose sight 
 was somewhat enfeebled. 
 
 "Why, in front of our house!" 
 
 " Oh ! " said my grandfather ; " then he has come to 
 see her again to-day ! " 
 
 He added not a word to this exclamation, which he 
 had flung out as if speaking to himself, in a tone so 
 peculiar that I was quite struck by it. I had no need 
 to ask him who the person was, whom the possessor of 
 this wonderful horse had come to see "again to-day." 
 I had met M. de Norry the preceding day, at the same 
 hour, as I was returning from school, but this time 
 he was on foot, and on his way to our house. I had 
 seen him enter; and it must have been Mme. Eeal 
 since it was not my grandmother to whom he paid his
 
 336 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 visit. Why did these two visits, so near together, cause 
 my grandfather so much concern ? His voice had 
 changed, his face had suddenly clouded over, and his 
 gesture was almost rough, to prevent me from stopping 
 fascinated before the pony, who must have been stand- 
 ing there a long time already, for he had, with his 
 impatient hoof, dug a large hole in the ground, and 
 the groom, standing by him, himself was kicking at 
 the ground, like a man chilled by long waiting. 
 This picture, in the melancholy light of a November 
 afternoon, is present to my gaze at this moment, from 
 the little rosettes at the horse's ears which vibrated at 
 every snort from his big head, to the tall figure of my 
 grandfather, disappearing under the tall porte-cochere 
 and dragging me with him ; and I find no less present 
 to my memory my feeling that between Mine. Real and 
 M. de Norry something was going on, or was to go on, 
 which prodigiously displeased him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Something? But what? In seeking to reconstruct, 
 with my mature intelligence, the shadowy images of my 
 childish consciousness, I find it hard to reconcile two 
 facts, absolutely certain and contradictory : on the one 
 hand, my entire ignorance of the realities of life ; and, 
 on the other, the real trouble caused me by this suspi- 
 cious remark of my grandfather, which must have had a
 
 CHILDKEN'S HEARTS 337 
 
 kind of meaning for me. My grandfather had not said 
 that M. de Norry was attentive to Mme. Real, or that he 
 was in love with her. Still, that is what I had under- 
 stood. How had I understood it ? With what pres- 
 tige, for my imagination, was already invested this sen- 
 timent of love, which represented to me only the most 
 visionary and undefined of enthusiasms ? Of this I have 
 no idea. But what I am quite sure of is that never had 
 I experienced anything like this disturbance awakened 
 in me, this fever of devouring curiosity with which I was 
 suddenly attacked, this anxiety to know what M. de 
 Norry and Mme. Real felt for each other a trouble, 
 fever, and anxiety whose most manifest result was (I 
 being but a child) to make me obtain at school a 
 quantity of bad marks ; for, instead of working indus- 
 triously, as heretofore, at my tasks, my principal occu- 
 pation consisted, for many weeks, in practising the most 
 infantine, and also the most ineffectual, espionage. 
 Sometimes it was a pretext that I devised, in the midst 
 of translating a page of Latin, for going below; and I 
 would rush down the great stone staircase, four steps at 
 a time, to see if the buggy, with the gray black-legged 
 pony, was standing before our door ; sometimes I glued 
 my forehead indefatigably to the window glass to 
 follow with my eyes Mme. Real as she paced the garden 
 alleys ; and her walks were more and more frequent and 
 of longer duration, although the lateness of the season 
 must have rendered them less and less agreeable. The
 
 338 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 young woman no longer carried a book. Her delicate 
 shoulders draped in a cachemire shawl, she walked bare- 
 headed with folded arms, treading underfoot the dead 
 leaves that the wind sometimes blew around her, and it 
 would happen, in sunny hours, that one of these yellow 
 leaves, falling from a tree, whirled and whirled in the 
 sunlight and rested at last upon her hair, more golden 
 yellow than the leaf. This she never even noticed, 
 plunged in thoughts that I was hungry to know. To- 
 day how clear to me is the enigma of those prolonged 
 walks ! This woman of the country, to whom the brill- 
 iant Parisian was paying court, had come to the period 
 of inner struggles, secret revolts, wishes by turns cher- 
 ished and repressed. My poor little thirteen years had 
 not yet known that grievous invasion of the heart by a 
 criminal desire. How did I divine the silent tragedy of 
 which the romantic dreamer in that autumnal garden 
 was the victim? And I did divine it. Yes. I di- 
 vined that, alone in reality in her walk, in thought 
 she was not alone. I divined whose image accom- 
 panied her in those long hours of meditation, summoned 
 and repulsed by turns, and the proof of it is in my 
 absence of surprise when, one afternoon, having placed 
 myself as usual at my post of observation, I saw that 
 this time, in her visit to the quiet garden, M. de Norry 
 himself was with her. 
 
 How distinctly present is that scene to me now ! It 
 must be that this mystery bit deep into my imagination
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 339 
 
 to have made every detail of so simple an episode per- 
 manent in my memory. Again I see my native sky, 
 veiled, padded, with a soft mist; and the box edging 
 of the alleys; and the oaks, with their rusty foliage; 
 and the plane trees, with their big, copper-coloured 
 leaves; and the two walking under the trees; and the 
 pane of glass clouded at moments by my breath; and 
 once more I feel the shock of terror, as of a thief 
 caught in the act. My grandfather's hand is upon my 
 shoulder, and I hear his voice, which says to me, 
 
 " What are you doing there ? Since you won't work, 
 go play in the garden. Go play ! " he repeated. Why, 
 in giving me this order, so contrary to all discipline, 
 had he this imperative manner? Why, suddenly 
 enfranchised from my tasks, instead of running down- 
 stairs with the delight which would have been natural, 
 did I tremble from head to foot? Why had I this 
 terrified timidity at the idea of mingling my childish 
 sports with this walk of M. de ISTorry and Mme. Eeal ? 
 And now I was in the garden, sure that behind the 
 glass where I just now had been concealed my formi- 
 dable relative was standing watching me. For the 
 sake of doing something, I began to run down one 
 alley and then, aimlessly, down another. And so I 
 came to the end of the garden, to a kind of pavilion 
 a rustic arbour, rather where we used sometimes to 
 sit in summer, and I saw before the entrance the two, 
 in pursuit of whom my grandfather so evidently had sent
 
 340 CHILDREN'S HEAIITS 
 
 me. Their attitude betrayed too well even to eyes 
 innocent as mine the conflict between them at the 
 moment: he, holding the young woman's hand and 
 drawing her toward the arbour; she, endeavouring to 
 withdraw her hand and refusing to follow him. They 
 perceived me. M. de Norry grew very pale and dropped 
 Mine. Real's hand. I shall see, while I live, the young 
 woman's agitated smile, her beautiful eyes, into which 
 came a gleam of terror and of relief; and I shall hear 
 her voice, smothered and imploring, as she called me 
 to her : " Claude ! Claude ! I am so glad you came ! 
 Don't go away ! Come, walk with us ; we are going 
 to get some holly." And she repeated, "My little 
 Claude ! I am so glad you came ! " 
 
 At this point my recollections lose distinctness, prob- 
 ably because Mme. Real and M. de Norry both consid- 
 ered me, though for different reasons, as a dangerous 
 witness. Perhaps this scene merely made them more 
 prudent. Possibly, too, thoughts better suited to my 
 age may have absorbed my attention. Christmas and 
 New Year's Day were approaching, and curiosity as to 
 my future presents probably got the better of all other 
 feelings. What I remember very clearly in addition 
 to the other scenes which I have to describe is that 
 my grandfather questioned me closely, when I came in
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 341 
 
 from my walk with M. de Norry and Mme. Heal, as to 
 the way I had spent my time in the garden. I related 
 to him, 110 less minutely, our gathering the holly from 
 the garden wall, and made no mention at all of the 
 arbour. An invincible bashfulness I can find no 
 other word kept me silent. I remember, also, that 
 my aforesaid grandfather was absent from home, about 
 this time, for four or five days. He made a journey 
 to Paris, whose motive is now rendered plain to me by 
 the name of the minister of whom I have already spoken. 
 M. Larcher had too often stigmatized the treachery 
 
 of the infamous R , who had gone over to Bona- 
 
 partism, for me not to be much astonished on hearing 
 him, on his return, say to his wife, after mentioning 
 this man's name, 
 
 " Well ! I saw him ; and it will be done the next 
 time any charges are made. We wept, like two old 
 donkeys, when we met. After all, he is an old 
 friend. And then it was the only way ! But is there 
 still time? You know, I could not bear it " 
 
 The worthy man had gone to beg his old friend to 
 send another counsellor to the prefecture. That step 
 no romantic interest helped me to divine. I could per- 
 ceive, indeed, by the tone of the two old people that 
 there must be something about M. de Norry on foot; 
 but I perceived it so vaguely that I have no recollection 
 of any thoughts which this journey to Paris must have 
 suggested to me; on the other hand, all the darkness
 
 342 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 of the past is scattered, and I am conscious, almost 
 painfully, so intense is this consciousness, of the feel- 
 ings that I had toward this same M. de Norry about 
 two weeks after my grandfather's return. 
 
 It was the evening of the 6th of January. I am 
 able to fix the date with certainty because we were 
 all at a Twelfth-Night dinner at Mme. Eeal's. The 
 country dining room was all filled with the tumult 
 of a long repast just ending. The immense table was 
 lighted by an old carcel-lamp hanging from a chan- 
 delier with twenty candles surrounding it. I still 
 see the square hole through which the key was intro- 
 duced to wind up the lamp. M. Francois Eeal pre- 
 sided, high-coloured, excited by wine, having at his 
 right my grandmother, very dignified, with her long 
 white curls. My grandfather was at Mme. Real's 
 right, and at her left, M. de Norry. The young 
 woman's face, showing traces of the struggle she had 
 maintained with herself so many months, was sad to 
 see that evening. Her large blue eyes shone with 
 a kind of feverish brilliancy, and the pallor of her 
 face was like the tint of porcelain. A kind of sad- 
 ness emanated from her whole person, contrasting 
 most remarkably with the singular joy in the eyes 
 and in the face of the man who sat beside her. The 
 counsellor of the prefecture never appeared to me 
 before so radiant in manly beauty and distinction. 
 A certainty of triumph seemed to pervade his whole
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 343 
 
 being; and his slightest movements, his gestures, 
 his looks, his smiles, were stamped with that vic- 
 torious grace which man has, as well as woman, at 
 some moments. I was not the only person who ob- 
 served this. My grandfather's manifest discomfort 
 attested that he found the removal promised by his 
 friend the renegade far too slow in taking effect; 
 and more than his uneasiness, more than Mme. Real's 
 excitement, what struck me during dinner, what cut me 
 to the heart, so that for the first time I felt a hatred 
 for this beauty of M. de Norry, this elegance, this 
 superiority, all that separated him from the country 
 group gathered there, was the fact that another person 
 was hypnotized by him, and that this person was my 
 own neighbour at table, the charming Isabelle Real, 
 at home from her convent for the holidays. I had 
 found her prettier than ever, more like her mother in 
 the aristocratic elegance of her face and manners; but 
 grown so tall, so changed, so lost to me ! The four 
 years between our ages might have been six might 
 have been ten. I was still a little boy. She was 
 already a young lady. Her fair hair no longer fell 
 in waves over her shoulders as before. It was gath- 
 ered up in a close knot. Her long dress made her 
 seem taller. Her movements, formerly a little brusque 
 and boyish, were now more gentle, more refined. In 
 speaking to me when we first met, she had treated me 
 with a familiarity at once affectionate and distant, all
 
 344 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 the more painful to me because I was conscious of 
 being strangely intimidated in her presence; and now, 
 at the dinner table, this feeling that an abyss had 
 suddenly opened between us did but make itself more 
 distinct ; and at the same time another grief sprang 
 up within me, a jealousy sudden, animal, irresistible, 
 in respect to the young man at Mme. Seal's side, 
 toward whom went all the glances, interests, impres- 
 sions, and thoughts of my neighbour. Innocent as she 
 was, and transparent of heart as of look, Isabelle never 
 dreamed of concealing her frank admiration for the 
 young man. 
 
 " M. de Norry is very handsome, don't you think so ? " 
 she had said to me, as we sat down at table, and I had 
 replied to her, by an instinct of contradiction that 
 proves how completely the man already exists in the 
 boy, 
 
 " Why, no ! I don't think so ; he is too pale, for one 
 thing." 
 
 " Oh ! " she had rejoined, " that is so distinguished 
 looking ! " 
 
 At the moment while she was making this very child- 
 ish remark to me, I had caught a glimpse of myself, in 
 one of the mirrors which adorned the wall, with my 
 ruddy, sunburnt face of a boy always in the open air. 
 I had made no reply, but my suffering had begun, and 
 immediately a thought had seized upon me. 
 
 "They will have a Twelfth-Night cake. I hope
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 345 
 
 Isabelle will not get the bean. I am sure she wo\ild 
 choose him" 
 
 No sooner had the idea entered my mind than it became 
 an established certainty. I felt a choking sensation ; an 
 insupportable anguish of expectation weighed upon my 
 heart, growing every moment heavier, through the endless 
 courses of a rich country feast, until the moment when 
 the enormous iced cake was set before Mme. Real, already 
 cut into as many pieces as there were guests at table. 
 The servants go about, bringing a piece to each person. 
 The knives and forks gayly reduce to tiny bits the pas- 
 try, which exhales its pleasant odour of fresh butter and 
 spices. A little cry of joy comes from my neighbour ; my 
 presentiment was fulfilled Isabelle had the bean ! 
 
 " Oh ! I am the Queen ! " she said, and for an instant 
 the child that she was but yesterday reappeared under 
 the young lady of to-day. She clapped her hands, repeat- 
 ing, " I am the Queen ! " And immediately a voice 
 replied to her which made her blush and grow sober 
 her father's voice it was, calling out, "You are the 
 Queen. You must choose yourself a King." 
 
 She looked around the table, as if hesitating, and every 
 man's face was turned toward her some mischievously, 
 some inquisitively. M. de Norry also looked at her, with 
 that condescending look he would naturally give to a 
 little girl. She was to him what I was to her a creature 
 of no account. And I with the rest perceived this 
 amused indifference, which exasperated me still more.
 
 346 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 Isabelle seemed still to hesitate. For an instant her blue 
 eyes rested upon me. I had a momentary hope that she 
 was going to choose me. The clear eyes turned toward 
 him whom I had foreseen as her choice, and, blushing 
 yet more, she stammered, rather than said, 
 
 " I choose M. de Norry for my King." 
 
 " Then," her father again called out to her, " fill your 
 glass with champagne, and go and drink with your 
 King ! " 
 
 Isabelle took the slender glass, into which the servant 
 had poured the sparkling wine crowned with its light 
 foam, and she went around the table to the place where 
 M. de Norry was sitting. Then, as she held out her 
 glass, with a timid smile, to touch his, the young 
 man, on his part, with a little petting gesture which 
 proved how entirely he regarded her as a child, took 
 her hand and, drawing her toward him, touched her 
 forehead with his lips. Scarcely had I time to feel 
 the sting of jealousy at this innocent kiss, for sud- 
 denly I heard my grandfather's voice saying, 
 
 " Why, Madame Beal, what is it ? What is the mat- 
 ter ? She is ill ! Quick, give her air ! " 
 
 "It was nothing," replied Isabelle's mother. "It is 
 the heat of the room, I think. Gentlemen, I beg your 
 pardon." She made an effort to smile and to rise 
 from her seat, then fell back, fainting.
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 347 
 
 VI 
 
 "Well," said my grandfather to his wife, holding 
 out to her the newspaper, a week after the Twelfth- 
 Night dinner that had been so strangely interrupted, 
 
 " R has kept his word. Our bird takes flight. He 
 
 is sent to Marseilles. It is a step in advance." 
 
 " Does Madame Beal know it ? " my grandmother 
 asked. 
 
 "I suppose Keal has told her," rejoined my grand- 
 father. " She has not left her bed since her fainting 
 fit. There is a fellow, that Eeal, who owes me a big 
 candle," he added, after a minute's silence, "but he 
 will never know it ! And, besides, I did not do it for 
 him. However, she is saved." 
 
 M. de Norry did, in fact, leave the city to go to his new 
 post without having again seen Mme. Real who was 
 long in recovering from what the doctors called a ner- 
 vous fever. And saved she was though whether by 
 the fever or by my grandfather, who can tell ? The 
 worthy lawyer died in the belief that this salvage was 
 due to him. Now that the boy who listened, crouching 
 in the corner, to the words of the two old people, with- 
 out their noticing his presence, has become a man, he 
 does not fully accept his grandfather's view, nor does 
 he have any more faith in the reality of the fever. 
 He remembers the mother looking at her tall daughter, 
 agitated, almost in love, stooping to the kiss of the
 
 348 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 man she herself was about to accept as her lover. 
 And he believes that it was that sight that hindered 
 Mme. Rdal from going further in the path of danger. 
 
 JANUAKT 1900 
 
 III 
 
 RESURRECTION 
 
 SLOWLY, sadly, Elizabeth de Fresne had climbed the 
 slope of the hill, wooded and walled in, which made 
 a park for her villa. She had seated herself on the 
 rock, upon the terrace which had been laid out there 
 in happier days, and from which her eyes could see 
 one of the most extensive views of sea and mountains 
 in all Provence so beautiful that it has given to this 
 part of the neighbourhood of Hyeres the name of Cos- 
 tebelle. At her feet the irregular crests of the Aleppo 
 pines were green and waving in little shivers in the 
 breeze from the bay, which was blue in the distance, 
 enclosed on one side by the two long, narrow roads 
 of the peninsula of Giens, and on the other by the 
 fortified point of Breganqon. The island of Porque- 
 rolles and its notched rocks, that of Port Cros and its 
 lookout, that of the Levant and its barren moors, barred 
 the horizon in the distance. At the young woman's 
 left stretched the sombre chain of the Maures, beneath 
 which lay in rows, one below another, on the hill slope,
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 349 
 
 the white houses of Hyeres. And the radiant sun 
 enwrapped with its splendour this forest, these waves, 
 these islands, these hills, these remote facades a 
 divine late March sun which, nearer, caressed the 
 pink villa and the alleys of the garden adjacent to the 
 park, with their mimosas in bloom, their beds of pur- 
 ple iris, of red and white carnations, their clumps of 
 pale roses and of large anemones. In the little pine 
 grove, heather, growing tall as trees, waved in the sea 
 wind its clusters of a very soft white, and the laurel 
 its bouquets of a very clear white. The breeze brought, 
 with its smell of the sea, the mingled fragrance of 
 these resins and these corollas, that, also, of wild rose- 
 mary and cysts. Here and there, forms of exotic vege- 
 tation were confusedly visible : the broad leaves of date 
 palms, the twisted poniards of the agave, the pointed 
 feathers of the yucca. And this adorable vision of an 
 almost Oriental spring was completed, was enchanted, 
 was ennobled with a still purer charm, by the devout 
 tinkle of a chapel bell. This voice of the little church 
 which dominates all this region, and bears the beautiful 
 name of Our Lady of Consolation, shed itself abroad 
 in this luminous, warm, balsamic air in frail, silvery 
 vibrations. It announced that this glorious morning in 
 spring was also Easter morning; and this festival of 
 the Resurrection harmonized so well with the universal 
 joy in life spread everywhere, that this wonderful 
 nature seemed also, in its sunshine, its sea, its flowers,
 
 350 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 to proclaim the victory of Love triumphant over 
 Death. 
 
 ii 
 
 Alas ! it was just this very festival of Life, in 
 nature and in the church, in the visible and the 
 invisible heaven, that overwhelmed the young woman 
 with the cruellest melancholy, on this wonderful Easter 
 morning. The sombre crape that she wore, which 
 adorned with pathetic grace her delicate blonde beauty, 
 told of a grief borne hopelessly in her heart. Her soft 
 blue eyes, almost dulled from tears, seemed hurt by 
 the radiant splendour of the perfect day. Her pale 
 brow was clouded with a sadder thought at each ring- 
 ing of the bell. She had lost a son an only son four 
 months before, and in the mother's heart the open 
 wound bled the more, at sight of this fairy world of the 
 new springtime which her Andre would not see, at sound 
 of this appeal to a God to whom she prayed no longer, 
 to whom she could no longer pray, since He had taken 
 her child. Seated on the warm terrace, she looked about 
 her with the mechanical and careless look of despair. 
 From all points of the splendid horizon, images arose, 
 as she looked, and trains of ideas followed these images, 
 which rendered more definite, more unendurable, all the 
 lesser details of her misfortune. This sudden death 
 of a boy six years old, carried off by meningitis after 
 but a few days' illness, was in itself a very severe trial.
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 351 
 
 Personal circumstances had aggravated its weight, and 
 the young woman realized them anew, one by one, in 
 the presence of this scene, filled for her with so much 
 of the past. That shining water of the quiet bay was 
 the sea, the impassable sea, across which Ludovic de 
 Fresne, her husband, had been obliged to go, to the 
 far East, ten months before. She had accompanied 
 him, a lieutenant in the navy, to Toulon, a wife, so 
 afflicted, a mother, so happy ! And now, that she had 
 such need of him to endure the horrible thing, thousands 
 of miles separated them from each other. When would 
 he return, to speak the words that would give her cour- 
 age to live for her duty ? What duty ? The sound of 
 the bell announcing the service, which her inward revolt 
 prevented her from attending, repeated it to her all too 
 clearly. If Mme. de Fresne had stood up, she might 
 have seen, upon the ribbon of road which, from the 
 door of the villa, winds through the woods to the chapel, 
 a carriage drawn by a pony, and in the carriage two 
 children in mourning like herself a boy of nine, a lit- 
 tle girl of eight. These two, Guy and Alice, were her 
 husband's children by a former marriage. She remem- 
 bered, when she had married the naval officer, who 
 was also her cousin, how sincere had been her pity for 
 the motherless boy and girl. How faithful had been her 
 efforts to fill the place of the dead, so that now, at their 
 present ages of eight and nine, they had no idea that 
 she was not their own mother ! When she herself had
 
 352 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 had a son, how scrupulously had she avoided showing a 
 preference for him ! And she had even been able to do 
 this without effort. While the three fair children were 
 running, laughing, playing around her, her heart had 
 naturally been shared by the three. Why was this no 
 longer so? 
 
 Why ? The young woman had but to turn toward 
 the left, toward a point that she knew too well, to have 
 an answer to this question. There, beyond the last 
 houses of the city, a depression marked the hollow of a 
 valley it was the cemetery. From the day when she 
 had herself seen her courage had carried her to that 
 point the little coffin of her poor Andre slip down 
 the ropes into the newly dug grave, a frightful feeling 
 had seized upon her against which she had struggled and 
 struggled still, in vain ; and on that Easter morning she 
 had felt it stronger than ever in her heart. She could 
 not forgive the two children for being merry and young, for 
 walking and talking and breathing in short, for being 
 alive, while the third, the little one, her boy, lay motion- 
 less in his grave. She had not only ceased to love them : 
 at times it seemed to her and all her being shuddered at 
 the thought that she hated them, as if they had stolen 
 from the absent one his share of joy and health and sun- 
 light. To hear them call her " mamma," gave her an un- 
 natural, cruel desire to cry out to them, " Be silent, I 
 am not your mother ! " so that these two syllables might 
 never more be addressed to her by any one, since the dear
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 353 
 
 little mouth, which alone had the right truly to speak 
 them, must never again say them to her. This Easter 
 morning, that passionate bitterness against her step-chil- 
 dren had been more intense than usual. It had been her 
 wish to give them herself their Easter eggs, as she had 
 done hitherto. She could indeed do herself this justice : 
 the more this unjust hatred grew in her heart, the more 
 care she took not to betray it by any act. The children 
 had come to her room. She had seen their eyes shine 
 with expectation, their eager hands open the great eggs 
 of coloured wood, their faces become radiant with delight 
 over the objects she had selected for them: a pretty pin 
 for the boy, a chain with a cross for the girl. Ah ! the 
 innocent but cruel torturers, how they had plunged the 
 knife again into her heart, with their frank joy, their 
 pleasure of being alive and in the world, which made 
 even their black garments cheerful ! The other had come 
 to her in thought, with a reproach for being forgotten, 
 in his lifeless eyes. A sob had come into her throat ; she 
 had had the strength to suppress it, however ; and it was 
 to beguile a little this sharp surprise of her grief that 
 she had come alone, while Guy and Alice were gone to 
 church, to sit here on this deserted terrace. Might she 
 not have known, however, that the grief at her heart 
 would become more keen instead of being lulled, in the 
 midst of Nature's infinite felicity?
 
 354 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 in 
 
 The water was still blue and lustrous, the islands 
 lifted their purple cliffs against a cloudless horizon, 
 the mountains rose in soft curving outlines, the flowers 
 exhaled their fragrance, the sunlight filtered through 
 the Aleppo pines, an impalpable dust of gold, the 
 exotic shrubs throbbed under the sky, as if reminded 
 of the far-away climates which were the home of 
 their strong essences. Only the bell had ceased ring- 
 ing, in the carved turret of the chapel. And in the 
 silence of the happy country, the voices of regret and 
 despair moaned, more and more intensely, in the 
 mother's heart a voice of revolt, too, and of hatred. 
 Again the insupportably painful impressions inflicted 
 by the contrast between this festival of life blooming 
 around her, and her irreparable grief, gathered them- 
 selves into that strange feeling of irresistible antipa- 
 thy toward the happiness of her step-children. There 
 was in the very depths of her nature an upheaval of 
 envy and hatred, shameful yet invincible. Yes, she 
 envied this half-brother and half-sister of her Andre 
 all this springtime that her own little dead child 
 could no longer enjoy, all that boundless future that 
 their youth could look forward to. She wondered, her- 
 self, at the frenzy of aversion with which she grudged 
 it to them; and without any motive for it, but merely 
 at thought of their faces, she felt herself the cruel
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 355 
 
 step-mother of tradition, with an instinctive furious 
 horror at these children of a first marriage, of which 
 she had not believed herself capable. Without doubt, 
 it was most unjust. But is there justice in the world? 
 No, the two children did not deserve that their 
 father's second wife, she to whom the absent father 
 had intrusted them, should feel toward them this 
 wicked resentment. But she herself, had she de- 
 served that her darling should be snatched from her, 
 in this sudden and terrible way ? This woman, who 
 had been gentle and religious, indulgent and devoted, 
 who was so still, in her acts, from the acquired 
 strength of her former virtues, underwent this evil 
 change, by reason of a grief too constantly acute and too 
 intense : a very demon of wickedness, almost of ferocity, 
 stirred within her, which plucked from her suddenly, 
 in the presence of this landscape, all harmony and 
 peace and beauty, the dreadful words which she cried 
 aloud to whom ? to nature ? to God ? to the spring- 
 time ? 
 
 " Oh ! if only one of them were dead, too ! " 
 She heard herself say these words, in which the 
 frenzy of her grief found utterance, with a sort of stupor, 
 which led her to rise from her seat on the rock. She 
 passed her hands over her eyes, as if to exorcise the 
 temptation of this dreadful wish, and began walking 
 through the wood again, this time with rapid step, as if 
 seeking to flee from the too luminous landscape, to flee
 
 356 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 from the sight of the road by which her two step- 
 children would return, to flee from her own thoughts, to 
 flee from her very self. She went on, choosing, in the 
 immense, half-wild park, the narrow, almost impractica- 
 ble paths where the dry branches caught her dress and 
 the pine cones cracked and slipped under her feet and 
 her hands were constantly putting aside some thorny 
 shrub, some overgrown branch of heather. And while 
 she thus walked on in a sort of delirium, hurting her 
 feet against the rough path and her fingers against the 
 thorny branches, her thoughts were very active also. 
 The violent outbreak of hatred that she had once more 
 experienced against Guy and Alice was appeased. 
 But there remained in her heart an extreme lassitude 
 and this substratum of invincible repulsion, which she 
 now avowed to herself and judged almost legitimate, as 
 the reprisals permitted to her misfortune. She walked 
 on, and a resolution took definite shape in her mind 
 which had haunted her often, but never with this hyp- 
 notizing distinctness. Why continue toward these two 
 beings, whose mere presence was a torture to her, this 
 burdensome duty this farce, rather, of a false mother- 
 hood ? Why not rid herself of them both, treating them 
 as, after all, so many true parents treat their true chil- 
 dren? Instead of keeping them at home, as she was 
 doing, why not send them away the boy to school, the 
 girl to a convent that she might be left alone with her 
 dead boy, and no longer hear about her these voices, this
 
 CHILDKEN'S HEARTS 357 
 
 laughter, these games, all this gay life which insulted 
 her suffering ? They would not be happy Guy, whom 
 she knew to be so sensitive, Alice, whom she knew so 
 fastidious in the promiscuousness of school life. How 
 many other little boys and little girls of their age were 
 enduring, at this moment, exile from home and were 
 growing up, all the same? Besides, if they were not 
 happy, that would be but just. Elizabeth knew, also, 
 that their mother, on her death-bed, had implored their 
 father to renounce his career, that he might not be 
 separated from the children, and to love them for both, 
 since henceforth they would have but him. With what 
 compassion had the young step-mother accepted this last 
 wish, and taken upon herself its fulfilment : " Since he 
 continues in the service, it is I who will never leave 
 them, and will be to them what she would have been ! " 
 To send them away these children from the paternal 
 hearth, was this obeying the sacred wish of the dead, of 
 the woman whose place she had taken, vowing to herself 
 that she would fill it faithfully ? Elizabeth's conscience 
 said to her, no. But the awakened " step-mother " is not 
 easily lulled to sleep. And the wife who was alive 
 began feeling, for this dead woman whose children lived 
 while her child was no more, that sharp retrospective 
 jealousy which poisons so many second marriages, and 
 makes the best of women sometimes become the most 
 implacable, the most conscienceless of torturers. Pre- 
 cisely because this boarding-school and convent life must
 
 358 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 have been one of the haunting terrors of her predecessor's 
 death-bed, the second wife enjoyed in it a vague charm 
 of revenge. And she felt, also, that it would be only a 
 beginning, a first step upon a road of cruelty which she 
 should follow to the end. The father would return. 
 What would she say to him ? The temptation was still 
 more guilty here. She was herself the only witness 
 whom the children had with the absent sailor. It would 
 be so easy to write to him that she had not been able to 
 keep them with her on account of this or that fault. 
 And here she might speak truly : the boy was naturally 
 high-tempered, the girl impertinent. Up to this time, 
 Elizabeth had always stood between the children's faults 
 and the severity of the officer, as their mother would 
 have done. Let her act otherwise had she not the 
 right ? and sending them to the boarding-school and 
 the convent would appear so simple, so useful, so needful ! 
 She would have impaired the father's affection for his 
 children! how little that was like what she had 
 promised herself to do! But no matter, if it were a 
 relief to herself. 
 
 IV 
 
 Every soul has its own spiritual atmosphere, outside 
 of which it cannot long breathe. A noble nature may 
 indeed suffer itself to be drawn away into unworthy 
 resolutions and, in some excess of error, begin to put 
 them into effect. It cannot do this contentedly. When
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 359 
 
 the young wife said, " I am determined ; within a week 
 they shall be sent away," she attempted to put aside 
 all thought both of the children to whom she was going 
 to be so hard, and of the wicked rdle she proposed to 
 play toward their father. Instinctively she strove 
 to lull the scruples which already arose in the pure 
 depths of her conscience, by absorbing herself in the 
 memory of her child. She evoked the little phantom, 
 with an ardour of regret which brought him once more 
 before her just as if she had not seen him lying rigid 
 on his little cot, his poor lips parted and breathless, 
 his eyes closed, his waxen hands crossed upon the 
 crucifix as if the coffin lid had not been screwed 
 down over that frail, motionless thing that yester- 
 day was a merry child! Again he was at her side, 
 with the sunlight on his golden hair. The vision 
 was so distinct, so besetting, that the mother felt an 
 irresistible desire to give some real food to her affec- 
 tion, a need of doing something in which this idolized 
 son would be concerned, a passionate desire to serve him. 
 She began gathering the finest bits among the tufts of 
 white heather, to carry them to him, to adorn his room. 
 From the day when the child's body had been removed 
 from the house to the grave, the mother had not per- 
 mitted a single article of furniture in that room to be 
 changed. She had already obtained from her husband 
 the promise that on his return he would buy the house, 
 hired at first on account of its being near Toulon, where
 
 360 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 the lieutenant was then on duty. How many women 
 mothers, wives, or daughters have sought to prolong 
 the existence of some one very dear to them, by keeping 
 for him all the objects to which he had been habitu- 
 ated! And then, the priestess of this domestic cult 
 herself disappears ; and the relics which were her 
 treasure are now the worn and worthless stuff for an 
 auction room. Who can blame a faithful heart for 
 guarding a little while against inevitable destruction, 
 these precious, humble things so personal that they 
 almost are persons ? For these four months the 
 mother had never failed to go night and morning 
 into the little bedroom where her boy had drawn his 
 last breath. She would open the shutters, and dust 
 the furniture, and unfold the little garments which 
 kept the outlines of the little form. It was this use- 
 less, passionate act of broken-hearted devotion that she 
 now went to perform. Her sheaf of white heather had 
 become too large for her hands to carry. She held it 
 now in her arms and, a pleased yet most unhappy 
 reaper with her useless spoils, she went down the 
 hill toward the villa, which appeared through the 
 Aleppo pines, the palm trees and the yuccas, the Villa 
 Rose, so called, a sad mockery! and all pink it 
 was, the colour of joy and hope ! And it was a tragic 
 and poignant sight this fair-haired young woman, 
 all in black, with her fragrant sheaf of white heather, 
 on her way to the gay-tinted house, under this clear
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 361 
 
 blue sky, through this luxuriant garden as one goes 
 toward a grave, to carry flowers to it and to weep 
 there. 
 
 The mother had entered the villa by the rear door, 
 so lost in her thoughts that she had not noticed the 
 coachman in front of the stable, washing the wheels 
 of the English cart, which signified that her sad walk 
 had considerably outlasted the service at the chapel. 
 Guy and Alice had been at home some time. And so, 
 as Elizabeth entered the passageway which led to the 
 little room of her dead boy, it was a shock, almost like 
 the sight of a ghost, to see the door ajar and to hear 
 voices, those of the two children, the thought of whom 
 had haunted her all the morning in a way so hateful and 
 unjust. What were they doing, in this room to which 
 she had strictly forbidden entrance, and in which per- 
 fect darkness would have prevailed had not one ray 
 of sunshine, from the crack of the shutters to the 
 partly opened door, cut it with a bar of light ? Her 
 armful of heather clasped tight to her heart, which 
 was beating fast, she stood still to hear what these 
 two visitors were saying, whose movements she could 
 not clearly distinguish, and with an emotion of which 
 she could not have told whether it were a delight or 
 an anguish, she became aware that this half-brother 
 and this half-sister of poor Andre had preceded her in
 
 362 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 
 
 the loving pilgrimage on which she had come. On 
 that radiant morning the two affectionate children had 
 remembered the little playmate who was no longer with 
 them. They had gathered flowers in the garden, as 
 she had done in the park, and with pathetic childish- 
 ness they had sought to associate the absent one with 
 the special holiday by bringing him an Easter gift 
 eggs that they had bought at the chapel door. 
 
 " You must put those flowers here ! " said the voice 
 of Alice. "Do you remember the butterflies that we 
 used to catch for him on the roses ? " 
 
 " And here, the eggs," Guy said, " as we did last year. 
 He was so pleased ! How I wish I could see him and 
 kiss him now ! " 
 
 "That is impossible, because he is dead. But we 
 shall see him again in heaven," replied the little girl. 
 
 "Perhaps he might rise from the dead," the boy 
 answered. "Lazarus did, and our Lord I beg God 
 to let him, every night and every morning. I think 
 mamma does, too. It would be a miracle, that is all! 
 And why should not God do it for us? For there are 
 miracles ! " 
 
 The innocent believer, aged nine, who said these 
 words, had no idea that, in truth, a miracle took place, 
 at his voice, close beside him, a resurrection, also, 
 a resurrection of justice and pity, of affection and of 
 duty, of generous and lofty virtues, in the heart of 
 her who had been so near becoming, toward himself
 
 CHILDREN'S HEARTS 363 
 
 and his sister, the most implacable of cruel step- 
 mothers. 
 
 Thus to come unawares upon the innocent proof of 
 these motherless children's affection for their dead 
 brother, had moved her past all power of expression, 
 and at first with a fear of being scolded, changed 
 at once into so sweet a sympathy Guy and Alice 
 saw the door open wide and the mother enter, 
 their mother, who held out her flowers to them, say- 
 ing, "Give him these, also, with your own;" then 
 took them in her arms, both at once, clasping them 
 close to her breast, fondly, passionately, as she would 
 have clasped the other. Was she not recovering them, 
 after having lost them? And her tears, of no less 
 grief, were made more gentle by affection, as if the 
 spirit of her lost darling had whispered low to her, 
 " Love them because they love me so much ! " The 
 wicked rancour, the evil resolves, the cruel envy, all 
 the ferments of the baser passions, were dissolved, 
 melted, destroyed, in these kisses. Once more the 
 great mystery of restored life, celebrated by the church, 
 and visible in this spring landscape, took place in a 
 human heart: Life had expelled Death, Love had 
 conquered Hate. 
 
 APRIL 1897
 
 Other Books by Paul Bourget 
 
 Outre-Mer 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 
 
 Translated from the French. 12010, $1.75 
 
 CHAPTER HEADINGS 
 
 I. AT SEA 
 II. THE FIRST WEEK 
 
 III. SOCIETY 
 
 A Summer City 
 
 IV. SOCIETY 
 
 Women and Young Girls 
 V. BUSINESS MEN AND BUSI- 
 NESS SCENES 
 
 VI. THE LOWER ORDERS 
 VII. EDUCATION 
 VIII. AMERICAN PLEASURES 
 IX. DOWN SOUTH 
 In Georgia 
 X. DOWN SOUTH 
 
 In Florida 
 XI. HOMEWARD 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 " It is, in truth, a book of no ordinary weight and usefulness 
 which M. Bourget has given us, a book that may be perused with 
 profit by the statesman and reformer on both sides of the Atlan- 
 tic, and at the same time, for the reason that the writer is an 
 artist, a book certain to give delight to those who read for amuse- 
 ment only." Neiv York Sun. 
 
 "M. Bourgefs new book on America is as interesting as a 
 novel. The historian of ' Cosmopolis,' the painter of 'Pastels, 1 
 visited America in the hope of gathering < a rich harvest of ideas 
 and memories'; and the reader will certainly incline to assert 
 that he returns bringing his sheaves with him. When a novelist 
 turns traveller, one looks for something more readable than mere 
 statistical inquiries, and in this case at least one is not disap- 
 pointed." The Academy.
 
 Other Books by Paul Bourget 
 
 (Outre-Mer) 
 
 " The mirror that he holds up to us is an unclouded one, 
 wherein we may see what manner of men and women we are in 
 the eyes of a cultured Frenchman who is a student of manners 
 and a master of expression. M. Bourget did not come to our 
 shores fettered with a ready-made theory of us, into which the 
 facts gathered must be made to fit. Facts first, conclusions 
 afterwards, has been his rule." The Dial. 
 
 " A singularly interesting work in that it comes from a trained 
 and practiced observer, who sees and notes things which most 
 of us merely glance at and straightway forget." The Nation. 
 
 Antigone 
 
 AND OTHER PORTRAITS OF WOMEN 
 
 [" Voyageuses "] 
 Translated from the French by William Marchant. xamo, $1.50 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ANTIGONE 
 
 Two MARRIED COUPLES 
 
 NEPTUNE VALE 
 
 A WOMAN'S CHARITY 
 
 ODILE 
 
 LA PIA 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 "In none of his translated romances does M. Paul Bourget 
 make such an agreeable impression on the English reader as 
 in 'Antigone, and Other Portraits of Women.' These women, 
 known but slightly through the chance of travel, attracted him 
 by a hint of some rare nobility or grace of nature and touched 
 his imagination to weave about them romance of delicate texture, 
 glowing with sentiment, yet not sentimental ; pathetic, even 
 tragic, yet with no forced unhealthy note. The scenes which 
 the presence of these women made an imperishable memory are 
 described with a genuine feeling for natural beauty and for artis-
 
 Other Books by Paul Bourget 
 
 (Antigone) 
 
 tic harmony between picture and frame. Incident and place are 
 so closely related that to think of one is to remember all." 
 
 The Nation. 
 
 " Among the highest and best specimens of M. Bourgefs work. 
 They are full of charm, a simplicity which is consistent with per- 
 fect grace. In their core they are essentially as sweet as Wash- 
 ington Irving's tales, yet elaborated in detail with the pictorial 
 skill of the finished modern artist. 1 ' Boston Transcript. 
 
 " We are impelled to say that the delicate charm of M. Bourget's 
 style, and the penetrative sympathy with which he has studied 
 human life, appeal to us more strongly from this book than from 
 any other he has written." The Dial. 
 
 A Tragic Idyl 
 
 Translated from the French, zamo, $1.50 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 "In this narrative there is both strength and power. The 
 author has a fine literary method and a subtle comprehension of 
 Viuman character. His analyses are keen and incisive, his 
 delineations so vivid his people live before us." 
 
 Detroit Free Press. 
 
 "M. Bourget changes his style with his skies, and his new 
 romance reflects the voluptuous charm and evanescent color of 
 that southern shore where his drama wears out to a sad end. . . . 
 He polishes and refines his art of description and analysis to a 
 point of exquisite detail." Philadelphia Public Ledger. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers 
 
 153-157 Fifth Avenue : : : : New York

 
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