/^LIBRARY "" UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO fa f 1 ! 's , ._ ^^^ J ! w\j \ ■ X "^ ^^ * ^ Jy '{ :'^-^jKt^^^m UM^l ^^wfm ■ ""- i|fe fe^ iP %.^K^EiMB^^^^B;v^3tJi^^H^^^^^^^H M^V'^ ^^H^^l ^iOt\ tT^^uB^^B - -3mx '^^^I^^^^H . '^ _ ""^^JIjcl^l^^^^^^^^^^H MM||||M^ ^^^^ER^^HRH ^^^mH V I^S^ShbI IMpS^^uB^^^^I ■HsPan^O^ A i^PSy^^^H Bf^BrTN^^^^ ^'^mJP^ '«>%I^^^^^^H ^^^^j/SU/Si ^^^M ISSim Bw8^^^' .liT^^I^^^' ^^^^^^^Eb I^^B^^S Km^- ^tm^^Si y'^.^ Vc: Siiioiiii' on the Buhoiiy. iJiawn by L. KoWalsky. Photogravure by GouriL & Co. Kkomont ANi> Kisi.KR. Ffontiif'iei.c Copyright, 1898, By Little, Browx, and Company. All rights reserved. John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. FROMONT AND RISLER. BOOK FIRST. I. A WEDDING-PARTY AT CAF£ V£F0UR. " Madame Chebe ! " "My boy—" " I am very happy." It was the twentieth time that day that the excellent Risler had said that he was very happy, and always with the same touched and contented manner, in the same moderate, low, deep voice, — the voice that is held in check by emotion and dares not speak too loud for fear of suddenly breaking into tears. Not for anything in the world would Risler have wept at that moment, — imagine that newly-made husband giving way to his emotion in the midst of the wedding festival ! And yet he had a strong inclination to do so. His happiness choked him, held him by the throat, prevented the words from coming forth. All that he could do was to mur- 2 Fromont and Rislcr. mur from time to time, with a slight trembhng of the Hps, " I am very happy ; I am very happy ! " Indeed, he had reason to be. Since early morning the poor man had fancied that he was being whirled along in one of those gorgeous dreams from which one fears lest he may awake suddenly with blinded eyes ; but it seemed to him as if this dream of his was never to end. It had begun at five o'clock in the morning, and at ten o'clock at night, exactly ten o'clock by Vefour's clock, it was still in progress. How many things had happened during that day, and how vividly he remembered the most trivial details ! He saw himself, at daybreak, striding up and down his bachelor quarters, with delight mingled with impatience, already shaven, his coat upon his back, two pairs of white gloves in his pocket. Then there were the state equipages, and in the foremost one yonder, — the one with white horses, white reins, and a yellow damask lining, — the bride, in her finery, floating by like a cloud. Then the procession into the church, two by two, the white veil still leading, ethereal, and dazzling to behold. The organ, the verger, the cure's sermon, the tapers casting their light upon jewels and spring dresses, and the throng of people in the sacristy, the tiny white cloud swallowed up, sur- rounded, embraced, while the husband distributed handshakes among all the leading tradesmen of Paris, who had assembled to do him honor. And the grand crash from the organ at the close, made A Wedding- Party at Cafe Vefotir. 3 more solemn by the fact that the church door was thrown wide open, so that the whole street took part in the family ceremony, — the music passing through the vestibule at the same time with the procession, — the exclamations of the crowd, and a burnisher in an ample lutestring apron remarking in a loud voice, " The groom is n't handsome, but the bride's as pretty as a picture." That is the kind of thing that makes you proud when you happen to be the bridegroom. And then the breakfast at the factory, in a work- room adorned with hangings and flowers ; the drive in the Bois, — a concession to the wishes of his mother-in-law, Madame Chebe, who, being the petty Parisian bourgeoise that she was, would not have deemed her daughter legally married without a drive around the lake and a visit to the Cascade. Then the return for dinner, as the lamps were being lighted along the boulevard, where people turned to look after the wedding-party, a typical well-to-do bourgeois wedding-party, as it drove up to the grand entrance at Vefour's with all the style the livery horses could command. He had reached that point in his dream. And now the worthy Risler, dazed with fatigue and well-being, glanced vaguely about that huge table of twenty-four covers, curved in the shape of a horseshoe at the ends, and surrounded by smiling, familiar faces, wherein he seemed to see his happiness reflected in every eye. The dinner was drawing near its end. The wave of private conversations flowed around the table. Faces were 4 Fromont and Risler. turned toward each other, black sleeves stole be- hind waists adorned with bunches of asclepias, a childish face laughed ov^er a fruit ice, and the dessert at the level of the guests' lips encompassed the cloth with animation, bright colors, and light. Ah ! yes, Risler was very happy. Except his brother Frantz, everybody he loved was there. First of all, sitting opposite him, was Sidonie, — yesterday little Sidonie, to-day his wife. For the purposes of dinner she had laid aside her veil ; she had emerged from her cloud. Now, above the smooth, white silk dress, appeared a pretty face of a less lustrous and softer white, and the crown of hair — beneath that other crown so carefully bestowed — would have told you of a tendency to rebel against life, of little feathers ask- ing but an opportunity to fly away. But husbands do not see such things as those. Next to Sidonie and Frantz, the person whom Risler loved best in the world was Madame Georges Fromont, whom he called " Madame Chorche," the wife of his partner and the daughter of the late Fromont, his former employer and his god. He had placed her beside him, and in his manner of speaking to her one could read affection and deference. She was a very young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of a more regular, more placid type of beauty. She talked but little, being out of her element in that con- glomerate assemblage ; but she tried to appear affable. On Risler's other side sat Madame Chcbe, the A Wedding-Party at Cafe Vefoiir. 5 bride's mother, radiant and gorgeous in her dress of green satin, which gleamed hke a shield. Ever since the morning the good woman's every thought had been as brilliant as that robe of emblematic hue. At every moment she said to herself: " My daughter is marrying Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, of Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes ! " For, in her mind, it was not Risler alone whom her daughter took for her husband, but the whole sign of the establishment, illustrious in the commercial annals of Paris ; and whenever she mentally an- nounced that glorious event, Madame Chebe sat more erect than ever, stretching the silk of the buckler until it almost cracked. What a contrast to the attitude of Monsieur Chcbe, who was seated a few chairs away ! In different households, as a general rule, the same causes produce altogether different results. That little man, with the high forehead of a visionary, as inflated and hollow as a garden ball, was as fierce in appearance as his wife was radiant. That was nothing unusual, by the way, for Monsieur Chebe was in a frenzy the whole year long. On this parti- cular evening, however, he did not wear his cus- tomary woebegone, lack-lustre expression, nor the ample-skirted coat, with the pockets sticking out behind, filled to repletion with samples of oil, wine, truffles or vinegar, according as he happened to be dealing in one or the other of those articles. Plis black coat, new and magnificent, made a fitting pendant to the green dress ; but unfortunately hjs thoughts were of the color of his coat. Why had 6 Fronwnt and Rislcr. they not seated him beside the bride, as was his right? Why had they given his seat to young Fromont? And there was old Gardinois, the Fromonts' grandfather, what business had he by Sidonie's side? Ah! that's how it was to be! Everything for the Fromonts and nothing for the Chebes ! And yet those people are amazed that there are such things as revolutions ! Luckily the little man had by his side, to vent his spleen upon, his friend Delobelle, an old retired actor, who listened to him with his serene and ma- jestic holiday countenance. No matter if one has been kept off the stage fifteen years by the malice of managers, one can still command, when occa- sion requires, theatrical attitudes appropriate to the events of the hour. So it was that on this evening Delobelle wore his wedding-feast physiog- nomy, a half-serious, half-smiling expression, con- descending to the unimportant members of the party, at once unconstrained and solemn. You would have said that he was taking part, in pres- ence of a whole theatre-full of spectators in a first act banquet with pasteboard viands ; and he had even more the appearance of playing a part, had the whimsical Delobelle, because, knowing well that his talent would be made use of during the evening, he had, ever since they had taken their places at table, been going over in his mind the choicest pieces in his repertory, — an occupation which gave to his features a vague, artificial, wandering expression, the falsely attentive air of the actor on the stage, pretending to listen to what is being said A Wedding-Party at Cafe Vcfoicr. 7 to him, but all the tunc thinking of nothing but his cue. Strangely enough, the bride herself had some- thing of that same expression. On that youthful and pretty face, which happiness enlivened without making glad, there appeared indications of some secret preoccupation ; and, at times, the corners of her lips quivered with a smile, as if she were talking to herself. With that same little smile she replied to the somewhat pronounced pleasantries of grandfather Gardinois, who sat by her side. " This Sidonie, on my word ! " said the goodman with a laugh. " When I think that not two months ago she was talking about going into a convent. We all know what sort of convents such minxes as she go to ! As the saying is in our province : The Convent of St. Joseph, f our shoes under the bed/" And everybody at the table laughed heartily at the rustic jests of the old Bcrrichon peasant, whose colossal fortune filled the place of manliness, of education, of kindness of heart, but not of wit; for he had plenty of that, the rascal, — more than all his bourgeois fellow-guests together. Among the very rare persons who inspired a sympathetic feel- ing in his breast, little Chebe, whom he had known as a little urchin, appealed particularly to him; and she, for her part, having become rich too re- cently not to venerate wealth, talked to her right- hand neighbor with a very perceptible air of respect and coquetry. With her left-hand neighbor, on the contrary, 8 Fromont and Rislcr. Georges Fromont, her husband's partner, she ex- hibited the utmost reserve. Their conversation was restricted to the ordinary courtesies of the table ; indeed there was a sort of affectation of indifference between them. Suddenly there was that little commotion among the guests which indicates that they are about to rise, the rustling of silk, the moving of chairs, the last words of conversations, the completion of a laugh, and in that half-silence Madame Chebe, who had become communicative, observed in a very loud tone to a provincial cousin, who was gaz- ing in an ecstasy of admiration at the newly-made bride's reserved and tranquil demeanor, as she stood with her arm in Monsieur Gardinois's: " You see that child, cousin — well, no one has ever been able to find out what her thoughts were." Thereupon the whole party rose and repaired to the grand salon. While the guests invited for the ball were arriv- ing in crowds and mingling with the dinner-guests, while the orchestra was tuning up, while the waltz- ers, eye-glass in position, strutted in front of the white gowns of the impatient damsels, the bride- groom, awed by so great a throng, had taken refuge with his friend Planus — Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont for thirty years past — in that little gallery decorated with flowers and hung with a paper representing shrubbery and clambering vines, which forms a sort of back- ground of verdure to Vcfour's gilded salons. A Wedding-Party at Cafe Vefour. 9 " Sigismond, old friend — I am very happy," And Sigismond too was happy; but Rislcr did not give him time to say so. Now that he was no longer in dread of weeping before his guests, all the joy in his heart overflowed. "Just think of it, my friend ! — It's so extraor- dinary that a young girl like her would consent to have me. For you know, I 'm not handsome. I did n't need to have that impudent creature tell me so this morning to know it. And then I 'm forty- two — and she such a dear little thing! There were so many others she might have chosen, among the youngest and the richest, to say nothing of my poor Frantz, who loved her so. But, no, she pre- ferred her old Risler. And it came about so queerly. For a long time I noticed that she was sad, greatly changed. I felt sure there was some disappointment in love at the bottom of it. Her mother and I. we looked about, we cudgelled our brains to find out what it could be. One morn- ing Madame Chebe came into my room crying, and said : ' You 're the man she loves, my dear friend ! ' — And I was the man, — I was the man. Bless my soul ! Whoever would have suspected such a thing? And to think that in the same year I had those two great pieces of good fortune — a partner in the house of Fromont and married to Sidonie — Oh ! " At that moment, to the strains of a giddy, lan- guishing waltz, a couple whirled into the small salon. They were Risler's bride and his partner, Georges Fromont. Equally young and attractive. lo Fromont and Risler. they were talking in undertones, confining their words within the narrow circle of the waltz. "You lie," said Sidonie, slightly pale, but with the same little smile. And the other, paler than she, replied : " I do not lie. It was my uncle who insisted upon this marriage. He was dying — you had gone away. I dared not say no." Risler, at a distance, gazed at them in admiration. " How pretty she is ! How well they dance ! " But, when they spied him, the dancers separated, and Sidonie walked quickly to him. "What! You here? What are you doing? They are looking everywhere for you. Why are n't you in there? " As she spoke she re-tied his cravat with a pretty, impatient gesture. That enchanted Risler, who smiled at Sigismond from the corner of his eye, too overjoyed at feeling the touch of that little gloved hand on his neck, to notice that she was trembling to the ends of her slender fingers. " Give me your arm," she said to him, and they returned together to the salons. The white dress with its long train made the badly-cut, awkwardly worn black coat, appear even more uncouth ; but a coat cannot be re-tied like a cravat; she must needs take it as it was. As they passed along, re- turning the salutations of all the guests who were so anxious to smile upon them, Sidonie had a momentary thrill of pride, of satisfied vanity. Unhappily it did not last. In a corner of the salon sat a young and attractive woman whom no- A Wedding- Parly at Cafe Vc/our. 1 1 body invited to dance, and who looked on at the dances with a placid eye, illumined by all the joy of a first maternity. As soon as he saw her, Ris- Icr walked strai<^ht to where she sat and compelled Sidonie to sit beside her. Needless to say that it was Madame " Chorche." To what other would he have spoken with such affectionate respect? In what other hand than hers could he have placed his little Sidonie's, saying, " You will love her dearly, won't you? You are so good. She needs your advice, your knowledge of the world." " Why, my dear Risler," Madame Georges re- plied, " Sidonie and I are old friends. Wc have reason to be fond of each other still." And her calm, straightforward glance strove un- successfully to meet that of her old friend. With his utter ignorance of women and his habit of treating Sidonie as a child, Risler continued in the same tone : " Take her for your model, little one. There are not two people in the world like Madame Chorche. She has her poor father's heart. A true Fromont ! " Sidonie, with her eyes cast down, bowed with- out replying, while an imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost bit of orange blossom in her crown. But honest Risler saw nothing. The excitement, the danc- ing, the music, all the flowers, all the lights. He was drunk, he was mad. He believed that every- body else breathed the same atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him. He had 12 Fromoiit and Risler. no perception of the rivalries, the petty hatreds that met and passed one another above all those bejewelled foreheads. He did not see Delobelle, standing with his elbow on the mantel, one hand in the armhole of his waistcoat and his hat upon' his hip, weary of his eternal attitudinizing, while the hours slipped by and no one thought of utilizing his talents. He did not notice M. Chebe, who was prowl- ing darkly between the two doors, more incensed than ever against the Fromonts. Oh ! those Fro- monts ! — How large a place they filled at that wedding ! They were all there with their wives, their children, their friends, their friends' friends. One would have said that one of themselves was being married. Who had a word to say of the Rislers or the Chebes? Why, he, he, the father, had not even been presented! — And the little man's rage was redoubled by the attitude of Madame Chebe, smiling maternally upon one and all in her scarab-hued dress. Furthermore, there were at this, as at almost all wedding-parties, two quite distinct currents which came together without mingling. One of the two soon gave place to the other. The Fro- monts, who irritated Monsieur Chebe so much and who formed the aristocracy of the ball, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, the syn- dic of the solicitors, a famous chocolate manu- facturer and member of the Corps Legislatif, and the old millionaire Gardinois, all retired shortly after midnight. Georges Fromont and his wife en- A Wcdding-Parly at Cafe Vefour. 13 tcrcd their coupe behind them. Only the Risler and Chebe party remained, and the festivity at once changed its aspect, becoming more uproarious. The ilhistrious Delobelle, disgusted to see that no one called upon him for anything, decided to call upon himself for something, and began in a voice as resonant as a gong the monologue from Ruy Bias: "Good appetite, messieurs!" — while the guests thronged to the buffet, spread with chocolate and glasses of punch. Inexpensive lit- tle costumes were displayed upon the benches, overjoyed to produce their due effect at last ; and here and there divers young shop-clerks, consumed with dandyism, amused themselves by venturing upon a quadrille. The bride had long wished to take her leave. At last she disappeared with Ris- ler and Madame Chebe. As for Monsieur Chebe, who had recovered all his importance, it was im- possible to induce him to go. Some one must be there to do the honors, deuce take it ! And I promise you that the little man assumed the re- sponsibility ! He was flushed, lively, frolicsome, noisy, almost seditious. On the floor below he could be heard talking politics with Vefour's head waiter, and making such audacious statements ! Through the deserted streets the wedding car- riage, the tired coachman holding the white reins somewhat loosely, rolled heavily toward the Marais. Madame Chebe talked continuously, enumer- ating all the splendors of that memorable day, rhapsodizing especially over the dinner, the com- 14 Fromont and Risler, monplace menu of which had been to her the highest expression of magnificence. Sidonie mused in the darkness of the carriage, and Ris- ler, sitting opposite her, even though he no longer said : " I am very happy," continued to think it with all his heart. Once he tried to take possession of a little white hand that rested against the closed window, but it was hastily with- drawn, and he sat there without moving, lost in mute admiration. They drove through the Halles and Rue de Rambuteau, thronged with kitchen-gardeners' wag- ons ; and, near the end of Rue des Francs-Bour- geois, they turned the corner of the Archives into Rue de Braque. There they stopped first, and Madame Chebe alighted at her door, which was too narrow for the magnificent green silk dress, so that it vanished in the hall with rustlings of revolt and with all its folds muttering. A few- minutes later, a tall massive portal on Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, bearing on the escutcheon that betrayed the former family mansion, be- neath half-effaced armorial bearings, a sign in blue letters : WALL PAPERS, was thrown wide open to allow the wedding car- riage to pass through. Thereupon the bride, hitherto motionless and like one asleep, seemed to awake suddenly, and if all the lights in the vast buildings, workshops or storehouses, which surrounded the courtyard, A Wedding-Party at Cafe Vefoiir. 15 had not been extinguished, Risler might have seen that pretty, enigmatical face suddenly lighted by a smile of triumph. The wheels revolved less noisily on the fine gravel of a garden, and soon stopped before the stoop of a small house of two floors. It was there that the young Fro- monts lived, and Risler and his wife were to take up their abode on the floor above. The house had an aristocratic air. Flourishing commerce avenged itself therein for the dismal street and the out-of-the-way quarter. There was a carpet on the stairway leading to their apartment, and on all sides the gleaming whiteness of marble, the reflection of mirrors and polished copper. While Risler was parading his delight through all the rooms of the new apartment, Sidonie re- mained alone in her bedroom. By the light of the little blue lamp hanging from the ceiling, she glanced first of all at the mirror, which gave back her reflection from head to foot, at all her luxurious surroundings, so unfamiliar to her; the", instead of going to bed, she opened the windov/ and stood leaning against the sill, motionless as a statue. The night was clear and warm. She could see distinctly the whole factory, its innunicrable un- shaded windows, its glistening panes, its tall chim- ney losing itself in the depths of the sky, and nearer at hand the lovely little garden against the ancient wall of the former mansion. All about were gloomy, miserable roofs, squalid, squalid streets. Suddenly she started. Yonder, in the 1 6 Fromoiit and Risler, darkest, the ugliest of all those attics crowding so closely together, leaning against one another as if overweighted with misery, a fifth floor win- dow stood wide open, showing only darkness within. She recognized it at once. It was the window of the landing on which her parents lived. The window on the landing ! How many things the mere name recalled ! How many hours, how many days she had passed there, leaning on that damp sill, without rail or balcony, looking toward the factory. At that moment she fancied that she could see up yonder little Chebe's ragged person, and in the frame made by that poor window, her whole child life, her de- plorable youth as a Parisian street Arab, passed before her eyes. Three Families on One Landing. 17 II. LITTLE CHfeBE'S STORY. THREE FAMILIES ON ONE LANDING. In Paris the common landing is like an addi- tional room, an enlargement of their abodes, to poor families confined in their too small apart- ments. There it is that they go to get a breath of air in summer, there the women talk and the children play. When little Chebe made too much noise in the house, her mother would say to her: "There, there ! you bother me, go and play on the land- ing." And the child would go quickly enough. This landing, on the upper floor of an old house in which space had not been spared, formed a sort of large lobby, with a high ceiling, guarded on the staircase side by a wrought-iron rail, lighted by a large window which looked out upon roofs, court- yards and other windows, and, farther away, upon the garden of the Fromont factory, which was like a green oasis among the huge old walls. There was nothing very enlivening about it all, but the child liked it much better than her own home. Their rooms were so dismal, especially when it rained and Ferdinand did not go out. 2 1 8 Fromont and Risler. His brain always smoking with new ideas, which unfortunately never came to anything, Ferdinand Chebe was one of those slothful, project-devising bourgeois of whom there are so many in Paris. His wife, whom he had dazzled at first, had soon detected his utter insignificance, and had ended by enduring patiently and with unchanged demeanor his continual dreams of wealth and the disasters that immediately followed them. Of the dowry of eighty thousand francs which she had brought him and which he had squan- dered in his absurd schemes, there remained only a small annuity, which still gave them a position of some importance in the eyes of their neighbors, as did Madame Chebe's cashmere, which had been rescued from every shipwreck, her wedding laces and two diamond studs, very tiny and very mod- est, which Sidonie sometimes begged her mother to show her, as they lay in the drawer of the com- mode, in an old-fashioned white velvet case, on which the jeweller's name in gilt letters thirty years old, was gradually vanishing. That was the only bit of luxury in that poor annuitant's abode. For a long, a very long time Monsieur Chebe had sought a place which would enable him to eke out their slender income. But he sought it only in what he called standing business, his health forbidding any occupation that required him to be seated. It seemed that, soon after his marriage, when he was in a flourishing business and had a horse T/ircc Families on One Landing. \ 9 and tilbuiA' of his own, the little man had one day a serious fall from his carriage. That fall, to which he referred upon every occasion, served as an excuse for his indolence. One could not be with Monsieur Chebe five minutes that he would not say in a confidential tone: "You know of the accident that happened to the Due d'Orlcans? " And then he would add, tapping his little bald pate: " The same thing happened to me in my youth." Since that famous fall any sort of office work made him dizzy, and he had found himself inex- orably relegated to standing business. Thus, he had been in turn a broker in wines, in books, in truffles, in clocks, and in many other things beside. Unluckily he tired of everything, never considered his position sufficiently exalted for a former busi- ness man with a tilbury, and, by gradual degrees, by dint of deeming every sort of occupation be- neath him, he had grown old and incapable, a genuine idler with loaferish tastes, a zany. Artists are often rebuked for their oddities, for the liberties they take with nature, for that horror of the conventional which impels them to follow bypaths ; but who can ever describe all the absurd fancies, all the idiotic eccentricities with which a bourgeois without occupation can succeed in filling the emptiness of his life? Monsieur Chebe im- posed upon himself certain laws concerning his go- ings and comings, his walks abroad. All the while 20 Fronioiit and Risler. that the Boulevard Sebastopol was being built, he went twice a day " to see if it was getting on." No one knew better than he the fashionable shops and the bargains; and very often Madame Chebe, annoyed to see her husband's idiotic face at the window while she was energetically mending the family linen, would rid herself of him by giving him an errand to do. " You know that place, on the corner of such a street, where they sell such nice cakes. They'd be nice for our dessert." And the husband would go out, saunter along the boulevard by the shops, wait for the omnibus, and pass half the day in procuring two cakes worth three sous, which he would bring home in triumph, wiping his forehead. Monsieur Chebe adored the summer, the Sun- days, the great foot-races in the dust at Clamart or Romainville, the excitement of holidays and the crowd. He was one of those who went about for a whole week before the fifteenth of August, gaz- ing at the black lamps and their frames, and the scaffoldings. Nor did his wife complain. At all events she no longer had that chronic grumbler prowling around her chair for whole days, with schemes for gigantic enterprises, combinations that missed fire in advance, lamentations concerning the past, and a fixed determination not to earn money. She no longer earned anything herself, poor woman ; but she knew so well how to save, her Avonderful economy made up so completely for everything else, that absolute want, although a Three Families on One Landing. 21 near neighbor of such inipccuniosity as thch's, never succeeded in making its way into those three rooms, which were always neat and clean, or in destroying the carefully mended garments or the old furniture concealed beneath its coverings. Opposite the Chcbes' door, whose copper knob gleamed in bourgeois fashion upon the landing, there were two other and smaller ones. On the first, a visiting card held in place by four nails, according to the custom in vogue among industrial artists, bore the name of RISLER DESIGNER OF PATTERNS. On the other was a small square of leather with these words in gilt letters : MESDAMES DELOBELLE BIRDS AND INSECTS FOR ORNAMENT. The Dclobcllcs' door was often open and dis- closed a large room with a brick floor, where two women, mother and daughter, the latter almost a child, each as weary and as pale as the other. worked at one of the thousand fanciful little trades which go to make up what is called the Article de Paris. It was then the fashion to ornament hats and ball dresses with the lovely little insects from South America, which have the brilliant coloring 2 2 Fromont and Rzsler. of jewels and reflect the light like diamonds. The Delobelles had adopted that specialty. A wholesale house, to whom consignments were made directly from the Antilles, sent to them, unopened, the long, light boxes from which, when the lid was removed, arose a faint odor, a dust of arsenic through which gleamed the piles of insects, impaled before being shipped, the birds packed closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted, — the insects quivering upon brass wire, the hum- ming-birds with their feathers ruffled ; — they must be cleaned and polished, the break in a bright-red claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. The mother prepared the work under her daugh- ter's direction ; for Deslree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed with exquisite taste, with a fairy-like power of invention, and no one could insert two pearl-eyes in those tiny heads or spread their lifeless wings so deftly as she. Lame from childhood, as the result of an acci- dent which had in no wise impaired the charm of her refined and regular features, Desiree Delobelle owed to her almost enforced immobility, to her constant disinclination to go out, a certain aristo- cratic coloring and the whitest of hands. With her hair always becomingly arranged, she passed her days in the depths of a great easy chair, beside her table laden with fashion-plates and birds of all hues, finding in the fanciful and worldly elegance Three Families on One Landing. 23 of her trade a means of forgetting her own distress and a sort of vengeance for her disfigured life. She reflected that all those tiny wings were about to fly away from her table to undertake real voyages around the Parisian world, to sparkle at balls and parties, beneath the great chandeliers ; and simply by the way she set up her insects and her birds one could have guessed the tenor of her thoughts. In the days of depression and melan- choly the tapering beaks were stretched forward, the wings were spread to their fullest extent, as if to fly with a mighty impulse, far, far away from fifth floor lodgings, from air-tight stoves, from privation and want. At other times, when she was happy, her insects had the appearance of being overjoyed to live, the saucy swaggering air of a trivial caprice of fashion. Happy or unhappy, Dcsiree always worked with the same energy. From dawn until well into the night the table was covered with work. At the last ray of daylight, when the factory bells were ringing in all the neighboring yards, Madame Delobelle lighted the lamp, and after a more than frugal repast they returned to their work. Those two indefatigable women had one object, one fixed idea, which prevented them from feeling the burden of enforced vigils. That idea was the dramatic renown of the illustrious Delobelle, After he had left the provincial theatres to pur- sue his profession in Paris, Delobelle waited for an intelligent manager, the ideal and providential manager who discovers geniuses, to seek him out 24 Fro77iont and Risler. and ofifer him a part suited to his talents. He might, perhaps, especially at the beginning, have obtained a passably good engagement at a theatre of the third order, but Delobelle did not choose to lower himself. He preferred to wait, to struggle, as he said ! And this is how he awaited the struggle. In the morning in his bedroom, often in his bed, he rehearsed roles in his former repertory; and the Delobelle ladies trembled with emotion when they heard behind the partition tirades from Antony or the Medeciii dcs Eiifants, declaimed in a sonorous voice that blended with the thousand and one noises of the great Parisian bee-hive. Then, after breakfast, the actor would sally forth for the day ; would go to " do his boulevard," that is to say, to saunter back and forth between the Chateau d'Eau and the Madeleine, with a tooth- pick in the corner of his mouth, his hat a little on one side, — always gloved and brushed and glossy. That question of dress was of great importance in his eyes. It was one of the greatest elements of success, a bait for the manager, — the famous, intelligent manager, — who would never dream of engaging a threadbare, shabbily dressed man. So the Delobelle ladies took good care that he lacked nothing ; and you can imagine how many birds and insects it required to fit out a blade of that temper ! The actor thought it the most nat- ural thing in the world. In his view, the labors, the privations of his wife and daughter were not, strictly speaking, for his Three Families on One Landing. 25 benefit, but for the benefit of that mysterious and unknown genius, whose trustee he considered himself in some sense to be. There was a certain analogy between the posi- tion of the Chebe family and that of the Dclobelles. But the latter household was less depressing. The Chebcs felt that their petty annuitant existence was fastened upon them forever, with no prospect of amelioration, always the same ; whereas, in the actor's family, hope and illusion often opened magnificent vistas. The Chebes were like people living in a blind alley ; the Delobelles on a foul little street, where there was no light or air, but where a great boule- vard might some day be laid out. And then, too, Madame Chebe no longer believed in her husband, whereas, by virtue of that single magic word, "Art!" her neighbor had never doubted hers. And yet for years and years Monsieur Dclobelle had been unavailingly drinking vermouth with dramatic agents, absinthe with leaders of claques, bitters with vaudevillists, dramatists, and the famous what 's-his-namc, author of several great dramas.^ Engagements did not always follow. So that, without once appearing on the boards, the poor man had progressed from jeime premier to grand premier roles, then to the financiers, then to the noble fathers, then to the idiots — Pic stopped there ! ' Lc fameux machin, autciir de phisieurs grandes viachines. JMachin is an expression used when one cannot recollect a person's name, and machines in theatrical slang means dramatic works. 26 Fromont and Risler. On two or three occasions his friends had ob- tained for him a chance to earn his hving as man- ager of a club or a cafe, as an inspector in great warehouses, at the Pliarcs de la Bastille or the Colosse de Rhodes. All that was necessary was to have good manners. Delobelle was not lacking in that respect, God knows ! And yet every sug- gestion that was made to him the great man met with an heroic refusal. " I have no right to abandon the stage ! " he would say. In the mouth of that poor devil, who had not set foot on the boards for years, it was irresistibly comical. But one lost the inclination to laugh when one saw his wife and his daughter swallowing particles of arsenic day and night, and heard them repeat emphatically as they broke their needles against the brass wire with which the little birds were mounted : " No ! no ! Monsieur Delobelle has no right to abandon the stage." Happy man, whose bulging eyes, always smiling condescendingly, and whose habit of reigning on the stage had procured for him for life that excep- tional position of a spoiled and admired child- king ! When he left the house, the shopkeepers on Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, with the predilection of the Parisian for everything and everybody con- nected with the theatre, saluted him respectfully. He was always so well dressed ! And then he was so kind, so obliging ! When you think that every Saturday night, he, Ruy Bias, Antony, Raphael in Three Families on One Lauding. 27 the Fillcs dc Marbrc, Andres in the Pirates dc la Savane, salHed forth, with a bandbox under his arm, to carry the week's work of his wife and daugh- ter to a flower estabHshment on Rue Saint-Denis! Why, even when performing such a commission as that, the devil of a fellow had such nobility of bearing, such native dignity, that the young woman whose duty it was to make up the Delo- belle account was sorely embarrassed to hand to such an irreproachable gentleman the paltry sti- pend so laboriously earned. On those evenings, by the way, the actor did not return home to dinner. The women were fore- warned. He always met some old comrade on the boulevard, some unlucky devil like himself, — • there are so many of them in that sacred profes- sion, — whom he entertained at a restaurant or cafe. Then, with scrupulous fidelity, — and very grateful they were to him, — he would carry the rest of the money home, sometimes with a bouquet for his wife or a little present for Desiree, a nothing, a mere trifle. What would you have? Those are the customs of the stage. It is such a simple matter in a melodrama to toss a handful of louis through the window ! " Ho ! varlet, take this purse and hie thee hence to tell thy mistress I await her coming." And so, notwithstanding their marvellous courage, and although their trade was quite lucra- tive, the Delobellcs often found themselves in straitened circumstances, especially in the dull season of the Article de Paris. 28 Fromont and Risler. Luckily the excellent Risler wa? at hand, always ready to accommodate his friends. Guillaume Risler, the third tenant on the land- ing, lived with his brother Frantz, who was some fifteen years his junior. The two young Swiss, tall and fair and strong and ruddy, brought into the dismal, hard-working house glimpses of the country and of health. The elder was a draughts- man at the Fromont factory and was paying for the education of his brother, who attended Chaptal's lectures, pending his admission to the Ecole Centrale. On his arrival at Paris, being sadly perplexed as to the installation of his little household, Guil- laume had derived from the neighborhood of Mes- dames Chebe and Delobelle advice and information which were an indispensable assistance to that ingenuous, timid, somewhat heavy youth, embar- rassed by his foreign accent and manner. After a brief period of neighborhood and mutual ser- vices, the Risler brothers formed a part of both families. On holidays covers were always laid for them in one place or the other, and it was a great satis- faction to the two exiles to find in those poor households, modest and straitened as they were, a taste of affection and family life. The pay of the designer, who was very clever at his trade, enabled him to be of service to the Delobelles on rent-day, and to make his appear- ance at the Chebes in the guise of the rich uncle, always laden with surprises and presents, so that Three Families on One Landing. 29 the little girl, as soon as she saw him, would run to his pockets and climb on his knees. On Sunday he would take them all to the theatre ; and almost every evening he would go with Messieurs Chebe and Dclobelle to a brewery on Rue Blondcl, where he regaled them with beer and pretzels. Beer and pretzels were his one vice. For his own part, he knew no greater bliss than to sit before a foaming pewter, between his two friends, listening to their talk, and taking part only by a loud laugh or a shake of the head in their conversation, which was generally a long succes- sion of grievances against society. A childlike shyness and the germanisms of speech which he never laid aside in his life of absorbing toil, embarrassed him much in giving expression to his ideas. Moreover his friends overawed him. They had in respect to him the tremendous superiority of the man who does nothing over the man who works; and Monsieur Chebe, less generous than Delobclle, did not hesi- tate to make him feel it. He was very lofty with him, was Monsieur Chebe ! In his view, a man who worked, as Rislcr did, ten hours a day, was incapable, when he left his work, of expressing an intelligent opinion. Sometimes the designer, coming home worried from the factory, would pre- pare to pass the night over some urgent work. You should have seen Monsieur Chebc's scandal- ized expression then ! " Nobody could make mc follow such a trade ! " he would say, throwing out his chest ; and he would 30 Fromont and Risler. add, looking Risler in the eye with the air of a doctor making a professional visit: "Just wait till you 've had one sharp attack." Delobelle was not so fierce, but he adopted a still loftier tone. " The cedar does not see a rose at its foot." Delobelle did not see Risler at his feet. When, by chance, he deigned to notice his presence, the great man had a certain air of stoop- ing down to him to listen, and to smile at his words as at a child's ; or else he would amuse himself by dazzling him with stories of actresses, would give him lessons in deportment and the addresses of outfitters, unable to understand why a man who earned so much money should always be dressed like an usher at a primary school. Honest Risler, convinced of his inferiority, would try to earn forgiveness by a multitude of trifling attentions, obliged to furnish all the delicacy, of course, as he was the constant benefactor. Between these three households living on the same landing, little Chebe with her perpetual goings and comings formed the bond of union. At all hours of the day she would steal into the workroom of the Delobelles, amuse herself by watching their work and looking at all the insects, and, being already more coquettish than playful, if an insect had lost a wing in its travels, or a humming-bird its necklace of down, she would try to make herself a headdress of the remains, to fix that brilliant shaft of color among the ripples of her silky hair. It made Desiree and her mother Three Families on One Landing. 31 laugh to sec her stand on tiptoe in front of the old tarnished mirror, with affected httle shrugs and grimaces. Then, when she had had enough of her own admiration, the child would open the door with all the strength of her little fingers, and would go demurely, holding her head perfectly straight for fear of disarranging her head-dress, and knock at the Rislers' door. No one was there in the daytime but Frantz the student, leaning over his books, doing his duty faithfully enough. Enter Sidonie ; farewell to study then ! Everything must be put aside to receive that lovely creature with the hummingbird in her hair, assumed to be a princess who had come to Chaptal's school to ask his hand in mar- riage from the director. It was really a strange sight to see that tall over- grown boy playing with that little girl of eight, humoring her caprices, adoring her as he yielded to her, so that later, when he fell genuinely in love with her, no one could have said at what time the change began. Petted as she was in those two homes, there always came a time when little Chebe ran to the window on the landing. There it was that she found her greatest source of entertainment, a horizon always open, a sort of vision of the future toward which she leaned with eager curiosity and without fear, for children are not subject to vertigo. Between the slated roofs sloping toward one another, the high wall of the factory, the tops of the plane-trees in the garden, the many-windowed 32 Fromoiit and Risler, workshops appeared to her hke a promised land, the country of her dreams. That Fromont estabhshment was to her mind the highest embodiment of wealth. The place that it occupied in that part of the Marais, which was at certain hours enveloped by its smoke and its din, Risler's enthusiasm, his fabu- lous tales concerning his employer's wealth and goodness and cleverness, had aroused that childish curiosity; and such portions as she could see of the dwelling-houses, the carved wooden blinds, the circular stoop, with the garden seats arranged in front, a great white bird-house with gilt stripes glistening in the sun, the blue-lined coupe stand- ing in the courtyard, were to her objects of con- stant admiration. She knew all the habits of the family: at what hour the bell was rung, when the workmen went away, the Saturday pay-day which kept the cashier's little lamp lighted well into the evening, and the long Sunday afternoon, the closed workshops, the smokeless chimney, the profound silence which enabled her to hear Mademoiselle Claire at play in the garden, running about with her cousin Georges. From Risler she obtained details. " Show me the salon windows," she would say to him, " and Claire's room." Risler, delighted by this extraordinary sympa- thetic interest in his beloved factory, would explain to the child from their lofty position the arrange- ment of the buildings, point out the print-shop, the gilding-shop, the designing room where he Three Families on One Landing. 33 worked, the engine-room, above which towered that enormous chimney which blackened all the neighboring walls with its corrosive smoke, and which of a surety never suspected that a young life, concealed beneath a roof near by, mingled its inmost thoughts with its loud, indefatigable breath. One day Sidonie at last entered that paradise of which she had caught a glimpse. Madame Fromont, to whom Risler often spoke of her little neighbor's beauty and intelligence, asked him to bring her to the children's ball she was preparing to give at Christmas. At first Monsieur Chebe replied by a curt refusal. Even in those days, the Fromonts, whose name was always on Risler's lips, irritated and humiliated him by their wealth. Moreover, it was to be a fancy ball, and Monsieur Chebe — who did not sell wall-papers, not he! — could not afford to dress his daughter as a rope-dancer. But Risler insisted, declared that he would take everything upon himself, and at once set about designing a costume. It was a memorable evening. In Madame Ch^be's bedroom, littered with pieces of cloth and pins and small toilet articles, Desiree Delobelle superintended Sidonie's toilet. The child, made taller by her short skirt of red flannel with black stripes, stood before the mirror, erect and motionless, in the glittering splendor of her costume. She was charming. The waist with bands of velvet laced over the white stomacher, 3 34 Fromojit and Rislcr. the lovely long tresses of chestnut hair escaping from beneath a hat of plaited straw, all the slightly trivial details of her Savoyard's costume were heightened by'the intelligent features of the child, who was quite at her ease in the brilliant colors of that theatrical garb. The whole assembled neighborhood uttered cries of admiration. While some one went in search of Delobelle, the lame girl arranged the folds of the skirt, the bows on the shoes, and cast a final glance over her work, without laying aside her needle ; she too was excited, poor child, by the intoxication of that festivity, to which she was not bidden. The great man arrived. He made Sidonie rehearse two or three stately reverences which he had taught her, the proper way to walk, to stand, to smile with her mouth open in a circle, and the exact position of the little finger. It was truly comical to see the precision with which the child went through the drill. " She has actor's blood in her veins ! " ex- claimed the old actor enthusiastically, and unable to understand why that great booby of a Frantz was strongly inclined to weep. A year after that happy evening Sidonie could have told you what flowers there were in the reception rooms, the color of the furniture, and the air they were playing as she entered the ball-room, so deep an impression did her enjoyment make upon her. She forgot nothing, neither the cos- tumes that made an eddying whirl about her, nor the childish laughter, nor all the tiny steps that Three Families on One Lanelijig. 35 glided over the glistening floors. For a moment, as she sat on the edge of a great red silk couch, taking from the plate held before her the first sherbet of her life, she suddenly thought of the dark staircase, of her parents' stuffy little rooms, and it produced upon her the effect of a distant country which she had left forever. However, she was considered a fascinating crea- ture, and was universally admired and petted. Claire Fromont, a miniature Cauchoise dressed all in lace, presented her to her cousin Georges, a magnificent hussar who turned at every step to observe the effect of his sabre. " You understand, Georges, she is my friend. She is coming to play with us Sundays. Mamma says she may." And, with the artless impulsiveness of a happy child, she kissed little Chebe with all her heart. But the time came to go. — For a long time, in the filthy street where the snow was melting, in the dark hall, in the silent room where her mother awaited her, the brilliant light of the salons con- tinued to shine before her dazzled eyes. " Was it very fine? Did you have a good time? " queried Madame Chebe in a low tone, unfastening the buckles of the gorgeous costume, one by one. And Sidonie, overdone with fatigue, made no reply, but fell asleep standing, beginning a lovely dream which was to last throughout her youth and cost her many tears. Claire Fromont kept her word. Sidonie often went to play in the beautiful gravelled garden, and 36 Fromont and Risler, was able to see near at hand the carved bhnds, the dovecot with its threads of gold. She came to know all the corners and hiding places in the vast factory and took part in many glorious games of hide-and-seek behind the printing tables in the solitude of Sunday afternoon. On holidays a cover was laid for her at the children's table. Everybody loved her, although she never ex< hibited much affection for anyone. So long as she was in the midst of that luxury, she was con- scious of softer impulses, she was happy and felt that she was embellished by her surroundings, as it were; but when she returned to her parents, when she saw the factory through the dirty panes of the window on the landing, she had an inex- plicable feeling of regret and anger. And yet Claire Fromont treated her as a friend. Sometimes they took her to the Bois, to the Tuileries, in the famous blue-lined coupe, or into the country, to pass a whole week at Grandfather Gardinois's chateau, at Savigny-sur-Orge. Thanks to the munificence of Risler, who was very proud of his little one's success, she was always presenta- ble and well-supplied. Madame Chebe made it a point of honor, and the pretty lame girl was always at hand to place her treasures of unused coquetry at her little friend's service. But Monsieur Chebe, who was always hostile to the Fromonts, looked frowningly upon this grow- ing intimacy. The true reason was that he himselt was never invited ; but he gave other reasons and would say to his wife : Three Families on One Landing, 37 "Don't you sec that your daughter's heart is heavy when she returns from that house, and that she passes whole hours dreaming at the wmdow? " But poor Madame Chebe, who had been so unhappy ever since her marriage, had become reckless. She declared that one should make the most of the present for fear of the future, should seize happiness when it passes within reach, as one often has no other support and consolation in life than the memory of a happy childhood. For once it happened that Monsieur Chebe was right. 38 Fromont and Risler, III. LITTLE CH£BE'S STORY — THE FALSE PEARLS. After two or three years of intimacy with Claire, of sharing her amusements, years during which Sidonie acquired the famiharity with kixury and the graceful manners of the children of the wealthy, the friendship was suddenly broken. Cousin Georges, whose guardian M. Fromont was, had entered college some time before. Claire in her turn took her departure for the convent with the outfit of a little queen ; and at that very moment the Chebes were discussing the question of apprenticing Sidonie to some trade. They promised to love each other as before and to meet twice a month, on the Sundays when Claire was allowed to go home. Indeed little Chebe did still go down sometimes to play with her friends ; but as she grew older she realized more fully the distance that separated them, and her dresses began to seem to her very simple for Madame Fromont's salon. When the three were alone, the childish friend- ship which made them equals prevented any feel- ing of embarrassment; but visitors came, girl friends from the convent, among others a tall girl, The False Pearls. 39 always richly dressed, whom her mother's maid used to bring to play with the little Fromonts on Sunday. As soon as she saw her coming up the steps, resplendent and disdainful, Sidonie longed to go away at once. The other embarrassed her with awkward questions. Where did she live? What did her parents do? Had she a carriage? As she listened to their talk of the convent and their friends, Sidonie felt that they lived in a different world, a thousand leagues from her own; and a deathly sadness seized her, especially when, on her return home, her mother spoke of sending her as an apprentice to Mademoiselle Le Mire, a friend of the Delobelles, who conducted a large false pearl establishment on Rue du Roi-Dore. Rislcr insisted upon the plan of having the little one serve an apprenticeship. " Let her learn a trade," said the honest fellow. " Later I will undertake to set her up in business." Indeed this same Mademoiselle Le Mire talked of retiring in a few years. It was an excellent opportunity. One morning, a dull morning in November, her father took her to Rue du Roi-Dorc, to the fourth floor of an old house, even older and blacker than her own home. On the ground floor, at the entrance to the hall, hung a number of signs with gilt letters : Depot for Travelling Bags, Plated Chains, Childrciis Toys, Mathematical Instrnvients in Glass, Bouquets for Brides and Maids of Honor, Wild Flowers a 40 Fromont and Risler. Specialty; and above, a little dusty show-case, wherein pearls yellow with age, glass grapes and cherries surrounded the pretentious name of Angelina Le Mire. Such a horrible house ! It had not even a broad landing like that of the Chebes, grimy with old age, but brightened by its window and the beautiful prospect presented by the factory. A narrow staircase, a narrow door, a succession of rooms with brick floors, all small and cold, and in the last an old maid with a false front and black thread mitts, reading a soiled copy of the Journal pour Tons, and apparently very much annoyed to be disturbed in her reading. Mademoiselle Le Mire (written in two words) received the father and daughter without rising, discoursed at great length of the position she had lost, of her father, an old nobleman of Le Rouergue — it is most extraordinary how many old noblemen Le Rouergue has already produced ! — and of an unfaithful steward who had carried off their whole fortune. She instantly aroused the sympathies of Monsieur Chebe, for whom decayed gentlefolk had an irresistible attraction, and the goodman went away overjoyed, promising his daughter to call for her at seven o'clock at night in accordance with the terms agreed upon. The apprentice was at once ushered into the still empty workroom. Mademoiselle Le Mire seated her in front of a great drawer filled with pearls, needles, and bodkins, with instalments of four-sous novels thrown in at random among them. The False Pearls. 41 It was Sidonic's business to sort the pearls and string them in necklaces of equal length, which were tied together to be sold to the small dealers. Then the young women would soon be there and they would show her exactly what she would have to do, for Mademoiselle Le Mire (written in two words) did not interfere at all, but overlooked her business from a considerable distance, from that dark room where she passed her life reading news- paper novels. At nine o'clock the workwomen arrived, five tall, pale-faced, faded girls, wretchedly dressed, but with their hair becomingly arranged, after the fashion of poor working girls who go about bare- headed through the streets of Paris. Two or three were yawning and rubbing their eyes, saying that they were dead with sleep. Who can say what they had done with their night? At last they went to work beside a long table where each one had her own drawer and her own tools. An order had been received for mourning jewels, and haste was essential. Sidonie, whom the forewoman instructed in her task in a tone of in- finite superiority, began dismally to sort a multi- tude of black pearls, bits of glass and wisps of crepe. The others, paying no attention to the urchin, chatted together as they worked. They talked of a wedding that was to take place that very day at Saint-Gervais. " Suppose we go," said a stout, red-haired girl, whose name was Malvina. " It's to be at noon. 42 Fromojit and Risler. We shall have time to go and get back again if we hurry." And, at the lunch hour, the whole party rushed downstairs four steps at a time. Sidonie had brought her meal in a little basket, like a school-girl ; with a heavy heart she sat at a corner of the table and ate alone for the first time in her life. Great God ! what a sad and wretched thing life seemed to be, what a terrible revenge she would take hereafter for her sufferings there ! At one o'clock the girls trooped noisily back, highly excited. " Did you see the white satin dress? And the veil oi point d'Angleterrc? There 's a lucky girl ! " Thereupon they repeated in the workroom the re- marks they had made in undertones in the church, leaning against the rail, throughout the ceremony. That question of a wealthy marriage, of beautiful clothes, lasted all day long; nor did it interfere with their work, far from it. These small Parisian industries, which have to do with the most trivial details of the toilet, keep the work-girls posted as to the fashions and fill their minds everlastingly with thoughts of luxury and elegance. To the poor girls who worked on Mademoiselle Le Mire's fourth floor, the blackened walls, the narrow street did not exist. They were always thinking of something else and passed their lives asking one another : " Say, Malvina, if you were rich what would you do? For my part I'd live on the Champs- Elysees." And the great trees on the square, The False Peaids. 43 the carriages that turned about there, coqucttishly slackening their pace, appeared momentarily before their minds, a delicious refreshing vision. Little Chebe, in her corner, listened without speaking, industriously stringing her black grapes with the precocious dexterity and taste she had acquired in Desiree's neighborhood. So that in the evening, when Monsieur Chebe came to fetch his daughter, they praised her in the highest terms. Thereafter all her days were alike. The next day, instead of black pearls, she strung white pearls and bits of false coral ; for at Mademoiselle Le Mire's they worked only in what was false, in tinsel, and that was where little Chebe was to serve her apprenticeship in life. For some time the new apprentice — being younger and better bred than the others — found that they held aloof from her. Later, as she grew older, she was admitted to their friendship and their confidence, but without ever sharing their pleasures. She was too proud to go to see wed- dings at midday; and when she heard them talking of a ball at Vauxhall or the Dclices dti Marais, or of a nice little supper at Bonvalet's or at the Quatrc Scri:;cnts dc la Rochc/lc, she was always very disdainful. We looked higher than that, did we not, little Chebe? Moreover, her father called for her every even- ing. Sometimes, however, about the New Year, she was obliged to work late with the others, in order to complete the urgent orders. In the gas- 44 Fromont and Risler, light those pale-faced Parisians, sorting pearls as white as themselves, of a dead, unhealthy whiteness, were a painful spectacle. There was the same fictitious glitter, the same fragility of spurious jewels. They talked of nothing but masked balls and theatres. " Have you seen Adele Page, in the Trois Moiis- qiietaires? And Melingue? And Marie Laurent? Oh ! Marie Laurent ! " The actors' doublets, the embroidered dresses of the queens of melodrama appeared before them in the white light of the necklaces forming beneath their fingers. In summer the work was less pressing. It was the dull season. In the intense heat, when through the drawn blinds fruit vendors could be heard in the street, crying their mirabelles and Queen Claudes, the work-girls slept heavily, their heads on the table. Or perhaps Malvina would go and ask Mademoiselle Le Mire for a copy of the Jonyjial pour Tons, and read aloud to the others. But little Chebe did not care for the novels. She carried one in her head much more interesting than all that trash. The fact is that nothing could make her forget the factory. When she set forth in the morning on her father's arm, she always cast a glance in that direction. At that hour the works were just wak- ing, the chimney emitted its first puff of black smoke. Sidonie, as she passed, could hear the shouts of the workmen, the dull, heavy blows of the bars of the printing-press, the mighty, rhyth- The False Pearls. 45 mical hum of the machinery, and all those sounds of toil, blended in her memory with recollec- tions of fetes and blue-lined coupes, haunted her persistently. They spoke louder than the rattle of the omni- buses, the street cries, the cascades in the gutters ; and even in the workroom, when she was sorting the false pearls, even at night, in her own home, when she went, after dinner, to breathe the fresh air at the window on the landing and to gaze at the dark, deserted factory, that murmur still buzzed in her ears, forming, as it were, a constant accompaniment to her thoughts. " The little one is tired, Madame Chebe. She needs aiversion. Next Sunday I will take you all into the country." These Sunday excursions, which honest Risler organized to divert Sidonie, served only to sadden her still more. On those days she must rise at four o'clock in the morning; for the poor must pay for all their enjoyments, and there was always a ribbon to be ironed at the last moment, or a bit of trimming to be sewn on in an attempt to rejuvenate the ever- lasting little lilac dress with white stripes which Madame Chcbe conscientiously lengthened every year. They would all set off together, the Chebes, the Rislers and the illustrious Delobelle. Only Desiree and her mother were never of the , party. The poor crippled child, ashamed of her deformity, would never stir from her chair, and Mamma De- 46 Fromont and Risler. lobelle stayed behind to keep her company. More- over, neither of them possessed a suitable dress in which to show herself out-of-doors in their great man's company ; it would have destroyed the whole effect of his appearance. When they left the house, Sidonie would brighten up a little. Paris in the pink haze of a July morn- ing, the railway stations filled with light dresses, the country flying past the car windows, and the healthful exercise, the bath un the pure air sat- urated with the water of the Seine, vivified by a bit of forest, perfumed by flowering meadows, by ripening grain, all combined to make her giddy for a moment. But that sensation was soon suc- ceeded by disgust at such a commonplace way of passing her Sunday. It was always the same thing. They stopped at a refreshment booth, in close proximity to a very noisy and numerously attended rustic festival, for there must be an audience for Delobelle, who would saunter along, absorbed by his chimera, dressed in gray, with gray gaiters, a little hat over his ear, a light overcoat on his arm, imagining that the stage represented a country scene in the suburbs of Paris, and that he was playing the part of a Parisian sojourning in the country. As for Monsieur Chebe, who prided himself on being as fond of nature as the late Jean Jacques, he did not appreciate it without the accompani- ments of shooting-matches, wooden horses, sack races, and a profusion of dust and penny-whistles, TJic False Pearls. 47 which also constituted Madame Chcbc's ideal of a country life. But Sidonie had a diftcrent ideal ; and those Par- isian Sundays passed in strolling through noisy village streets depressed her beyond measure. Her only pleasure in those crowds was the con- sciousness of being stared at. The veriest boor's admiration, frankly expressed aloud at her side, made her smile all day ; for she was of those who disdain no compliment. Sometimes, leaving the Chcbes and Delobelle in the midst of the fete, Risler would go into the fields with his brother and the " little one," in search of flowers, of patterns for his wall-papers. Frantz, with his long arms, would pull down the topmost branches of a hawthorn, or would climb a park wall to pick a leaf of graceful shape he had spied on the other side. But they reaped their richest harvests on the banks of the stream. There they found those flexible plants with long swaying stalks, which make such a lovely effect on hangings, tall, straight reeds, and the volubilis, whose flower, opening suddenly as if in obedience to a caprice, resembles a living face, some one looking at you amid the lovely, quivering foliage. Risler arranged his nosegays artistically, drawing his inspiration from the very nature of the plants, trying to understand thoroughly their manner of life, which cannot be divined after a day of fatigue has passed over them. Then, when the bouquet was completed, tied with a broad blade of grass as with a ribbon, and 48 Fromont and Risler. slung over Frantz's back, away they went. Risler, always engrossed in his art, looked about for sub- jects, for possible combinations, as they walked along. " Look there, little one — see that bunch of lily of the valley, with its white bells, among those eglantines. What do you think? Wouldn't that be pretty against a sea-green or pearl-gray back- ground? " But Sidonie cared no more for lilies of the valley than for eglantine. Wild flowers always seemed to her like the flowers of the poor, something after the manner of her lilac dress. She remembered that she had seen flowers of a different sort at Monsieur Gardinois's, at the Cha- teau de Savigny, in the hothouses, on the balconies, and all about the gravelled courtyard lined with tall urns. Those were the flowers she loved ; that was her idea of the country ! The thought of Savigny recurred at every step. When they passed a park gate she would stop and gaze at the smooth, straight road, which probably led to the main entrance. The lawns shaded by the orderly rows of tall trees, the placid terraces at the water's edge, recalled other lawns, other ter- races. Those visions of splendor, mingling w^ith her memories, made her Sunday even more mel- ancholy. But it was the return home that was most distressing to her. The little stations in the outskirts of Paris are so terribly crowded and stifling on those Sunday even- The False Pearls. 49 ings in summer. Such artificial enjoyment, such idiotic laughter, such doleful ballads, sung in whis- pers by voices that no longer have the strength to roar ! That was the time when Monsieur Chebe was in his element. He would elbow his way to the gate, scold about the delay of the train, declaim against the station- agent, the company, the government ; say to Delo- belle in a loud voice, so as to be overheard by his neighbors : "I say — suppose such a thing as this should happen in America ! " Which remark, thanks to the expressive by-play of the illustrious actor, and to the superior air with which he replied, " I believe you ! " gav^e those who stood near to understand that these gentlemen knew exactly what would happen in America in such a case. Now, they were equally and entirely ignorant on that subject ; but, in the crowd, their words made an impression. Sitting beside Frantz, with half of his bundle of flowers on her knees, Sidonie would seem to be blotted out, as it were, amid the uproar, during the long wait for the evening trains. From the station, lighted by a single lamp, she could sec the black clumps of trees outside, gashed here and there by the last illuminations of the fete, a dark village street, people constantly coming in, and a lantern hanging on a deserted pier. From time to time, on the other side of the glass doors, a train would rush by without stop- ping, with a shower of hot cinders and the roar of 4 50 Fromont and Risler. escaping steam. Thereupon a tempest of shouts and stamping would arise in the station, and, soar- ing above all the rest, the shrill treble of Monsieur Chebe, shrieking in his sea-gull's voice: "Break down the doors ! break down the doors ! " — a thing that the little man would have taken good care not to do himself, as he had a craven fear of gendarmes. In a moment the storm would abate. The tired women, their hair disarranged by the wind, would fall asleep on the benches. There were torn and ragged dresses, low-necked white gowns, all covered with dust. The air they breathed consisted mainly of dust. It stood upon all their clothes, rose at every step, obscured the light of the lamp, vexed one's eyes, and raised a sort of cloud in front of the tired faces. The cars which they entered at last after hours of waiting were saturated with it also. Sidonie would open the window and look out at the dark fields, an endless line of shadow. Then, like stars without number, the first lanterns of the outer boulevards appeared near the fortifications. So ended the ghastly day of rest of all those poor creatures. The sight of Paris brought back to each one's mind the thought of the morrow's toil. Dismal as her Sunday had been, Sidonie began to regret that it had passed. She thought of the rich, to whom all the days of their lives were days of rest; and vaguely, as in a dream, the long park avenues of which she had caught glimpses during the day appeared to her thronged with those happy ones of earth, strolling on the The Fahc Pearls. 5 1 fine caravel, while outside the gate, in the dust of the highroad, the poor man's Sunday hurried swiftly by, having hardly time to pause a moment to look and envy. Such was little Chebe's life from thirteen to seventeen. The years passed but did not bring with them the slightest change. Madame Chebe's cashmere was a little more threadbare, the little lilac dress had undergone a few additional repairs, and that was all. But, as Sidonie grew older, Frantz, now become a young man, acquired a habit of gazing at her silently with a mcUing expression, of paying her loving attentions that were visible to every- body, and were unnoticed by none save the girl herself. Indeed, nothing aroused the interest of little Chebe. In the work-room she performed her task regu- larly, silentl)', without the slightest thought of the future, or of saving. All that she did seemed to be done as if she were waiting for something. Frantz, on the other hand, had been working for some time with extraordinary energy, the ardor of those who see something at the end of their efforts; so that, at the age of twenty-four, he graduated second in his class from the Ecolc Centrale, with the rank of engineer. On that evening Risler had taken the Chebe family to the Gymnase, and throughout the even- ing he and Madame Chebe had been making signs and winking at each other behind the chil- 52 Frornont and Risler, dren's backs. And when they left the theatre Madame Chebe solemnly placed Sidonie's arm in Frantz's, as if she would say to the lovelorn youth ! " Now, straighten matters out — here *s your chance." Thereupon the poor lover tried to straighten matters out. It is a long walk from the Gymnase to the Marais. After a very few steps the brilliancy of the boulevard is left behind, the sidewalks become darker and darker, the passers more and more rare. Frantz began by talking of the play. He was very fond of comedies of that sort, in which there was plenty of sentiment. "And you, Sidonie?" " Oh ! as for me, Frantz, you know that as long as there are fine dresses — " In truth she thought of nothing else at the theatre. She was not one of those sentimental creatures a la Bovary, who return from the play with love phrases ready-made, a conventional ideal. No ! the theatre simply made her long madly for luxury and fine raiment; she brought away from it nothing but new methods of arranging the hair, and patterns of dresses. The new, exaggerated toilets of the actresses, their gait, even the spurious elegance of their speech, which seemed to her of the highest distinction, and with it all the tawdry magnificence of the gilding and the lights, the gaudy placard at the door, the long line of car- riages, and all the somewhat unhealthy excite- ment that springs up about a popular play ; that The False Pearls. 53 was what she loved, that was what absorbed her thoughts. " How well they acted their love-scene ! " con- tinued the lover. And, as he uttered that suggestive phrase, he bent fondly toward a little face surrounded by a white woollen hood, from beneath which the hair escaped in rebellious curls. Sidonie sighed : " Oh ! yes, the love-scene. The actress wore beautiful diamonds." There was a moment's silence. Poor Frantz had much difficulty in explaining himself. The words he sought would not come, and then too he was afraid. He fixed the time mentally when he would speak : "When we have passed Porte Saint-Denis — when we have left the boulevard." But when the time arrived, Sidonie began to talk of such indifferent matters that his declara- tion froze on his lips, or else it was stopped by a passing carriage, which enabled their elders to overtake them. At last, in the Marais, he suddenly took courage : " Listen to me, Sidonie, — I love you." That night the Dclobelles had sat up very late. It was the habit of those brave-hearted women to make their working day as long as possible, to prolong it so far into the night that their lamp was among the last to be extinguished on quiet Rue de Braque. They always sat up until the great man 54 Fromont and Risler. returned home, and kept a toothsome Httle supper warm for him in the ashes on the hearth. In the days when he was an actor there was some reason for that custom ; actors, being obHged to dine early and very sparingly, have a terrible gnawing at their vitals when they go off the stage, and usually eat when they go home. Delobelle had not acted for a long while ; but having, as he said, no right to abandon the stage, he kept his mania alive by clinging to a number of the stroll- ing player's habits, and the supper on returning home was one of them, as was his habit of delay- ing his return until the last footlight in the boule- vard theatres was extinguished. To retire without supping, at the hour when everybody else supped, would have been to abdicate, to abandon the struggle, and he would not abandon it, sacrebleu ! On the evening in question the actor had not come in and the women were waiting for him, talking as they worked, and with great animation, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. During the whole evening they had done nothing but talk of Frantz, of his success, of the future that lay before him. " Now," said Mamma Delobelle, " the only thing he needs is to find a good little wife." That was Desiree's opinion too. That was all that was lacking now to Frantz's happiness, a good little wife, active and brave and used to work, who would forget everything for him. And if Desiree spoke with great assurance, it was because she was very intimately acquainted with The False Pearls. 55 the woman who was so well adapted to Frantz Rislcr's needs. She was only a year younger than he, just enough to make her younger than her husband and a mother to him at the same time. Pretty? No, not exactly, but attractive rather than ugly, notwithstanding her infirmity, for she was lame, poor child ! And then she was shrewd and bright, and so loving ! No one but Desiree knew how dearly that little woman loved Frantz, and how she had thought of him night and day for years. He had not noticed it himself, but seemed to have eyes for nobody but Sidonie, a gauiine. But no matter ! Silent love is so eloquent, such a mighty power lies hid in restrained feelings. Who knows? Perhaps some day or other — And the little cripple, leaning over her work, started upon one of those long journeys to the land of chimeras of which she made so many in her invalid's easy-chair, with her feet resting on the motionless stool ; one of those wonderful jour- neys from which she always returned happy and smiling, leaning on Frantz's arm with all the con- fidence of a beloved wife. As her fingers followed her heart's dream, the little bird she had in her hand at the moment, smoothing his ruffled wings, looked as if he too were of the party and were about to fly far, far away, as joyous and light of heart as she. Suddenly the door flew open. "I do not disturb you?" said a triumphant voice. 56 Fro7nont and Risler. The mother, who was slightly drowsy, suddenly raised her head. "Ah! it's Monsieur Frantz. Pray come in, Monsieur Frantz. We're waiting for father, as you see. These brigands of artists always stay out so late ! Take a seat — you shall have supper with him." " Oh ! no, thanks," replied Frantz, whose lips were still pale from the emotion he had under- gone, *' thanks, I can't stop. I saw a light and I just stepped in to tell you — to tell you some great news that will make you very happy, because I know that you love me — " "Great God, what is it?" " Monsieur Frantz Risler and Mademoiselle Sidonie are engaged to be married." " There ! did n't I say that all he needed was a good little wife," exclaimed Mamma Delobelle, rising and throwing her arms about his neck. Desiree had not the strength to utter a word. She bent still lower over her work, and as Frantz's eyes were fixed exclusively upon his happiness, as Mamma Delobelle did nothing but look at the clock to see if her great man would return soon, no one noticed the lame girl's emotion, nor her pallor, nor the convulsive trembling of the little bird that lay in her hands with its head thrown back, like a bird with its death-wound. The Glow-Worms of Savigny. 57 IV. LITTLE CH£BE'S STORY — THE GLOW-WORMS OF SAVIGNY. " Savigny-sur-Orge. ** My dear Sidonie, — We were sitting at table yester- day in the great dining-room which you remember, with the door wide open leading to the terrace, where the flowers are all in bloom. I was a little bored. Dear grandpapa had been cross all the morning, and poor mamma dared not say a word, being held in awe by those frowning eyebrows which have always laid down the law for her. I was thinking what a pity it was to be so en- tirely alone, in the middle of the summer, in such a lovely spot, and that I should be very glad, now that I have left the convent and am destined to pass whole seasons in the country, to have, as in the old days, someone to run about the woods and paths with me. " To be sure, Georges comes from time to time ; but he always arrives very late, just in time for dinner, and is off again with my father in the morning before I am awake. And then he is a serious-minded man now, is Monsieur Georges. He works at the factory, and business cares often bring the wrinkles to his brow. " I had reached that point in my reflections when sud- denly dear grandpapa turns abruptly to me : " * Whatever has become of your little friend Sidonie ? I would be "lad to have her here for a time.' 58 Fromont and Risler. " You can imagine my delight. What happiness to meet again, to renew the pleasant friendship that was broken off by the fault of life rather than by our own ! How many things we shall have to tell each other ! You, who alone had the knack of driving the wrinkles from my terrible grandfather's brow, will bring us gayety, and I assure you we need it. '• This lovely Savigny is so deserted ! Fancy that some- times in the morning I choose to be a little coquettish. I dress myself, I make myself beautiful with my hair in curls and a pretty gown \ I walk through all the paths, and sud- denly I realize that I have taken all this trouble for the swans and ducks, my dog Kiss, and the cows who do not even turn to look at me when I pass. Thereupon, in my wrath, I hurry home, put on a stuff dress and busy my- self on the farm, in the servants' quarters, everywhere. And on my word ! I am beginning to believe that ennui has perfected me, and that I shall make an excellent housekeeper. " Luckily the hunting season will soon be here and I rely upon that for a little distraction. In the first place, Georges and father, both enthusiastic sportsmen, will come oftener. And then you will be here, you know. For you will reply instantly that you will come, won't you ? Monsieur Risler said not long ago that you were not well. The air of Savigny will do you worlds of good. " Everybody here expects you. And I am dying with impatience. " Claire." Her letter written, Claire Fromont donned a great straw hat — for the first days of August were warm and glorious — and went herself to drop it in the little box from which the postman The Gloiv-Wovms of Savigny. 59 collected the mail from the chateau every morning as he passed. It was on the edge of the park, at a turn in the road. She paused a moment to look at the trees by the roadside, at the neighboring meadows sleeping in the bright sunlight. Over yonder the reapers were gathering the last sheaves. Farther on they were ploughing. But all the melancholy of the silent toil had vanished, so far as the girl was concerned, so overjoyed was she at the thought of seeing her friend once more. No breath came from the high hills on the horizon, no voice from the tree-tops to warn her by a presentiment, to prevent her from sending that fatal letter. And immediately upon her re- turn she gave her attention to the preparation of a pretty bedroom for Sidonie adjoining her own. The letter did its errand faithfully. From the little green, vine-embowered gate of the chateau, it found its way to Paris, and arrived that same eve- ning with its Savigny postmark, and impregnated with the odor of the country, at the fifth floor apartment on Rue de Braque. What an event that was ! They read it again and again ; and for a whole week, until Sidonie's departure, it lay on the mantel-shelf beside Madame Ch^bc's treasures, the clock under a glass globe and the hvmpire cups. To Sidonie it was like a wonderful romance filled with tales of enchantment and promises, which she read without opening it, simply by gazing at the white envelope 6o Fromout and Rislcr. whereon Claire Fromont's monogram was engraved in relief. Little she thought of marriage now. The im- portant question was, What dress should she wear to the chateau ? She must give her whole mind to that, to cutting and planning, trying on dresses, devising new ways of arranging her hair. — Poor Frantz ! How heavy his heart was made by these preparations ! That visit to Savigny, which he had tried vainly to oppose, would cause a still further postponement of their wedding, which Sidonie — - why, he did not know — persisted in postponing from day to day. He could not go to see her ; and when she was once there, in the midst of festivities and pleasures, who could say how long she would remain? The lover in his despair always went to the Delobelles to confide his sorrows, but he never noticed how quickly Desiree rose as soon as he entered, to make room for him by her side at the work-table, and how she at once sat down again, with cheeks as red as fire and gleaming eyes. For some days past they had ceased to work at birds and insects for ornament. The mother and daughter were hemming pink flounces destined for Sidonie's dress, and the little cripple had never plied her needle with such good heart. In truth little Desiree was not Delobelle's daugh- ter to no purpose. She inherited her father's faculty of retaining his illusions, of hoping on to the end and even beyond. The Glow-Worms of Savigiiy. 6i While Frantz was telling his tales of woe, D6si- r^e was thinking that, when Sidonic was gone, he would come every day, if it were only to talk about the absent one; that she would have him there by her side, that they would sit up together waiting for " father," and that, perhaps, some eve- ning, as he sat looking at her, he would discover the difference there is between the woman who loves you and the one who simply allows herself to be loved. Thereupon the thought that every stitch taken in the dress tended to hasten the departure which she anticipated with such impatience imparted extraordinary activity to her needle, and the un- happy lover ruefully watched the flounces and ruffles perceptibly piling up about her, like little white-capped waves. When the pink dress was finished. Mademoiselle Ch^be started for Savigny. Monsieur Gardinois's chateau was built in the valley of the Orge, on the bank of that capri- ciously lovely stream, with its windmills, its little islands, its milldams, and its broad greenswards that die at its shores. The chateau, an old Louis Quinze structure, low in reality, although made to seem high by the pointed roof, had a most depressing aspect, an aspect suggestive of aristocratic antiquity: broad steps, balconies with rusty balustrades, old urns marred by time, wherein the flowers stood out viv- idly against the reddish stone. As far as the eye could see, the walls stretched away, decayed and 62 Fromont and Risler. crumbling, descending gently to the stream. The chateau overlooked them with its high slated roofs, the farmhouse with its red tiles, and the superb park with its lindens, its ash trees, its poplars, its chestnuts growing confusedly together in a dense black mass, cut here and there by the arched openings of the paths. But the charm of the old estate was the water, the water which enlivened its silence, which gave character to its beautiful views. There were at Savigny, to say nothing of the river, springs, fountains, ponds, in which the sun sank to rest in all his glory ; and they formed a suitable setting for that venerable house, green and mossy as it was, and slightly worn away, like a stone on the edge of a brook. Unluckily, at Savigny, as in most of those gorgeous Parisian summer palaces, which the par- venus in commerce and speculation have made their prey, the chatelains were not in harmony with the chateau. Since he had purchased his chateau, old Gar- dinois had done nothing but mar the beauty of the beautiful property chance had placed in his hands, cut down trees " for the view," fill his park with rough obstructions to keep out trespassers, and reserve all his solicitude for a magnificent kitchen garden, which, as it produced fruit and vegetables in abundance, seemed to him more like his own land, the peasant's land. As for the great salons, where the panels with paintings of famous subjects were fading away in The Gloiu- Worms of Saviguy. 63 the autumnal fogs, as for the ponds overrun with water-lilies, the grottoes, the rock-bridges, he cared for them only because of the admiration of visitors, and because of such elements was composed that thing which so flattered his vanity as an ex-dealer in cattle, — a chateau ! Being already advanced in years, unable to hunt or fish, he passed his time superintending the most trivial details of that extensive property. The grain that was given the hens, the price of the last load of the second crop of ha}% the num- ber of bales of straw stored in a magnificent circular granary, furnished him with subjects for scolding for a whole day ; and certain it is that, when one contemplated from a distance that lovely estate of Savigny, the chateau on the hillside, the river flowing at its feet like a mirror, the high ter- races darkened by ivy, the supporting wall of the park following the majestic slope of the ground, one would never have suspected the proprietor's niggardliness and meanness of spirit. In the idleness consequent upon his wealth. Monsieur Gardinois, being sadly bored at Paris, lived at Savigny throughout the year, and the Fromonts kept him company during the summer. Madame Fromont was a mild, unintelligent wo- man, whom her fatlier's brutal despotism had early moulded to passi\'e obedience for life. She main- tained the same attitude with her husband, whose constant kindness and indulgence had never suc- ceeded in triumphing over that humiliated, taci- turn nature, indifferent to everything, and, in some 64 Fromont and Rislcr. sense, irresponsible. Having passed her life with no knowledge of business, she had become rich without knowing it and without the slightest desire to take advantage of it. Her fine apartments in Paris, her father's magnificent chateau, made her uncomfortable. She occupied as small a place as possible in both, filling her life with a single pas- sion, order — a fantastic, abnormal sort of order, which consisted in brushing, wiping, dusting and polishing mirrors, gilding and door-knobs, with her own hand, from morning till night. When she had nothing to clean, the strange creature would attack her rings, her watch chain, her brooches, scrubbing the cameos and pearls, and by dint of polishing the combination of her own name and her husband's she had effaced all the letters of both. Her fixed idea followed her to Savigny. She picked up the dead wood in the paths, scratched the moss from the benches with the end of her umbrella, and would have liked to dust the leaves and sweep down the old trees; and often, in the train, she looked with envy at the little villas standing in a line along the track, white and clean, with their gleaming utensils, the pewter ball, and the little oblong gardens, which resem- ble drawers in a commode. Those were her type of country-house. Monsieur Fromont, who came only occasionally and was always absorbed by his business, enjoyed Savigny little more than she did. Claire alone was really at home in that lovely park. She was familiar with its tiniest shrub. Being obliged to The Glow- Worms of Savigny. 65 provide her own entertainment, like all only chil- dren, she had become attached to certain walks, watched the flowers bloom, had her favorite path, her favorite tree, her favorite bench for reading. The dinner-bell always surprised her far away in the park. She would come to the table, out of breath but happy, flushed with the fresh air. The shadow of the hornbeams, by dint of stealing over that youthful brow, had imprinted a sort of gentle mel- ancholy there, and the deep dark green of the ponds, crossed by vague beams, was reflected in her eyes. Those lovely surroundings had in very truth shielded her from the vulgarity, the abjectness of the persons about her. Monsieur Gardinois might deplore in her presence, for hours at a time, the perversity of tradesmen and servants, or make an estimate of what was being stolen from him per month, per week, per day, per minute ; Madame Fromont might enumerate her grievances against the mice, the maggots, the dust, the dampness, all desperately bent upon destroying her property, and engaged in a conspiracy against her ward- robes ; not a word of their absurd talk remained in Claire's mind. A run around the lawn, an hour's reading on the river-bank restored the tranquillity of that noble and intensely active mind. Her grandfather looked upon her as a strange creature, altogether out of place in his family. As a child she annoyed him with her great honest eyes, her straightforwardness on all occasions, and 5 66 Fromont and Risler. also because he did not find in her a second edi- tion of his own passive and submissive daughter. "That child will be a proud chit and an original like her father," he would say in his ugly moods. How much better he liked that little Chebe girl who used to come now and then and play in the avenues at Savigny ! In her at least he detected a nature of the common people like his own, with a sprinkhng of ambition and envy, suggested even in those early days by a certain little smile at the corner of the mouth. Moreover, the child exhib- ited an ingenuous amazement and admiration in presence of his wealth, which flattered his parvenu pride ; and sometimes, when he teased her, she would break out with the droll phrases of a Paris gamin, phrases redolent of the faubourgs, seasoned by her pretty, piquant face, inclined to pallor, which not even triviality could deprive of its dis- tinction. So the goodman had never forgotten her. On this occasion above all, when Sidonie arrived at Savigny after her long absence, with her fluffy hair, her graceful figure, her wide-awake, mobile face, the whole heightened by mannerisms smack- ing somewhat of the shop-girl, she produced a decided effect. Old Gardinois, wondering greatly to see a tall young woman in place of the child he was expecting to see, considered her prettier and, above all, better dressed than Claire. It was a fact that, when Mademoiselle Chebe had left the train and was seated in the great caleche from the chateau, she did not make a bad appear- ance ; but she lacked those things that constituted The Glow- Worms of Savigny. 67 her friend's chief beauty and charm — the carriage, the contempt for poses, and, more than all else, the mental tranquillity. Her prettiness was not unlike her dresses, of inexpensive materials, but cut according to the style of the day — rags, if you will, but rags of which fashion, that ridiculous but charming fairy, had regulated the color, the trim- ming and the shape. Paris has pretty faces made expressly for costumes of that sort, very easy to dress becomingly, for the very reason that they are of no type, and Mademoiselle Sidonie's was one of those faces. What bliss was hers when the carriage entered the long avenue, bordered with velvety grass and primeval elms, and at the end Savigny awaiting her with its great gate wide open. From that day she led the enchanted life of which she had dreamed so long. Luxury was before her in all its forms, from the magnificent salons, from the high-studded sleeping apartments, from the splen- dor of the greenhouses and stables, down to those petty details in which everything seems to be con- densed, like those exquisite perfumes of which a single drop is sufficient to permeate a whole room, the bunches of flowers strewn over the table-cloth, the dignified bearing of the servants, the doleful and languid "Order the carriage" of Madame Fromont. And how thoroughly at ease she felt amid all those refinements of wealth ! How perfectly that sort of life suited her ! It seemed to her that she had never known any other. 68 Frornont and Risler. Suddenly, in the midst of her intoxication, ar- rived a letter from Frantz, which brought her back to the realities of her life, to her wretched fate as the future wife of a government clerk, which transported her, whether she would or no, to the mean little apartment they would occupy some day at the top of some dismal house, whose heavy atmosphere, dense with privation, she seemed already to breathe. Should she break her engagement? She certainly could do it, as she had given no other pledge than her word. But when he had left her, who could say that she would not wish him back? In that little brain, turned by ambition, the strangest ideas jostled one another. Sometimes, while grandfather Gardinois, who had laid aside in her honor his old-fashioned hunting jackets and swanskin waistcoats, was jesting with her, amusing himself by contradicting her in order to draw out a sharp retort, she would gaze stead- fastly, coldly into his eyes, without replying. Ah ! if only he were ten years younger ! But the thought of becoming Madame Gardinois did not long occupy her. A new personage, a new hope came into her hfe. After Sidonie's arrival, Georges Fromont, who was hardly seen at Savigny except on Sundays, adopted the habit of coming to dinner almost every day. He was a tall, slender, pale youth, of refined bearing. Having no father or mother, he had The Glow-JVornis of Savigny. 69 been brought up by his uncle, Monsieur Fre- mont, and was looked to by him to succeed him in business, and probably to become Claire's hus- band as well. That ready-made future did not arouse his enthusiasm. In the first place busi- ness bored him. As for his cousin, thc-e existed between them the intimate good-fellowship of an education in common, and mutual confidence, but nothing more, at least on his side. With Sidonie, on the contrary, he was exceed- ingly embarrassed and shy, and at the same time desirous of producing an effect, — a totally differ- ent man, in short. She had just the spurious charm, a little free, which was calculated to at- tract that coxcombish nature, and it was not long before she discovered the impression that she pro- duced upon him. When the two girls were walking together in the park, it was always Sidonie who remembered that it was time for the train from Paris. They would go together to the gate to meet the travellers, and Georges's first glance was always for Mademoiselle Chcbc, who remained a little behind her friend, but with the poses and airs that go half-way to meet the eyes. That manoeuvring between them lasted some time. They did not mention love, but all the words, all the smiles they exchanged were full of unspoken avowals. One cloudy and lowering summer evening, when the two friends had left the table as soon as din- ner was at an end and were walking in the long tree-lined avenue, Georges joined them. They 70 Fromont and Risler. were talking upon indifferent subjects, crunching the gravel beneath their lagging footsteps, when Madame Fromont's voice called Claire from the chateau. Georges and Sidonie were left alone. They continued to walk along the avenue, guided by the uncertain whiteness of the gravel, without speaking or drawing nearer to each other. A warm wind rustled among the leaves. The ruffled surface of the pond lapped softly against the arches of the little bridge ; and the blossoms of the acacias and lindens, detached by the breeze, whirled about in circles, perfuming the electricity- laden air. They felt as if they were surrounded by an atmosphere of storm, vibrant and penetrating. Dazzling flashes of heat passed before their troubled eyes, like those that played along the horizon. " Oh ! what lovely glow-worms ! " exclaimed the girl, embarrassed by the oppressive silence broken by so many mysterious sounds. On the edge of the greensward a blade of grass here and there was illuminated by a tiny green flickering light. She stooped to take one on her glove. He knelt close beside her ; and as they leaned down to the level of the grass, their hair and cheeks touching, they gazed at each other for a moment by the light of the glow-worms. How weird and fascinating she seemed to him in that green light, which shone upon her face and died away in the fine network of her waving hair ! He had put his arm about her waist, and suddenly, feeling that she abandoned herself to him, he clasped her in a long passionate embrace. j The Glow- Worms of Savigiiy. 71 "What arc you looking for?" asked Claire, standing in the shadow behind them. Taken by surprise, with a choking sensation in his throat, Georges trembled so that he could not reply. Sidonie, on the other hand, rose with the utmost calmness, and said as she smoothed her skirt: " It 's the glow-worms. See how many of them there are to-night. And how they sparkle." Her eyes also sparkled with extraordinary brilliancy. "It's the storm, I suppose," murmured Georges, still trembling. The storm was close at hand. At brief intervals great clouds of leaves and dust whirled from one end of the avenue to the other. They walked on a few steps, then all three returned to the salon. The young women took their work, Georges tried to read a newspaper, while Madame Fromont polished her rings and Monsieur Gardinois and his son-in-law played billiards in the adjoining room. How long that evening seemed to Sidonie ! She had but one wish, to be alone, alone with her thoughts. But, in the silence of her little bed-room, when she had blown out the light, which interferes with dreams by casting too bright a light upon the real- ity, what schemes, what transports of delight ! Georges loved her, Georges Fromont, the heir of the factory. They would marry; she would be rich. For, in that merccnar)- little heart the first kiss of love had awakened no ideas save those of ambition and a life of luxury. 72 Fromont and Rislcr. To assure herself that her lover was sincere, she tried to recall the scene under the trees to its most trifling details, the expression of his eyes, the ardor of his embrace, the oaths uttered brokenly, mouth to mouth, in that vaporous light shed by the glow-worms, which one solemn moment had estab- lished forever in her heart. Oh ! the glow-worms of Savigny ! All night long they twinkled like stars before her closed eyes. The park was full of them, to the farthest limits of its darkest paths. There were clusters of them all along the lawns, on the trees, in the shrubbery. The fine gravel of the avenues, the waves of the river, emitted green sparks, and all those microscopic flashes formed a sort of holiday illumination in which Savigny seemed to be en- veloped in her honor, to celebrate the betrothal of Georges and Sidonie. When she rose the next day, her plan was formed. Georges loved her; that was certain. Did he think of marrying her? She had a suspi- cion that he did not, the shrewd minx ! But that did not frighten her. She felt strong enough to triumph over that childish nature, at once weak and passionate. She had only to resist him, and that is what she did. For some days she was cold and indifferent, wil- fully blind and devoid of memory. He tried to speak to her, to renew the blissful moment, but she avoided him, always placing someone between them. Then he wrote. The Glow-Worms of Savigny. 73 He carried his letters himself to a hollow in the rock near a clear spring called the " Phantom," which was in the outskirts of the park, sheltered by a thatched roof. Sidonie considered that a charming episode. In the evening she must in- vent some falsehood, a pretext of some sort for going to the " Phantom " all alone. The shadow of the trees across the path, the awesomencss of the night, the rapid walk, the excitement, made her heart beat deliciously. She would find the letter saturated with dew, with the intense cold of the spring, and so white in the moonlight that she would quickly hide it for fear of being surprised. And then, when she was alone, what joy to open it, to decipher those magic characters, those words of love w'hich swam before her eyes, surrounded by dazzling blue and yellow circles, as if she were reading her letter in the bright sunlight. " I love you. Love me " — wrote Georges in every conceivable form. At first she did not reply ; but when she felt that he was fairly caught, wholly in the toils, she de- clared herself concisely : " I will love no one but my husband." Ah ! she was a true woman already, was little Chebe. 74 Fromont and Risler. V. HOW LITTLE CH^BE'S STORY ENDED. Meanwhile September arrived. The hunting season brought together a large, noisy, vulgar party at the chateau. There w^ere long repasts at which the wealthy bourgeois lin- gered slothfully and wearily, prone to fall asleep like peasants. They went in carriages to meet the returning hunters in the cool air of the autumn twilight. The mist arose from the fields, from which the crops had been gathered ; and while the frightened game skimmed along the stubble with plaintive cries, the darkness seemed to emerge from the forests whose dark masses increased in size, spreading out over the fields. The caleche lamps were lighted, the hoods raised, and they drove quickly homeward with the fresh air blowing in their faces. The dining-hall, brilliantly illuminated, was filled with gayety and laughter. Claire Fromont, embarrassed by the vulgarity of those about her, hardly spoke at all. Sidonie shone her brightest. The ride had given anima- tion to her pale complexion and Parisian eyes. She knew how to laugh, understood a little too Holu Lit lie C/iC'jcs Slory Ended. 75 much, perhaps, and seemed to the guests the only woman in the party. Her success completed Georgcs's intoxication; but as his advances be- came more pronounced, she showed more and more reserve. Thereupon he determined that she should be his wife. He swore it to himself, with the exaggerated emphasis of weak characters, who seem always to combat beforehand the difficulties to which they know that they will yield some day. It was the happiest moment of little Chebe's life. Even aside from any ambitious project, her coquettish, false nature found a strange fascination in this love intrigue, mysteriously carried on amid banquets and merrymakings. No one about them suspected anything. Claire was at that healthy and delightful period of youth when the mind, partly open, clings to the things it knows with blind confidence, in utter ignorance of treachery and falsehood. Monsieur Fromont thought of nothing but his business. His wife cleaned her jewels with frenzied energy. Only old Gardinois and his little gimlet-like eyes were to be feared ; but Sidonie entertained him, and even if he had discovered anything, he was not the man to interfere with her future. Her hour of triumph was at hand, when a sudden, unforeseen disaster blasted her hopes. One Sunday morning Monsieur Fromont was brought back mortally wounded from a hunting expedition. A bullet intended for a deer had pierced his temple. The chateau was turned topsy-turvy. 76 Fromont and Risler. All the hunters, among them the unknown bungler, started in haste for Paris. Claire, wild with grief, entered the room where her father lay on his death-bed, there to remain ; and Risler, being advised of the catastrophe, came to take Sidonie home. On the night before her departure she had a final meeting with Georges at the "Phantom," — a farewell meeting, painful and stealthy, and made solemn by the proximity of death. They swore, however, to love each other always ; they agreed upon a method of writing to each other. And they parted. It was a doleful journey home. She returned abruptly to her everyday life, escorted by the despairing grief of Risler, to whom his dear master's death was an irreparable loss. On her arrival, she must needs describe her visit to the smallest detail ; discuss the inmates of the chateau, the guests, the parties, the dinners, and the final catastrophe. What torture for her, when, absorbed as she was by a single, never-varying thought, she had so much need of silence and solitude ! But there was something even more terrible than that. On the first day after her return Frantz resumed his former place ; and the glances with which he followed her, the words he addressed to her alone, seemed to her unreasonable beyond endurance. Despite all his shyness and distrust of himself, the poor fellow believed that he had some rights as an accepted and impatient lover, and little How Little Cliches Story Ended 'jy Chcbc was obliged to emerge from her dreams to reply to that creditor, and to postpone once more the maturity of his claim. There came a day, however, when indecision ceased to be possible. She had promised to marry Frantz when he had a position ; and now he was offered an engineer's berth in the South, at the smelting furnaces of Grand' Combe. That was sufficient for the support of a modest establishment. There was no way of avoiding the question. She must either hold to her promise or invent an excuse for breaking it. But what excuse could she invent? In that pressing emergency, she thought of De- sirtfe. Although the little lame girl had never confided in her, she knew her great love for Frantz. Long ago she had detected it, with her coquette's eyes, bright and changing mirrors, which reflected all the thoughts of others without betraying any of her own. It may be that the thought that another woman loved her betrothed had made Frantz's love more tolerable to her at first; and, just as we place statues on tombstones to make them less sad, Dcsirce's pretty little pale face at the threshold of that uninviting future had made it seem less forbidding to her. Now it provided her with a simple and honor- able pretext for freeing herself from her promise. "No ! I tell you, mamma," she said to Madame Chebe one day, " I will never consent to make a friend like her unhappy. I should suffer too much 78 Fromont and Risler. from remorse, — poor Desiree ! Have n't you no- ticed how badly she looks since I came home ; what an imploring way she has of looking at me? No, I won't cause her that sorrow ; I won't take away her Frantz." Even while she admired her daughter's generous spirit, Madame Chebe looked upon that as rather an exaggerated sacrifice, and remonstrated with her, "Take care, my child; we ain't rich. A hus- band like Frantz don't turn up every day." " Very well ! then I won't marry at all," declared Sidonie flatly, and, deeming her pretext an excel- lent one, she clung persistently to it. Nothing could shake her determination, neither the tears shed by Frantz, who was exasperated by her refusal to fulfil her promise, enveloped as it was in vague reasons which she would not even explain to him, nor the entreaties of Risler, in whose ear Madame Chebe had mysteriously mumbled her daughter's reasons, and who, in spite of everything could not but admire such a sacrifice. " Don't accuse her, I tell you ! She 's an anchel! " he said to his brother, striving to soothe him. " Ah ! yes, she is an angel," assented Madame Chebe with a sigh, so that the poor betrayed lover had not even the right to complain. Driven to desperation, he determined to leave Paris, and as Grand' Combe seemed too near in his frenzied longing for flight, he asked and obtained an ap- pointment as overseer on the Suez Canal at Ismailia. He went away without knowing or caring to know How Little Cliebes Story Ended 79 aught of Dcsirce's love ; and yet, when he went to bid her farewell, the dear little cripple looked up into his face with her pretty, bashful eyes, in which were plainly written the words : "I love you, if she does not." But Frantz Rislcr did not know how to read what was written in those eyes. Happily the hearts that are accustomed to suffer have an infinite store of patience. When her friend had gone, the lame girl, with her charming morsel of illusion, inherited from her father and refined by her woman's nature, returned bravely to her work, saying to herself: " I will wait for him." And thereafter she spread the wings of her birds to their fullest extent, as if they were all going, one after another, to Ismailia in Egypt. And that was a long distance ! Before sailing from Marseilles, young Risler wrote Sidonie a farewell letter, at once laughable and touching, wherein, mingling the most technic.l details with the most heartrending adieux, the unhappy engineer declared that he was about to set sail, with a broken heart, on the transport Sahib, " a sailing ship and steam ship combined, with engines of fifteen hundred horse power," as if he hoped that so considerable a capacity would make an impression on his ungrateful betrothed, and cause her never-ending remorse. But Sidonie had very different matters in her head. She was beginning to be disturbed by Georgcs's silence. Since she left Savigny she had heard 8o Fromont and Risler. from him once, and that was all. All her letters were left unanswered. To be sure, she knew through Risler that Georges was very busy, and that his uncle's death, devolving the management of the factory upon him as it did, had imposed upon him a responsibility that was beyond his strength. But to leave her without a word ! From the window on the landing, where she had resumed her silent observations, for she had so arranged matters as not to return to Mademoiselle Le Mire, little Chebe tried to distinguish her lover, watched him as he went back and forth across the yards and among the buildings, and in the after- noon, when it was time for the train to start for Savigny, saw him enter his carriage to go to his aunt and cousin, who were passing the early months of their period of mourning at the grandfather's chateau in the country. All this excited and alarmed her ; and the prox- imity of the factory rendered Georges's avoidance of her even more apparent. To think that by raising her voice a little she could make him turn to where she stood ! To think that they were sepa- rated only by a wall ! And yet, at that moment they were very far apart. Do you remember, little Chebe, that unhappy winter evening when the excellent Risler rushed into your parents' room with an extraordinary expression of countenance, exclaiming: " Great news ! " Great news, indeed. Georges Fromont had just informed him that, How Little CJiebcs Stojy Ended 8i in accordance with his uncle's last wishes, he was to marry his cousin Claire, and that, as he was certainly unequal to the task of carrying on the business alone, he had resolved to take him, Risler for a partner, under the firm name of Fromont Jeune and Risler AL\e. How did you succeed, little Chcbe, in maintain- ing your self-possession when you learned that the factory had eluded your grasp and that another woman had taken your place? What a terrible evening ! — Madame Chcbe sat by the table mend- ing. Monsieur Chebe before the fire drying his clothes, which were wet through by his having walked a long distance in the rain. Oh ! that wretched room, overflowing with gloom and ennui ! The lamp gave a dim light. The evening meal, hastily prepared, had left in the room the odor of the poor man's kitchen. And Risler, drunken with joy, talking with increasing animation and laying plans ! All these things tore your heart, mad.e the treachery still more horrible by the contrast be- tween the riches that eluded your outstretched hand and the ignoble mediocrity in which you were doomed to pass your life. She was seriously ill and for a long while. As she lay in bed, whenever the window panes rattled behind the curtains, the unhappy creature fancied that Georges's wedding carriages were driv- ing through the street; and she had paroxysms of nervous excitement, without words and inexplica- ble, as if a fever of wrath were consuming her. 6 82 Fromont and Risler. At last, time and youthful strength, her mother's care, and, more than all, the attentions of Desiree, who now knew of the sacrifice she had made for her, triumphed over the disease. But for a long while Sidonie was very weak, oppressed by a deadly melancholy, by a constant longing to weep, which played havoc with her nervous system. Sometimes she talked of travelling, of leaving Paris. At other times she insisted that she must enter a convent. Her friends were sorely per- plexed and strove to discover the cause of that singular state of mind, which was even more alarm- ing than her illness ; when she suddenly confessed to her mother the secret of her melancholy. She loved the elder Risler. She had never dared to whisper it ; but it was he whom she had always loved and not Frantz. That news was a surprise to everybody, to Risler most of all; but little Chebe was so pretty, her eyes were so soft when she glanced at him, that the honest fellow instantly became as fond of her as a fool ! Indeed it may be that that love had lain in his heart for a long time without his realizing it. And that is how it happened that, on the even- ing of her wedding-day, young Madame Risler, in her white wedding-dress, gazed with a smile of triumph at the window on the landing which had been the narrow setting of ten years of her life. That haughty smile, in which there was a touch of profound pity and of scorn as well, such scorn as a parvenu can feel for his poor beginnings, was How Little CJicbcs Story Ended 83 evidently addressed to the poor sickly child whom she fancied that she saw up at that window, in the depths of the past and the darkness, and seemed to say to her, pointing to the factory : "What do you say to this, little Chebe? I am here now, you see ! " 84 Fromont and Risler. BOOK SECOND. MY WIFE'S RECEPTION DAY. Noon. The Marais is breakfasting. With the booming notes of the angelus from Saint-Paul, Saint-Gervais and Saint-Denis du Saint- Sacrament, is mingled the shrill jangle of the fac- tory bells, floating up from the yards. Each of those jangling bells has its own distinctive char- acter. Some are melancholy and some gay, some sprightly and some sluggish. There are rich, happy bells, ringing for hundreds of workmen; there are poor, shrinking bells, which seem to hide behind the others and to make as little noise as possible, as if they feared that bankruptcy might hear them. And then there are the lying, insolent bells, those that ring for the outer world, for the street, to make people think that they belong to large establishments and have many people in their charge. Thank God, the bell on the Fromont factory is not one of that kind. It is an honest old bell, a little cracked, well-known in the Marais for forty My Wifcs Recepiio7i Day. 85 years past, a bell that has never failed to ring except on holidays and days of ^meutcs. At its voice a whole colony of workmen files through the gateway of the former mansion-house and vanishes in the neighboring wineshops. The apprentices sit down on the edge of the sidewalk with the masons. To make sure of half an hour for amusement, they breakfast in five minutes on such things as vagrants and paupers eat in Paris, chestnuts, walnuts, and apples, while the masons beside them attack great loaves of bread, white with flour and plaster. The women are in a hurry and run away from the works. They all have, at home or at the shelter, a child to care for or an aged parent, or housekeeping duties to attend to. Suffocated by the air of the workshops, swollen- eyed, their hair made dingy by the dust from the velvet papers, a fine powder which makes one cough, they hurry along, basket on arm, through the crowded street, where the omnibuses make their way with difficulty through the throngs of people. Sitting near the door, on a stone which once served as a horse-block for equestrians, Risler watches with a smile the exit from the factory. He never loses his enjoyment of the outspoken esteem of all these good people whom he knew when he was insignificant and humble like them- selves. The " Good-day, Monsieur Risler," uttered by so many different voices, all in the same affec- tionate tone, makes his heart warm. The children accost him without fear, the long-bearded designers, S6 F7^07nont and Risler. half-workmen, half-artists, shake hands with him as they pass, and address him familiarly as " thou." Perhaps there is a little too much familiarity in all this, for the worthy man has not yet begun to realize the prestige and authority of his new posi- tion ; and I know someone who considers this free-and-easy manner very humiliating. But that someone cannot see him at this moment, and the master takes advantage of the fact to bestow a hearty greeting upon the old book-keeper, Sigis- mond, who comes out last of all, erect and red- faced, imprisoned in a high collar, and bareheaded — whatever the weather — for fear of apoplexy. He and Risler are fellow-countrymen. They have for each other a deep-seated esteem, dating from their first employment at the factory, from the time, long, long ago, when they breakfasted together at the little creamery on the corner, to which Sigismond Planus goes alone now and selects his refreshment for the day from the slate hanging on the wall. But stand aside ! Fromont Jeune's carriage drives through the gateway. He has been out on business all the morning ; and the partners as they walk toward the pretty little house in which they both live at the end of the garden, discuss matters of business in a friendly way. " I have been to Prochasson's," says Fromont. " They showed me some new patterns, pretty ones too, on my word ! We must be on our guard. They are dangerous rivals." But Risler is not at all anxious. He is strong My Wifcs Reception Day. Sy in his talent, his experience; and then — but this is strictly confidential — he is on the track of a wonderful invention, an improved printing-press, something that — but we shall see. Still talking, they enter the garden, .which is as carefully kept as a public park, with round-topped acacias almost as old as the buildings, and magnificent ivies that hide the high, black walls. Beside Fromont Jeunc, Rislcr Aine has the appearance of a clerk making his report to his employer. At every step he stops to speak, for his gait is heavy, his mind works slowly, and words have much difficulty in finding their way to his lips. Oh ! if he could see the little flushed face up yonder, behind the window on the second floor, watching everything so attentively ! Madame Risler is waiting for her husband to come to breakfast, and waxes impatient over the goodman's moderation. She motions to him with her hand : " Come, come ! " But Risler docs not notice it. His attention is engrossed by the little Fromont, daughter of Claire and Georges, who is taking a sun-bath, blooming like a flower amid her lace in her nurse's arms. How pretty she is ! — " She is your very picture, Madame Chorche." "Do you think so, my dear Risler? Why everybody says she looks like her father." " Yes, a little. But — " And there they all stand, the father and mother, Risler and the nurse, gravely seeking resemblances in that miniature model of a human being, who stares at them out of her little eyes, blinking with 88 Fromont and Risler. the noise and glare. Sidonie at her open window leans out to see what they are doing, and why her husband does not come up. At that moment Risler has taken the tiny creature in his arms, the whole fascinating bundle of white clothes and light ribbons, and is trying to make it laugh and crow with baby-talk and gestures worthy of a grandfather. How old he looks, poor man ! His tall body, which he con- torts for the child's amusement, his hoarse voice, which becomes a low growl when he tries to soften it, are shameful and ridiculous. Up above, the wife taps the floor with her foot and mutters between her teeth : "The idiot! " At last, weary of waiting, she sends a servant to tell monsieur that breakfast is served ; but the game is so far advanced that monsieur does not see how he can go away, how he can interrupt those explosions of laughter and little bird-like cries. He succeeds at last, however, in giving the child back to its nurse, and escapes into the hall, laugh- ing with all his heart. He is laughing still when he enters the dining-room ; but a glance from his wife stops him short. Sidonie is seated at table before the chafing- dish, already filled. Her martyr-like attitude sug- gests a determination to be ugly. " Oh ! there you are. It 's very lucky ! " Risler took his seat, a little ashamed. " What would you have, m.y love? That child is so — " My Wi/cs Reception Day. 89 " I have asked you before not to speak to me in that way. It is n't good form between us." " What, not when we 're alone? " " Bah ! you will never learn to adapt yourself to our new fortune. And what's the result? No one in this place treats me with any respect. Pere Achille hardly touches his hat to me when I pass his lodge. To be sure, I 'm not a Fromont, and I have n't a carriage." " Come, come, little one, you know perfectly well that you can use Madame Chorche's coupe. She always puts it at our disposal." " How many times must I tell you that I don't choose to be under any obligations to that woman? " "Oh! Sidonie — " " Oh ! yes, I know, it 's all understood. Madame Fromont is the good Lord himself Everyone is forbidden to touch her. And I must make up my mind to be a nobody in my own house, to allow myself to be humiliated, trampled under foot." " Come, come, little one — " Poor Risler tries to interpose, to say a word in favor of his dear Madame Chorche. But he has no tact. That is the worst possible method of effecting a reconciliation; and Sidonie at once bursts forth : " I tell you that that woman, with all her calm airs, is proud and spiteful. In the first place, she detests me, I know that. So long as I was poor little Sidonie and she could toss me her broken dolls and old dresses, it was all right; but now 90 Fromont and Risler. that I am my own mistress as well as she, it vexes her and humiliates her. Madame gives me advice with a lofty air, and criticises my ways. I did wrong to have a maid. Of course ! Was n't I in the habit of waiting on myself ? She never loses a chance to wound me. When I call on her on Wednesdays, you ought to hear the tone in which she asks me, right before everybody, how ' dear Madame Chebe ' is. — Oh ! yes. I 'm a Chebe and she 's a Fromont. One 's as good as the other, in my opinion. My grandfather was a druggist. What was hers? A peasant who got rich by money-lending. Oh ! I '11 tell her so one of these days, if she shows me too much of her pride; and I '11 tell her too that their little brat, although they don't suspect it, looks just like that old Pere Gardinois, and God knows he is n't hand- some." " Oh ! " exclaims Risler, unable to find words to reply to her. " Oh ! yes, pardi! I advise you to admire their child. She 's always sick. She cries all night like a little cat. It keeps me awake. And afterward, through the day, I have mamma's piano and her scales — tra la la la. If it was only music worth listening to ! " Risler has taken the wisest course. He does not say a word until he sees that she is beginning to calm down a little, when he completes the soothing process with compliments. " How pretty we are to-day ! Are we going out soon to make some calls, eh ? " My Wifes Reception Day, 91 He resorts to this mode of address to avoid the more familiar form, which is so offensive to her. " No, I am not going to make calls," Sidonie re- plies with a certain pride, " On the other hand, I expect to receive them. This is my day." In response to her husband's astounded, bewil- dered expression, she continues : " Why, yes, this is my day. Madame Fromont has one ; I can have one also, I fancy." " Of course, of course," said honest Risler, looking about with some little uneasiness. " So that 's why I saw so many flowers everywhere, on the landing, in the salon." " Yes, my maid went down to the garden this morning. Did I do wrong? Oh ! you don't say so, but I 'm sure you think I did wrong. Dame! I thought the flowers in the garden belonged to us as much as to them." " Certainly they do — but you — it would have been better perhaps — " "To ask leave? That's it — to humble myself again for a few paltry chrysanthemums and two or three bits of green. Besides, I did n't make any secret of taking the flowers ; and when she conies up a little later — " " Is she coming? Ah ! that 's very nice of her." Sidonie turned upon him indignantly. "Whai's that? Nice of her? Upon my word, if she don't come, that would be the last straw. When I go every Wednesday to be bored to death in her salon with a crowd of affected, simpering women." 92 Fromo7it and Risler. She did not say that those same Wednesdays of Madame Fromont's were of great service to her, that they were hke a weekly journal of fashions, one of those composite little publications in which you are told how to enter and leave a room, how to bow, how to place flowers in a jardiniere, and cigars in a case, to say nothing of the engravings, the procession of graceful, faultlessly attired men and women, and the names of the best dressmakers. Nor did Sidonie say that she had entreated all those friends of Claire's, of whom she spoke so scornfully, to come and see her on her day, and that the day was selected by them. Will they come? Will Madame Fromont Jeune insult Madame Risler Aine, by absenting herself on her first Friday? The thought makes her almost feverish with anxiety. " For heaven's sake, hurry," she says again and again. " Good God ! how long you are at your breakfast ! " It is a fact that it is one of honest Risler's whims to eat slowly and to light his pipe at the table while he sips his coffee. To-day he must renounce these cherished habits, must leave the pipe in its case because of the smoke, and, as soon as he has swallowed the last mouthful, run hastily and dress, for his wife insists that he must come up during the afternoon and pay his respects to the ladies. What a sensation in the factory when they see Risler Ain6 come in, on a week-day, in a black frock-coat and dress cravat ! My IVifes Reception Day. 93 "Are you going to a wedding, pray?" cries Sigismond, the cashier, from behind his grating. And Risler, not without a fceHng of pride, repHes : " It is my wife's reception day ! " Soon everybody in the place knows that it is Sidonic's day; and Pcre Achille, who takes care of the garden, is not very well pleased to find that the branches of the winter laurels by the gate are broken. Before taking his seat at the table upon which he draws, in the bright light from the high windows, Risler has taken off his fine frock coat, which em- barrasses him, and has turned up his clean shirt sleeves; but the idea that his wife is expecting company preoccupies and disturbs him; and from time to time he puts on his coat and goes up to her. " Has no one come? " he asks timidly. "No, monsieur, no one." In the beautiful red salon — for they have a salon in red damask, with a console between the windows and a pretty table in the centre of the light-flow- ered carpet — Sidonie has established herself in the attitude of a woman holding a reception, a circle of chairs of all sorts around her. Here and there are books, reviews, a little work-basket in the shape of a game-bag, with silk tassels, a bunch of violets in a glass vase, and green plants in the jardinieres. Everything is arranged exactly as in the Fromonts' apartments on the floor below; but the taste, that invisible line which separates the distinguished 94 Fromont and Risler. from the vulgar, is not yet refined. You would say it was a passable copy of a pretty genre picture. The hostess's dress, even, is too new; she looks more as if she were making a call than as if she were at home. In Risler's eyes everything is superb, beyond reproach ; he is preparing to say as much as he enters the salon, but, in face of his wife's wrathful glance, he checks himself in terror. " You see, it 's four o'clock," she says, pointing to the clock with an angry gesture. " No one will come. But I take it especially ill of Claire not to come up. She 's at home — I am sure of it — I can hear her." Indeed, ever since noon, Sidonie has listened intently to the slightest sounds on the floor below, the child's crying, the closing of doors. Risler attempts to go down again in order to avoid a re- newal of the conversation at breakfast; but his wife will not have it so. The very least he can do is to stay with her when everybody else abandons her, and so he remains there, at a loss what to say, rooted to the spot, like those people who dare not move during a storm for fear of attracting the light- ning. Sidonie moves excitedly about, going in and out of the salon, changing the position of a chair, changing it back again, looking at herself as she passes the mirror, and ringing for her maid to send her to ask Pere Achille if no one has in- quired for her. That Pere Achille is such a spite- ful creature ! Perhaps when people have come, he has said that she was out. But no, the concierge has not seen anyone. My Wifes Recepiioii Day. 95 Silence and consternation. Sidonic is standing at the window on the left, Risler at the one on the right. From there they can see the little garden, where the darkness is gathering, and the black smoke which the chimney emits beneath the low-- hanging clouds. Sigismond's window is the first to show a light on the ground floor ; the cashier trims his lamp himself with painstaking care, and his tall shadow passes in front of the flame and bends double behind the grating. Sidonie's wrath is diverted a moment by these familiar details. Suddenly a small coupe drives into the garden and stops in front of the door. At last some one is coming. In that pretty whirl of silk and flowers and jet and flounces and furs, as it runs quickly up the step, Sidonie has recognized one of the most fashionable frequenters of the Fromont salon, the wife of a wealthy dealer in bronzes. What an honor to receive a call from such an one ! Quick, quick ! the family takes its position. Monsieur in front of the hearth, Madame in an easy-chair, care- lessly turning the leaves of a magazine. Wasted pose ! The fair caller did not come to see Sidonie ; she has stopped at the floor below. Ah ! if Madame Georges could hear what her neighbor says of her and her friends ! At that moment the door opens and " Made- moiselle Planus " is announced. She is the cashier's sister, a poor old maid, humble and modest, who has made it her duty to make this call upon the wife of her brother's employer, and who seems stupefied by the warm 96 Fromont and Risler. welcome she receives. She is surrounded and made much of. " How kind of you to come ! Draw up to the fire." They overwhelm her with attentions and show great interest in her slightest word. Honest Risler's smiles are as warm as his thanks. Sidonie herself displays all her fascina- tions, overjoyed to exhibit herself in her glory to one who was her equal in the old days, and to reflect that the other, in the room below, must hear that she has had callers. So she makes as much noise as possible, moving chairs, pushing the table around ; and when the old maid takes her leave, dazzled, enchanted, bewildered, she escorts her to the landing with a great rustling of flounces, and calls to her in a very loud voice, leaning over the rail, that she is at home every Friday. " You understand, every Friday." Now it is dark. The two great lamps in the salon are lighted. In the adjoining room they hear the servant laying the table. It is all over. Madame Fromont Jeune will not come. Sidonie is livid with rage. " Just fancy, that minx can't come up eighteen stairs ! No doubt Madame thinks we 're not big enough for her. Ah ! but I '11 have my revenge." As she pours forth her wrath in unjust words, her voice becomes coarse, takes on the intonations of the faubourg, an accent of the common people which betrays the ex-apprentice of Mademoiselle Le Mire. Risler is unlucky enough to make a remark : "Who knows? Perhaps the child is sick." My Wifes Reception Day. 97 She turns upon him in a fury, as if she would Hke to bite him. "Will you hold your tongue about that child? After all, it 's your fault that this has happened to me. You don't know how to make people treat me with respect." And as she violently closed the door of her bed- room, making the globes on the lamps tremble as well as all the knick-knacks on the ^tageres, Risler, left alone, stands motionless in the centre of the salon, looking with an air of consternation at his white wrist-bands, his broad patent-leathers, and mutters mechanically: " My wife's day ! " 98 Fromont and Risler, 11. THE TRUE PEARL AND THE FALSE PEARL. "What can be the matter? What have I done to her?" Claire Fromont often wondered when she thought of Sidonie, She was entirely ignorant of what had formerly- taken place between her friend and Georges, at Savigny. Her life was so upright, her mind so pure, that it was impossible for her to ,divine the jealous, mean-spirited ambition that had grown up by her side within the past fifteen years. And yet the enigmatical expression in that pretty face as it smiled upon her gave her a vague feeling of un- easiness which she could not understand. An affectation of politeness, strange enough between friends, was suddenly succeeded by an ill-dissem- bled wrath, a cold, stinging tone, in presence of which Claire was as perplexed as by a knotty problem. Sometimes, too, a singular presenti- ment, the ill-defined intuition of a great calamity, was mingled with her uneasiness ; for all women have more or less second sight, and, even in the most innocent, utter ignorance of evil is suddenly illumined by visions of extraordinary lucidity. TJte True Pearl and iJie False Pearl. 99 From time to time, as the result of a conversa- tion somewhat more prolonged than usual, or of one of those unexpected meetings when faces taken by surprise allow their real thoughts to be seen, Madame Fromont reflected seriously con- cerning this strange little Sidonie ; but the active, urgent duties of life, with its accompaniment of affections and preoccupations, left her no time for dwelling upon such trifles. There is, with all women, a time of life when they encounter such sudden \yindings in the road that their whole horizon changes and all their points of view become transformed. As a young girl, the falling away of that friend- ship bit by bit, as if torn from her by an unkindly hand, would have been a source of great regret to her. But she had lost her father, the object of her greatest, her only youthful affection ; then she had married. The child had come with its thrice welcome demands upon her every moment. More- over, she had with her her mother, almost in her dotage, still stupefied by her husband's tragic death. In a life so fully occupied, Sidonie's ca- prices received but little attention ; and it had hardly occurred to Claire Fromont to be surprised at her marriage to Rislcr. He was clearly too old for her ; but, after all, what difference did it make, if they loved each other? As for being vexed because little Chcbe had at- tained that lofty position, had become almost her equal, her very superior nature was incapable of such pettiness. On the contrary, she would have lOO Fromont and Risler. been glad with all her heart to know that that young wife, whose home was so near her own, who lived the same life, so to speak, and had been her playmate in childhood, was happy and highly-esteemed. Being most kindly disposed toward her, she tried to teach her, to instruct her in the ways of society, as one might instruct an attractive provincial, who fell but little short of being charming. Advice is not readily accepted by one pretty young woman from another. When Madame Fro- mont, on the occasion of a grand dinner-party, took Madame Risler to her bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to anger her : " Too many jewels, my dear. And then, you know, with a high dress one does n't wear flowers in one's hair," — Sidonie blushed, and thanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her in the bottom of her heart. In Claire's circle her welcome was decidedly cold. Faubourg Saint-Germain has its pretensions ; but do not imagine that the Marais has none ! Those wives and daughters of mechanics, of wealthy manufacturers, knew little Chebe's story ; indeed they would have guessed it simply by her manner of making her appearance and by her demeanor among them. Sidonie's efforts were unavailing. She retained the manners of a shop-girl. Her slightly artificial amiability, sometimes too humble, was as unpleas- ant as the spurious elegance of the shop; and her The Trtie Pearl and the False Pearl. loi disdainful attitudes recalled the superb airs of the head salcszvouieit in the great dry goods establish- ments, arrayed in black silk dresses, which they take off in the dressing-room when they go away at night, — who stare with an imposing air, from the vantage-point of their mountains of curls, at the poor creatures who venture to haggle over prices. She felt that she was being examined and criti- cised, and her modesty was compelled to place itself upon a war footing. Of the names mentioned in her presence, the anmsements, the parties, the books of which they talked to her, she knew nothing. Claire did her best to help her, to keep her on the surface, with a friendly hand always outstretched ; but many of these ladies considered Sidonie pretty ; that was enough to make them bear her a grudge for seeking admission to their circle. Others, proud of their husbands' positions, of their wealth, could not invent enough unspoken affronts and patronizing phrases to humiliate the little parvenu. Sidonie included them all in a single phrase : " Claire's friends, that is to say, my enemies ! " But she was seriously incensed against but one. The two partners had no suspicion of what was taking place between their wives. Risler, constantly engrossed in his press, some- times remained at his draughting-table until mid- night. Fromont passed his days abroad, lunched at his club, was almost never at the factory. He had his reasons for that. I02 Fromont mtd Risler. Sidonie's proximity disturbed him. His capri- cious passion for her, that passion that he had sacrificed to his uncle's last wishes, recurred too often to his memory with all the regret one feels for the irreparable ; and, conscious that he was weak, he fled. His was a pliable nature, without sustaining purpose, intelligent enough to appreci- ate its failings, too weak to guide itself On the evening of Risler's wedding — he had been mar- ried but a few months himself — he had experi- enced anew, in that woman's presence, all the emotion of the stormy evenings at Savigny. Thereafter, without self-examination, he avoided seeing her again or speaking with her. Unfor- tunately, as they lived in the same house, as their wives saw each other ten times a day, chance sometimes brought them together; and this strange thing happened, — that that husband, wishing to remain virtuous, deserted his home altogether and sought distraction elsewhere. Claire was not astonished that it was so. She had become accustomed during her father's life- time to the constant " up and away" of a business life ; and during her husband's absences, zealously performing her duties as wife and mother, she in- vented long tasks, occupations of all sorts, walks for the child, prolonged, peaceful tarryings in the sunlight, from which she would return home, over- joyed with the little one's progress, deeply im- pressed with the gleeful enjoyment of all infants in the fresh air, and with a touch of their radiance in the depths of her serious eyes. The True Pearl and the False Pearl. 103 Sidonie also >vent out a great deal. It often happened, toward night, that Georges's car- riage, driving through the gateway, would com- pel Madame Rislcr to step hastily aside as she was returning in a gorgeous costume from a triumphal promenade. The boulevard, the shop- windows, the purchases, made after long delib- eration as if to enjoy to the full the pleasure of purchasing, detained her very late. They would exchange a bow, a cold glance at the foot of the staircase ; and Georges would hurry into his apartments, as into a place of refuge, concealing beneath a flood of caresses, bestowed upon the child his wife held out to him, the sudden emo- tion that had seized him. Sidonie, for her part, seemed to have forgotten everything, and to have retained no other feeling than contempt for that weak, cowardly creature. Moreover, she had many other things to think about. Her husband had just had a piano placed in her red salon, between the windows. After long hesitation she had decided to learn to sing, thinking that it was rather late to begin to play the piano ; and twice a week, Madame Dobson, a pretty, sentimental blonde, came to give her lessons from twelve o'clock to one. In the silence of the neighborhood the a — a — a and — — 0, persistently prolonged, repeated again and again, with the windows open, gave the factory the atmosphere of a boarding-school. And it was in very truth a school-girl who was I04 Fj''07nont and Risler, practising those exercises, an inexperienced, wav- ering little soul, full of unconfessed longings, with everything to learn and to find out in order to become a real woman. But her ambition con- fined itself to a superficial aspect of things. " Claire Fromont plays the piano, I will sing. She is considered a refined and distinguished woman, and I propose that people shall say the same of me." Without a thought of perfecting her education, she passed her life running about among the mil- liners and dressmakers. ** What are people going to wear this winter?" She was attracted by the gorgeous displays in the shop windows, by every- thing that caught the eye of the passers-by. There still remained, at the ends of her fingers, a trace of the false pearls she had handled so long, a touch of their artificial polish, their hollow fra- gility, their superficial brilliancy. Indeed she was herself a false pearl, well-rounded, brilliant, hand- somely set, by which the common herd might be deceived ; but Claire Fromont was a genuine pearl, whose lustre was at once rich and refined, and when they were together the difference was per- ceptible. One realized that Claire had always been a pearl, a tiny pearl in her childhood, en- hanced as she grew to womanhood by those ele- ments of refinement and distinction which had made of her a rare and priceless creature. The other, on the contrary, was clearly the handiwork of Paris, that maker of false jewels who dispenses thousands of trifles, brilliant and charming to the The Tncc Pearl and tJic False Pearl. 105 eye, but unsubstantial, ill assorted and badly made : a t}'pical product of the petty trades among which she had grown up. The one thing that Sidonie envied Claire more than all else was the child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its cradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet maternal duties, demanding patience and self- abnegation, of the long rockings when sleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with fresh water. No ! she saw in the child naught but the daily walk. It was such a pretty sight, the little bundle of finery, with floating ribbons and long feathers, that follows young mothers through the crowded streets. When she wanted company she had only her parents or her husband. She preferred to go out alone. The excellent Risler had such an absurd way of showing his love for her, playing with her as if she were a doll, pinching her chin and her cheek, capering about her, crying: " Hou ! hou ! " or staring at her with his great soft eyes like an affectionate and grateful dog. That senseless love, which made of her a toy, a mantel ornament, made her ashamed. As for her parents, they were an embarrassment to her in presence of the people she wished to know, and immediately after her marriage she almost disburdened herself of them by hiring a little house for them at Montrouge. That step had cut short the frequent invasions of Monsieur Chebe and his long frock coat, and the endless visits of good Madame Chebe, in whom the io6 Fromont and Rislcr. return of comfortable circumstances had revived former habits of gossip and of indolence. Sidonie would have been very glad to rid herself of the Delobelles in the same way, for their proxi- mity annoyed her. But the Marais was a central location for the old actor, because the boulevard theatres were so near; then too, D6siree, like all sedentary persons, clung to the familiar outlook, and her gloomy courtyard, dark at four o'clock in winter, seemed to her like a friend, like a familiar face which the sun lighted up at times as if it were smiling at her. As she was unable to get rid of them, Sidonie had adopted the course of ceasing to visit them. In truth her life would have been lonely and depressing enough, had it not been for the distrac- tions which Claire Fromont procured for her. Each time added fuel to her wrath. She would say to herself: " Must everything come to me through her? " And when, just at dinner-time, a box at the theatre or an invitation for the evening was sent to her from the floor below, while she was dressing, overjoyed at the opportunity to exhibit herself, she thought of nothing but crushing her rival. But such opportunities became more rare as Claire's time was more and more engrossed by her child. When grandfather Gardinois came to Paris, however, he never failed to bring the two families together. The old peasant's gayety, for its freer expansion, needed little Sidonie, who did not take fright at his jests. He would take them The True Pearl and the False Pearl. 107 all four to dine at Philippe's, his favorite restau- rant, where he knew all the habitues, the waiters and the steward, would spend a lot of money, and then take them to a box, secured beforehand, at the Opera-Comique or the Palais-Royal. At the theatre he laughed uproariously, talked familiarly with the box-openers, as he did with the waiters at Philippe's, loudly demanded foot- stools for the ladies, and when the performance was done insisted on having the top-coats and fur wraps of his party first of all, as if he were the only three-million parvenu in the audience. For these more or less vulgar entertainments, from which her husband usually excused himself, Claire with her usual tact dressed very quietly and attracted no notice. Sidonie, on the contrary, with all sail set, in full view of the boxes, laughed with all her heart at the grandfather's anecdotes, happy to have descended from the second or third gallery, her usual location in the old days, to that lovely proscenium box, adorned with mirrors, with a velvet rail that seemed made ex- pressly for her light gloves, her ivory opera-glass and her spangled fan. The tawdry splendor of the theatre, the red and gold of the hangings, were genuine splendor to her. She bloomed among them like a pretty paper flower in a filigree jardiniere. One evening, at the j)erformance of a successful play at the Palais-Royal, among all the noted women who were present, painted celebrities wear- ing microscopic hats and armed with immense io8 Fromont and Rislcr. fans, their rouge-besmeared faces standing out from the shadow of the boxes in the gaudy setting of their gowns, Sidonie's behavior, her toilet, the pecuHarities of her laugh and her expression at- tracted much notice. All the opera-glasses in the hall, guided by the magnetic current that is so powerful under the great chandeliers, were turned one by one upon the box in which she sat. Claire soon became embarrassed, and modestly insisted upon changing places with her husband, who, unluckily, had accompanied them that evening Georges, youthful and elegant, sitting beside Sidonie, seemed her natural companion, while Risler Ain6, always so placid and self-effacing, seemed in his proper place beside Claire Fromont, who in her dark clothes suggested the respectable woman incog, at the Bal de I'Opera. Upon leaving the theatre each of the partners offered his arm to his neighbor. A box-opener, speaking to Sidonie, referred to Georges as "your husband," and the little woman beamed with pleasure. " Your husband ! " That simple phrase was enough to upset her and set in motion a multitude of evil currents in the depths of her heart. As they passed through the corridors and the foyer, she watched Risler and Madame " Chorche " walking in front of them. Claire's refinement of manner seemed to her to be vulgarized, annihilated by Risler's shufifling gait. " How ugly he must make me look when we are The True Pearl ami the False Pearl. 109 walking together! " she said to herself. And her heart beat fast as she thought what a charming, happy, admired couple they would have made, she and this Georges Fromont, whose arm was trem- bling beneath her own. Thereupon, when the blue-lined coupe drove up to the door of the theatre, she began to reflect, for the first time, that, when all was said, that woman had stolen her place and that she would be justi- fied in trying to recover it. no Froinont and Risler, III. THE BREWERY ON RUE BLONDEL. After his marriage Risler had given up the brew- ery. Sidonie would have been glad to have him leave the house in the evening for a fashionable club, a resort of wealthy, well-dressed men ; but the idea of his returning, amid clouds of pipe-smoke, to his friends of earlier days, Sigismond, Delobelle and her own father, humiliated her and made her unhappy. So he ceased to frequent the place ; and that was something of a sacrifice. It was almost a glimpse of his native country, that brew- ery situated in an out-of-the-way corner of Paris. The infrequent carriages, the high, barred windows of the ground floors, the odor of fresh drugs, of pharmaceutical preparations, imparted to that nar- row little Rue Blondel a vague resemblance to certain streets in Bale or Zurich. The brewery was managed by a Swiss and crowded with men of that nationality. When the door was opened, through the smoke-laden atmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of a vast low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer standing in a row, the floor ankle-deep with saw-dust, and on the counter great salad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts and baskets The Brewery on Rue B Ion del. 1 1 1 of pretzels fresh from the oven, their golden knots sprinkled with white salt. For twenty years Risler had had his pipe there, a long pipe marked with his name in the rack reserved for the regular customers, and his table, at which he was always joined by several discreet, taciturn compatriots, who listened admiringly, but without comprehending them, to the interminable harangues of Chebe and Delobelle. When Risler ceased his visits to the brewery, the tvvo last-named worthies likewise turned their backs upon it, for several excellent reasons. In the first place. Monsieur Chebe now lived a considerable distance away. Thanks to the generosity of his children, the dream of his whole life was realized at last. " When I am rich," the little man used to say in his cheerless rooms in the Marais, " I will have a house of my own, at the gates of Paris, almost in the country, a little garden which I will plant and water myself That will be better for my health than all the excitement of the capital." Well, he had his house now, and he did not enjoy himself in it, I give you my word. It was at Montrouge, on the road around the city. " A small chalet with garden," said the advertisement, printed on a placard which gave an almost exact idea of the dimensions of the prop- erty. The papers were new and of rustic design, the paint perfectly fresh ; a water-butt planted be- side a vine-clad arbor played the part of a pond. In addition to all these advantages, only a hedge separated this paradise from another " chalet with 1 1 2 Fromont and Rislcr. garden" of precisely the same description, occupied by Sigismond Planus the cashier and his sister. To Madame Chebe that was a most precious cir- cumstance. When the good woman was bored, she would take a stock of knitting and darning and go and sit in the old maid's arbor, dazzling her with the tale of her past splendors. Un- luckily, her husband had not the same source of distraction. However, everything went well at first. It was midsummer, and Monsieur Chebe, always in his shirt-sleeves, was busily employed in getting set- tled. Each nail to be driven in the house was the subject of leisurely reflections, of endless discus- sions. It was the same with the garden. He had determined at first to make an English garden of it, lawns always green, winding paths shaded by shrubbery. But the devil of it was that it took so long for the shrubbery to grow. " Faith ! I have a good mind to make an orchard of it," said the impatient little man. And thenceforth he dreamed of nothing but vegetables, long lines of beans, and peach-trees against the wall. He dug for whole mornings, knit- ting his brow in a preoccupied way and wiping his forehead ostentatiously before his wife, so that she would say: " For heaven's sake, do rest a bit — you 're kill- ing yourself" The result was that the garden was a mixture, flowers and fruit, park and kitchen garden ; and H^henever he went into Paris Monsieur Chebe was The Brewery on Rue Blojidcl. 113 careful to decorate his button-hole with a rose from his rose-bushes. While the fine weather lasted, the good people did not weary of admiring the sunsets behind the fortifications, the long days, the bracing country air. Sometimes, in the evening, when the windows were open, they sang duets ; and in presence of the stars in heaven, which began to twinkle simul- taneously with the lanterns on the railway around the city, Ferdinand would become poetical. — But when the rain came and he could not go out, what misery ! Madame Chebc, a d)'ed-in-the-wool Pari- sian, sighed for the narrow streets of the Marais, her expeditions to the market of Blancs-Mantcaux, and to the shops of the quarter. As she sat by the window, her usual station for sewing and observation, she would look out at the damp little garden, where the volubilis and the nasturtiums, stripped of their blossoms, were drop- ping away from the lattices with an air of exhaus- tion, at the long straight line of the grassy slope of the fortifications, still fresh and green, and, a little farther on, at the corner of a street, the ofificc of the Paris omnibuses, with all the points on their route inscribed in enticing letters on the green walls. Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eye, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea gazes after the packet returning to France ; she made the trip with it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a corner, grazing the shop-windows with its wheels. S 114 Fromont and Riskr, As a prisoner, Monsieur Chcbe became a terrible trial. He could not work in the garden. On Sundays the fortifications were (Jeserted ; he could no longer strut about among the working men's families dining on the grass, and pass from group to group in a neighborly way, his feet encased in embroidered slippers, with the authoritative bear- ing of a wealthy landowner of the vicinity. That he missed more than anything else, consumed as he was by the desire to make people think about him. So that, having nothing to do, having no one to pose before, no one to listen to his schemes, his stories, the anecdote of the accident to the Due d'Orleans — a similar accident had happened to him in his youth, you remember — the un- fortunate Ferdinand overwhelmed his wife with reproaches. " Your daughter banishes us — your daughter is ashamed of us — " She heard nothing but that : " Your daughter — your daughter — your daughter — " For, in his anger with Sidonie, he denied her, throwing upon his wife the whole responsibility for that monstrous and unnatural child. It was a genuine relief for poor Madame Chebe when her husband took an omnibus at the office to go and hunt up Delo- belle — whose hours for lounging were always at his disposal — and pour into his bosom all his rancor against his son-in-law and his daughter. The illustrious Delobelle also bore Risler a grudge, and freely said of him : " He is a dastard." The great man had hoped to form an integral The Brcivcry on Riic Blondcl. 1 1 5 part of the new household, to be the organizer of festivities, the arbiter clcgaiitiaruni. Instead of which, Sidonie received him very coldly, and Ris- ler no longer took him to the brewery even. How- ever, the actor did not complain too loud, and whenever he met his friend he overwhelmed him with attentions and flattery; for he had need of him. Weary of awaiting the discerning manager, see- ing that the engagement he had longed for so many years did not come, it had occurred to Delobelle to purchase a theatre and manage it himself He counted upon Risler for the funds. Opportunely enough there happened to be a small theatre on the boulevard for sale, as a result of the failure of its manager. Delobelle mentioned it to Risler, at first very vaguely, in a wholly hypo- thetical form : " There would be a good chance to make a turn." Risler listened with his usual phlegm, saying: "Indeed, it would be a good thing for you." And to a more direct suggestion, not daring to answer " No," he took refuge behind such phrases as " I will see " — " Later on " — "I don't say no," — and finally uttered the unlucky words : " I must see the estimates." For a whole week the actor had delved away at plans and figures, seated between his wife and daughter, who watched him in admiration and in- toxicated themselves with this latest dream. The people in the house said : " Monsieur Delobelle is going to buy a theatre." On the boulevard, in the actors' cafes, nothing was talked of but this 1 1 6 Fromont and Risler, transaction. Delobcllc did not conceal the fact that he had found someone to advance the funds ; the result being that he was surrounded by a crowd of unemployed actors, old comrades who tapped him familiarly on the shoulder and recalled themselves to his recollection. " You know, old boy." He promised engagements, breakfasted at the cafe, wrote letters there, saluted those who entered with the tips of his fingers, held very animated colloquies in corners ; and already two threadbare authors had read to him a drama in seven tableaux, which was " exactly what he want- ed " for his opening piece. He talked about " my theatre ! " and his letters were addressed : " Mon- sieur Delobelle, Manager." When he had composed his prospectus and made his estimates, he went to the factory to see Risler, who, being very busy, made an appoint- ment with him on Rue Blondel ; and that same evening, Delobelle, being the first to arrive at the brewery, estabhshed himself at their old table, ordered a pitcher of beer and two glasses, and waited. He waited a long while, with his eye on the door, trembling with impatience. Whenever anyone entered, the actor turned his head. He had spread his papers on the table, and pretended to be reading them, with animated gestures, move- ments of the head and lips. It was a magnificent opportunity, unique in its way. He already fancied himself acting — for that was the m.ain point — acting, in a theatre of his own, parts written expressly for him, to suit his The Brciucry on Rue Blonde I. 1 1 7 talents, in which he would produce all the effect of — Suddenly the door opened, and Monsieur Chebe made his appearance amid the pipe-smoke. He was as surprised and annoyed to find Delobelle there as Delobelle himself was by his coming. He had written to his son-in-law that morning that he wished to speak with him on a matter of very serious importance, and that he would meet him at the brewery. It was an affair of honor, entirely between themselves, from man to man. The real fact concerning this affair of honor was that Monsieur Chebe had given notice of his inten- tion to leave the little house at Montrouge, and had hired a shop with an entresol on Rue du Mail, in the midst of a business district. A shop? Bless my soul, yes. And now he was a little alarmed regarding his hasty step, anxious to know how his son-in-law would take it, especially as the shop cost much more than the Montrouge house, and there were some considerable repairs to be made at the outset. As he had long been ac- quainted with his son-in-law's kindness of heart. Monsieur Chcbc had determined to appeal to him at once, hoping to lead him into his game and to throw upon him the responsibility for this do- mestic coup d'etat. Instead of Risler he found Delobelle. They looked askance at each other, with an un- friendly eye, like two dogs meeting beside the same porringer. Each dix'incd whom the other was await- ing, and they did not try to deceive each other. 1 1 8 Fromont and Risler. "Isn't my son-in-law here?" asked Monsieur Chebe, eying the documents spread over the ta- ble, and emphasizing the words " my son-in-law," to indicate that Risler belonged to him and to no- body else. " I am waiting for him," Delobelle replied, gathering up his papers. He pressed his lips together, as he added with a dignified, mysterious, but always theatrical air : " It is a matter of very great importance." " So is mine," declared Monsieur Chebe, his three hairs standing erect like a porcupine's quills. As he spoke he took his seat on the bench be- side Delobelle, ordered a pitcher and two glasses as he had done, then sat erect with his hands in his pockets and his back against the wall, waiting in his turn. The two empty glasses in front of them, intended for the same absentee, seemed to be hurling defiance at each other. And Risler did not come. The two men, drinking in silence, lost their pa- tience and fidgeted about on the bench, each hoping that the other would tire of waiting. At last their ill-humor overflowed, and naturally poor Risler received the whole flood. " What an outrage to keep a man of my years waiting so long ! " began Monsieur Chebe, who never mentioned his great age except upon such occasions, " I believe, on my word, that he is making sport of us," replied Monsieur Delobelle. And the other : The Brciucjy on Rue Blondel. 1 1 9 " No doubt monsieur had company to dinner." " And such company ! " scornfully exclaimed the illustrious actor, in whose mind bitter memo- ries were awakened. "The fact is — " continued Monsieur Chebe. They drew closer to each other and talked. The hearts of both were full in respect to Sidonie and Risler. They opened the flood-gates. That Ris- ler, with all his good-nature, was an egotist pure and simple, a parvenu. They laughed at his ac- cent and his bearing, they mimicked certain of his peculiarities. Then they talked about his house- keeping, and, lowering their voices, they became confidential, laughed familiarly together, were friends once more. Monsieur Chebe went very far : " Let him be- ware ! he has been foolish enough to send the father and mother away from their child ; if any- thing happens to her, he can't blame us. A girl who has n't her parents' example before her eyes, you understand — " "Certainly — certainly," said Dclobelle ; "espe- cially as Sidonie has become a great flirt. How- ever, what can you expect? Me will get no more than he deserves. No man of his age ought to — Hush ! there he is ! " Risler had entered the room, and was walking toward them, distributing hand-shakes all along the benches. There was a moment of embarrassment between the three friends. Risler excused himself as well as he could. He had been detained at home; I20 Fromont and Risler. Sidonic had company, — Delobcllc touched Mon- sieur Chebe's foot under the table — and, as he spoke, the poor man, decidedly perplexed by the two empty glasses that awaited him, wondered in front of which of the two he ought to take his seat. Dclobelle was generous. " You have business together, messieurs, do not let me disturb you," He added in an undertone, winking at Risler: " I have the papers." "The papers? " echoed the other, in a bewildered tone. " The estimates," whispered the actor. Thereupon, with a great show of discretion, he withdrew within himself and resumed the reading of his documents, his head in his hands and his fingers in his ears. The two others conversed by his side, first in undertones, then louder, for Monsieur Chebe's shrill, piercing voice could not long restrain itself. — He was n't old enough to be buried, deuce take it! — He would have died of ennui at Montrouge. — What he must have was the bustle and activity of Rue du Mail or Rue du Sentier, — of the busi- ness districts. "Yes, but a shop? Why a shop?" Risler timidly ventured to ask. "Why a shop? — why a shop?" repeated Mon- sieur Chebe, red as an Easter Q^g, and raising his voice to the highest pitch in its register. " Why, because I 'm a merchant. Monsieur Risler, a mer- chant and son of a merchant. Oh ! I see what The Breivery on Rue Blondel. 121 you 're coming at. I have no business. But whose fault is it? If the people who shut me up at Montrouge, at the gates of Bicetre, like a paralytic, had had the good sense to furnish me with the money to start in business — "At that point Risler succeeded in silencing him, and there- after only snatches of the conversation could be heard : — "a more con\'enient shop — high-studded — better air — future plans — enormous business — I will speak when the time comes — Many peo- ple will be astonished." — As he caught these frag- ments of sentences, Delobelle became more and more absorbed in his estimates, presenting the eloquent back of the man who is not listening. Risler, sorely perplexed, drank a swallow of beer from time to time to keep himself in countenance. At last, when Monsieur Chcbe had grown calm, and with good reason, his son-in-law turned with a smile to the illustrious Delobelle, and met the stern, impassive glance which seemed to say: "Well! what of me?" "Ah! j\Ion DicH ! — that is true," thought the poor fellow. Changing at once his chair and glass, he took his seat opposite the actor. But Monsieur Chcbe had not Delobelle's courtesy. Instead of dis- creetly moving away, he took his glass and joined the others, so that the great man, un- willing to speak before him, solemnly replaced his papers in his pocket a second time, saying to Risler : " We will talk this over later." 122 From out and Rislcr. Very much later, in truth, for Monsieur Chebe had reflected : " My son-in-law is so good-natured. If I leave him with this swindler, who knows what he may get out of him? " And he- remained to watch. The actor was furious. It was impossible to postpone the matter to some other day, for Risler told them that he was going the next day to pass a month at Savigny. " A month at Savigny ! " exclaimed Monsieur Chebe, incensed at the thought of his son-in-law escaping him, "How about business?" " Oh ! I shall come to Paris every day with Georges. Monsieur Gardinois was very anxious to see his little Sidonie." Monsieur Chebe shook his head. He considered it very imprudent. Business is business. A man ought to be on the spot, always on the spot, in the breach. Who could say? the factory might take fire in the night. And he repeated sententiously: " The eye of the master, my dear fellow, the eye of the master," while the actor — who was little better pleased by this intended departure — opened his great eyes, giving them an expression at once cunning and authoritative, the veritable expression of the eye of the master. At last, about midnight, the last Montrouge omnibus bore away the tyrannical father-in-law, and Delobelle was able to speak. " In the first place, the prospectus," he said, preferring not to attack the question of figures at The Brewery on Rue Bloudcl. 123 once ; and with his cyc-glasscs on his nose, he began, in a declamatory tone, ahvays upon the stage : " When one considers coolly the degree of decrepitude which dramatic art has reached in France, when one measures the distance that sep- arates the stage of Molierc — " There were several pages like that. Risler listened, puffing at his pipe, afraid to stir, for the reader looked at him every moment over his eye-glasses, to watch the effect of his phrases. Unfortunately, right in the middle of the prospectus, the cafe closed. The lights were extinguished ; they must go. — And the estimates? — It was agreed that they should read them as they walked along. They stopped at every gaslight. The actor displayed his figures. So much for the hall, so much for lighting, so much for poor rates, so much for the actors. — On that question of the actors, he was firm. "The best point about the affair," he said, "is that we shall have no leading man to pay. Our leading man will be Bibi." ( When Delobelle mentioned himself, he commonly called himself Bibi.) "A leading man is paid twenty thousand francs — as we have none to pay, it 's just as if you put twenty thousand francs in }'our pocket. Tell me, isn't that true?" Risler did not reply. He had the constrained manner, the wandering eyes of the man whose thoughts are elsewhere. The reading of the esti- mates being concluded, Delobelle, dismayed to find that they were drawing near the corner of Rue dcs Vieilles-Haudricttcs, put the question 124 Fromont and Risler, squarely. Would he advance the money, yes or no? "Well ! — no," said Risler, inspired by an heroic courage which he owed principally to the prox- imity of the factory and to the thought that the welfare of his family was at stake. Delobelle was dumfounded. He had believed that the business was as good as done, and he stared at his companion, intensely agitated, his eyes as big as saucers, and rolling his papers in his hand. *' No," Risler continued, " I can't do what you ask, for this reason." Thereupon the worthy man, slowly, with his usual heaviness of speech, explained that he was not rich. Although a partner in a wealthy house, he had no available funds. Georges and he drew a certain sum from the concern every month ; then, when they struck a balance at the end of the year, they divided the profits. It had cost him a good deal to begin housekeeping: all his savings. It was still four months before the inventory. Where was he to obtain the 30,000 francs to be paid down at once for the theatre? And then, beyond all that, the affair could not be successful. " Why, it must succeed. — Bibi will be there ! " As he spoke, poor Bibi drew himself up to his full height; but Risler was determined, and all Bibi's arguments met the same refusal : " Later, in two or three years, I don't say something may not be done." The actor fought for a long time, yielding his The Brewery on Rue Blondel. 125 ground inch by inch. He proposed revising his estimates. The thing might be done cheaper. " It would still be too dear for me," Risler inter- rupted. " My name does n't belong to mc. It is a part of the firm. I have no right to pledge it. Imagine my going into bankruptcy ! " His voice trembled as he uttered the word. " But if everything is in my name," said Delo- belle, who had no superstition. He tried every- thing, invoked the sacred interests of art, went so far as to mention the pretty little actresses whose alluring glances — Risler laughed aloud. " Come, come, you rascal ! What 's that you 're saying? You forget that we 're both married men, and that it 's very late and our wives are expecting us. — No ill-will, eh? — This is not a refusal, you understand. — By the way, come and see me after the inventory. We will talk it over again. Ah ! there 's Pere Achille putting out his gas. — I must go in. Good-night." It was after one o'clock when the actor returned home. The t^vo women were waiting for him, working as usual, but with a sort of feverish activity which was strange to them. Every moment the great scis- sors that Mamma Delobelle used to cut the brass wire were seized with strange fits of trembling, and Desiree's little fingers, as she mounted an insect, moved so fast that it gave one the vertigo to watch them. Even the long feathers of the little birds strewn about on the table before her seemed, so to speak, more brilliant, more richly colored than 126 Fronton t and Rislcr, on other days. It was because a lovely visitor named Hope had called upon them that evening. She had made the tremendous effort required to climb five dark flights of stairs, and had opened the door of the little room to cast a luminous glance therein. However much you may have been deceived in life, those magic gleams always dazzle you. " Oh ! if your father might only succeed ! " said Mamma Delobelle from time to time, as if to sum up a whole world of happy thoughts to which her reverie abandoned itself. " He will succeed, mamma, never fear. Mon- sieur Risler is so kind, I will answer for him. And Sidonie is very fond of us, too, although since she was married she does seem to neglect her old friends a little. But we must make allowance for the difference in our positions. Besides, I never shall forget what she did for me." And at the thought of what Sidonie had done for her, the little cripple applied herself with even more feverish energy to her work. Her electrified fingers moved with redoubled swiftness. You would have said that they were running after some flee- ing, elusive thing, like happiness for example, or the love of someone who loves you not. " What was it that she did for you? " her mother would naturally have asked her ; but at that mo- ment she was but slightly interested in what her daughter said. She was thinking exclusively of her great man. " No ! do you think so, my dear? Just suppose The Bravery on Rue Blondel. 127 your father should have a theatre of his own and act again as he used to! You don't remember; you were too small then. But he had a tremen- dous success, no end of recalls. One night, at Alenqon, the subscribers to the theatre gave him a gold wreath. Ah ! he ^\•as a brilliant man in those days, so light-hearted, so glad to bo alive. Those who see him now don't know him, poor man, misfortune has changed him so. Oh well ! I feel sure that all that 's necessary is a little suc- cess to make him young and happy again. And then there 's money to be made managing theatres. The manager at Nantes had a carriage. Can you imagine us with a carriage? Can you imagine it, I say? That's what would be good for you. You could go out, leave your armchair once in a while. Your father would take us into the country. You would sec the water and the trees you have had such a longing to see." " Oh ! the trees," murmured the pale little re- cluse, trembling from head to foot. At that moment the street door of the house was violently closed, and Monsieur Delobelle's meas- ured step echoed in the vestibule. There was a moment of speechless, breathless anguish. The women dared not look at each other, and mamma's great scissors trembled so that they cut the wire crooked. The poor dc\-il had unqucstionabl}' receix-ed a terrible blow. His illusions crushed, the humilia- tion of a refusal, the jests of his comrades, the bill at the cafe where he had breakfasted on credit 128 Fromont and Risler. during the whole period of his managership, a bill which must be paid — all these things occurred to him in the silence and gloom of the five flights he had to climb. His heart was torn. Even so, the actor's nature was so strong in him that he deemed it his duty to envelop his distress, genuine as it was, in a conventional tragic mask. As he entered, he paused, cast an ominous glance around the work-room, at the table cov- ered with work, his little supper waiting for him in a corner, and the two dear anxious faces looking up at him with glistening eyes. He stood a full minute without speaking, — and you know how long a minute's silence seems on the stage ; then he took three steps forward, sank upon a low chair be- side the table and exclaimed in a hissing voice : " Ah ! I am accursed ! " At the same time he dealt the table such a terrible blow with his fist that the birds and insects for ornament flew to the four corners of the room. His terrified wife rose and timidly approached him, while Desiree half rose in her armchair with an expression of nervous agony that distorted all her features. Lolling on his chair, his arms hanging despon- dently by his sides, his head on his chest, the actor soliloquized. A fragmentary soliloquy, in- terrupted by sighs and dramatic hiccoughs, over- flowing with imprecations against the pitiless, selfish bourgeois, those monsters to whom the artist gives his flesh and blood for food and drink. Then he reviewed his whole theatrical life, his The Brezvery on Rnc Blondcl. 129 early triumphs, the golden wreath from the sub- scribers at Alengon, his marriage to this " sainted woman," and he pointed to the poor creature who stood by his side, with tears streaming from her eyes, and trembling lips, nodding her head dotingly at every word her husband said. In very truth, a person who had never heard of the illustrious Delobelle could have told his history in detail after that long monologue. He recalled his arrival in Paris, his humiliations, his privations. Alas ! he was not the one who had known privation. One had but to look at his full, rotund face beside the thin drawn faces of the two women. But the actor did not look so closely. " Oh ! " he said, continuing to intoxicate him- self with declamatory phrases, " oh ! to have struggled so long. For ten years, fifteen years have I struggled on, supported by these devoted creatures, fed by them." " Papa, papa, hush," cried Desiree, clasping her hands. " Yes, fed by them, I say — and I do not blush for it. For I accept all this devotion in the name of sacred art. But this is too much. Too much has been put upon me. I renounce the stage." "Oh! my dear, what's that you say?" cried Mamma Delobelle, rushing to his side. " No, leave me. I have reached the end of my strength. They have slain the artist in me. It is all over. I renounce the stage." If you had seen the two women throw their arms about him then, implore him to struggle on, prove 130 Fromont and Risler. to him that he had no right to give up, you could not have restrained your tears. But Delobelle resisted. He yielded at last, however, and promised to continue the fight a little while, since it was their wish ; but it required many an entreaty and caress to carry the point. A quarter of an hour later, the great man, fam- ished by his monologue, relieved by having given vent to his despair, was seated at one end of the table, supping with excellent appetite, feeling no other ill effect than a trifling weariness, like an actor who has played a very long and very dra- matic part during the evening. In such cases, the actor who has stirred the emotions of a whole audience and wept genuine tears on the stage, throws it all aside when he has left the theatre. He leaves his emotion in his dressing-room with his costume and his wigs, whereas, the more ingenuous, more keenly im- pressed spectators return home with red eyes and oppressed hearts, and the extraordinary tension of their nerves keeps them awake a long while. Little Desiree and Mamma Delobelle did not sleep much that night! At Saviguy, 131 IV. AT SAVIGNY. It was a great misfortune, that sojourn of the two families at Savigny for a month. After an interval of two years Georges and Sidonie found themselves side by side once more on the old estate, too old not to be always like itself, where the stones, the ponds, the trees, always the same, seemed to cast derision upon all that changes and passes away. A renewal of intercourse under such circumstances must have been disastrous to two natures that were not of a very different stamp, and far more virtuous than those two. As for Claire, she had never been so happy ; Savigny had never seemed so lovely to her. What joy to walk with her child over the greensward where she herself had walked as a child, to sit, a young mother, upon the shaded seats from which her own mother had looked on at her childish games years before ; to go, leaning on Georgcs's arm, to seek out the nooks where they had played together. She felt a tranquil contentment, the overflowing happiness of placid lives which enjoy their bliss in silence ; and all day long her peignoirs swept along the paths, guided by the tiny foot- 132 Froinoui and Risler. steps of the child, her cries and her demands upon her mother's care. Sidonie seldom took part in these maternal promenades. She said that the chatter of children tired her, and therein she agreed with old Gar- dinois, who seized upon any pretext to annoy his granddaughter. He believed that he accom- plished that object by devoting himself exclusively to Sidonie, and arranging even more entertain- ments for her than on her former visit. The carriages that had been buried in the carriage- house for two years, and were dusted once a week because the spiders spun their webs on the silk cushions, were placed at her disposal. The horses were harnessed three times a day, and the gate was continually turning on its hinges. Everybody in the house followed this impulse of worldliness. The gardener paid more attention to his flowers because Madame Risler selected the finest ones to wear in her hair at dinner. And then there were calls to be made. Luncheon parties were given, parties at which Madame Fromont Jeune presided, but at which Sidonie, with her sprightly manners, shone supreme. Indeed Claire often left her a clear field. The child had its hours for sleeping and riding out, with which no amusements could interfere. The mother w^as compelled to remain away, and it often happened that she was unable to go with Sidonie to meet the partners when they came from Paris at night. " You will make my excuses," she would say, as she went up to her room. At Savigny. 133 Madame Rislcr was triumphant. A picture of elegant indolence, she would drive away behind the galloping horses, unconscious of the swiftness of their pace, without a thought in her mind. The fresh breeze blowing through her veil alone gave her a semblance of life. A tavern seen vaguely through her drooping eyelids at the corner of a road, poorly dressed children playing on the grass between the ruts, reminded her of her Sunday walks with Risler and her parents, and the little shudder that passed over her at the memory made her the more comfortable in her cool, grace- fully draped gown, in the rocking motion of the caleche which lulled her mind to sleep, happy and reassured. Other carriages were always waiting at the station. Two or three times she heard someone near her whisper : " That is Madame Fromont Jeune;" and indeed, it was a simple matter for people to make the mistake, seeing the three return together from the station, Sidonic sitting beside Georges on the back seat, laughing and talking with him, and Risler facing them, smiling contentedly with his broad hands spread flat upon his knees, but evidently feeling a little out of place in that fine carriage. The thought that she was taken for Madame Fromont made her very proud, and she became a little more accustomed to it every day. On their arrival at the chateau, the two families separated until dinner ; but, in the pres- ence of his wife sitting tranquilly beside the sleep- ing child, Georges Fromont, too young to be 134 Fromont and Risler. absorbed, by the joys of domesticity, was con- stantly thinking of the brilHant Sidonie, whose voice he could hear pouring forth triumphant roulades under the trees in the garden. While the whole chateau was thus transformed in obedience to the whims of a young woman, old Gardinois continued to lead the narrow life of a dis- contented, idle, impotent parvenu. The most suc- cessful means of distraction he had discovered was espionage. The goings and comings of his servants, the remarks that were made about him in the kitchen, the basket of fruit and vegetables brought every morning from the kitchen-garden to the pantry, were subjects of continual investigation. He knew no greater pleasure than to find some- body at fault. It occupied his mind, gave him a measure of importance, and at dinner, while his guests listened in silence, he would at great length describe the misdemeanor, the stratagem to which he had resorted to detect it, the culprit's manner, his terror and his entreaties. For the purposes of this constant spying upon his household, the goodman made use of a stone bench set in the gravel behind an enormous pau- lownia. He would sit there whole days at a time, neither reading nor thinking, simply watching to see who went in or out. For the night he had invented something different. In the great vesti- bule at the main entrance, which opened upon the stoop with its array of bright flowers, he had caused an opening to be made leading to his bed- room on the floor above. An acoustic tube of an At Savigny. 135 improved type was supposed to convey to his ears every sound on the ground floor, even to the con- versation of the servants taking the air on the stoop. UnUickily, the instrument was so perfect that it exaggerated all the noises, confused them and pro- longed them, and the incessant, regular ticking of a great clock, the cries of a parroquct kept in one of the lower rooms, the clucking of a hen in search of a lost kernel of corn, were all Monsieur Gardinois could hear when he applied his ear to the tube. As for voices, they reached him in the form of a confused buzzing, like the muttering of a crowd, in which it was impossible to distinguish anything. He had nothing to show for the expense of the apparatus, and he concealed his wonderful tube in a fold of his bed curtains. One night the goodman, who had fallen asleep, was awakened suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole household was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watchdogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening tube. Upon putting it to his ear Monsieur Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door was thrown back with an effort. But neither Pyramus norThisbe, not even Kiss, the formidable Newfoundland, had made a sign. lie rose softly to see who those strange burglars could 136 Fr 0711011 1 and Rising be, who were leaving the house instead of entering it ; and this is what he saw through the slats of his blind: A tall, slender young man, with Georges's figure and carriage, arm-in-arm with a woman in a lace hood. They stopped first at the bench by the paulownia, which was in full flower. It was a superb, snow-white night. The moon, brushing the tree-tops, made numberless flakes of light amid the dense foliage. The terraces, white with moonbeams, where the Newfoundlands in their curly coats went to and fro, watching the night butterflies, the smooth, deep waters of the ponds, all shone with a mute, calm brilliance, as if reflected in a silver mirror. Here and there glow- worms twinkled on the edges of the greensward. The two promenaders remained for a moment beneath the shade of the paulownia, sitting silent on the bench, lost in the dense darkness which the moon makes where its rays do not reach. Sud- denly they appeared in the bright light, wrapped in a languishing embrace, walked slowly across the main avenue, and passed from sight among the trees. " I was sure of it," said old Gardinois, recogniz- ing them. Indeed, what need had he to recognize them? Did not the silence of the dogs, the aspect of the sleeping house, tell him more clearly than anything else could, what species of impudent crime, unknown and unpunished, haunted the ave- nues in his park by night? Be that as it may, the old peasant was overjoyed by his discovery. He At SavigJiy. 137 returned to bed without a light, chuckhng to him- self, and in the little cabinet filled with hunting implements, from which he had watched them, thinking at first that he had to do with burglars, the moon's rays shone upon naught save the fowl- ing-pieces hanging on the wall and the boxes of cartridges of all sizes. They had taken up the thread of their love at the corner of the same avenue. The year that had passed, marked by hesitation, by vague strug- gles, by fruitless resistance, seemed to have been only a preparation for their meeting. And it must be said that, when once the fatal step was taken, they were surprised at nothing so much as that they had postponed it so long. Georges Fromont especially was seized by a mad passion. He was false to his wife, his best friend ; he was false to Risler, his partner, the faithful companion of his every hour. It was a constant renewal, a sort of overflow of remorse, wherein his passion was intensified by the magnitude of his sin. Sidonie became his one engrossing thought, and he discovered that until then he had n(,)t lived. As for her, her love was made up of vanity and spite. The thing that she relished above all else was Claire's degradation in her eyes. Ah ! if she could only have said to her: *' Your husband loves me, — he is false to you with me," her pleasure would have been even greater. As for Risler, in her view he richly deserved what had happened to him. In her old apprentice's jargon, in which she still thought, even if she did 1 38 Fromont and Risler. not speak it, the poor man was only " an old fool," whom she had taken as a stepping-stone to fortune, "An old fool" is made to be deceived! During the day Savigny belonged to Claire, to the child who ran about upon the gravel, laughing at the birds and the clouds, and who grew apace. The mother and child had for their own the day- light, the paths filled with sunbeams. But the blue nights were given over to adultery, to that sin firmly installed in the chateau, which talked in undertones, crept noiselessly behind the closed blinds, and in face of which the sleeping house became dumb and blind, and resumed its stony impassibility, as if it were ashamed to see and hear. Planus Irciiiblcs for his Cash-box. 139 V. SIGISMOND PLANUS TREMBLES FOR HIS CASH-BOX. "A CARRIAGE, my dear Chorche? — I — have a carriage? What for?" '* I assure you, my dear Risler, that it 's quite essential for you. Our business, our relations are extending every day ; the coupe is no longer enough for us. Besides, it does n't look well to see one of the partners always in his carriage and the other on foot. Believe me, it 's a necessary outlay, and of course it will go into the general expenses of the firm. Come, resign yourself to the inevitable." It was genuine resignation. It seemed to Risler as if he were stealing some- thing in taking the money for such an unheard-of luxury as a carriage ; however, he ended by yield- ing to Georges's persistent representations, thinking as he did so : "This will make Sidonic very happy ! " The poor fellow had no suspicion that Sidonic herself, a month before, had selected at Binder's the coup6 which Georges insisted upon giving her, and which was to be charged to expense account in order not to alarm the husband. Honest Risler was so plainly created to be de- 140 Fr onion t and Rislcr. ceived. His inborn uprightness, the impHcit con- fidence in men and things which was the foundation of his transparent nature had been intensified of late by preoccupation resulting from his pursuit of the Risler Press, an invention destined to revo- lutionize the v/all-paper industry, and representing in his eyes his contribution to the partnership assets. When he laid aside his drawings and left his little workroom on the first floor, his face inva- riably wore the absorbed look of the man who has his life on one side, his anxieties on another. What a delight it was to him, therefore, to find his home always tranquil, his wife always in good humor, becomingly dressed and smiling. Without undertaking to explain the change to himself, he recognized that for some time past the " little one" had not been as before in her treatment of him. She allowed him to resume his old habits : the pipe at dessert, the little nap after dinner, the appointments at the brewery with Chebe and Delobelle. Their apartments also w^ere trans- formed, embellished. From the simple expedients of jardinieres filled with flowers and a bright red salon, Sidonie progressed to the latest caprices of fashion, the rage for antique furniture and rare porcelain. The hangings of her bedroom were of a delicate blue silk, with a long nap like the inside of a jewel casket. A grand piano by a famous maker made its appearance in the salon in place of the old one, and Madame Dobson, the singing teacher, came no longer twice a week, but every day, music-roll in hand. Planus trembles for his Cash-box. 141 Of a curious type was that young woman of American extraction, with hair of an acid blond, like lemon-pulp, over a bold forehead and metallic blue eyes. As her husband would not allow her to go on the stage, she gave lessons, and sang in some bourgeois salons. As a result of living in the artificial world of compositions for voice and piano, she had contracted a species of sentimental frenzy. She was romance itself In her mouth the words " love " and " passion " seemed to have eighty syllables, she uttered them with so much expression. Oh ! expression. That was what Mistress Dobson placed before everything, and what she tried, and tried in vain, to impart to her pupil. " Ay Chiquita^' upon which Paris fed for several seasons, was then at the height of its popularity. Sidonie studied it conscientiously, and all the morning she could be heard singing: " On dit que tu te fnaries, Tu sa/s que fen pj(is inoun'r.'" ^ " Mouri-i-i-i-i-r ! " the expressive Madame Dob- son would interpose, while her hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys ; and die she would, raising her light-blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head. Sidonie could never accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her lips, swollen with fulness of life, were not made for ^ They say that thou 'rt to marry, Thou know'st that I may die. 142 Froinont and Risler, such ^oHan harp sentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herv6, interspersed with unex- pected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better ; but she dared not admit it to her languorous instructress. By the way, although she had been made to sing a great deal at Mademoiselle Le Mire's, her voice was still fresh and not unpleasing. Having no social connections, she came gradu- ally to make a friend of her singing-mistress. She would keep her to breakfast, take her to drive in the new coupe and to assist In her pur- chases of dresses and jewels. Madame Dobson's sentimental and sympathetic tone led one to re- pose confidence in her. Her constant repinings seemed to long to attract other repinings. Si- donie told her of Georges, of their relations, attempting to palliate her offence by blaming the cruelty of her parents in marrying her by force to a rich man much older than herself Madame Dobson at once showed a disposition to assist them ; not that the little woman was venal, but she had a passion for passion, a taste for romantic intrigue. As she was unhappy in her own home, married to a dentist who beat her, all husbands were monsters in her eyes, and poor Risler espe- cially seemed to her a horrible tyrant whom his wife was quite justified in hating and deceiving. She was an active confidant and a very useful one. Two or three times a week she would bring tickets for a box at the Opera or the Italiens, or Planus trembles for his Cash-box. 143 some one of the little theatres which enjo}' a temporary vogue, and cause all Paris to go from one end of Paris to the other for a season. In Risler's eyes the tickets came from Madame Dobson ; she had as many as she chose to the theatres where operas were given. The poor wretch had no suspicion that one of those boxes for an important "first night" had often cost his partner ten or fifteen louis. It was really too easy to deceive such a husband as that. His inexhaustible credulity quietly accepted every falsehood ; moreover, he knew nothing of that fic- titious society in which his wife was already be- ginning to be known. He never accompanied her. On the few occasions, soon after their mar- riage, when he had escorted her to the theatre, he had fallen asleep, to his shame, being too simple- minded to care about the audience and too slow of comprehension to be interested in the play. So that he was infinitely obliged to Madame Dobson for taking his place with Sidonie. She did it with such good grace ! In the evening, when his wife went away, always splendidly attired, he would gaze admiringly at her, having no suspicion of the cost of her dresses, certainly none of the man who paid for them, and would await her return at his tabic by the fire, busy with his drawing, free from care, and happy to be able to say to himself: " What a good time she is having ! " On the floor below, at the Fromonts', the same comedy was being played, but with a transposi- 144 Fromont and Rislcr. tion of parts. There it was the young wife who sat by the fire. Every evening, half an hour after Sidonie's departure, the great gate swung open to give passage to the Fromont coupe con- veying monsieur to his club. What would you have? Business has its exigencies. All the great deals are arranged at the club, around the bouillotte table, and a man must go there or suffer the pen- alty of seeing his business fall off. Claire inno- cently believed it all. When her husband had gone, she felt depressed for a moment. She would have liked so much to keep him with her or to go out leaning on his arm, to seek enjoyment with him. But the sight of the child cooing in front of the fire and kicking her little pink feet while she was being undressed, speedily soothed the mother. Then the eloquent word " business," the merchant's reason of state, was always at hand to help her to resign herself Georges and Sidonie met at the theatre. Their feeling at first when they were together was one of satisfied vanity. People stared at them a great deal. She was really pretty now, and her irregular but attractive features, which required the aid of all the eccentricities of the prevailing style in order to produce their full effect, adapted themselves to them so perfectly that you would have said they were invented expressly for her. In a few mo- ments they went away and Madame Dobson was left alone in the box. They had hired a small suite on Avenue Gabriel, near the rond-point of the Champs Elysees — the dream of the young women Plaims tirniblcs for his Cash-box. 145 at the Le Mire establishment — two luxuriously furnished, quiet rooms, where the silence of the wealthy quarter, disturbed only by passing car- riages, formed a blissful envelope for their love. Little by little, when she had become accustomed to her sin, she conceived the most audacious whims. From her old working days she had re- tained in the depths of her memory the names of public balls, of famous restaurants where she was eager to go now, just as she took pleasure in caus- ing the doors to be thrown open for her at the establishments of the great dressmakers, whose signs only she had known in her earlier days. For what she sought above all else in this liaison was revenge for the sorrows and humiliations of her youth. Nothing delighted her so much, for ex- ample, when returning from an evening drive in the Bois, as a supper at the Caf6 Anglais with the sounds of luxurious vice about her. From these repeated excursions she brought back peculiarities of speech and behavior, equivocal refrains and a style of dress that imported into the bourgeois atmosphere of the old commercial house an accu- rate reproduction of the most advanced t}pc of the Paris-Cocotte of that period. At the factory they began to suspect something. The women of the people, even the poorest, are so quick at picking a dress to pieces ! When Madame Risler went out, about three o'clock, fifty pairs of sharp, envious eyes, lying in ambush at the win- dows of the polishing-shop, watched her pass, penetrating to the lowest depths of her guilty 146 Fromont and Rislcr, conscience through her black velvet dolman and her cuirass of sparkling jet. Although she did not suspect it, all the secrets of that mad brain were flying about her like the ribbons that played upon her bare neck ; and her daintily shod feet, in their bronzed boots with ten buttons, told the story of all sorts of clandestine expeditions, of the carpeted stairways they as- cended at night on their way to supper, and the warm fur robes in which they were wrapped when the coupe made the circuit of the lake in the dark- ness dotted with lanterns. The workwomen laughed sneeringly and whis- pered : " Just look at that Tata Bebelle ! There 's a way to dress to go out. She don't rig herself up like that to go to mass, that 's sure ! To think that it ain't three years since she used to start for the shop every morning in an old waterproof, and two sous' worth of roasted chestnuts in her pockets to keep her fingers warm. Now she rides in her carriage." And amid the talc dust and the roaring of the stoves, red-hot in winter and summer alike, more than one poor girl reflected on the caprice of chance in absolutely transforming a woman's existence, and began to dream vaguely of a mag- ficent future which might perhaps be in store for her without her suspecting it. In everybody's opinion Risler was a dishonored husband. Two tireiirs ^ in the printing-room — faithful pa- ^ The name given to the boys who hold the ends ot a roll of wall-paper while it is being printed. Planus trembles for his Cash-box. 147 trons of the Folios Diamatiqucs — declared that they had seen Madame Risler several times at their theatre, accompanied by some man who kept out of sight at the rear of the box. Pcre Achille, too, told of astounding things. That Sidonic had a lover, that she had several lovers in fact, no one entertained a doubt. But no one had as yet thought of Fromont Jeune. And yet she showed no sort of prudence In her relations with him. On the contrary she seemed to make a parade of them ; it may be that that was what saved them. How many times she accosted him boldly on the steps to agree upon a rendezvous for the evening! How many times she had amused herself making him shudder by speaking into his eyes before everyone ! When the first confusion had passed, Georges was grateful to her for these exhibitions of audacity, which he at- tributed to the intensity of her passion. He was mistaken. What she would have liked, although she did not admit it to herself, would have been to have Claire see them, to have her draw aside the curtain at her window, to have her conceive a suspicion of what was going on. She needed that in order to be perfectly happy : that her rival should be un- happy. But her wish was ungratified, Claire Fro- mont noticed nothing and lived, as Risler did, in imperturbable serenity. Only Sigismond, the old cashier, was realU' ill at ease. And yet he was not thinking of Sidonie when, with his pen behind his ear, he paused a 148 Fromont and Risler, moment in his work and gazed fixedly through his grating at the drenched soil of the little garden. He was thinking solely of his master, of Monsieur " Chorche," who was drawing a great deal of money now for his current expenses and sowing confusion in all his books. Every time it was some new ex- cuse. He would come to the little wicket with an unconcerned air : "Have you a little money, my good Planus? I was worsted again at boiiillotte last night, and I don't want to send to the bank for such a trifle." Sigismond Planus would open his cash-box with an air of regret to get the sum requested, and he would remember with terror a certain day when Monsieur Georges, then only twenty years old, had confessed to his uncle that he owed several thousand francs in gambling debts. The goodman there- upon conceived a violent antipathy for the club an-d contempt for all its micmbers. A rich trades- man who was a member happened to come to the factory one day, and Sigismond said to him with brutal frankness : " The devil take your Cercle du Chateau d'Eau ! Monsieur Georges has left more than thirty thou- sand francs there in two months." The other began to laugh. "Why, you're greatly mistaken, Pere Planus — it 's at least three months since we have seen your master." The cashier did not pursue the conversation ; but a terrible thought took up its abode in his mind, and he turned it over and over all day long. Plaims ircjiiblcs for Jiis CasJi-box. 149 If Georges did not go to the club, where did he pass his evenings? Where did he spend so much money? There was evidently a woman at the bottom of the affair. As soon as that idea occurred to him, Sigismond Planus began to tremble seriously for his cash- box. That old bear from the canton of Berne, a confirmed bachelor, had a terrible dread of women in general and Parisian women in particular. He deemed it his duty first of all, in order to set his conscience at rest, to warn Risler. He did it at first in rather a vague v/ay. " Monsieur Chorche is spending a great deal of money," he said to him one day. Risler exhibited no surprise. " What do you expect me to do, my old Sigis- mond? It's his right." And the honest fellow meant what he said. In his eyes Fromont Jeune was the absolute master of the establishment. It would have been a fine thing, and no mistake, for him, an ex-draughtsman, to venture to make any comments. The cashier dared say no more imtil the day when a messenger came from a great shawl house with a bill for six thousand francs for a cashmere shawl. He went to Georges in his office, " Shall I pay it, monsieur? " Georges Fromont was a little annoyed. Sidonic had forgotten to tell hini of this latest purchase; she used no ceremony with him now. " Pay it, pay it, Pere Planus," he said, with a 150 Fromont and Risler. shade of embarrassment, and added : " Charge it to the account of Fromont Jeune. It 's a com- mission entrusted to me by a friend." That evening, as Sigismond was hghting his Httle lamp, he saw Risler crossing the garden and tapped on the window to call him. " It's a woman," he said under his breath. "I have the proof of it now." As he uttered the awful words, " a woman," his voice shook with fear and was drowned in the great uproar of the factory. The sounds of the work in progress had a sinister meaning to the un- happy cashier at that moment. It seemed to him as if all the whirring machinery, the great chimney pouring forth its clouds of smoke, the noise of the workmen at their different tasks — as if all this tumult and animation and fatigue were for the benefit of a mysterious little being, dressed in velvet and bedecked with jewels. Risler laughed at him and refused to believe him. He had long been acquainted \vith his com- patriot's mania for detecting in everything the pernicious influence of woman. And yet Planus's words sometimes recurred to his thoughts, espe- cially in the evening, when Sidonie, after all the commotion attendant upon the completion of her toilet, went away to the theatre with Madame Dobson, leaving the apartment very empty as soon as her long train had swept across the thresh- old. Candles burning in front of the mirrors, divers little toilet articles scattered about and thrown aside, tcld of extravagant caprices and a Planus trembles for /lis Cash-box, 1 5 1 reckless expenditure of money. Risler saw nothing of all that ; but, when he heard Georges's carriage rolling through the court-yard, he had a feeling of discomfort at the thought of Madame Fromont passing her evenings entirely alone. Poor woman ! Suppose what Planus said were true ! Suppose Georges really had a second establishment ! Oh ! it would be frightful ! Thereupon, instead of beginning to work, he would go softly downstairs and ask if Madame were visible, deeming it his duty to keep her company. The little girl was always in bed, but the little cap, the blue shoes were still lying in front of the fire. Claire was either reading or working, with her silent mother beside her, always rubbing or dusting with feverish energy, exhausting herself by blowing on the case of her watch, and nervously taking the same thing up and putting it down again ten times in succession, with the obstinate persistence of manias at their inception. Nor was honest Risler a very enlivening companion ; but that did not prevent the young woman from wel- coming him kindly. She knew all that was said about Sidonie in the factory ; and although she did not believe half of it, the sight of the poor man, whom his wife left alone so often, moved her heart to pity. Mutual compassion formed the basis of that placid friendship, and nothing could be more touching than those two deserted ones, each pitying the other and each trying to divert the other's thoughts. Seated at the small brightly lighted table in the 152 Fromont and Risler. centre of the salon, Risler would gradually yield to the influence of the warmth of the fire and the harmony of his surroundings. He found there articles of furniture with which he had been fami- liar for twenty years, the portrait of his former employer, and his dear Madame " Chorche," bend- ing over some little piece of needlework at his side, seemed to him even younger and more lovable among all those old souvenirs. From time to time she would rise to go and look at the child sleeping in the adjoining room, whose soft breath- ing they could hear in the intervals of silence. Without fully realizing it, Risler felt more com- fortable and warmer there than in his own apart- ment ; for on certain days those attractive rooms, where the doors were forever being thrown open for hurried exits or returns, gave him the impres- sion of a hall without doors or windows, open to the four winds. His rooms were a camping ground ; this was a home. A care-taking hand caused order and refinement to reign everywhere. The chairs seemed to be talking together in under- tones, the fire burned with a delightful noise, and Mademoiselle Fromont's little cap retained in every bow of its blue ribbons suggestions of sweet smiles and childish glances. And while Claire was thinking that such an excellent man deserved a better companion in life, Risler, watching the calm and lovely face turned toward him, the intelligent, kindly eyes, asked himself who the hussy could be for whom Georges Fromont neglected such an adorable woman. The Inventory, i5_ VI. THE INVENTORY. The house in which old Planus lived at INIont- rougc adjoined the one which the Chebes had occupied for some time. There was the same ground floor with three windows, and a single floor above, the same garden with its lattice-work fence, the same borders of green box. There the old cashier lived with his sister. He took the first omnibus that left the office in the morning, re- turned at dinner time, and on Sundays remained at home, tending his flowers and his hens. The old maid was his housekeeper and did all the cooking and sewing. A happier couple never lived. Celibates both, they were bound together by an equal hatred of marriage. The sister abhorred all men, the brother looked upon all women with suspicion; but withal they adored each other, each considering the other an exception to the general perversity of the sex. In speaking of him, she always said : " Monsieur Planus, my brother!" — and he, with the same affectionate solemnity, interspersed all his sentences with " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister ! " To those two retiring and innocent creatures, Paris, of which they knew nothing, although they visited it every day, was a den of monsters of two varieties. 154 Fromont and Risler. bent upon doing one another the utmost possible injury; and whenever, amid the gossip of the quarter, a conjugal drama came to their ears, each of them, beset by his or her own idea, blamed a different culprit. " It 's the husband's fault," would be the verdict of " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister." "It's the wife's fault," "Monsieur Planus, my brother," would reply. " Oh ! the men — " " Oh ! the women — " That was their one never-failing subject of dis- cussion in those rare hours of idleness which old Sigismond set aside in his busy day, which was as carefully ruled off as his account books. For some time past the discussions between the brother and sister had been marked by extraordinary animation. They were deeply interested in what was taking place at the factory. The sister was full of pity for Madame Fromont and consideredher husband's conduct altogether outrageous ; as for Sigismond, he could find no words bitter enough for the un- known trollop w^ho sent bills for six thousand franc shawls to be paid from his cash-box. In his eyes the honor and fair fame of the old house he had served since his youth were at stake. " What is going to become of us? " he repeated again and again. "Oh! these women — " One day Mademoiselle Planus sat by the fire with her knitting, waiting for her brother. The table had been laid for half an hour, and the old maid was beginning to be worried by such The Invcntoiy. 155 unheard-of tardiness, when Sigismond entered with a most distressed face, and without a word, which was contrary to all his habits. He waited until the door was shut tight, then said in a low voice, in response to his sister's dis- turbed and questioning expression : " I have some news. I know who the woman is who is doing her best to ruin us." Lowering his voice still more, after glancing about at the silent walls of their little dining-room, he uttered a name so unexpected that Mademoi- selle Planus made him repeat it. " Is it possible?" " It 's the truth." And, despite his grief, he had almost a trium- phant air. The old maid could not believe it. Such a refined, polite person, who had received her with so much cordiality ! — How could anyone imagine such a thing? " I have proofs," said Sigismond Planus. Thereupon he told her how Pere Achillc had met Sidonie and Georges one night at eleven o'clock, just as they entered a small furnished lodging-house in the Montmartre quarter; and he was a man who never lied. They had known him for a long while. At all events, others had met them. Nothing else was talked about at the fac- tory. Risler alone suspected nothing. " But it is your duty to tell him," declared Made- moiselle Planus. The cashier's face assumed a grave expression. 156 Fronton f and Risler. " It's a very delicate matter. In the first place, who knows whether he would believe me? There are blind men so blind that — And then, by inter- fering between the two partners, I risk the loss of my place. Oh ! the women — the women ! When I think how happy Risler might have been. When I sent for him to come to Paris with his brother, he had n't a sou ; and to-day he 's at the head of one of the first houses in Paris. Do you suppose that he could be content with that? Oh! yes, of course. Monsieur must marry. As if anyone needed to marry ! And, worse yet, he marries a Parisian woman, one of those frowsy-haired chits who are the ruin of an honest house, when he had right at his hand a fine girl, of almost his own age, a countrywoman, used to work, and well put to- gether as you might say ! " " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister," to whose physical structure he alluded, had a magnificent opportunity to exclaim: "Oh! the men, the men ! " but she was silent. It was a very delicate question, and perhaps, if Risler had chosen in time, he might have been the only one. Old Sigismond continued : " And this is what we have come to. For three months the leading wall-paper factory in Paris has been tied to the flounces of that good-for-nothing. You ought to see how the money flies. All day long I do nothing but open my wicket to meet Monsieur Georgcs's calls. He always applies to me, because at his banker's too much notice would be taken of it, whereas in our office money comes The Inventory. 157 and goes, comes in and goes out. But look out for the inventory ! There '11 be some pretty- figures to show at the end of the year. The worst part of the whole business is that Rislcr won't listen to anything. I have warned him several times : ' Look out, Monsieur Georges is making a fool of himself for that woman.' He either turns away with a shrug, or else he tells me that it 's none of his business and that Fromont Jeune is the master. Upon my word, one would almost think — -one would almost think — " The cashier did not finish his sentence ; but his silence was pregnant with unspoken thoughts. The old maid was appalled ; but, like most women under such circumstances, instead of seek- ing a remedy for the evil, she wandered off into a maze of regrets, conjectures and retrospective lamentations. What a misfortune that they had not known it sooner when they had the Chebes for neighbors. Madame Chebe was such an honor- able woman. They might have put the matter before her so that she would keep an eye on Si- donic and talk seriously to her. " Indeed, that's a good idea," Sigismond inter- rupted. "You must go to Rue du Mail and tell her parents. I thought at first of writing to little Frantz. He always had a great deal of influence over his brother, and he 's the only person on earth who could say certain things to him. But Frantz is so far away. And then it would be such a terrible thing to do. I can't help pitying that unlucky Risler, though. No ! the best way is to 158 Fromont and Risler. tell Madame Chebe, Will you undertake to do it, sister? " It was a dangerous commission. Mademoiselle Planus made some objections, but she had never been able to resist her brother's wishes, and the desire to be of service to their old friend Risler assisted materially in persuading her. Thanks to his son-in-law's kindness. Monsieur Chebe had succeeded in gratifying his latest whim. For three months past he had been living at his famous warehouse on Rue du Mail, and a great sensation was created in the quarter by that shop without merchandise, the shutters of which were taken down in the morning and put up again at night, as in wholesale houses. Shelves had been placed all around the walls, there was a new counter, a safe, a huge pair of scales. In a word, Monsieur Chebe possessed all the requisites of a business of some sort, but did not know as yet just what business he would choose. He pondered the subject all day as he walked to and fro across the shop, encumbered with several large pieces of bedroom furniture which they had been unable to get into the back shop ; he pondered it too, as he stood on his doorstep, with his pen behind his ear, and feasted his eyes delightedly on the hurly-burly of Parisian com- merce. The clerks who passed with their pack- ages of samples under their arms, the vans of the express companies, the omnibuses, the porters, the wheelbarrows, the great bales of merchandise The Inventory. 159 at the neighboring doors, the packages of rich stuffs and trimmings which dragged in the niiul of the gutter before being consigned to those under- ground regions, those dark holes stuffed with treas- ures, where the fortune of business houses Hes in germ — all these things delighted Monsieur Chebe. He amused himself guessing at the contents of the bales and was first at the fray when some passer-by received a heavy package upon his feet, or the horses attached to a dray, spirited and restive, made the long vehicle standing across the street an obstacle to circulation. He had, moreover, the thousand and one distractions of the petty tradesman without customers, the heavy showers, the accidents, the thefts, the disputes. At the end of the day Monsieur Chebe, dazed, bewildered, worn out by the labor of other people, would stretch him^self out in his easy-chair and say to his wife, as he wiped his forehead : " That 's the kind of life I need — an active life." Madame Chebe would smile softly without re- plying. Accustomed as she was to all her hus- band's whims, she had made herself as comfortable as possible in a back shop with an outlook upon a dark yard, consoled herself with reflections on the former prosperity of her parents and her daugh- ter's wealth, and, being always neatly dressed, had succeeded already in acquiring the respect of neigh- bors and tradesmen. She asked nothing more than not to be con- founded with the wives of working men, often less poor than herself, and to be allowed to retain, in i6o Fr onion t and Rislcr, spite of everything, a petty bourgeois superiority. That was her constant thought; and so the back room in which she hved, and where it was dark at three in the afternoon, was resplendent with order and cleanHness. During the day the bed became a couch, an old shawl did duty as a table-cloth, the fire-place, hidden by a screen, served as a pan- try, and the meals were cooked in modest retire- ment on a stove no larger than a foot-warmer. A tranquil life — that was the dream of the poor woman, who was constantly tormented by the tergiversations of an uncongenial companion. In the early days of his tenancy Monsieur Chebe had caused these words to be inscribed in letters a foot long on the fresh paint of his shop- front : COMMISSION — EXPORTATION No specifications. His neighbors sold tulle, broad- cloth, linen ; he was inclined to sell everything, but could not make up his mind just what. With what arguments did his indecision lead him to favor Madame Chebe as they sat together in the evening ! " I don't know anything about linen ; but when you come to broadcloth, I can take care of that. Only, if I go into broadcloths I must have a man to travel ; for the best kinds come from Sedan and Elbeuf. I say nothing about calicoes ; sum- mer 's the time for them. As for tulle, that 's out of the question ; the season is too far advanced." He generally brought his discourse to a close with the words : The luvcuiory. i6i "The night will bring counsel — let's go to bed." And to bed he would go, to his wife's great relief. After three or four months of that existence, Monsieur Chebe began to be tired of it. The pains in the head, the dizzy fits gradually returned. The quarter was noisy and unhealthy. Besides, business was at a standstill. There was nothing doing in any line, broadcloths, tissues or anything else. It was just at the period of that new crisis that " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister," called to speak about Sidonie. The old maid had said to herself on the way : " I must break it gently." But, like all shy people, she relieved herself of her burden in the first words she spoke after entering the house. It was a stunning blow. When she heard the accusation made against her daughter, Madame Chebe rose in indignation. No one could ever make her believe such a thing. Her poor Sidonie was the victim of an infamous slander. Monsieur Chebe, for his part, adopted a very lofty tone, with significant phrases and motions of the head, taking everything to himself as his cus- tom was. How could any one suppose that Ids child, a Chebe, the daughter of an honorable busi- ness man known for thirty years on the street, was capable of — Nonsense ! Mademoiselle Planus insisted. It was a painful thing to her to be considered a gossip, a hawker II 1 62 Fromont and Rislcr. of unsavory stories. But they had incontestable proofs. It was no longer a secret to anybody. "And even suppose it was true," cried Monsieur Chebe, furious at her persistence. " Is it for us to worry about it? Our daughter is married. She lives a long way from her parents. It 's for her husband, who is much older than she, to advise and guide her. Does he so much as think of do- ing it?" Upon that the little man began to inveigh against his son-in-law, that sluggish-blooded Swiss, who passed his life in his office devising machines, refused to accompany his wife into society, and preferred his old bachelor habits, his pipe and his brewery to everything else. You should have seen the air of aristocratic disdain with which Monsieur Chebe pronounced the words, " the brewery ! " And yet almost every evening he went there to meet Risler, and over- whelmed him with reproaches if he once failed to appear at the rendezvous. Behind all this verbiage the merchant of Rue du Mail — " commission, exportation " — had a very definite idea. He wished to give up his shop, to retire from business, and for some time he had been thinking of going to see Sidonie, in order to interest her in his new schemes. That was not the time, therefore, to make disagreeable scenes, to prate about paternal authority and conjugal honor. As for Madame Chebe, being somewhat less con- fident than before of her daughter's infallibility, she took refuge in the most profound silence. The Inventory. 163 The poor woman wished that she were deaf and blind, — that she had never known Mademoiselle Planus. Like all persons who have been very unhappy, she loved a benumbed existence with a semblance of tranquillity, and ignorance seemed to her prefer- able to everything. As if life were not sad enough, great God ! And then, after all, Sidonie had always been a good girl ; why should she not be a good woman? Night was falling. Monsieur Chebe rose gravely to close the shut- ters of the shop, and light a gas-jet which illumined the bare walls, the empty polished shelves, and the whole extraordinary place, which reminded one strongly of the day following a failure. With his lips closed disdainfully, in his determination to remain silent, he seemed to say to the old maid : " Night has come — it 's time for you to go home." And all the while they could hear Madame Chebe sobbing in the back shop, as she went to and fro preparing supper. Mademoiselle Planus got no further satisfaction from her visit. "Well?" queried old Sigismond, who was im- patiently awaiting her return. " They would n't believe me, and politely showed me the door." She had tears in her eyes at the thought of her humiliation. The old man's face flushed, and he said in a grave voice, taking his sister's hand: 164 Froinont and Rislcr, " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, I ask your pardon for having made you take this step ; but the honor of the house of Fromont was at stake." From that moment Sigismond became more and more depressed. His cash-box no longer seemed to him safe or secure. Even when Fromont Jeune did not ask him for money, he was afraid, and he summed up all his apprehensions in four words which came constantly to his lips when talking with his sister: *'/ /laf no gonfidcnce,'' he would say, in his hoarse Swiss patois. Thinking always of his cash-box, he dreamed sometimes that it had broken apart at all the joints, and insisted on remaining open, no matter how much he turned the key, or else that a high wind scattered all the papers, notes, checks, and bills, and that he ran after them all over the factory, tiring himself out in the attempt to pick them up. In the daytime, as he sat behind his grating in the silence of his office, he imagined that a little white mouse had eaten its way through the bottom of the box and was gnawing and destroying all its contents, growing fatter and prettier as the work of destruction went on. So that, when Sidonie appeared on the stoop about the middle of the afternoon, in her pretty cocotte's plumage, old Sigismond shuddered with rage. In his. eyes it was the ruin of the house that stood there, ruin in a magnificent costume, with The Inventory. 165 her little coupe at the door, and the placid bear- ing of a happy coquette. Madame Risler had no suspicion that, at that window on the ground floor, there was an untir- ing foe who watched her slightest movements, the most trivial details of her life, the going and coming of her music-teacher, the arrival of the fashionable dressmaker in the morning, all the boxes that were brought to the house, and the laced cap of the employes of the Magasiii dji LoHvre, whose heavy wagon stopped at the gate with a jingling of bells, like a diligence drawn by stout horses, which were dragging the house of Fromont to bankruptcy at breakneck speed. Sigismond counted the packages, weighed them with his eye as they passed, and gazed inquisitively into Risler's apartments through the open windows. The carpets that were shaken with a great noise, the jardinieres that were brought into the sunlight filled with fragile, unseasonable flowers, rare and expensive, the gorgeous hangings — -none of these things escaped his notice. The new acquisitions of the household stared him in the face, reminding him of some request for a large amount. I5ut the one thing that he studied more carefully than all else was Risler's countenance. In his view that woman was in a fair way to change his friend, the best, the most upright of men, into a shameless villain. There was no possi- bility of doubt that Risler knew of his dishonor, and submitted to it. lie was paid to keep quiet. 1 66 Fro7nont ajid Risler. Certainly there was something monstrous in such a supposition. But it is the tendency of in- nocent natures, when they are made acquainted with evil for^ the first time, to go at once too far, beyond reason. When he was once convinced of the treachery of Georges and Sidonie, Risler's degradation seemed to the cashier less impossible of comprehension. On what other theory could his indifference in the face of his partner's heavy expenditures be explained? The excellent Sigismond in his narrow, stereo- typed honesty, could not understand the delicacy of Risler's heart. At the same time the method- ical book-keeper's habit of thought and his clear- sightedness in business were a thousand leagues from that absent-minded, flighty character, half- artist, half-inventor. He judged him by himself, having no conception of the condition of a man with the disease of invention, absorbed by a fixed idea. Such men are somnambulists. They look but do not see, their eyes being turned within. It was Sigismond's belief that Risler did see. That belief made the old cashier very unhappy. He began by staring at his friend whenever he en- tered the counting-room ; then, discouraged by the immovable indifference, which he believed to be wilful and premeditated, fastened upon his face like a mask, he adopted the plan of turning away and fumbling among his papers to avoid those false glances, and keeping his eyes fixed on the garden paths or the interlaced wires of the grating when he spoke to him. Even his words were all con- The Inventory. 167 fused, distorted like his glances. No one could say positively to whom he was talking. No more friendly smiles, no more reminiscences as they turned over the leaves of the cash-book together : " This was the year you came to the factory. Your first increase of pay. Do you remember ? We dined at Douix's that day. And then the Cafe des Aveugles in the evening, eh ? What a debauch ! " At last Risler noticed the strange coolness that had sprung up between Sigismond and himself. He mentioned it to his wife. For some time past she had felt that antipathy prowling about her. Sometimes, as she crossed the courtyard, she was oppressed, as it were, by malevolent glances which caused her to turn nervously toward the old cashier's corner. This estrangement between the friends alarmed her and she very quickly determined to put her husband on his guard against Planus' unpleasant remarks. " Don't you see that he 's jealous of you, of your position? A man who was once his equal, now his superior, — he can't stand that. But as if there was any need of bothering one's head about all these spiteful creatures. Why, I am surrounded by them here." Risler looked at her with wide-open eyes : — • "You?" " Why, yes, it 's easy enough to see all these people detest me. They bear little Chebe a grudge because she has become Madame Risler Ainc, 1 68 Froviont and Risler, God knows all the outrageous things that are said about me. And your cashier don't keep his tongue in his pocket, I promise you. What a spiteful fellow he is ! " These few words had their effect. Risler, indig- nant but too proud to complain, met coldness with coldness. Those two honest men, each intensely distrustful of the other, could no longer meet with- out a painful sensation, so that, after a while, Risler ceased to go to the counting-room at all. It was not difficult for him, as Fromont Jeune had charge of all financial matters. His month's allowance was carried to him on the thirtieth of each month. The arrangement afforded Sidonie and Georges additional facilities, and opportunity for all sorts of underhand dealing. She thereupon turned her attention to the com- pletion of her programme of a life of luxury. She lacked a country house. In her heart she detested the trees, the fields, the country roads that cover you with dust : " The most dismal things on earth," she used to say. But Claire Fromont passed the summer at Savigny. As soon as the first fine days arrived the trunks were packed and the curtains taken down on the floor below ; and a great furni- ture van, with the little girl's blue bassinet rocking on top, set off for the grandfather's chateau. Then, one morning, the mother, grandmother, child and nurse, a medley of white gowns and light veils, would drive away behind two fast horses toward the sunny lawns and the pleasant shade of the avenues. The Inventory. 169 At that season Paris was ugly, depopulated ; and although Sidonie loved it, even in the summer which heats it like a furnace, it troubled her to think that all the fashion and wealth of Paris were driving by the seashore under their light umbrellas, and would make their outing an excuse for a thou- sand new inventions, for original styles of the most risque sort, which would permit one to show that one has a pretty leg and long, curly chestnut hair of one's own. The seashore bathing resorts ! She could not think of them ; Risler could not leave Paris. How about buying a country house? They had not the means. To be sure, there was the lover, who would have asked nothing better than to gratify this latest whim ; but a country house cannot be concealed like a bracelet or a shawl. The husband must be induced to accept it. That was not an easy matter ; however, they might venture to try it with Risler. To pave the way, she talked to him incessantly about a little nook in the countr)', not too expen- sive, very near Paris. Risler listened with a smile. He thought of the high grass, of the orchard filled with fine fruit trees, being already tormented by the longing to possess which comes with wealth ; but as he was prudent, he said : "We will see, we will see. Let's wait till the end of the year." The end of the year, that is to say the balance- sheet 170 Fromont and Risler, The balance-sheet. That is the magic word. All through the year we go on and on in the eddying whirl of business. Money comes and goes, circulates, attracts other money, vanishes ; and the fortune of the firm, like a slippery, gleaming snake, always in motion, ex- pands, contracts, diminishes or increases, and it is impossible to know our condition until there comes a moment of rest. Not until the in- ventory shall we know the truth, and whether the year, which seems to have been a prosperous one, has really been so. The account of stock is usually taken late in December, between Christmas and New Year's Day. As it requires much extra labor to prepare it, everybody works far into the night. The whole establishment is on foot. The lamps remain lighted in the offices long after the doors are closed, and seem to share in the festal atmosphere peculiar to that last week of the year, when so many windows are illuminated for family gatherings. Everyone, even to the least important employe of the firm, is interested in the results of the inventory. The increases of salary, the New Year's presents depend upon those blessed figures. And so, while the vast interests of a wealthy house are trembling in the balance, the wives and children and aged par- ents of the clerks, in their fifth-floor tenements or poor apartments in the suburbs, talk of nothing but the inventory, the results of which will make themselves felt either by a greatly increased need of economy, or by some purchase, long post- The Inventory. i 7 1 poned, which the New Year's gift will make possible at last. On the premises of Fromont Jcune and Risler Ainc Sigismond Planus is the god of the establish- ment at that season, and his little office a sanctuary where all the clerks perform their devotions. In the silence of the sleeping factory, the heavy pages of the great books rustle as they are turned, and names called aloud cause search to be made in other books. Fens scratch. The old cashier, sur- rounded by his lieutenants, has a business-like, awe-inspiring air. From time to time Fromont Jeune, on the point of going out in his carriage, looks in for a moment, with a cigar in his mouth, neatly gloved and ready for the street. He walks slowly, on tiptoe, puts his face to the grating: " Well ! — are you getting on all right? " Sigismond gives a grunt, and the young master takes his leave, afraid to ask any further questions. He knows from the cashier's expression that the showing will be a bad one. In truth, since the days of the Revolution, when there was fighting in the very courtyard of the factory, so pitiable an inventory had never been seen in the Fromont establishment. Receipts and expenditures balanced each other. The general expense account had eaten up everything, and, furthermore, P'romont Jeune was indebted to the firm in a large sum. You should have seen old Planus's air of consternation when, on the 31st of December, he went up to Georges's office to make report of his labors. 172 Fromont and Rislcr, Georges took a very cheerful view of the matter. Everything would go better next year. And to restore the cashier's good humor, he gave him an extraordinary bonus of a thousand francs, instead of the five hundred his uncle used always to give. Everybody felt the effects of that generous impulse, and, in the universal satisfaction, the deplorable results of the yearly accounting were very soon forgotten. As for Risler, Georges chose to take it upon himself to inform him as to the situation. When he entered his partner's little closet, which was lighted from above by a window in the ceiling, so that the light fell directly upon the subject of the inventor's meditations, Fromont hesitated a moment, filled with shame and remorse for what he was about to do. The other, when he heard the door, turned joy- fully toward his partner. " Chorche, Chorche, my dear fellow, — I have got it, our press. There are still a few little things to think out. But no matter ! I am sure now of my invention, — you will see, — you will see ! Ah ! the Prochassons can dabble all they choose. With the Rider Press we will crush all rivalry." " Bravo, my comrade," replied Fromont Jcune. ** So much for the future; but you don't seem to think about the present. What about this inven- tory? " " Ah, yes ! to be sure. I had forgotten all about it. It isn't very satisfactory, is it?" He said that because of the somewhat disturbed and embarrassed expression of Georges's face. The Inventory. 173 " Why, yes, on the contrary, it 's very satisfactory indeed," was the reply. " We have every reason to be satisfied, especially as it's our first year. We have forty thousand francs each for our share of the profits; and as I thought you might need a little money to give your wife a New Year's present — " Ashamed to meet the eyes of the honest man whose confidence he was betraying, Fromont Jeune placed a bundle of checks and notes on the table. Risler was deeply moved for a moment. So much money at one time for him ! His mind dwelt upon the generosity of these Fromonts, who had made him what he was ; then he thought of his little Sidonie, of the longing which she had so often expressed and which he would now be able to gratify. With tears in his eyes and a happy smile on his lips, he held out both hands to his partner. " I am very happy, — I am very happy." That was his favorite phrase on great occasions. Then he pointed to the bundles of bank-notes spread out before him in the narrow bands which are used to confine those fugitive documents, always ready to fly away. " Do you know what that is? " he said to Georges, with an air of triumph. "That is Sidonie's house in the country." Parblcu ! 174 Fromojit and Risler. VII. A LETTER. " To M. Frantz Risler, '■'■Engineer of the Compagjiie Fran^aise, '■'■ Isniailia, Egypt. " Frantz, my boy, it is old Sigismond who is writ- ing to you. If I knew better how to put my ideas on paper, I should have a very long story to tell you. But this infernal French is too hard, and Sigismond Planus is good for nothing away from his figures. So I will tell you at once what the matter is. " Things are taking place in your brother's house that are not as they should be. That woman is false to him with his partner. She has made her husband a laughing-stock, and if this goes on she will cause him to be looked upon as a knave. Look you, my little Frantz, you must come home at once. You 're the only one who can speak to Risler and open his eyes about that little Sidonie. He would n't believe any of us. Ask leave of absence at once, and come. " I know that you have your bread to earn out there, and your future to assure ; but a man of honor should think more of the name his parents A Letter. 175 gave him than of anything else. And I tell you that if you don't come at once, a time will come when your name of Risler will be so loaded down with shame that you won't dare to bear it. "SiGisMOND Planus. " Cashier." 176 Fromont and Risler. BOOK THIRD. THE JUDGE. Those persons who live always indoors, confined by work or infirmity to their chair by the window, take a deep interest in the people who pass, just as they make for themselves a horizon of the neigh- boring walls, roofs and windows. Nailed to their place, they live in the life of the streets, and the busy men and women who pass within their range of vision, sometimes every day at the same hour, do not suspect that they serve as the mainspring of other lives, that loving eyes watch for their coming and miss them if they hap- pen to go to their destination by another road. The Delobelles, left to themselves all day, in- dulged in this sort of silent observation. Their window was narrow, and the mother, whose eyes were beginning to give out as the result of hard usage, sat near the light against the drawn muslin curtain ; her daughter's large arm-chair was at her side but a little farther away. She announced the approach of their daily passers-by. It was a diver- sion, a subject of conversation ; and the long hours of toil seemed shorter, marked oft' by the regular The Judge. 177 appearances of people who were as busy as the}'. There were two little sisters, a gentleman in a gray overcoat, a child who was taken to school and taken home again, and an old government clerk with a wooden leg, whose step on the sidewalk had a sinister sound. They hardly ever saw him ; he passed after dark, but they heard him and the sound always struck the little cripple's ears like a harsh echo of her own most melancholy thoughts. All these street friends unconsciously occupied a large place in the lives of the two women. If it rained, they would say : " They will get wet. — I wonder if the child got home before the shower." And when the season changed, when the March sun inundated the side- walks or the December snow covered them with its white mantle and its patches of black slush, the appearance of a new garment on one of their friends caused the two recluses to say to them- selves: "It is summer," or "Winter has come." Now, on a certain evening in Ma)% one of those soft luminous evenings when life flows forth from the houses into the street through the open win- dows, Dcsirce and her mother were actively at work with needles and fingers exhausting the day- light, to its last ray, before lighting the lamp. They could hear the shouts of children playing in the yards, the mufnod notes of pianos, and the voice of a street peddler, drawing his half-empty wagon. One could smell the springtime in the air, a vague odor of nyacinth and hlac. 12 178 Froinout and Risler, Delobellc's " mamma " had laid aside her work, and, before closing the window, leaned upon the sill listening to all these noises of a great toiling city, taking delight in walking through the streets when its day's work was ended. From time to time she spoke to her daughter, without turning her head. " Ah ! there 's Monsieur Sigismond. How early he leaves the factory to-night. It may be because the days are lengthening out so fast, but I don't think it can be seven o'clock. Who can that man be with the old cashier? — What a funny thing! — One would say — Why, yes — One would say it was Monsieur Frantz. But that is n't possible. Monsieur Frantz is a long way from here at this moment; and then he had no beard. That man looks ever so much like him all the same ! Just look, my dear." But " my dear " does not leave her chair; 'she does not even stir. Her eyes staring into vacancy, her needle in the air, arrested in its pretty industri- ous movement, she has gone away to the blue country, that wonderful country whither one may go at will, without thought of any infirmity. The name Frantz, uttered mechanically by her mother, because of a chance resemblance, represented to her a whole lifetime of illusions, of fervent hopes, ephemeral as the flush that rose to her cheeks when, on returning home at night, he used to come and chat with her a moment. How far away that was already ! To think that he used to live in the little room near hers, that they used to hear his The Jiidge. 179 step on the stairs and the noise made by his tabic when he dragged it to the window to draw. What sorrow and what pleasure she used to feel when he talked to her of Sidonie, sitting on the low chair at her knees, while she mounted her birds and her insects. As she worked, she would cheer and comfort him, for Sidonie had caused poor Frantz many little griefs before the last great one. The tone of his voice when he spoke of Sidonie, the sparkle in his eyes when he thought of her, fascinated Desir^e in spite of everything, so that when he went away in despair, he left behind him a love even greater than that he carried with him, — a love which the unchanging room, the sedentary, stagnant life kept intact with all its bitter perfume, whereas his would gradually fade away and vanish in the fresh air of the great highways. It grows darker and darker. A great wave of melancholy envelops the poor girl with the falling ' darkness of that balmy evening. The blissful gleam from the past dies away as the last glimmer of daylight vanishes in the narrow recess of the win- dow, where her mother still stands leaning on the sill. Suddenly the door opens. Someone is there whose features cannot be distinguished. Who can it be? The Delobelles never receive calls. The mother, who has turned her head, thinks at first that someone has come from the shop to get their week's work. " My husband has just gone to your place, mon- I So Fromoiit and Risler. sieur. We have nothing here. Monsieur Delo- bclle has taken everything." The man comes forward without speaking, and as he approaches the window his features can be made out. He is a tall, solidly built fellow with a bronzed face, a thick sandy beard, and a deep voice, and is a little slow of speech. " Aha ! so you don't know me. Mamma Delo- belle?" " Oh ! I knew you at once. Monsieur Frantz," said Desiree very calmly, in a cold, sedate tone. " Merciful heaven ! it 's Monsieur Frantz." Quickly, quickly Mamma Delobelle runs to the lamp, lights it and closes the window. " What ! it 's you, is it, my dear Frantz? " How coolly she says it, the little rascal ! " I knew you at once." Ah ! the little iceberg. She will always be the same. A veritable little iceberg, in very truth. She is pale, so pale ; and her hand as it lies in Frantz's is all white and cold. She seems to him improved, even more refined than before. He seems to her superb, as always, with a mel- ancholy, weary expression in the depths of his eyes, which makes him more of a man than when he went away. His weariness is due to his hurried journey, un- dertaken immediately on his receipt of Sigismond's letter. Spurred on by the word dishonor, he had started instantly, without awaiting his leave of absence, risking his place and his future prospects ; TJic Judge. i8i and, hurrying from steamboats to railroads, he had not stopped until he reached Paris. Reason enough for being weary, especially when one has travelled in eager haste to reach one's destination, and when one's mind has been constantly beset by impatient thoughts, making the journey ten times over in incessant doubt and fear and perplexity. His melancholy dates from farther back. It dates from the day when the woman he loved re- fused to marry him, to become, six months later, the wife of his brother ; two terrible blows in close succession, the second even more painful than the first. It is true that, before entering into that marriage, Risler had written to him to ask his per- mission to be happy, and had written in such touching, affectionate terms, that the violence of the blow was somewhat diminished thereby; and then, in due time, the life in a strange country, the hard work and the long journeys had got the better of his grief. Now there remains only a vast back- ground of melancholy. Unless, indeed, the hatred, the wrath by which he is animated at this moment against the woman who is dishonoring his brother, may be a remnant of his former love. But no ! Frantz Risler thinks only of avenging the honor of the Rislers. He comes not as a lover but as a judge ; and Sidonie may well look to herself The judge had gone straight to the factory on leaving the train, relying upon the surprise, the unexpectedness of his arrival, to disclose to him at a glance what was taking place. 1 82 Fromont and Rislcr. Unluckily he had found no one. The blinds of the httle house at the foot of the garden had been closed for two weeks. Pere Achille informed him that the ladies were at their respective country seats where the partners joined them every evening. Fromont Jeune had left the factory very early; Risler Ainc had just gone. Frantz decided to speak to old Sigismond. But it was Saturday, the regular pay-day, and he must needs wait until the long line of workmen, extend- ing from Achille's lodge to the cashier's grated window, had gradually dropped away. Although very impatient and very depressed, the excellent youth, who had lived the life of a Paris working man from his childhood, felt a thrill of pleasure at finding himself once more in the midst of the animated scenes peculiar to that time and place. Upon all those faces, honest or vicious, there was an expression of satisfaction that the week was at an end. You felt that, so far as they were concerned, Sunday began at seven o'clock Saturday evening, in front of the cashier's little lamp. One must have lived among working men to realize the full charm of that one day's rest and its solemnity. Many of these poor creatures, bound fast to unhealthy trades, await the coming of the blessed Sunday like a puff of respirable air, essen- tial to their health and their life. What an over- flow of spirits, therefore, what a pressing need of noisy mirth ! It seems as if the oppression of the The Judge. 18 o week's labor vanishes with the steam from the macliincry, as it escapes in a hissing cloud of vapor over the gutters. One by one the workmen moved away from the grating, counting the money that glistened in their black hands. There were disappointments, mut- terings, remonstrances, hours missed, monc}' drawn in advance; and above the tinkling of coins, Sigis- mond's voice could be heard, calm and relentless, defending the interests of his employers with a zeal amounting to ferocity. Frantz was familiar with all the dramas of pay- day, the false accents and the true. He knew that one man's wages v/ere expended for his family, to pay the baker, the druggist, or his children's schooling. Another wanted his money for the wine-shop, or for something even worse. And the melancholy, downcast shadows passing back and forth in front of the factory gateway, — he knew what they were waiting for, — that they were all on the watch for a father or a husband, to hurry him home with complaining or coaxing words. Oh ! the bare-footed children, the tiny creatures wrapped in old shawls, the shabby women, whose tear-stained faces were as white as the linen caps that surmounted them. Oh ! the lurking vice that prowls about on pay- day, the candles that are lighted in the depths of dark alle}'s, the dirty windows of the wineshops where the thousand and one poisonous concoctions of alcohol display their alluring colors. Frantz was familiar with all these forms of 184 Fromont and Risler, misery ; but they had never seemed to him so depressing, so harrowing as on that evening. When the last man was paid, Sigismond came out of his office. The two friends recognized each other and em- braced ; and in the silence of the factory, at rest for twenty-four hours and deathly still in all its empty buildings, the cashier explained to Frantz the state of affairs. He described Sidonie's con- duct, her mad extravagance, the utter wreck of the family honor. The Rislers had bought a country house at Asnieres, formerly the property of an actress, and had set up a sumptuous establishment there. They had horses and carriages, and led a luxurious, fast life. The thing that especially disturbed honest Sigismond was the self-restraint of Fromont Jeune. For some time he had drawn almost no money from the strong-box, and yet Sidonie was spending more than ever. " / Jiaf no gonfidence ! " said the unhappy cashier, shaking his head, " I /io/ no gonfidence !" Lowering his voice, he added : " But your brother, my little Frantz, your brother? Who can explain his actions? He goes about through it all with his eyes in the air, his hands in his pockets, his mind on his famous in- vention, which unfortunately does n't move fast. Look here ! do you want me to give you my opinion? — He's either a knave or a fool." They were walking up and down the little garden as they talked, stopping for a moment, then resum- ing their walk. Frantz felt as if he were living in The Judge. 185 a horrible dream. The rapid journey, the sudden change of scene and climate, the ceaseless flow of Sigismond's words, the new idea that he had to form of Risler and Sidonie — the same Sidonie he had loved so dearly — -all these things bewildered him and almost drove him mad. It was late. Night was falling. Sigismond pro- posed to him to go to Montrouge for the night; he declined on the plea of fatigue, and when he was left alone in the Marais, at that dismal and uncertain hour when the daylight has faded and the gas is still unlighted, he walked instinctively toward his old quarters on Rue de l^raque. At the hall door hung a placard. Bachelor's Chamber to let. It was the same room in which he had lived so long with his brother. He recognized the map fastened to the wall by four pins, the window on the landing, and the Dclobclles' little sign : Birds and Insects for Ornainoit. Their door was ajar ; he had only to push it a little in order to enter the room. Certainly there was not in all Paris a surer refuge for him, a spot better fitted to welcome and console his perturbed spirit than that hard-working familiar fireside. In his present agitation and perplexity, it was like the harbor with its smooth, deep water, the sunny, peaceful quay, where the women work while awaiting their husbands and fathers, while the wind howls and tlie sea rages outside. More than all else, although he did not realize that it was so, it was a network of steadfast affection, that 1 86 Fromont and Rislcr. miraculous loving-kindness which makes another's love precious to us even when we do not love that other. That dear little iceberg of a Desiree loved him so dearly. Her eyes sparkled so even when talk- ing of the most indifferent things with him. As objects dipped in phosphorus shine with equal splendor, so the most trivial words she said illumi- nated her pretty radiant face. What a blissful rest it was for him after Sigismond's brutal disclosures. They talked together with great animation while Mamma Delobelle was setting the table. " You will dine with us, won't you, Monsieur Frantz? Father has gone to take back the work; but he will surely come home to dinner." He will surely come home to dinner ! The good woman said it with a certain pride. In fact, since the failure of his managerial scheme, the illustrious Delobelle no longer took his meals abroad, even on the evenings when he went to collect the weekly earnings. The un- lucky manager had eaten so many meals on credit at his restaurant that he dared not go there again. By way of compensation, he never failed, on Saturday, to bring home with him two or three unexpected, famished guests — " old com- rades" — "unlucky devils." So it happened that, on the evening in question, he appeared upon the stage escorting a financier from the Metz theatre and a comiqne from the theatre at Angers, both on waiting orders. The comiqiie, closely shaven, wrinkled, shrivelled TJic Judge. 187 by the heat from the footlights, looked like an old strcet-arab ; the fi}uincier wore cloth shoes, and no linen so far as could be seen. " Frantz ! — my Frantz ! " cried the old stroll- ing player in a melodramatic voice, clawing the air convulsively with his hands ; after a long and energetic embrace he presented his guests to one another " Monsieur Robricart, of the theatre at Metz. " Monsieur Chaudezon, of the theatre at Angers. " Frantz Risler, engineer." In Delobelle's mouth that word engineer as- sumed vast proportions ! Desiree pouted prettily when she saw her father's friends. It would have been so nice to be by themselves on a day like to-day. But the great man snapped his fingers at the thought. He had enough to do to unload his pockets. First of all, he produced a superb pie, — "for the ladies," he said, forgetting that he adored pie. A lobster next made its appearance, then an Aries sausage, marrons glaces and cherries, the first of the season ! While the fimuicier enthusiastically pulled up the collar of his invisible shirt, while the coiiiiquc exclaimed " gnouf ! gnouf ! " with a gesture for- gotten by Parisians for ten years, Desiree thought with dismay of the enormous hole that extempore banquet would make in the paltry earnings of the week, and Mamma Dclobclle, full of business, up- set the whole buffet in order to find a sufficient number of plates. 1 88 Fromont and Risler. It was a very lively meal. The two actors ate voraciously, to the great delight of Delobelle, who talked over with them old memories of their days of strolling. Imagine a collection of odds and ends of scenery, extinct lanterns, and mouldy, crumbling stage properties. In a sort of vulgar, meaningless, familiar slang they recalled their innumerable triumphs; for all three of them, according to their own stories, had been applauded, laden with laurel-wreaths and carried in triumph by whole cities. While they talked they ate as actors eat, sitting with their faces turned three-fourths toward the audience, with the unnatural haste of stage guests at a pasteboard supper, alternating words and mouthfuls, seeking to produce an effect by their manner of putting down a glass or moving a chair, and expressing interest, amazement, joy, terror, surprise with the aid of a skilfully handled knife and fork. Mamma Delobelle listened to them with a smiling face. One cannot be an actor's wife for thirty years without becoming somewhat accustomed to these peculiar mannerisms. But one little corner of the table was separ- ated from the rest of the party as by a cloud which intercepted the absurd remarks, the hoarse laughter, the boasting. Frantz and Desiree talked together in undertones, hearing naught of what was said around them. Things that happened in their childhood, anecdotes of the neighborhood, a whole ill-defined past which derived its only The Judge. 189 value from the mutual memories evoked, from the spark that glowed in the eyes of both, — those were the themes of their pleasant chat. Suddenly the cloud was torn aside and Delo- belle's terrible voice interrupted the dialogue. " Have you not seen your brother?" he asked, in order to avoid the appearance of neglecting him too much. " And you have not seen his wife either? — Ah! you will find her a Madame. Such toilettes, my dear fellow, and such cJiic ! I just tell you. They have a genuine chateau at Asnicres. The Chebes are there also. Ah ! my old friend, they have all left us behind. They are rich, they look down on old friends. Never a word, never a call. For my part, you under- stand, I snap my fingers at them, but it really wounds these ladies." " Oh ! papa," said Desiree hastily, " you know very well that we are too fond of Sidonie to be offended with her." The actor smote the table a fierce blow with his fist. " Why then you do wrong. You ought to be offended with people who seek constantly to wound and humiliate you." He still had upon his mind the refusal to furnish funds for his theatrical project, and he made no secret of his wrath. " If you knew," he said to Frantz, " if you knew how money is being squandered over yon- der ! It's a great pity. And nothing substantial, nothing sensible. I, I who speak to you, asked I go Fromont and Rislcr. your brother for a paltry sum to assure my future and himself a handsome profit. He flatly refused. Parblcii! Madame is too exacting. She rides, goes to the races in her carriage, and drives her husband at the same rate as her little phaeton on the quay at Asnieres. Between you and me I don't think that our good friend Risler is very happy. That woman makes him believe black is white." The ex-actor concluded his harangue with a wink at the comiquc and the financier, and for a moment the three exchanged glances, conventional grimaces, ha! has! and Jmm! hums! and all the pantomime expressive of thoughts too deep for words. Frantz was struck dumb. Do what he would, the horrible certainty assailed him on all sides. Sigis- mond had spoken in accordance with his nature, Delobelle with his. The result was the same. Fortunately the dinner was drawing near its close. The three actors left the table and betook themselves to the brewery on Rue Blondel. Frantz remained with the two women. As he sat beside her, gentle and affectionate in manner, Desiree was suddenly conscious of a great outflow of gratitude to Sidonie. She said to her- self that after all it was to her generosity that she owed this semblance of happiness, and that thought gave her courage to defend her former friend. " You see. Monsieur Frantz, you must n't believe all my father told you about your sister-in-law. The Judge. 191 Dear papa ! he always exaggerates a little. I'^or my own part, I am very sure that Sidonie is incapable of all the evil she 's charged with. I am sure that her heart has remained the same and that she is still fond of her friends, although she does neglect them a little. Such is life, you know. Friends drift apart without meaning to. Is n't that true, Monsieur Frantz?" Oh ! how pretty she was in his eyes, while she talked in that strain. He had never taken so much notice of the refined features, the aristocratic complexion ; and when he left her that evening, deeply touched by the warmth she had displayed in defending Sidonie, by all the charming feminine excuses she put forward for her friend's silence and neglect, Frantz Risler reflected, with a feeling of selfish and ingenuous pleasure, that the child had loved him once and that perhaps she loved him still and kept for him in the bottom of her heart that warm, sheltered spot to which we turn as to the sanctuary when life has wounded us. All night long in his old room, lulled by the movement of the vessel, by the murmur of the waves and the howling of the wind which follow long sea-voyages, he dreamed of his youthful days, of little Chcbe and Desiree Delobelle, of their games, their labors, and of the I^cole Centrale, whose great gloomy buildings were sleeping near at hand, in the dark streets of the Marais. And when morning came, and the light shining in at his curtainless window vexed his eyes and brought him back to a realization of the duty that 192 Fromont and Risler. lay before him and to the anxieties of the day, he dreamed that it was time to go to the School, and that his brother, before going down to the factory, opened the door and called to him : " Come ! lazybones. Come ! " That dear loving voice, too natural, too real for a dream, made him open his eyes without more ado. Risler was standing by his bed, watching his awakening with a charming smile, not untinged by emotion ; that it was Risler himself was evident from the fact that, in his joy at seeing his brother Frantz once more, he could find nothing better to say than : " I am very happy, I am very happy." Although it was Sunday, Risler, as his custom was, had come to the factory to avail himself of the silence and solitude to work at his press. Immediately on his arrival, Pere Achille had informed him that his brother was in Paris and had gone to the old house on Rue de Braque, and he had hastened thither in joyful surprise, a little vexed that he had not been forewarned, and especially that Frantz had defrauded him of the first evening. His regret on that account came to the surface every moment in his spasmodic attempts at con- versation, in which everything that he wanted to say was left unfinished, interrupted by innumerable questions on all sorts of subjects and explosions of affection and joy. Frantz excused himself on the plea of fatigue and the pleasure it had given him to be in their old room once more. The Judge. 193 "All right, all right," said Risler, " but I sha'n't let you alone now — you are coming to Asnicres at once. I give myself leave of absence to-day. All thought of work is out of the question now that you have come, you understand. Ah ! won't the little one be surprised and glad ! We talk about }^ou so often. What joy ! what joy ! " The poor fellow fairly beamed with happiness, he, the silent man, chattered like a magpie, gazed admiringly at his Frantz and remarked upon his growth. The pupil at the Ecole Centralc had a fine physique when he went away; but his features had acquired greater firmness, his shoulders were broader, and it was a far cry from the tall studious- looking boy who had left Paris two years before for Ismailia, to this handsome bronzed corsair, with his serious yet winning face. While Risler was gazing at him, Frantz, on his side, was closely scrutinizing his brother, and, finding him the same as always, as ingenuous, as loving, and as absent-minded at times, he said to himself: " No ! it is not possible — he has not ceased to be an honest man." Thereupon, as he reflected upon what people had dared to imagine, all his wrath turned against that hypocritical, vicious woman, who deceived her husband so impudently and with such absolute impunity, that she succeeded in causing him to be considered her confederate. Oh ! what a terrible reckoning he proposed to have with her; how pitilessly he would talk to her ! 13 194 Froinont and Risler. "I forbid you, Madame — understand what I say — I forbid you to dishonor my brother ! " He was thinking of that all the way, as he watched the still leafless trees glide along the banking of the Saint Germain railway. Sitting opposite him, Risler chattered, chattered without pause. He talked about the factory, about their business. They had gained forty thousand francs each the last year ; but it would be a different matter when the Press was at work. " A rotary press, my little Frantz, rotary and dodecagonal, capable of printing a pattern in twelve to fifteen colors at a single turn of the wheel — red on pink, dark green on light green, without the least running together or absorption, without a line lapping over its neighbor, without any danger of one shade de- stroying or overshadowing another. Do you under- stand that, little brother? A machine that is an artist like a man. It means a revolution in the wall-paper trade." " But," queried Frantz with some anxiety, " have you invented this Press of yours yet, or are you still hunting for it?" " Invented ! — perfected ! To-morrow I will show you all my plans. I have also invented an auto- matic crane for hanging the paper on the rods in the drying room. Next week I propose to take up my quarters in the factory, way up in the garret, and have my first machine made there secretly, under my own eyes. In three months the patents must be taken out and the Press must be at work. You '11 see, my little Frantz, it will make us all The Judge. 195 rich — you can imagine how glad I shall be to be able to make up to these Fromonts for a little of what they have done for me. Ah ! upon my word, the Lord has been too good to me." Thereupon he set about enumerating all his blessings. Sidonie was the best of women, a little love of a wife, who conferred much honor upon him. They had a charming home. They went into society, very select society. The little one sang like a nightingale, thanks to Madame Dobson's expressive method. By the way, this Madame Dobson was another most excellent crea- ture. There was just one thing that disturbed poor Risler, that was his incomprehensible falling- out with Sigismond. Perhaps Frantz would help him to clear up that mystery. " Oh ! yes, I will help you, brother," replied Frantz through his clenched teeth ; and an angry flush rose to his brow at the idea that any one could have suspected the open-heartedness, the loyalty that were displayed before him in all their artless spontaneity. Luckily he, the judge, had arrived ; and he proposed to restore ever}'thing to its proper place. Meanwhile, they were drawing near the house at Asnieres. Frantz had noticed at a distance a fan- ciful little turreted affair, glistening with new blue slates. It seemed to him to have been built ex- pressly for Sidonie, a fitting cage for that capri- cious, gaudy-plumaged bird. It was a chalet with two stories, whose bright mirrors and pink-lined curtains could be seen 196 Froniont and Risler. from the railway, shining resplendent at the far end of a green lawn, where an enormous pewter ball was suspended. The river was near at hand, still wearing its Parisian aspect, filled with chains, bathing estab- lishments, great barges, and multitudes of little skiffs, with a layer of coal dust on their pretentious freshly-painted names, tied to the pier and rocking to the slightest motion of the water. From her windows Sidonie could see the waterside restau- rants, silent through the week, but filled to over- flowing on Sunday with a motley, noisy crowd, whose shouts of laughter, mingled with the dull splash of oars, started from both banks to meet in midstream in that current of vague murmurs, shouts, calls, laughter and singing that floats with- out ceasing up and down the Seine on holidays for a distance of ten leagues. During the week she saw shabbily dressed idlers sauntering along the shore, men in broad-brimmed straw hats and flannel shirts, women who sat on the worn grass of the sloping bank, doing nothing, with the dreamy eye of a cow at pasture. All the peddlers, hand-organs, harpists, travelling jugglers, stopped there as at a quarantine station. The quay was crowded with them, and as they approached, the windows in the little houses near by were always thrown open, disclosing white dressing- jackets, half-buttoned, heads of dishevelled hair, and an occasional pipe, all watching these paltry strolling shows, as if with a sigh of regret for Paris, so near at hand. The Jiidge, 197 It was a hideous and depressing sight. The grass, which had hardly begun to grow, was already turning yellow beneath the feet of the crowd. The dust was black; and yet, every Thursday, the cocotte aristocracy passed through on the way to the Casino, with a great show of rickety carriages and borrowed postilions. All these things gave pleasure to that fanatical Parisian, Sidonie ; and then, too, in her childhood, she had heard a great deal about Asnicrcs from the illus- trious Delobelle, who would have liked to have, like so many of his profession, a little villa in those latitudes, a cosy nook in the country to which to return by the 12.30 train, after the play is done. All these dreams of little Chcbe's, Sidonie Risler had realized. The brothers went to the gate opening on the quay, in which the key was usually left. They entered, making their way among trees and shrubs of recent growth. Here and there a billiard room, the gardener's lodge, a little greenhouse, made their appearance, like the pieces of one of the Swiss chalets we give to children to play with ; all very light and airy, hardly more than resting on the ground, as if ready to fly away at the slightest breath of bankruptcy or caprice : the villa of a cocotte or a pawnbroker. Frantz looked about in some bewilderment. In the distance, opening on a porch surrounded by vases of flowers, was the salon with its long blinds raised. An American cas)'-chair, folding-chairs, a sriiall table from which the coffee had not been 1 98 Fromont and Risler. removed, could be seen near the door. Within they heard a succession of loud chords on the piano, and the murmur of low voices. " I tell you Sidonic will be surprised," said honest Risler, walking softly on the gravel ; " she does n't expect me until to-night. She and Madame Dobson are practising together at this moment." Pushing the door open suddenly, he cried from the threshold in his loud, good-natured voice: " Guess whom I 've brought." Madame Dobson, who was sitting alone at the piano, jumped up from her stool, and at the farther end of the grand salon Georges and Sidonie rose hastily behind the exotic plants that reared their heads above a table, of whose delicate, slender lines they seemed a prolongation. "Ah! how you frightened me!" said Sidonie, running to meet Risler. The flounces of her white peignoir, through which blue ribands were drawn, like little patches of blue sky among the clouds, rolled in billows over the carpet, and, having already recovered from her embarrassment, she stood very straight, with an affable expression and her everlasting little smile, as she kissed her husband and offered her forehead to Frantz, saying: " Good morning, brother." Risler left them confronting each other, and went up to Fromont Jeune, whom he was greatly surprised to find there. "What, Chorche, you here? I supposed you were at Savigny." The Judge. 199 "Yes, to be sure, but — I came — I thought you stayed at Asnieres Sundays. I wanted to speak to you on a matter of business." Thereupon, entangHng himself in his words, he began to talk hurriedly of an im})ortant order. Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a few un- meaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued her tremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany critical situations at the theatre. In very truth, the situation at that moment was decidedly strained. But Risler's good humor ban- ished all constraint. He apologized to his partner for not being at home, and insisted upon showing Frantz the house. They went from the salon to the stable, from the stable to the carriage-house, the servants' quarters and the conservatory. Every- thing was new, brilliant, gleaming, too small, and inconvenient, " But," said Risler, with a certain pride, " it cost a lot of money ! " He persisted in compelling admiration of Si- donie's purchase even to its smallest details, exhib- ited the gas and water fixtures on ever}- floor, the im- proved system of bells, the garden seats, the English billiard table, the lu'dropathic arrangements, and accompanied his exposition with outbursts of grati- tude to Fromont Jeune, who, by taking him into part- nership, had literally placed a fortune in his hands. At each new effusion on Risler's part, Georges Fromont shrank visibl}', ashamed and embarrassed by the strange expression on Frantz's face. 200 Fi'omont and Rislcr. The breakfast was lacking in gayety. Madame Dobson talked almost without interrup- tion, overjoyed to be swimming in the shallows of a romantic love-affair. Knowing, or rather believ- ing that she knew her friend's story from begin- ning to end, she understood the lowering wrath of Frantz, a former lover furious at finding his place filled, and the anxiety of Georges, due to the appearance of a rival ; and she encouraged one with a glance, consoled the other with a smile, admired Sidonie's tranquil demeanor, and reserved all her contempt for that abominable Rislcr, the vulgar, uncivilized tyrant. Her efforts were espe- cially directed to the end that there should be none of those horrible periods of silence, when the clashing knives and forks mark time in such an absurd and embarrassing way. As soon as breakfast was at an end Fromont Jeune announced that he must return to Savigny, Risler did not dare detain him, thinking that his dear Madame Chorche would pass her Sunday all alone ; and so, without an opportunity to say a word to his mistress, the lover went away in the bright sunlight to take an afternoon train, still attended by the husband, who insisted upon escort- ing him to the station. Madame Dobson sat for a moment with Frantz and Sidonie under a little arbor which a climbing vine studded with pink buds ; then, realizing that she was in the way, she returned to the salon, and as before, while Georges was there, began to play and sing softly and with expression. In the silent The Judge. 20 1 garden, that nuifflcd music, glidinf^ between the branches, seemed Hke the cooing of birds before the storm. At last they were alone. Under the lattice of the arbor, still bare and leafless, the May sun shone too bright. Sidonie shaded her eyes with her hand as she watched the people passing on the quay. Frantz likewise looked out, but in another direction ; and both of them, affecting to be entirely independent of each other, turned at the same instant with the same gesture and moved by the same thought. " I have something to say to you," he said, just as she opened her mouth. "And I to you," she replied gravely; "but come in here ; we shall be more comfortable." And they entered together a little summer-house at the foot of the garden. 202 Fromont and Risler. II. EXPLANATION. Verily it was high time that the judge should come. This httle woman was whirHng madly around in the Parisian maelstrom. Upheld by her very lightness, she still remained on the surface; but her outrageous extravagance, the ostentatious luxury of her surroundings, her rapidly increasing contempt for all the proprieties of hfe, all an- nounced that she would soon sink, dragging with her her husband's honor, and, it might be, the fortune and good name of a prominent business house, ruined by her madness. Her present environment tended to hasten her destruction. At Paris, in the quarters inhabited by petty tradesmen, which are veritable provincial towns for malevolence and gossip, she was obliged to be more careful; but in her house at Asnieres, surrounded by strolling actors' cottages, contra- band households, dry goods clerks on a vacation, she did not feel the same restraint. There was an atmosphere of vice about her which suited her, which she breathed without distaste. The music of the ball-room entertained her in the evening, as she sat in her little erarden. Explanation. 203 A pistol-shot in the next house one night, which set the whole neighborhood agog over a common- place, foolish intrigue, made her dream of similar adventures. She would have liked to be the heroine of a " story " herself Throwin-g aside all restraint in the matter of language and dress, on the days when she did not ride on the quay at Asnieres, in a short skirt and twirling a hunting- crop in her hand, like a female dandy at Trouville or Houlgate, she remained at home, dressed in a wrapper like her neighbors, absolutely inactive, paying little or no attention to her house, where her servants robbed her like a cocotte without a suspicion on her part. This same woman, who was seen in the saddle every morning, passed whole hours talking with her maid of the strange house- holds that surrounded her. By slow degrees she sank to her former level, yes, even lower. From the rich, well-considered bourgeoisie to which her marriage had raised her, she descended the ladder to the rank of kept woman. By dint of travelling in railway carriages with fantastically dressed courtesans, with their hair worn over their eyes like a terrier's, or falling over the back a la Genevieve de Brabant, she came at last to resemble them. She transformed herself into a blonde for two months, to the un- bounded amazement of Risler, who could not understand how his doll was so changed. As for Georges, all these eccentricities amused him ; it seemed to him that he had ten women in one. He was the real husband, the master of the house. 204 Fromont and Risler. To divert Sidonie's thoughts, he had provided a simulacrum of society for her — his bachelor friends, a few fast tradesmen, almost no women ; women have too sharp eyes. Madame Dobson was the only friend of Sidonie's sex. They organized grand dinner-parties, excursions on the water, fireworks. From day to day Risler's position became more absurd, more distressing. When he came home in the evening, tired out, shabbily dressed, he must hurry up to his room to dress. " We have some people to dinner," his wife would say. " Make haste." And he would be the last to take his place at the table, after shaking hands all around with his guests, friends of Fromont Jeune, whom he hardly knew by name. Strange to say, the affairs of the factory were often discussed at that table, to which Georges brought his acquaintances from the club with the tranquil self-assurance of the gentleman who pays. " Business breakfasts and dinners ! " To Risler's mind that phrase explained everything : his part- ner's constant presence, his choice of guests, and the marvellous gowns worn by Sidonie, who beau- tified herself in the interest of the firm. This coquetry on his mistress's part drove Fromont Jeune to despair. Day after day he came unex- pectedly to take her by surprise, uneasy, suspicious, afraid to leave that perverse and deceitful character to its own devices for long. " What in the deuce has become of your hus- Explanation. 205 baiul?" Pore Gardinois would ask his grand- dauc^htcM" with a cunning leer. "Why doesn't he come here oftcner?" Claire apologized for Georges, but his constant neglect began to disturb her. She wept now when she received the little notes, the despatches which arrived daily at the dinner hour: "Don't expect nie to-night, dear love. I shall not be able to come to Savigny until to-morrow or the day after by the night-train." She ate her dinner sadl)', opposite an empty chair, and although she did not know that she was betrayed, she felt that her husband was becom- ing accustomed to live away from her. He was so distraught when a family gathering or some other unavoidable diity detained him at the chateau, so reticent concerning what was in his mind. Claire, having now only the most distant relations with Sidonie, knew nothing of what was taking place at Asnieres : but when Georges left her, apparently eager to be gone, and with smiling face, she tor- mented her loneliness with unavowed suspicions, and, like all those who anticipate a great sorrow, she suddenly became conscious of a great void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come. Her husband was hardly happier than she. That cruel Sidonie seemed to take pleasure in tor- menting him. She allowed everybody to pay court to her. At that moment a certain Cazabon, alias Cazaboni, an Italian tenor from Toulouse, introduced by Madame Dobson, came every day 2o6 Fromont and Rislcr. to sing disturbing duets. Georges, jealous beyond words, hurried to Asnieres in the afternoon, neglected everything, and was already beginning to think that Risler did not watch his wife closely enough. He would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned. Ah ! if he had been her husband, what a tight rein he would have kept on her ! But he had no power over her and she was not at all backward about telling him so. Sometimes, too, with the invincible logic that often occurs to the greatest fools, he reflected that, as he was deceiving his friend, perhaps he deserved to be deceived. In short, his was a wretched life. He passed his time running about to jewellers and dry goods dealers, inventing gifts and surprises. Ah ! he knew her well. He knew that he could amuse her with trinkets, not retain his hold upon her, and that, when the day came that she was bored But Sidonie was not bored as yet. She was living the life that she longed to live ; she had all the happiness she could hope to attain. There was nothing passionate or romantic about her love for Georges. He was like a second husband to her, younger and, above all, richer than the other. To complete the vulgarization of their liaison, she had summoned her parents to Asnieres, quartered them in a little house in the country, and made of that vain and wilfully blind father and that affectionate, still bewildered mother a halo of respectability of which she felt the necessity as she sank lower and lower. Explajiation. 207 EvcrythinjT was shrcwdl)' planned in that pcr- versc little brain, which rcdcctcd coolly upon vice ; and it seemed to her as if she might continue to live thus in peace, when Frantz Risler suddenly arrived. Simply from seeing him enter the room, she had realized that her repose was threatened, that an interview of the gravest importance was to take place between them. Her plan was formed on the instant. It re- mained to put it in execution. The summer-house that they entered contained one large circular room with four windows, each looking out upon a different landscape; it was furnished for the purposes of summer siestas, for the hot hours when one seeks shelter from the sunlight and the noises of the garden. A broad, very low divan ran all around the wall. A small lacquered table, also very low, stood in the middle of the room, covered with odd numbers of society journals. The hangings were new, and the Persian pat- tern — birds flying among bluish reeds, — pro- duced the effect of a dream in summer, ethereal figures floating before one's drooping eyes. The lowered blinds, the matting on the floor, the Vir- ginia jasmine clinging to the trellis-work outside, produced a refreshing coolness which was en- hanced by the constant splashing in the river near by, and the lapping of its tiny wavelets on the shore. Sidonie sat down as soon as she entered the 2oS Fromont and Rislcr. room, throwing aside her long white skirt, which sank Hke a mass of snow at the foot of the divan ; and with sparkHng eyes and a smile playing about her lips, bending her little head slightly, its saucy coqucttishness heightened by the bow of ribbon on the side, she waited. Frantz, pale as death, remained standing, look- ing about the room. After a moment he began: " I congratulate you, Madame; you understand how to make yourself comfortable." And in the next breath, as if he were afraid that the conversation, beginning at such a distance, would not arrive quickly enough at the point to which he intended to lead it, he added brutally : " To whom do you owe this magnificence, to your lover or your husband?" Without moving from the divan, without even raising her eyes to his, she answered : "To both." He was a little disconcerted by such self- possession. " Then you confess that that man is your lover? " " Confess it ! — parblm, yes ! " Frantz gazed at her a moment without speak- ing. She too had turned pale, notwithstanding her calmness, and the everlasting little smile no longer quivered at the corners of her mouth. He continued : ** Listen to me, Sidonie. My brother's name, the name he gave his wife, is mine as well. Since Risler is so foolish, so blind as to allow the name Explanation. 209 to be dishonored by you, it is my place to defend it against your attacks. I beg you, therefore, to inform Monsieur Georges Fromont that he must change mistresses as soon as possible, and go else- where to ruin himself. If not — " " If not? " queried Sidonie, who had not ceased to play with her rings while he was speaking. " If not, I shall tell my brother what is going on in his house, and you will be surprised at the Rislcr whose acquaintance you will make then — a man as violent and ungovernable as he usually is inoffensive. My disclosure will kill him perhaps, but you can be sure that he will kill you first." She shrugged her shoulders. "Very well! let him kill me. What do I care for that?" This was said with such a heartbroken, utterly despondent air, that Frantz, in spite of himself, felt a little pity for that beautiful, fortunate young creature, who talked of dying with such self- abandonment. "Do you love him so dearly?" he said, in an indefinably milder tone. " Do you love this Fro- mont so dearly that you prefer to die rather than renounce him?" She hastily drew herself up. "I? Love that fop, that d(jll, that silly girl in men's clothes? Nonsense! — I took him as I would have taken any other man." "Why?" " Because I could n't help it, because I was mad, because I had and still have in ni}' heart a criminal 14 2IO Fromont and Rislcr. love, which I am determined to tear out, no matter at what cost." She had risen and was speaking with her eyes in his, her Hps near his, shivering from head to foot. A criminal love ! — Whom did she love, in God's name ? Frantz was afraid to question her. Although suspecting nothing as yet, he had a feeling that that glance, that breath, leaning toward him, were about to make some horrible disclosure. But his office of judge made it necessary for him to know all. "Who is it?" he asked. She replied in a stifled voice: " You know very well that it is you." She was his brother's wife. For two years he had not thought of her except as a sister. In his eyes his brother's wife in no way resembled his former fiancee, and it would have been a crime to recognize in a single feature of her face the woman to whom he had formerly so often said : " I love you." And now it was she who said that she loved him. The unhappy judge was thunderstruck, dazed, could find no words in which to reply. She, standing before him, waited. It was one of those spring days, full of heat and light, to which the moisture of recent rains imparts a strange softness and melancholy. The air was warm, perfumed by fresh flowers which, on that Explanation. 211 first day of heat, gax'c forth their fragrance eagerly, hke violets in a nuiff. Through its long, open windows the room in which they were inhaled all those intoxicating odors. Outside, they could hear the Sunday organs, distant shouts on the river, and nearer at hand, in the garden, Madame Dobson's amorous, languishing voice, sighing: " 0)1 dit que til ie tnaries j Tu sais que fen puis motiri-i-i-r .f^ " Yes, Frantz, I have ahva}'s loved you," said Sidonie. " That love which I renounced long ago because I was a young girl, and young girls do not know what they are doing, — that love nothing has ever succeeded in destroying or lessening. When I learned that Desiree also loved you, the unfortunate, penniless child, in a great outburst of generosity I determined to assure her happiness for life by sacrificing my own, and I at once turned you away, so that you should go to her. Ah ! as soon as you had gone, I realized that the sacrifice was beyond my strength. Poor little Desirce ! How I cursed her in the bottom of my heart ! Will you believe it? Since that time I have avoided seeing her, meeting her. The sight of her caused me too much pain." " But if you loved me," asked Frantz, in a low voice, " if you loved me, why did you marry my brother? " She did not waver. " To marry Risler was to bring myself nearer to you. I said to myself: * I could not be his wife. 212 Fromont and Risler. Very well, I will be his sister. At all events, in that way it will still be allowable for me to love him, and we shall not pass our whole lives as strangers.' Alas ! those are the innocent dreams a girl has at twenty, dreams of which she very soon learns the impossibility. I could n't love you as a sister, Frantz ; I could n't forget you, either ; my marriage prevented that. With another husband I might perhaps have succeeded, but with Risler it was terrible. He was forever talking about you and your success and your future. — Frantz said this ; Frantz did that. — He loves you so well, poor fellow. And then the most cruel thing to me is that your brother looks like you. There 's a sort of family resemblance in your features, in your gait, in your voices especially, for I have often closed my eyes under his caresses, saying to myself: ' It is he, it is Frantz.' When I saw that that criminal thought was becoming a source of torment to me, something that I could not escape, I tried to find distraction, I consented to listen to this Georges, who had been pestering me for a long time, to transform my life to one of noise and excitement. But I swear to you, Frantz, that in that whirlpool of pleasure into which I then plunged, I have never ceased to think of you, and if anyone had a righ't to come here and call me to account for my conduct, you certainly are not the one, for you, unintentionally, have made me what I am." She paused. Frantz dared not raise his eyes to her face. For Exp la n a Hon. 213 a moment past she had seemed to him too lovely, too alluring. She was his brother's wife ! Nor did he dare speak. The unfortunate youth felt that the old passion was despotically taking possession of his heart once more, and that at that moment glances, words, everything that burst forth from it would be love. And she was his brother's wife ! " Ah ! wretched, wretched creatures that we are! " exclaimed the poor judge, dropping upon the divan beside her. Those few words were in themselves an act of cowardice, a beginning of surrender, as if destiny, by showing itself so pitiless, had deprived him of the strength to defend himself. Sidonie had placed her hand on his. " Frantz — Frantz ! " she said; and they remained there side by side, silent and burning with emotion, soothed by Madame Dob- son's romanza, which reached their cars by snatches through the shrubbery : " Ton amour, c\'st tiia folic. Ht'las ! jc )i'e)i puis gj(cri-i-i-ry Suddenly Risler's tall figure appeared in the doorway. " This way, Chebe, this way. They are in the suniincr-house." As he spoke, the goodman entered, escorting his Hither-in-law and mother-in-law, whom he had gone to fetch. There was a moment of effusive greetings and innumerable embraces. You should have seen the 2 14 Fromont and Risler. patronizing air with which Monsieur Chebe scru- tinized the young man, who was head and shoul- ders taller than he. " Well, my boy, does the Suez canal progress as you would wish? " Madame Chebe, in whose thoughts Frantz had never ceased to be her future son-in-law, threw her arms around him, while Risler, tactless as usual in his gayety and his enthusiasm, waved his arms madly on the stoop, talked of killing several fatted calves to celebrate the return of the prodigal son, and roared to the singing-mistress in a voice that echoed through the neighboring gardens : " Madame Dobson, Madame Dobson — if you '11 allow me, it 's a pity for you to be singing there. To the devil with expression for to-day. Play us something lively, a good waltz, so that I can take a turn with Madame Chebe." "Risler, Risler, are you crazy, my son-in-law?" " Come, come, mamma ! We must — hop ! " And up and down the paths, to the strains of an automatic six-step waltz — a genuine vcr/se de VaiLcanson — he dragged his breathless mamma- in-law, who stopped at every step to restore to their usual orderliness the dangling ribands of her hat and the lace trimming of her shawl, her lovely shawl bought for Sidonie's wedding. Poor Risler was drunk with joy. To Frantz that was an endless, indelible day of agony. Driving, rowing on the river, lunch on the grass on the lie des Ravageurs — he was spared none of the charms of Asnieres ; and all the time. Explanation. 215 in the glaring sunlight of the roads, in the glare reflected by the water, he must laugh and chatter, describe his journey, talk of the Isthmus of Suez and the great work undertaken there, listen to the whispered complaints of Monsieur Chcbe, who was still incensed with his children, and to his brother's description of the Press. " Rotary, my dear h'rantz, rotary and dodecagonal ! " Sidonie left the gentle- men to their conversation and seemed absorbed in deep thought. From time to time she said a word or two to Madame Dobson, or smiled sadly at her, and Frantz, not daring to look at her, followed the motions of her blue-lined parasol and of the white flounces of her dress. How she had changed in two years ! How lovely she had grown ! Then horrible thoughts came to his mind. There were races at Longchamps that day. Carriages passed theirs, rubbed against it, driven by women with painted faces, closely veiled. Sitting motion- less on the box, they held their long whips straight in the air, with doll-like gestures, and nothing about them seemed alive except their blackened eyes, fixed on the horses' heads. As they passed, people turned to look. Every eye followed them, as if drawn by the wind caused by their rapid motion. Sidonie resembled those creatures. She might herself have driven Georges's carriage; for Frantz was in Georges's carriage. He had drunk Georges's wine. All the luxurious enjoyment of that family party came from Georges. 2i6 Fromont and Risler, It was shameful, revolting. He would have hked to shout the whole story to his brother. In- deed it was his duty, as he had come there for that express purpose. But he no longer felt the cour- age to do it. Ah ! the unhappy judge ! That evening after dinner, in the salon open to the fresh breeze from the river, Risler begged his wife to sing. He wished her to exhibit all her newly-acquired talents to Frantz. Sidonie, leaning on the piano, objected with a melancholy air, while Madame Dobson ran her fingers over the keys, shaking her long curls. " But I don't know anything. What do you want me to sing? " She ended, however, by being persuaded. Pale, disenchanted, with her mind upon other things, in the flickering light of the candles which seemed to be burning incense, the air was so heavy with the odor of the hyacinths and lilacs in the garden, she began a Creole ballad very popular in Louisiana, which Madame Dobson herself had arranged for the voice and piano : " Pauv' pititMam^zelle Zizi, Oest Pamoii, faviou qici totirne la Ute a li?'' ^ And as she told the story of the ill-fated little Zizi, who was driven mad by passion, Sidonie had the appearance of a lovesick woman. With \\hat heartrending expression, with the cry of a wounded 1 " Poor little Mam'zelle Zizi, 'T is love, 't is love that turns her head." Explanation. 2 1 7 dove, did she repeat that refrain, so melancholy and so sweet, in the childlike patois of the colonies : " Cest r anion, r anion qui ton me la tete a li^ It was enough to drive the unlucky judge mad as well. But no. The siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his compassionate heart evoked the image of little Dosiree Delobelle, who had loved him so long. Until she was fifteen, she had never been called anything but Ziree or Zizi, and she was \he pmtv pitit Zizi of the Creole bal- lad to the life, the ever-neglected, ever-faithful lover. In vain now did the other sing. Frantz no longer heard her or saw her. He was in that poor room, beside the great arm-chair, on the little low chair on which he had sat so often awaiting the father's return. Yes, there, and there only, was his salvation. He must take refuge in that child's love, throw himself at her feet, say to her: "Take me — save me!" And who knows? She loved him so dearly. Perhaps she would save him, would cure him of his guilty passion. "Where are you going?" asked Risler, seeing that his brother rose hurriedly as soon as the last flourish was at an end. " I am going back. It is late." "What! You are not going to sleep here? Why, your room is ready for you. " 2 1 8 Fromoni and Risler. " All ready," added Sidonie, with a meaning glance. He refused resolutely. His presence in Paris was necessary for the fulfilment of certain very important commissions entrusted to him by the Company. They continued their efforts to detain him when he was in the vestibule, when he was crossing the garden in the moonlight and run- ning to the station, amid all the diverse noises of Asnieres. When he had gone, Risler went up to his room, leaving Sidonie and Madame Dobson at the win- dows of the salon. The music from the neighbor- ing Casino reached their ears, with the " Yo-ho ! " of the boatmen and the footsteps of the dancers like a rhythmical, muffled drumming on the tambourine. " There 's a kill-joy for you ! " observed Madame Dobson. '* Oh ! I have checkmated him," replied Sidonie; " only I must be careful. I shall be closely watched now. He is so jealous. I am going to write to Cazaboni not to come again for some time, and you must tell Georges to-morrow morning to go to Savigny for a fortnight." Poor Little Mam zc lie Zizi, 219 III. POOR LITTLE MAM'ZELLE ZIZL Oil ! how happy Dcsiree was ! Frantz came every day and sat at her feet on the little low chair, as in the good old days, and he no longer came to talk of Sidonie. As soon as she began to work in the morning, she would see the door open softly. " Good morn- ing, Mam'zellc Zizi." He always called her now by the name she had borne as a child ; and if }'ou could know how prettily he said it: " Good morn- ing, INIam'zelle Zizi." In the evening they waited for "the father" together, and while she worked he made her shudder with the story of his travels. "What in the world is the matter with you? You 're not the same as you used to be," Mamma Delobelle would saj', surprised to see her in such high spirits and abox'c all so actix'e. For instead of remaining always buried in her easy-^ chair, with the self-renunciation of a young grand- mother, the little creature was constantly jumping up and running to the window as lightl}' as if she were putting out wings ; and she practised standing erect, asking her mother in a whisper: 2 20 Fromont and Risler. " Do you notice //, when I am not walking? " From her shapely little head, upon which she had previously concentrated all her energies in the arrangement of her hair, her coquetry extended over her whole person, as did her fine curly tresses when she unloosed them. Yes, she was very, very coquettish now; and everybody noticed it. Even the birds and insects for ornament assumed a knowing little air. Ah ! yes, Desiree Delobelle was happy. For some days Monsieur Frantz had been talking of their all going into the country together ; and as the father, kind and generous as always, graciously consented to allow the ladies to take a day's fur- lough, they all four set out one Sunday morning. It is impossible to imagine what a beautiful day it was. When Desiree opened her window at six o'clock, when she saw the sun, already hot and luminous, shining through the morning haze, when she thought of the trees, the fields, the roads, of all the marvellous splendors of nature, which she had not seen for so long, and which she was soon to sec, leaning on Frantz's arm, the tears came to her eyes. The church bells ringing, the noises of Paris already ascending from the streets, the Sun- day clothes and cleanliness — the poor man's way of celebrating the day — which lighten the gloom of even the little chimney sweep's cheeks, all the accessories of the dawning of that memorable day were long and blissfully revelled in by her. The evening before, Frantz had brought her a parasol, a little parasol with an ivory handle ; with Poor Little Manizelle Zizi. 221 the aid of that she had arranged a very careful but very simple toilet, as befits a poor infirm little creature who does not wish to attract attention. And it is stating it too mildly to say that the poor infirm little creature was charming. At precisely nine o'clock Frantz arrived in a cab hired for the day, and went upstairs for his guests. Down came Mam'zelle Zizi coquettishly, unassisted, supporting herself by the baluster, without faltering. Mamma Delobelle followed be- hind, keeping an eye upon her; and the illustrious actor, his topcoat on his arm, hurried on before with young Risler, to open the carriage door. Oh ! the lovely drive, the lovely country, the lovely river, the lovely trees ! Do not ask her where they went; Dcsiree never knew. But she will tell you that the sun was brighter there than anywhere else, the birds more joyous, the woods denser; and she will not lie. When she was a little child, she had sometimes had such days of fresh air and long drives in the country. But later, constant toil, poverty, and the sedentary life so grateful to the infirm, had kept her nailed, as it were, to the old quarter of Paris in which she lived, and where the high roofs, the windows with iron balconies, the factor}' chimneys, making with their new bricks red streaks against the black walls of historic mansions, had formed an unchanging and satisf}'ing horizon for her life. For a long time she had known naught of flowers beyond the volubilis at her window, naught of trees beyond the acacias in the Fromont garden 22 2 Fromont and Risler. of which she caught distant ghmpses through the smoke. How her heart swelled with joy, therefore, when she found herself in the open country ! Light as air with all her pleasure and her revivified youth, she went from surprise to surprise, clapping her hands and uttering little birdlike cries ; and the impulsive outbursts of her artless curiosity con- cealed the hesitation of her gait. Really it was not too noticeable. Besides, he was always at hand, ready to support her, to give her his hand across the ditches, and he was so attentive, the expression of his eyes so tender ! That wonderful day passed like a vision. The great blue sky appearing like vapor between the branches, the long line of underbrush extending to the foot of the first trees of the forest, — the shadowy, myste- rious forest, where the flowers grow straighter and taller, where the golden mosses resemble rays of sunlight on the trunks of the oaks, — the surprise caused by the clearings flooded with light, — every- thing, even to the weariness following a day's walk- ing in the open air, entranced and fascinated her. Toward evening, when, as they stood on the \'crge of the forest, she saw — in the light of the set- ling sun — the dusty roads winding among the fields, the river like a silver thread, and over yonder, in the space between two hills, a mist of gray roofs, weathercocks and cupolas which they told her was Paris, she carried away at a glance, in a corner of her memory, that whole blooming countryside, perfumed with love and with June hawthorn, as if she were never, never to see it again. Poor Little Manizclle Zizi. 223 The nosegay that the little cripple brought back from that beautiful excursion made her room fra- grant for a week. Among the hyacinths, the vio- lets, the white-thorn, there were a multitude of nameless little flowers, those flowers of the lowly which grow from nomadic seed scattered cver}-- where along the roads. Gazing at the slender pale blue and bright pink blossoms, with all the delicate shades that flowers invented before colorists, many and many a time during that week Desirde took her excursion again. The violets reminded her of the little moss-covered mound on which she had picked them, seeking them under the leaves, her fingers touching Frantz's. These great water-lilies they had found on the edge of a ditch, still damp from the winter rains, and, in order to reach them, she had leaned very heavily on Frantz's arm. All these memories recurred to her as she worked. Meanwhile, the sun, shining in at the open window, made the feathers of the humming-birds glisten. The springtime, youth, the songs of the birds, the fragrance of the flowers transfigured that dismal fifth floor workroom, and Desiree said in all seriousness to Mamma Delo- belle, putting her nose to her friend's bouquet: " Have you noticed how sweet the flowers smell this year, mamma? " And Frantz too began to fall under the charm. Little by little, Mam'zelle Zizi took possession of his heart and banished from it even the memory of Sidonie. To be sure the poor judge did all that he could to accomplish that result. At ever)- hour 2 24 Fromont and Risler. in the day he was by Dcsiree's side, and clung to her hke a child. Not once did he venture to return to Asnieres. He was too much afraid of the other. " Pray come and see us once in a while ; Sidonie keeps asking for you," Risler said to him from time to time, when his brother came to the factory to see him. But Frantz held firm, alleging all sorts of business engagements as pretexts for postponing his visit to the next day. It was easy to satisfy Risler, who was more engrossed than ever with his press, which they had just begun to build. Whenever Frantz came down from his brother's closet, old Sigismond was sure to be watching for him, and would walk a few steps with him in his long lutestring sleeves, quill and knife in hand. He kept the young man informed concerning matters at the factory. For some time past, things seemed to have changed for the better. Monsieur Georges came to his office regularly, and returned to Savigny every night. No more bills were presented at the counting-room. It seemed too that Madame over yonder was keeping more within bounds. The cashier was triumphant. " You see, my boy, whether I did well to write to you. Your arrival was all that was needed to straighten everything out. And yet," the good- man would add by force of habit, " and yet / haf no gonfidcncd' " Never fear, Monsieur Sigismond, I am here," the judge would reply. " You 're not going away yet, are you, my dear Frantz?" Poor Little I\Iar,izcllc Zizi. 225 "No, no — not yet. I have an important matter to finish up first." " Ah ! so much the better." The important matter to which Frantz referred was his marriage to Desiree Delobelle. He had not yet mentioned it to any one, not even to her; but Mam'zelle Zizi must have suspected something, for she became prettier and more Hght-hearted from day to day, as if she foresaw that the day would soon come when she would need all her gayety and all her beauty. They were alone in the workroom one Sunday afternoon. Mamma Delobelle had gone out, proud enough to show herself for once in public with her great man, and leaving friend Frantz with her daughter to keep her company. Carefully dressed, his whole person endued with a holiday air, Frantz had a singular expression on his face that day, an expression at once timid and resolute, emotional and solemn, and simply from the way in which the little low chair took its place beside the great easy chair, the easy chair understood that a very serious communication was about to be made to it in con- fidence, and it had some little suspicion as to what it might be. The conversation began with divers unimpor- tant remarks, interspersed with long and frequent pauses, just as, on a journey, we stop at every baiting-place to take breath, to enable us to reach our destination. " It is a fine day to-day." •' Oh ! yes, beautiful." '5 2 20 Fro7no}it aiid Risler. " Our flowers still smell sweet." " Oh ! very sweet." And even as they uttered those trivial sentences, their voices trembled at the thought of what was going to be said in another moment. At last the little low chair moved a little nearer the great easy chair ; their eyes met, their fingers were intertwined, and the two children, in low tones, slowly, called each other by their names, " Desiree ! " " Frantz ! " At that moment there was a knock at the door. It was the soft little tap of a daintily gloved hand which fears to soil itself by the slightest touch. " Come in ! " said Desiree, with a slight gesture of impatience ; and Sidonie appeared, lovely, co- quettish and affable. She had come to sec her little Zizi, to embrace her as she was passing by. She had been meaning to come for so long. Frantz's presence seemed to surprise her greatly, and, being engrossed by her delight in talking with her former friend, she hardly looked at him. After the effusive greetings and caresses, after a pleasant chat over old times, she expressed a wish to see the window on the landing and the room formerly occupied by the Rislers. It pleased her thus to live all her youth over again. " Do you remember, Frantz, when Princess Humming-bird entered your room, holding her little head very straight under a diadem of birds' feathers? " Frantz did not reply. He was too deeply moved Poor Link jMaiiizcilc Zizi. 227 to reply. Something warned him that it was on his account, solely on his account, that the woman had come, that she was determined to see him again, to prevent him from giving himself to another, and the poor wretch realized with dismay that she would not have to exert herself overmuch to accomplisli her object. When he saw her enter the room his whole heart had been caught in the toils once more. Desiree suspected nothing, not she. Sidonie's manner was so frank and friendly. And then, they were brother and sister now. Love was no longer possible between them. But the little cripple had a vague presentiment of her woe when Sidonic, standing in the doorway and ready to go, turned carelessly to her brother- in-law and said : " By the way, Frantz, Risler told me to be sure and bring you back to dine with us to-night. The carriage is below. We \vill pick him up as we pass the factory." Then she added, with the prettiest smile imagi- nable : "You will let us have him, won't you, Ziree? Don't be afraid ; we will send him back." And he had the courage to go, the ungrateful wretch ! He went without hesitation, without once turn- ing back, whirled away by his passion as by a raging sea, and neither on that day nor the next, nor ever after, could Mam'zelle Zizi's great easy chair learn what the interesting communication was that the little low chair had to make to it. 228 Fromont and Risler. IV. THE WAITING ROOM. " Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and forever ! What is the use of struggling and fighting against fate ? Our crime is stronger than we are. And after all, is it a crime for us to love ? We were destined for each other. Have we not the right to come together although life has parted us ? So, come. It is all over, we will go away. To-morrow evening, Lyon station, at ten o'clock. The tickets are secured and I shall expect you. " Frantz." For a month past Sidonie had been hoping for that letter, a month during which she had brought all her wheedling and cunning into play to lure her brother-in-law on to that written explosion of passion. She had had difficulty in accomplishing it. It was no easy matter to pervert an honest young heart like Frantz's to the point of com- mitting a crime ; and in that strange contest, in which the one who really loved fought against his own cause, she had often felt that she was at the end of her strength and was almost discouraged. When she was most confident that he was sub- jugated, his sense of right would suddenly rebel, The Waiting Room. 229 and he would be all ready to fly, to escape her once more. What a triumph it was for her, therefore, when that letter was handed to her one morning. Madame Dobson happened to be there. She had just arrived, laden with complaints from Georges, who was horribly bored away from his mistress, and was beginning to be alarmed con- cerning this brother-in-law, who was more atten- tive, more jealous, more exacting than a husband. " Oh ! the poor dear fellow, the poor dear fel- low," said the sentimental American, " if you could see how unhappy he is ! " And, shaking her curls, she unrolled her music- roll and took from it the poor dear fellow's letters, which she had carefully hidden between the leaves of her arias, delighted to be involved in this love- story, to give rein to her emotion in an atmos- phere of intrigue and mystery which melted her cold e}'es and softened her dry, white complexion. Strange to say, while lending her aid most will- ingly to this constant going and coming of love- letters, the youthful and attractive Dobson had never written or received a single one on her own account. Always on the road between Asnieres and Paris with an amorous message under her wing, that curious carrier-pigeon remained true to her dove- cot and cooed for none but unselfish motives. When Sidonie showed her Frantz's note, Ma- dame Dobson asked : "What reply are you going to make?" 230 Fromont and Risler. " It is already done. I answered yes." " What ! You will go away with that mad- man?" Sidonie began to laugh. " Ha ! ha ! well, hardly. I said yes, so that he may go and wait for me at the station. That 's all. The least I can do is to give him a quarter of an hour of agony. He has made me miserable enough for the last month. Just consider that I have changed my whole life for my gentleman ! I have had to close my doors and give up seeing my friends and everybody I know who is young and agreeable, beginning with Georges and ending with you. For you know, my dear, you were n't agreeable to him, and he would have liked to dis- miss you like the rest." The one thing that Sidonie did not mention — and it was the most potent cause of her anger against Frantz — was that he had frightened her, that he had frightened her terribly by threatening her with her husband. From that moment she had felt decid- edly ill at ease, and her life, her dear life, which she so petted and coddled, had seemed to her to be exposed to serious danger. Such men as Risler, too fair and cold in appearance, are subject to ter- rible outbursts of wrath, white-hot wrath, of which no one can foresee the results, like those colorless and odorless explosives which we fear to use because no one knows their power. Yes, the thought that her husband might some day be apprized of her conduct positively terrified her. There came to her mind, from her former The Waitiiic Room 2;i existence, a wretched existence in a crowded quarter, memories of households broken up, hus- bands avenged, blood spattered upon the shame of adultery. Visions of death haunted her. And death, everlasting rest, profound silence, were well calculated to frighten that little creature, hungry for pleasure, eager for noise and commotion to the point of madness. That blessed letter put an end to all her fears. It was impossible now for Frantz to denounce her, even in the frenzy of his disappointment, knowing that she had such a weapon in her hands ; and if he did speak, she would show the letter, and all his accusations would become in Risler's eyes calumny pure and simple. Ah ! master judge, we have you now. Suddenly she was seized with an outbreak of wild joy. " I am born again — I am born again ! " she cried to Madame Dobson. ShG ran out into the garden, gathered great bouquets for her salon, threw the windows wide open to the sunlight, gave orders to the cook, the coachman, the gardener. The house must be made to look beautiful, for Georges was coming back, and for a beginning she organized a grand dinner-party for the end of the week. Verily you would have said that she had been absent a month, that she had just returned from an annoying, wearisome journey on business, she showed such haste in re-establishing life and activity about her. The next evening Sidonie, Risler and Madame 232 Froinout and Rislcr. Dobson were together in the salon. While honest Rislcr turned the leaves of an old hand-book of mechanics, Sidonie sang to Madame Dobson's accompaniment. Suddenly Sidonie stopped in the middle of her aria and burst into a roar of laughter. The clock had just struck ten. Rislcr looked up quickly. " What are you laughing at? " "Nothing — an idea that came into my head," replied Sidonie, winking at Madame Dobson and pointing at the clock. It was the hour appointed for the meeting, and she was thinking of her lover's torture as he waited for her to come. Since the return of the messenger bringing from Sidonie the " yes " he had so feverishly awaited, a great calmness had overspread his troubled mind, like the sudden removal of a heavy burden. No more uncertainty, no more clashing between passion and duty. He had an instantaneous feeling of relief, as if he no longer had a conscience. He made his preparations with the greatest tranquillity, pulled his trunks on to the floor, emptied the bureau and closets, and long before the time at which his luggage was to be called for, he was sitting on a trunk in the middle of his room, gazing at the map nailed to the wall in front of him, like an emblem of his wandering life, following with his eye the straight course of the roads and the wavy lines that represent the seas. Not once did it occur to him that on the other TJic IVaiuiig Rouin. 233 side of the landing someone was weeping and sighing because of him. Not once did he think of his brother's despair, of the ghastly drama they were to leave behind them. His mind was far away from all these matters, it had gone on before, and was already on the platform of the station with Sidonie, in dark clothes suitable for travel and for flight: ay, even farther away, on the shore of the blue sea, where they would stay some little time to evade pursuit; still farther away, arriving with her in a strange land, where no one could demand her or take her from him. At other times, he thought of the railway carriage rushing at night through the lonely country. He saw a sweet little pale face resting beside his on the cushions, a blooming lip within reach of his lip, and two fathomless e}'es looking at him by the soft light of the lamp, to the soothing accompaniment of the wheels and the steam. And now, engine, hiss and roar. Shake the earth, redden the sky, spit smoke and flame. Plunge into tunnels, cross mountains and rivers, leap, belch, shriek; but take us with you, take us far from the cixilized world, its laws, its affections, away from life, away from ourselves. Two hours before the opening of the gate for the designated train, I'Vantz was already at the Lyon station, that gloomy station which, in the distant quarter of Paris in which it lies, seems like a first halting-place in the provinces. He sat down in the darkest corner and remained there 2 34 Froinont and Rhlcr. without stirring, as if dazed. At that moment his brain was as excited and uproarious as the station itself. He was overwhelmed by a flood of confused reflections, vague memories, fanciful comparisons. In a single minute he made such journeys to the farthest corner of his memory that he asked him- self two or three times why he was there, and what he was waiting for. But the thought of Sidonie gushed forth from those inconsequent thoughts and illumined them with a bright light. She was coming. Instinctively, although the appointed hour was still distant, he looked among the people who were hurrying along, calling to one another, to see if he could not discern that graceful figure suddenly emerging from the crowd and thrusting it aside at every step with the radiance of her beauty. After many departures and arrivals and shrill whistles which, confined beneath the arched roof, resembled a sound of tearing, the station suddenly became empty, as deserted as a church on weekdays. The time for the ten o'clock train was drawing near. There was no other train before that. Frantz rose. Now it was no longer a dream, a chimera lost in that vast uncertain expanse of time. In a quarter of an hour, half an hour at the latest, she would be there. Thereupon began for him the horrible torture of suspense, that strange plight of body and mind when all the faculties are in abeyance, when the heart no longer beats, when the breath is hurried and panting like the thought, when gestures and TJie Walling Room. 235 sentences arc left unfinished, when evcr)-thing is waiting. Poets have described again and again the horrible agony of the lover listening to the rumbling of a carriage through the deserted street, a furtive step ascending the stairs. But to await one's mistress in a railway station, in a waiting-room, is a far more dismal matter. The dim lanterns, making no reflection on the dusty floor, the great windows and glass doors, the incessant noise of footsteps and slamming doors which torments the anxious ear, the bare, lofty walls, the placards advertising " an excursion train to Monaco," " a circular tour in Switzerland," the atmosphere of travel, of change, of indifference, of instability, all are well adapted to oppress the heart and heighten its anguish. Frantz went hither and thither, watching the carriages that arrived. They stopped at the long flight of stone steps. The carriage doors opened and closed noisily, and from the darkness without, faces appeared at the door in the light, faces tranquil or disturbed, happy or distressed, hats trimmed with feathers and enveloped in light veils, peasants' caps, sleeping children dragged along by the hand. Each new arrival made him start. He fancied that he saw her enter, closely veiled, hesi- tating, a little embarrassed. How quickly he would be by her side, to comfort her, to protect her ! As the station filled, his watch became more difficult. Carriages succeeded one another with- out intermi.ssion. He was obliged to run from one 236 Froviout and Risler. door to another. Then he went out, thinking that he could see better outside, and unable to endure longer, in the stifling air of the crowded waiting- room, the anxiety that was beginning to oppress him. It was a damp evening toward the end of Sep- tember. There was a light mist, and the lanterns of the carriages at the foot of the broad inclined footway, appeared faint and indistinct. Each one, on arriving, seemed to say: "It is I, — here I am." But it was never Sidonie who alighted, and the carriage he had watched as it drew near, his heart swelling with hope as if it contained more than his life, he watched as it returned to Paris, disgust- ingly light and empty. The hour for the departure of the train was approaching. He looked at the clock. There was but a quarter of an hour more. It frightened him ; but the bell at the wicket, which had now been opened, summoned him. He ran thither and took his place in the long line. " Two first-class for Marseille," he said. It seemed to him as if that were equivalent to taking possession. He made his way back to his post of observa- tion, through the luggage-laden trucks and the late-comers who jostled him as they ran. The drivers shouted : " Look out ! " He stood there among the wheels of the cabs, under the horses' feet, with deaf ears and staring eyes. Only five minutes more. It was almost impossible for her to arrive in time. People were rushing into the The Waiting Rooni. 237 train-shed. Trunks rolled by on baggage trucks; and the great bundles wrapped in cloth, the valises studded with copper nails, the little bags slung over the shoulders of commercial travellers, the baskets of all shapes and sizes, were engulfed by the same doorway, jostled and swaying with the same haste. At last she appeared. Yes, there she is, it is certainly she — a woman in black, slender and graceful, accompanied by another shorter woman, Madame Dobson, no doubt. But a second glance undeceived him. It was a young woman who resembled her, a woman of fashion like her, with a happy face. A man, also young, joined them. It was evidently a wedding- party ; the mother accompanied them, to see them safely on board the train. They passed Frantz, enveloped in the current of happiness that bore them along. With a feeling of envy and rage he saw them pass through the swinging doors, cling- ing to each other, united and pressed close to- gether in the crowd. It seemed to him that those people had robbed him, that it was his place, his and Sidonie's, that they were to occupy in the train. Now there is the confusion of departure, the last stroke of the bell, the steam escaping with a hiss- ing sound, mingled with the hurried footsteps of belated passengers, the slamming of doors and the rumbling of the heavy omnibuses. And Sidonie comes not. And Frantz still waits. 238 Fro}no}it and Rislcr. At that moment a hand is placed on his shoulder. Great God ! He turns. Monsieur Gardinois's coarse face, surrounded by a travelling cap with ear pieces, is before him. " I am not mistaken, it is Monsieur Risler. Are you going to Marseille by the express? I am not going far." He explains to Frantz that he has missed the Orleans train, and is going to try to connect with Savigny by the Lyon line ; then he talks about Risler Aine and the factory. " It seems that business has n't been prospering for some time. They were caught in the Bon- nardel failure. Ah ! our young men need to be careful. At the rate they're sailing their ship, the same thing is likely to happen to them that hap- pened to Bonnardel. But excuse me, I believe they 're going to close the gate. An revoir." Frantz has hardly heard what he has been say- ing. His brother's ruin, the destruction of the whole world, nothing is of any further consequence to him. He is waiting, waiting. But now the gate is abruptly closed like a last barrier between him and his persistent hope. Once more the station is empty. The uproar has been transferred to the line of the railway, and suddenly a shrill whistle falls upon the lover's ear like an ironical farewell, then dies away in the darkness. The ten o'clock train has gone. He tries to be calm and to reason. Evidently The Wait in Q: Room. 239 she missed the train from Asnieres; but, knowing that lie is waiting for her, she will come, no matter how late it may be. He will wait on. The waiting- room was made for that. The unhapp)' man sits down on a bench. The great windows have been closed, and the darkness beyond them is broken by gleams of glazed paper. The book-stall keeper, half asleep, is en- gaged in setting his stock in order. Frantz glances mechanically at the rows of gaudy volumes, the typical raihvay librar}', whose titles he has learned by heart in the four hours he has been there. There are books that he recognizes from having read them in his tent at Ismailia or in the steamer that brought him back from Suez, and all those commonplace, tri\'ial novels have retained a ma- rine or exotic odor for him. But soon the book- stall is closed, and he no longer has even that resource to deceive his weariness and his fever. The toy-stall, too, has withdrawn behind its board shutters. Whistles, wheelbarrows, watering-pots, spades, rakes, all the playthings of little Parisians in the countr}', disappear in a twinkling. The pro- prietress, a sickly, sad-faced w'oman, wraps herself in an old cloak and goes away, her foot-warmer in her hand. All these people have finished their day's work, have prolonged it to the last minute with the cou- rage and obstinac}' characteristic of Paris, which does not extinguish its lamps until daylight. The prospect of a long vigil brings to his mind a well known room in w'hich at that hour the lamp 240 From out and R icier. burns low on a table laden with humming-birds and glow-worms ; but that vision passes swiftly through his mind in the chaos of confused thoughts to which the delirium of suspense gives birth. Suddenly he discovers that he is dying wii.h thirst. The restaurant is still open. He enters. The night waiters are dozing on the benches. The floor is damp with the dregs from the glasses. It takes them an interminable time to wait upon him ; and then, just as he is about to drink, the thought that Sidonie may have arrived during his absence, that perhaps she is looking for him in the waiting- room, makes him jump to his feet and rush out like a madman, leaving his glass full and his money on the table. She will not come. He feels it. His footsteps, ringing along the walk in front ot the station, monotonous and regular, grate upon his ears, as if they were testifying to his solitude and disappointment. What has happened ? What can have detained her? Is she ill, or was it the anticipation of re- morse for her sin? But in that case she would have sent him word, she would have sent Madame Dobson. Perhaps Risler had found the letter? She was so reckless, so imprudent. And while he thus lost himself in conjectures, the hours passed. The roofs of the buildings of Mazas, buried in darkness, were already begin- ning to stand out distinctly against the brighten- ing sky. What was he to do? He must go to The IVai/ijiq^ Room. 241 Asnicres at once and tr}^ to find out what had happened. He wished he were there already. Having made up his mind, he descended the steps of the station at a rapid pace, passing soldiers with their knapsacks on their backs, and poor people coming to take the morning train, the train of the poverty and want which rise betimes. He crossed Paris at daybreak, a dismal, shivering Paris, where the lanterns on the police stations showed their red lights at intervals, and the police- men walked their beats two by two, stopping at the street corners and scrutinizing the shadows. In front of one of the stations he saw a crowd collected, ragpickers and countrywomen. Doubt- less some drama of the night about to reach its d^noiluiciit before the commissioner of police. — Ah ! if Frantz had known what that drama was ! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently from a distance. But all such unpleasant sights, the very dawn rising over Paris with the pallor of weariness, the lanterns blinking on the bank of the Seine, like the wax tapers around a corpse, the exhaustion of his sleepless night, enveloped him in profound melancholy. When he reached Asnicres, after a walk of two or three hours, it was like an awakening. The sun, rising in all its glory, set field and river on fire. The bridge, the houses, the quay, all stood forth with that matutinal sharpness of outline which gives the impression of a new day emerging, luminous and smiling, from the dense 16 242 Fromont and Rislcr. mists of the night. From a distance he descried his brother's house, ah'eady awake, the open bhnds and the flowers on the window-siUs. He wandered about some- time before he could summon courage to enter. Suddenly some one hailed him from the shore: " Ah ! Monsieur Frantz. — How early you are to-day ! " It was Sidonie's coachman taking his horses to bathe in the river. " There 's nothing new at the house? " inquired Frantz tremblingly. " Nothing new, Monsieur Frantz." " Is my brother at home? " " No, Monsieur slept at the factory." " No one sick? " " No, Monsieur Frantz, no one, so far as I know." The horses waded into the water up to their breasts, tossing the spray about. Thereupon Frantz made up his mind to ring at the small gate. The gardener was raking the paths. The house was astir; and, early as it was, he heard Sidonie's voice as clear and vibrating as the song of a bird among the rosebushes of the facade. She was talking with animation. Frantz, deeply moved, drew near to listen. " No, no cream. The cafe parfait will be enough. Be sure that it 's well frozen and ready at seven o'clock. — Oh ! about an entree — let us see — " She was holding council with her cook concern- Tlic Waiiiug Room. 243 ing the famous dinner-party for the next clay. Her brother-in-law's sudden appearance did not dis- concert her. " Ah ! good-morning, Frantz," she said very calmly, " I am at your service directly. We 're to have some people to dinner to-morrow, cus- tomers of the firm, a grand business dinner. You '11 excuse me, won't you?" Fresh and smiling, in the white ruffles of her trailing peignoir and her little lace cap, she con- tinued to discuss her menu, inhaling the cool air that rose from the fields and the river. There was not the slightest trace of chagrin or anxiety upon that tranquil face. Her smooth forehead, the charming naive expression of surprise, which was likely to keep her young so long, her pink lips, slightly parted, were in striking contrast with the lover's features, distorted by a night of agony and fatigue. For a long quarter of an hour Frantz, sitting in a corner of the salon, saw all the conventional dishes of a bourgeois dinner-party pass before him in their regular order, from the little hot pate's, the sole Normande and the innumerable ingredients of which that dish is composed, to the Montreuil peaches and Fontainebleau grapes. She did not spare him a single cntrentct. At last, when they were alone and he was able to" speak, he asked in a hollow voice: " Did n't you receive my letter?" "Why, yes, of course." She had risen to go to the mirror and adjust a 244 Froniont and Risler. little curl or two entangled with her floating ribbons, and continued, looking at herself all the while: '* Why, yes, I received your letter. Indeed, I was enchanted to receive it. — Now, if you should ever feel inclined to tell your brother any of the vile stories about me that you have threatened me with, I could easily satisfy him that the only source of your lying tale-bearing was anger with me for repulsing a criminal passion as it deserved. Con- sider yourself warned, my dear boy — and mi revoir." As pleased as an actress who has just completed a bit of declamation with fine effect, she passed him and left the salon smiling, with a little curl at the corners of her mouth, triumphant and without anger. And he did not kill her ! A News licm. 245 V. A NEWS ITEM. On the evening preceding that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the illustrious Delobelle returned home, with downcast face and that air of lassitude and disillusionment with which he always met untoward events. " Oh ! mon Dieii, my poor man, what has hap- pened?" instantly inquired Madame Delobelle, whom twenty years of exaggerated dramatic pan- tomime had not yet surfeited. Before replying, the ex-actor, who never failed to precede his most trivial words with some facial play, learned long before for stage purposes, dropped his lower lip in token of disgust and loathing, as if he had just swallowed something very bitter. " The matter is that those Rislers are certainly ingrates or egotists, and, beyond all question, exceedingly ill-bred. Do you know what I just learned downstairs from the concierge, who glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, making sport of me? Well, Frantz Rislcr has gone! He left the house a short time ago, and has left Paris 246 Froviojit a)id Risler. perhaps ere this, without so much as coming to shake my hand, to tliank me for the welcome he has received here. What do you think of that? For he didn't say good-bye to you two either, did he? And yet, only a month ago, he was always in our rooms, without any remonstrance from us." Mamma Delobelle uttered an exclamation of genuine surprise and grief. Desiree, on the con- trary, did not say a word or make a motion. Always the same little iceberg. The wire she was twisting did not even pause in her active fingers. " So much for having friends," continued the illustrious Delobelle. " In God's name, what have I done to that fellow?" It was one of his whims to fancy that he was pursued by the hatred of the whole world. That was a part of the attitude in life assumed by him, the crucified of art. Gently, with almost maternal tenderness, — for there is always something of the maternal feeling in the indulgent, forgiving affection that such great children inspire, — Mamma Delobelle con- soled her husband, coaxed him, and added a dainty dish to his dinner. In his heart the poor devil was really affected ; now that Frantz had gone, the role of perpetual host, formerly played by the elder Risler, was vacant once more, and the actor was thinking of the comforts he should miss. A News Item. 247 And to think that, by the side of that selfish, superficial chagrin, there was a genuine, far-reach- ing sorrow, the sorrow that kills, and that that blinded mother did not discover it. Oh ! wretched woman, turn your eyes upon your daughter. See that transparent pallor, those tearless eyes which gleam unwaveringly, as if their thoughts and their gaze were concentrated on some object visible to them alone. Cause that poor suffer- ing heart to open itself to you. Question your child. Make her speak, above all things make her weep, to rid her of the burden that is sti- fling her, so that her tear-dimmed eyes can no longer distinguish in space that horrible unknown thing upon which they are fixed in desperation now. Alas! There arc women in whom the mother kills the wife. In that woman the wife had killed the mother. A priestess of the god Delobelle, ab- sorbed in contemplation of her idol, she fancied that her daughter had come into the world solely to devote herself to the same worship, to kneel at the same altar. Both of them should have but a single aim in life, to toil for the great man's glor}-, to console his unappreciated genius. The rest of the world had no existence. Mamma Delobelle had never noticed Desiree's quick flush as soon as Frantz entered the workroom, all the circum- locutions of a love-lorn maiden to which she resorted to lead the conversation to him, to bring 248 Frornont and Risler. his name on every occasion into their chatting over their work, and that, too, for many years, since the time, now far distant, when Frantz used to start for the Ecole Centrale in the morning just as the two women Hghted their lamp to be- gin their day's work. She had never sought the meaning of those long silences in which trusting and happy youth securely locks itself with its dreams of the future ; and if she sometimes said to Desiree, when her silence annoyed her : " What 's the matter with you ? " the girl had only to reply: "Nothing," to send her mother's thoughts, turned aside for a moment, back at once to their favorite preoccupation. Thus this woman, who could read what was written in her husband's heart in the faintest wrinkle of that Olympian but insignificant brow, had never shown for her poor Zizi that power of divination in which the oldest and most wrinkled mothers make themselves young again, even to the point of counterfeiting a girlish friendship, in order to become confidants and advisers. And therein consists the most inhuman feature of the unconscious egotism of men like Delobelle. It gives birth to other egotisms in its neighbor- hood. The habit that prevails in certain families of considering everything in its relation to a single person, necessarily leaves in the shade the joys and sorrows which are indifferent and unprofit- able to him. A News Item. 249 And in what way, I ask you, could the pitiful boy-and-girl drama which caused the poor loving creature's heart to be swollen to bursting with un- shed tears, concern the glory of the great actor? She was suffering terribly, none the less. For nearly a month past, ever since the day when Sidonie came and took Frantz away in her coupe, Desiree had known that she was no longer loved, and she knew her rival's name. She bore them no ill-will, she pitied them rather. But, why had he returned? Why had he so heedlessly given her that false hope? As the unhappy man condemned to the darkness of a dungeon accus- toms his eyes to the different degrees of darkness and his limbs to the confined space, and then, if he is led suddenly into the light for a moment, finds on his return the dungeon gloomier, the darkness more profound than before, so it was with her, poor child ; and that bright light that had suddenly burst upon her life, had left it, upon being withdrawn, more forlorn by all the horror of renewed captivity. How many tears had she devoured in silence since that moment ! How many tales of woe had she told her little birds ! For once more it was work that had sus- tained her, desperate, incessant work, which, by its regularity and monotony, by the constant re- currence of the same duties and the same motions, served as a balance-wheel to her thoughts. And just as the little dead birds found beneath her fingers a semblance of life, so her illusions and her hopes, dead likewise and filled with a subtler 250 Fromont and Rislcr. and more penetrating poison than that which flew about her work-table in grains of powder, still flapped their wings from time to time with an effort wherein intense suffering was blended with the vigorous impulse of a resurrection. Frantz was not altogether lost to her. Although he came but rarely to see her, she knew that he was there, she could hear him go in and out, pace the floor with restless step, and sometimes, through the half-open door, see his loved shadow hurry across the landing. He did not seem happy. Indeed what happiness could be in store for him? He loved his brother's wife. And at the thought that Frantz was not happy, the fond creature almost forgot her own sorrow to think only of the sorrow of the man she loved. She was well aware that it was impossible that he could ever love her again. But she thought that perhaps she would see him come in some day, wounded and dying, that he would sit down on the little low chair, lay his head on her knees, and with a great sob tell her of his suffering and say to her : " Comfort me." That forlorn hope kept her alive for three weeks. She needed so little as that. But no. Even that was denied her. Frantz had gone, gone without a glance for her, without a parting word. The lover's desertion was fol- lowed by the desertion of the friend. It was horrible ! At her father's first words, she felt as if she were hurled into a deep, ice-cold abyss, filled with dark- A News Item. 251 ncss, into which she plunged swiftly, helplessly, well knowing that she would nev^cr return to the light. She was stifling. She would have liked to resist, to struggle, to call for help. But to whom? Well she knew that her mother would not hear her. Sidonie? Oh! she knew her, now. It would have been better for her to apply to these little insects with the gorgeous plumage, whose tiny eyes gazed at her with such heedless gayety. The terrible part of it was that she realized in- stantly that work would not save her again. It had lost its beneficent power. The inert arms were powerless now; the weary, listless fingers parted in the idleness of utter discouragement. Who was there who had the power to sustain her in that great disaster? God? The thing that is called Heaven? She did not even think of that. In Paris, espe- cially in the quarters where the working class live, the houses are too high, the streets too narrow, the air too murky for heaven to be seen. It is obscured by the smoke from the factories, and the steam that ascends from the damp roofs ; and then, life is so hard for most of those people, that if the idea of a Providence should intrude itself in their misery, it would be greeted with a threaten- ing gesture and a curse. That is why there are so many suicides in Paris. The common people, not knowing how to pray, are ready^ to die at any moment. Death appears in the background of 252 Fro7nont and Risler. all their sulETerings, the death that delivers and consoles. It was Death at which the little cripple was gazing so earnestly. Her course was determined upon at once : she must die. But how? Sitting motionless in her easy chair, while idiotic life went on about her, while her mother prepared the dinner, while the great man declaimed a long soliloquy against human ingratitude, she considered what manner of death she should choose. As she was almost never alone, she could not think of the brazier of charcoal, to be lighted after closing the doors and windows. As she never went out, she could not think either of poison to be purchased at the druggist's, a little package of white powder to be buried in the depths of the pocket, with the needle-case and the thimble. There was the phosphorus on the matches, too, the verdigris on old sous, the open window with the paved street below; but the thought of forcing upon her parents the ghastly spectacle of a self-inflicted death-agony, the thought that what would remain of her, picked up amid a crowd of people, would be so frightful to look upon, made her reject that method. She still had the river. At all events the water carries you away some- where, so that nobody finds you, and your death is shrouded in mystery. The river! A News Item. 253 She shuddcrc(d at the mere thought. But it was not the vision of the deep, black water that terrified her. The girls of Paris laugh at that. You throw your apron over your head so that you can't see, and poicf ! But she must go downstairs, into the street, all alone, and the street frightened her. Now, while the poor girl was making, in anticipa- tion, that final bound toward death and oblivion, while she was gazing from afar at the dark chasm, with haggard eyes, to which the madness of suicide was already ascending, the illustrious Delobelle gradually recovered his spirits, talked less dramatically, and finally, as there was cabbage for dinner, a dish of which he was very fond, he softened as he ate, recalled his former triumphs, the golden wreath, the subscribers at Alengon, and, as soon as dinner was at an end, went off to see Robricart make his debut at the Odeon in Le Misanthrope, brushed and combed, with clean white cuffs, and in his pockets a new and shiny hundred- sou piece which his wife had given him so that he could play the dandy. " I am very happy," said Mamma Delobelle as she removed the dishes. " Father dined well to- night. It comforted him a little, poor man ! The play will finish diverting him. He needs so much to be diverted." Yes, it was a terrible thing to go out into the street alone. She must wait until the gas was out, steal softly downstairs when her mother had gone to bed, pull the concierge's cord and make her 2 54 Fromont and Risler. way across Paris, where you meet men who stare impertinently into your face, and pass briUiantly lighted cafes. Desiree had had that horror of the street from her childhood. When, as a little girl, she was sent on an errand, the street urchins used to follow her with jeers, and she could not say which was the more painful, the parody of her uneven gait, the hitching up of the insolent little blouses, or the pity of the passers-by, who charitably looked the other way. She was afraid of the carriages, too, and the omnibuses. The river was a long distance away. She would be very tired. However, there was no other way than that. " I am going to bed, my child ; are you going to sit up any longer?" With her eyes on her work, " my child" replied that she was. She wished to finish her dozen. " Good-night, then," said Mamma Delobelle, her enfeebled sight being unable to endure the light longer. " I have put father's supper by the fire. Just look at it before you go to bed." Desiree did not lie. She really intended to finish her dozen, so that her father could take them to the shop in the morning; and really, to see that tranquil little head bending forward in the white light of the lamp, one w^ould never have imag- ined all the sinister thoughts with which it w^as thronged. At last she takes up the last bird of the dozen, a marvellously lovely little bird whose wings seem to have been dipped in sea-water, all green as they are with a tinge of sapphire. A News Item. 255 Carefully, daintil)', Dcsircc suspends him on a piece of brass wire, in the charming attitude of a frightened creature about to fly away. Ah ! how true it is that the little blue bird is about to fly away ! What a desperate flight into space ! How certain one feels that this time it is the great journey, the everlasting journey from which there is no return ! Now the work is finished, the table set in order, the last needlefuls of silk scrupulously picked up, the pins stuck in the cushion. The father, when he returns, will find the lamp partly turned down and his supper in front of the hot ashes ; and that ghastly, ill-omened evening will seem to him as peaceful as all other evenings, in view of the neatness of the room and the strict compliance with his usual whims. Very softly D^sir^-e opens the wardrobe and takes a thin shawl which she throws over her shoulders ; then she goes. What? Not a glance at her mother, not a silent farewell, not a tear? — No, nothing! With the ter- rible clearness of vision of those who are about to die, she suddenly realizes that her childhood and youth have been sacrificed to a vast self-love. She feels very sure that a word from their great man will comfort that sleeping mother, with whom she is almost angry for not waking, for allowing her to go without a quiver of her closed eyelids. When one dies young, even by one's own act, it is never without a rebellious feeling, and poor D^siree bids adieu to life, indignant with destiny. 256 Fromont and Risler. Now she is in the street. Where is she going? Everything seems deserted already. These quar- ters, so full of life in the daytime, subside early in the evening. The people work too hard not to fall asleep quickly. While the Paris of the boule- vards, still full of life, causes the ruddy glare of a distant conflagration to hover over the whole city, here all the great doors are closed, the shutters in place at the shop windows. From time to time a belated knock, the footstep of a policeman whom you hear but do not see, the soliloquy of a drunken man interrupted by the vagaries of his course, break the silence ; or a sudden gust of wind from the neighboring quays rattles the glass of a lantern or the old rope of a pulley, sweeps around a street corner and dies away with a whistling sound under a sagging threshold. Desiree walks rapidly, wrapped in her little shawl, head erect, dry-eyed. Not knowing the way, she walks straight ahead. The dark, narrow streets of the Marais, where gas-jets twinkle at long intervals, cross and re-cross and wind about, and again and again in her fever- ish course she goes over the same ground. There is always something between her and the river. And yet the wind brings its damp, cool breath to her face. Really, one would say that the water re- coils, surrounds itself with barriers, that thick walls and lofty buildings purposely place themselves in front of death ; but the little cripple has good courage, and over the uneven pavement of the old streets she goes on and on. A News Item. 257 Did you ever see, toward the close of a day's hunting, a wounded partridge seek shelter in a furrow? He crouches, he skims along the ground, dragging his bleeding wing toward some place of refuge where he can die in peace. The uncertain gait of this little shadow, hurrying along the side- walks close to the walls, gives one exactly the same impression. And to think that, at that very hour, almost in the same quarter, some one else is wan- dering through the streets, waiting, watching, des- perate ! Ah ! if they could but meet. Suppose she should accost that feverish watcher, should ask him to direct her : " I beg your pardon. Monsieur. How can I get to the Seine? " He would recognize her at once. "What! Can it be you, Mam'zelle Zizi? What are you doing out-of-doors at this time of night? " " I am going to die, Frantz. You have taken away all my pleasure in living." Thereupon he, deeply moved, would seize her, press her to his heart and carry her away in his arms, saying : " Oh ! no, do not die. I need you to comfort me, to cure all the wounds the other has inflicted on me." But that is a mere poet's dream, one of the meetings that life cannot bring about. It is far too cruel, is this inexorable life ; and when so very little is needed sometimes to save a whole existence, it takes good care not to furnish that very little. That is why true novels are always so sad. 17 258 Fromont and Risler. Streets, more streets, then a square and a bridge whose lanterns make another luminous bridge in the black water. Here is the river at last. The mist of that damp, soft autumn evening causes all of this huge Paris, entirely strange to her as it is, to appear to her like an enormous confused mass, which her ignorance of the landmarks magnifies still more. This is the place where she must die. She feels so small, so entirely alone, so lost in the immensity of this great, brilliantly-lighted yet deserted city. She walks toward the quay, and suddenly the odor of flowers, of leaves, of freshly- turned earth causes her to pause a moment. At her feet, on the footpath that skirts the stream, bundles of shrubs wrapped in straw, flower-pots in their white paper coverings are already in place for to-morrow's market. Wrapped in their shawls, with their feet on their foot-stoves, the flower- women lean back in their chairs, benumbed by sleep and the cool night air. The Reines-Margue- rites of all colors, the mignonette, the late roses fill the air with fragrance, standing erect in a ray of moonlight with their slender shadows by their sides, transplanted, torn from their native soil, awaiting the caprice of slumbering Paris, Poor little Desiree ! One would say that her whole youth, her infrequent days of pleasure and her hopeless love ascend to her heart in the per- fume of that itinerant garden. She walks softly among the flowers. Sometimes a gust of wind makes the shrubs brush against one another like the branches of a hedge ; and on the footpath, A News Item. 259 baskets filled with plants lately taken from the ground exhale an odor of moist earth. She recalls the country excursion which Frantz had organized for her. That breath of nature, which she breathed that day for the first time, falls to her lot again at the moment of her death. "Remember," it seems to say to her; and she re- plies mentally : " Oh ! yes, I remember." She remembers only too well. When it arrives at the end of the quay, which was bedecked as for a holiday, the furtive little shadow pauses at the steps leading down to the bank. Almost immediately there are shouts and excite- ment all along the quay : " Quick — a boat — grappling-irons ! " Boatmen and policemen come running from all sides. A boat puts off from the shore with a lantern in the bow. The flower-women wake, and when one of them asks with a yawn what is happening, the woman who keeps the cafe that crouches at the corner of the bridge, answers coolly : " A woman just jumped into the river." But no. The river has refused to take that child. It has been moved to pity by so great gentleness and charm. In the light of the lan- terns swinging to and fro on the shore, a black group forms and moves away. She is saved ! It was a sand-hauler who fished her out. Policemen arc carrying her, surrounded by boatmen and light- ermen, and in the darkness a hoarse voice is heard saying with a sneer : " That water-hen gave me a 26o Fromont and Risler. lot of trouble. You ought to see how she slipped through my fingers ! I believe she 'd 'a' liked to make me lose my reward." Gradually the tumult subsides, the bystanders disperse, and, while the black group moves away toward a police-station, the flower-women resume their naps, and the Reines-Marguerites tremble in the night wind on the deserted quay. Ah ! poor girl, you thought that it was an easy matter to have done with life, to disappear ab- ruptly. You did not know that, instead of bearing you away swiftly to the oblivion you sought, the river would drive you back to all the shame, to all the ignominy of unsuccessful suicide. First of all, the station, the hideous station with its filthy benches, its floor where the sodden dust seems like mud from the street. There Desiree was doomed to pass the rest of the night. They laid her on a camp-bed in front of the stove, which was chari- tably stuffed full of fuel for her benefit, and the sickening heat made the steam rise in clouds from her heavy, dripping clothes. Where was she? She had no clear idea. The men lying all about in beds like her own, the depressing bareness of the room, the howling of two drunkards locked in cells, who were beating on the doors with horrible oaths, all of these the little cripple gazed at and listened to vaguely, without understanding. By her side a woman in rags, with her hair fall- ing over her shoulders, was crouching in front of the open door of the stove, whose ruddy reflection had no power to flush that haggard, pallid face. A News Item. 261 She was a madwoman picked up during the night, an unfortunate creature who kept nodding her head invohintarily and repeating incessantly in an unmeaning voice, ahnost independent of the move- ment of her Hps : " Oh ! yes, poor, you may well say so. — Oh! yes, poor, you may well say so." And that distressing lament, amid the snoring of the sleeping men, oppressed Desiree horribly. She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of that vacant face, which terrified her like the personifi- cation of her own despair. From time to time the street door opened, the voice of an officer called out certain names, whereupon two policemen went out while two others came in and threw themselves on their beds, as exhausted as sailors who have passed the night on deck. At last day broke with the shuddering glare so distressing to invalids. Suddenly aroused from her torpor, Desirdc sat up in her bed, threw off the blanket in which they had wrapped her, and despite fatigue and fever tried to stand, in order to regain full possession of her faculties and her will. She had but one thought, — to escape from all those eyes that were opening on all sides, to leave that frightful place where the breath of sleep was so heavy and its attitudes so distorted. " I implore you, messieurs," she said, trembling from head to foot, " let me return to mamma." Hardened as they were to Parisian dramas, even those good people realized that they were face to face with something more worthy of attention, more affecting than usual. But they could not 262 Fromont and Rislcr, take her back to her mother as yet. She must go before the commissioner first. That was absolutely necessary. They called a cab from compassion for her ; but she must go from the station to the cab, and there was a crowd at the door to stare at the little lame girl with the damp hair glued to her temples, and her policeman's blanket which did not prevent her shivering. At headquarters she was conducted up a dark, damp stairway where sinister figures were passing to and fro, A swinging door, which the exigencies of the public service kept opening and closing ; cold, ill-lighted rooms ; on the benches, silent, downcast, sleeping men and women, vagabonds, thieves, prostitutes ; a table covered with an old green cloth at which the " commissioner's dog " was writing, a tall knave with the head of a pawn and a threadbare coat: that was the place. When Desiree entered, a man rose from the shadow and came to meet her, holding out his hand. It was the man of the reward, her hideous rescuer at twenty-five francs, " Well, little mother," he said, with his cynical laugh, and in a voice that made one think of foggy nights on the water, " how are we since our dive? " Thereupon he told the assembled company how he had fished her out, how he had grabbed her like that, then like this, and how, but for him, she would surely be well on her way to Rouen under water. The unhappy girl was burning red with fever and shame; so bewildered that it seemed to her A Nezvs Item. 26 J as if the river had left a veil over her eyes, a buzz- ing in her ears. At last she was ushered into a smaller room, into the presence of a pompous in- dividual, wearing the insignia of the Legion of Honor — Monsieur le Commissaire in person, who was sipping his caf^ an lait d,vA reading the Gazette des Tribunaiix. "Ah! it's you, is it?" he said in a surly tone and without raising his eyes from his paper, as he dipped a piece of bread in his cup ; and the officer who had brought D^sir^e began at once to read his report: " At quarter to twelve, on Quai de la Megisserie, in front of No. 17, the woman Delobelle, twenty- four years old, flower-maker, living with her par- ents on Rue de Braque, tried to commit suicide by throwing herself into the Seine, and was taken out safe and sound by Sieur Parcheminet, sand-hauler of Rue de la Rutte-Chaumont." Monsieur le Commissaire listened as he ate, with the listless, bored expression of a man whom nothing can surprise ; at the end he gazed sternly and with a pompous affectation of virtue at the woman Delobelle, and lectured her in the most approved fashion. It was very wicked, it was cowardly, this thing that she had done. What could have driven her to such an evil act? Why did she seek to destroy herself? Come, woman Delobelle, answer, why was it? But the woman Delobelle obstinately declined to answer. It seemed to her that it would put a stigma upon her love to avow it in such a place. 264 Fromont and Risler. " I don't know — I don't know," she whispered, shivering. Testy and impatient, the commissioner decided that she should be taken back to her parents, but only on one condition : she must promise never to try it again. " Come, do you promise? " " Oh ! yes, monsieur." " You will never try again ? " " Oh ! no, indeed I will not, never — never ! " Notwithstanding her protestations, Monsieur le Commissaire de Police shook his head, as if he did not trust her oath. Now she is outside once more, on the way to her home, to a place of refuge ; but her martyr- dom was not yet at an end. In the carriage the officer who accompanied her was too polite, too affable. She seemed not to understand, shrank from him, withdrew her hand. What torture ! — But the most terrible moment of all was the arrival in Rue de Braque, where the whole house was in a state of commotion, and the inquisitive curiosity of the neighbors must be en- dured. Early in the morning the whole quarter had been informed of her disappearance. It was rumored that she had gone away with Frantz Ris- ler. The illustrious Delobelle had gone forth very early, intensely agitated, with his hat awry and rumpled wristbands, a sure indication of extraordi- nary preoccupation; and the concierge, on taking up the provisions, had found the poor mother half mad, running from one room to another, looking A News Item. 265 for a note from the child, for any clew, however unimportant, that would enable her at least to form some conjecture. That unhappy mother's mind had tardily and suddenly awakened to the peculiarity of her daughter's actions during the last few da}-s and her silence on the subject of Frantz's departure. " Do not weep, my wife, I will bring her back to you," the father had said when he went away, as much to shun the spectacle of that great sorrow as to seek information; and since then she had done nothing but go from the landing to the window, from the window to the landing. At the slightest sound in the hall she would open the door, with wildly beating heart, and rush out; and then, when she returned, the loneliness of the little room, heightened by D^siree's great empty armchair half turned toward the sewing table, made her burst into tears. Suddenly a carriage stopped in front of the door. Voices and footsteps echoed through the hall. " Maine Delobelle, here she is ! Your daughter 's been found." It was really Desirce who came toiling up the stairs on the arm of a stranger, pale and fainting, without hat or shawl, and wrapped in a great brown cape. When she saw her mother she smiled at her with an almost foolish expression. " Do not be alarmed, it is nothing," she tried to say, then sank to the floor. Mamma Delobelle would never have believed that she was so strong. 266 Fromont and Risler, To lift her daughter, take her into the room, and put her to bed was a matter of a moment; and she talked to her and kissed her. " Here you are at last. Where have you come from, you bad child? Tell me, is it true that you tried to kill yourself? Were you suffering so terribly? Why did you conceal it from me?" When she saw her mother in that condition, with tear-stained face, aged in a few short hours, Desiree felt a terrible burden of remorse. She re- membered that she had gone away without saying good-bye to her, and that in the depths of her heart she had accused her of not loving her. Not loving her ! "Why, it would kill me if you should die," said the poor mother. " Oh ! when I got up this morning and saw that your bed had n't been slept in and that you were n't in the work-room either ! — I just turned round and fell flat. — Are you warm now? — Do you feel well? — You won't do it again, will you — try to kill yourself? " And she tucked in the bed-clothes, rubbed her feet, and rocked her upon her breast. As she lay in bed, with her eyes closed, Desiree saw anew all the incidents of her suicide, all the hideous scenes through which she had passed in returning from death to life. In the fever, which rapidly increased, in the intense drowsiness which began to overpower her, her mad journey across Paris continued to excite and torment her. Myr- iads of dark streets stretched away before her, with the Seine at the end of each. A News I ion. 267 That ghastly river, which she could not find in the night, haunted her now. She felt that she was besmirched with its slime, its mud ; and in the nightmare that oppressed her, the poor child, powerless to escape the obsession of her recollections, whispered to her mother : "Hide me — hide me— I am ashamed!" 268 Fromont and Risler. VL SHE PROMISED NOT TO TRY AGAIN. Oh ! no, she will not try again. Monsieur le Com- missaire need have no fear. In the first place how could she go as far as the river, now that she can- not stir from her bed ? If Monsieur le Commissaire could see her now, he would not doubt her word. Doubtless the wish, the longing for death, so un- mistakably written on her pale face the other morning, are still visible there ; but they are softened, resigned. The woman Delobelle knows that by waiting a little, yes, a very little time, she will have nothing more to wish for. The doctors declare that she is dying of in- flammation of the lungs ; she must have contracted it in her wet clothes. The doctors are mistaken ; it is not inflammation of the lungs. Is it her love, then, that is killing her? — No. Since that terrible night she no longer thinks of Frantz, she no longer feels that she is worthy to love or to be loved. Thenceforth there is a stain upon her spotless life, and it is of that and nothing else that she is dying. Each of the changing scenes of the horrible drama is to her mind a defilement: the being S/ic Pi'omised not to Try Again. 269 dragged from the water before all those men, her tired slumber in the station, the vile songs she heard there, the madwoman warming herself at the stove, the whole mass of vice and contagion and heartrending misery in the corridor at headquar- ters ; and then, too, the contempt expressed in some glances, the impudence of others, the jests of her rescuer, the advances of the police officer, the destruction of her maidenly modesty, the having to give her name, and even the burden of her infirmity which pursued her through all the phases of her endless martyrdom, like a satire, an exaggeration of the absurdity of her suicide for love. She is dying of shame, I tell you. In her mo- ments of delirium at night that is what she repeats incessantly : " I am ashamed ! I am ashamed ! " and in her calmer moments she buries her head under the bedclothes, covers her face with them, as if to hide or to wrap herself in her shroud. Mamma Delobelle sits by Desirde's bed, working by the light from the window, and nursing her daughter. From time to time she raises her eyes to contemplate that mute despair, that mysterious disease, then hastily resumes her work; for it is one of the hardest trials of the poor that they can- not suffer at their ease. They must work without respite, and, even when death is hovering nigh, they must think of the urgent demands, the difficul- ties of life. The rich man can shut himself up with liis grief, he can steep himself in it, live in it, do only these two things : suffer and weep. 270 Fromont and Risler. The poor man has neither the power nor the right so to do. I knew a countrywoman in my province, an old woman who had lost her daughter and her husband in the same year, two terrible trials in rapid succession ; but she still had boys to bring up and a farm to manage. She must be astir at daybreak, attending to everything, over- looking men engaged in various kinds of work, scattered through the fields and leagues apart. The poor widow said to me : " I have n't a minute in the whole week to cry; but on Sunday, oh ! on Sunday, I make up for it." And it was the fact that on that day, while the children went out to walk, or played out-of-doors, she would lock herself in her room and pass the afternoon weeping and sob- bing and calling her husband and daughter through the silent house. Mamma Delobelle had not even her Sunday. Consider that she had to work alone now, that her fingers had not the marvellous dexterity of Desiree's little hands, that medicines were dear, and that she would not for anything in the world have interfered with one of " the father's " cherished habits. And so, at whatever hour the invalid opened her eyes, she would see her mother, in the pale light of early morning, or under her night lamp, working, working without rest. When the curtains of her bed were drawn, she would hear the sharp metallic sound of the scissors as they were laid upon the table. Her mother's fatigue, this sleepless vigilance that constantly bore her fever company, was a She Promised not to Try Again. 271 source of suffering to her. Sometimes they over- shadowed all the rest. " Come, give me my work," she would say, try- ing to sit up in bed. It was like a ray of light in the darkness that grew more dense every day. Mamma Delobelle, seeing in that request of the invalid a sign of renewed interest in life, would ar- range her as comfortably as possible, and move up the table. But the needle was too heavy, the eyes too weak, and the slightest sound of a carriage rumbling over the pavement, a shout rising to the windows, reminded Desiree that the street, the horrible street, was there, close at hand. No, she certainly had not the strength to live. Ah ! if she could only have died first, and then have been born again ! Meanwhile she was dying and en- veloping herself little by little in perfect self-renun- ciation. Between two stitches the mother would look up at her child, whose face grew paler and paler : " How do you feel ? " "Very well," the sick girl would reply, with a faint, heart-broken smile, which illumined her sor- rowful face and showed all the ravages that had been wrought upon it, as a sunbeam, stealing into a poor man's lodging, instead of brightening it, brings out more clearly its cheerlessness and nudity. Then there would be long pauses, the mother silent for fear of weeping, the daughter benumbed by fever, already enveloped in those invisible veils wherein death, with a sort of compassion, envel- ops the moribund, in order to overcome their 272 Fr onion t and Rislci\ remaining strength and to bear them away more gently, without a struggle. The illustrious Delobelle was never there. He had not changed in any respect the habits of a strolling player out of an engagement. And yet he knew that his daughter was dying: the doctor had told him so. Moreover, it had been a terrible blow to him, for, at heart, he loved his child dearly; but in that singular nature the most sincere, the most genuine feelings adopted a false and unnat- ural mode of expression, by the same law which ordains that, when a shelf is placed awry, nothing that you place upon it seems to stand straight. Delobelle's natural tendency was, before every- thing, to air his grief, to spread it abroad. He played the role of the unhappy father from one end of the boulevard to the other. He was always to be found in the neighborhood of the theatres or at the actors' restaurant, wnth red eyes and pale cheeks. He loved to invite the question : " Well, my poor old fellow, how are things going at home?" Thereupon he would shake his head with a nervous gesture ; his grimace held tears in check, his mouth imprecations, and he would stab heaven with a silent glance, overflowing with wrath, as when he played the Medeciu dcs En- fant s ; all of which did not prevent him, however, from bestowing the most delicate and thoughtful attentions upon his daughter. For instance, he had adopted the practice, since she had been ill, of bringing her flowers from his wanderings about Paris ; and he was not content She Promised not to Try Again. 273 with common flowers, with the humble violets which bloom at every street corner for lii^ht purses. In those melancholy autumn days he must have roses and pinks and, above all, white lilacs, lilacs raised under glass, with flowers and leaves and stalk of the same greenish white, as if nature in her haste had adhered to a uniform coloring. " Oh ! it is too much, it is too much ; I shall be angry," the sick girl would always say, when he entered the room in triumph, nosegay in hand ; but he would reply with such a lordly air: " Non- sense, nonsense ! " that she dared not insist. And yet it was a very expensive habit, and the mother had such hard work to earn a living for them all. But Mamma Delobelle, far from complaining, considered it a very lovely thing for her great man to do. Such contempt for money, such superb reckless- ness, filled her with admiration, and she believed more implicitly than eycr in her husband's genius and his theatrical future. He also maintained an unalterable confidence, no matter what happened. And }'et iiis eyes came very near being opened to the truth at last. A hot little hand laid upon that pompous, illusion- ridden head, came very near expelling the bee that had been buzzing there so long. This is how it came to pass. One night Ddsiree awoke with a start, in a very strange state. It should be said that tlie doctor, when he came to see her on the preceding even- 2 74 Fr 07110 lit and Risler. ing, had been greatly surprised to find her sud- denly brighter and calmer, and entirely free from fever. Without attempting to explain this un- hoped-for resurrection, he had gone away, saying: " Let us wait and see; " he relied upon the power of youth to throw off disease, upon the resistless force of the life-giving sap, which often engrafts a new life upon the very symptoms of death. If he had looked under Desir^e's pillow, he would have found there a letter postmarked Cairo, wherein lay the secret of that happy change. Four pages signed by Frantz, his whole conduct confessed and explained to his dear little Zizi. It was the very letter of which the sick girl had dreamed. If she had dictated it herself, all the phrases likely to touch her heart, all the delicately worded excuses likely to pour balm into her wounds would have been less satisfactorily ex- pressed. Frantz repented, asked forgiveness, and without making any promises, above all without asking anything from her, described to his faithful friend his struggles, his remorse, his sufferings. He inveighed against Sidonie, urged Desiree to distrust her, and, with a resentment which his for- mer passion made wofully clear-sighted, he wrote of that wicked and at the same time superficial nature, of that soft voice made for falsehood and never betrayed by an accent from the heart, — for it came from the head, like all of that Parisian doll's passionate outbursts. What a misfortune that that letter had not arrived a few days earlier. Now, all those kind She Promised not io Try Again. 275 words were to Desirce like the dainty dishes that are brought too late to a man dyin<:j of hunger. He inhales their perfume, longs for them, but has not the strength to taste them. All day long the sick girl read and re-read her letter. She would take it from the envelope, then fold it once more with loving hands, and, closing her eyes, see it still from beginning to end, even to the color of the stamp. Frantz had thought of her ! That thought alone was so infinitely sweet to her that she fell asleep at last with the impression of a loving arm supporting her feeble head. Suddenly she awoke, and, as we said a moment since, in an extraordinary state. She had a sense of weakness, of agoni.zing pain throughout her being — something beyond all power of expression. It seemed to her that her life hung by a mere thread, a thread stretched to the breaking point, whose nervous vibration imparted a supernatural acuteness and delicacy to all her faculties. It was dark. The room in which she lay — her parents had given her their room, which was more spacious and airy than her little closet — was half in dark- ness. The night lamp made its flickering circle of light on the ceiling, that depressing sort of constel- lation which interests the wakeful hours of invalids; and the lamp on the table, turned low and re- stricted by the shade, lighted only the scattered work and the silhouette of Mamma Delobelle dozing in her armchair. In Dcsirce's head, which seemed to her lighter than usual, there suddenly began a grand proces- 276 Fromont and Risler. sion of thoughts and memories. The most distant periods of her past seemed to approach her. The most trivial incidents of her childhood, scenes that she had not then understood, words heard as in a dream, recurred to her mind. The child was surprised but felt no fear. She did not know that, prior to the utter annihilation of death, people frequently pass through a moment of singular exaltation, as if the whole being were exhausting its faculties and its strength in one last involuntary struggle. From her bed she could see her father and mother, one by her side, the other in the work- room, the door of which had been left open. Mamma Delobelle was lying back in her chair in the careless attitude of long-continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre cuts with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of slumber. During the day a strong will and engrossing duties place a mask, as it were, over the real expression of men's faces ; but the night restores them to themselves. At that moment the stout-hearted woman's deep wrinkles, her reddened eyelids, her sparse hair, white at the temples, the wasted hands distorted by toil — all these could be seen, and Desiree saw them all. She would have liked to be strong enough to rise and kiss that lovely, placid brow, furrowed by WTinkles which did not mar its beauty. In striking contrast to that picture, the illustrious She Promised not to Try Again. 277 Delobelle appeared to his daughter tlirouijli the open door in one of his favorite attitudes. Seated before the Httle white cloth that bore his supper, with his body at an angle of sixty-seven and a half degrees, he was eating and at the same time running through a pamphlet which rested against the carafe in front of him. The great man had just come in — in fact, the sound of his footsteps had aroused the invalid, and, still excited by the animation and sparkle of a fine performance, he was supping alone, gravely and solcmnl}', arrayed in his new frock coat, his napkin in his neck, his hair disciplined with a slight touch of the curling- tongs. For the first time in her life Desir6e noticed the striking lack of harmony between her emaciated mother, scantih' clad in little black dresses which made her look even thinner and more haggard than she really was, and her happy, well-fed, idle, placid, thoughtless father. At a glance she real- ized the diftcrence between the two lives. The circle of habits, in which children end by seeing outside objects indistinctl)*, their e}-es being trained to its special light, had disappeared so far as she was concerned. Now she judged her par- ents from a distance, as if she had insensibly moved away from them. That clearness of vision at the last hour was an additional source of suffer- ing. What would become of them when she was no longer there? luther her mother would work too hard and would kill herself; or else the poor woman would be obliged to cease working alto- 278 Fromont and Risler. gather and that selfish husband, forever engrossed by his theatrical ambition, would allow them both to drift gradually into abject poverty, that black hole which widens and deepens as one goes down into it. And yet he was not a bad man, he had proved it to them many and many a time. But there was a far-reaching blindness which nothing had ever succeeded in relieving. Suppose she were to try? Suppose that, before going away — something told her that she would go very soon — before going away, she should tear away the thick bandage that the poor man kept over his eyes wilfully and by force? Only a hand as light and loving as hers could attempt that operation. Only she had the right to say to her father : " Earn your living. Give up the stage." Thereupon, as time was flying, Desiree Delo- belle summoned all her courage and called softly : " Papa — papa — " At his daughter's first summons, the great man hurried to her side. There had been that evening a "first night" at the Ambigu, and he had come home intensely excited, electrified. The chande- liers, the claque, the conversation in the foyer, all the stimulating details upon which he fed his mania, had left him more confirmed than ever in his illusions. He entered Desiree's bedroom, radiant and superb, very erect, his lamp in his hand and a camellia in his buttonhole. She Promised uol to Try Again. 279 " Good evening, Zizi, Arc n't you asleep? " His voice had a joyous intonation that produced a strange effect amid the prcvaiHng gloom. Desir^c motioned to him not to speak, pointing to her sleeping mother. " Put down your lamp, — I have something to say to you." Her voice, broken by emotion, impressed him; and so did her eyes, for they seemed larger than usual, and were lighted by a piercing glance that he had never seen in them. He approached with something like awe, taking out his camellia to give to her, with his mouth in the shape of a " little apple," and with a great squeaking of new boots, which he considered very aristocratic. His bearing was clearly embarrassed, a result doubtless of the too great contrast between the brilliantly lighted, noisy theatre he had lately left and that little sick room, where the muffled sounds, the lowered lights, died away in an atmos- phere of fever. "Why, what's the matter, Bichette? Do you feel any worse? " D6siree replied with a movement of her little pale face that she felt very ill and that she wanted to speak to him very close, very close. When the great man stood by her pillow, she laid her burning hand on the great man's arm and v/hispercd in his ear. She was very ill, hopelessly ill. She real- ized fully that she had not long to live. " Then, father, you will be left alone with mamma. Don't tremble like that. You knew 28o Froniont and Risler. that this thing must come, yes, that it was very near. But I want to tell you this. When I am gone, I am terribly afraid mamma won't be strong enough to support the family. Just see how pale and exhausted she is." The actor looked at his " sainted wife," and seemed greatly surprised to find that she did really look so badly. Then he consoled himself with the selfish remark : " She never was very strong." That remark and the tone in which it was made angered Desiree and strengthened her determina- tion. She continued, without pity for the actor's illusions : " What will become of you two when I am no longer here? Oh! I know that you have great hopes, but it takes them a long while to come to anything. The results you have waited for so long may not come for a long time to come ; and until then what will you do? Listen ! my dear father, I would not willingly hurt you ; but it seems to me that at your age, as intelligent as you are, it would be easy for you — I am sure Monsieur Risler Ain6 would ask nothing better." She spoke slowly, with an effort, carefully choos- ing her words, leaving long pauses between every two sentences, hoping always that they might be filled by a movement, an exclamation from her father. But the actor did not understand. He listened, he stared at her with his eyes open to their fullest extent, feeling vaguely that an accusa- tion was rising up against him from that innocent, She Promised not to Try Again. 28 1 inexorable, childish conscience; he did not yet know what it was. " I think that you would do well," pursued Desiree, timidly, " I think that you would do well to give up — " " Eh ? — what ? — what 's that ? " She paused when she saw the effect of her words. The old actor's mobile features were suddenly con- tracted under the lash of violent despair; and tears, genuine tears which he did not even think of concealing behind his hand as they do on the stage, filled his eyes but did not flow, so tightly did his agony clutch him by the throat. The poor devil began to understand. And so, of the only two admirations which had remained faithful to him, one was turning its back upon his glory! His daughter no longer believed in him. It was impossible. He had misunderstood, he had not heard aright. What would he do well to give up, come, let us see. But in face of the unspoken prayer, of that glance imploring mercy, Desiree had not the courage to finish. Moreover, the poor child was at the end of her strength and her life. She murmured twice or thrice: " To give up — to give up — " Then her little head fell back upon the pillow, and she died without having dared to tell him what he would do well to give up. The woman Delobelle is dead, Monsieur le Commissairc. Did I not say that she would never try again? This time death has spared her the 282 Fromoul and Risler. long walk and the trouble ; it came itself and took her. And now, unbelieving man, four strong spruce boards nailed solidly together answer to you for that child's promise. She promised not to try again, she will never try again. The little lame girl is dead. That is the news of the hour in the Francs-Bourgeois quarter, which was deeply stirred by that mournful occurrence. Not that Desiree was very popular there, for she never went out and only occasionally showed at the window her hermit-like pallor and the dark- ringed eyes of the untiring working-girl. But the burial of the illustrious Delobclle's daughter could not fail to be attended by many actors, and Paris adores those people. It loves to see those idols of the evening pass through the streets in broad day- light; to study their real features, away from the glamour of the footlights. And so, on that morning, while white draperies were being hung with much hammering under the little narrow doorway on Rue de Braque, the sidewalk and the street were crowded with sightseers. We must do the guild of actors the justice to say that they are attached to one another, or at all events are held together by a fraternal feeling, a professional bond which brings them together on all occasions of external manifestations: balls, con- certs, actors' dinners, funerals. Although Delobelle was no longer on the stage, although his name had disappeared altogether from newspaper criticisms and posters more than fifteen years before, a little notice of two lines She Promised not to Try Again. 2.S3 in an obscure theatrical journal was sufificient: M, Delobelle, formerly leading man at the theatres of Mcta and Alencon, has had the misfortune, etc. Those who wish to attend zvill meet, etc. From every corner of Paris and the suburbs the actors came in crowds at that summons. Famous or not famous, unknown or renowned, they were all there, — those who had played with Dclobclle in the provinces, those who met him in the actors' cafes, where he was like one of the faces which one sees every day, to which it is diffi- cult to give a name, but which one remembers be- cause of the surroundings in which one sees them and of which they seem to be a part ; then there were provincial actors, passing through Paris, who came there to "flush" a manager and secure a good engagement. And all alike, the obscure and the illustrious, Parisians and provincials, with but one absorbing thought, to see their names mentioned by some newspaper in a description of the funeral. For to those creatures of vanity all kinds of publicity seem desirable. They are so afraid that the public will forget them, that the moment they leave the stage they feel that they must make people talk about them, must resort to any means to recall themselves to the memory of fickle, ever-changing Parisian fashion. As parly as nine o'clock all the common people of the Marais — that gossip-loving province — were awaiting the coming of the actors, at windows and doors or in the streets. The working-girls looked 284 Fromont and Risler. out through the dusty windows of the shops, the petty bourgeois from behind their plaited curtains, housekeepers with their baskets on their arms, apprentices with bundles on their heads. At last they arrived, on foot or in carriages, singly or in parties. They could be recognized by their clean shaven faces with a bluish tinge on the chin and cheeks, by their affected manner, too em- phatic or too simple, by their conventional gestures, and, above all, by that overflow of sentiment which results from the exaggeration required by the op- tical conditions of the stage. The different ways in which those worthy fellows manifested their emotion on that painful occasion were truly inter- esting to watch. Every appearance in the dark little paved courtyard of the house of death, was like an appearance on the stage, and varied accord- ing to the speciality of the actor. The great lead- ■Jng parts, with fateful air and wrinkled brow, one and all began upon their arrival by brushing away with the end of the glove a tear which they could no longer restrain in the corner of the eye, then sighed, glanced at the sky, and stood in the centre of the stage, that is to say the courtyard, hat on hip, with a slight tapping of the left foot whicli assisted them to restrain their grief: " Be still, m}- heart, be still." The coniiqiics, on the other hand, " carried it off" with simplicity. They accosted one another with a compassionate air of good- fellowship, called one another ma paiiv* vicille} with earnest, nervous hand-shakes, a trembling of 1 Lit., " my poor old girl." She Promised not to Try Again. 285 the flabby cheeks, a drooping at the corner of the eyes and hps which reduced their emotion to the trivial level of farce. All sorts of mannerisms, and all equally sincere. As soon as they appeared, these gentlemen divided into two camps. The celebrated actors glanced disdainfully at the unknown, shabby Rob- ricarts, whose envy flung back their contempt in innumerable insulting remarks : "Have you noticed how So-and-so has aged? He won't be able to hold his parts long." The illustrious Delobelle went back and forth between the two groups, dressed in black, neatly gloved in black, with red eyes and clenched teeth, distributing silent hand-clasps. The poor devil's heart was full of tears, but that did not prevent his having his hair curled and arranged 01 doni-Cnpoiit for the occasion. A strange compound. No one could have said, after reading his heart, at what point genuine grief ended and the affectation of grief began, they were so inextricably mingled. — Among the actors there were several other persons of our acquaintance. Monsieur Chebe, more im- portant than ever, hovered assiduously about the popular actors, while Madame Chebe bore the poor mother company upstairs. Sidonie had been un- able to come ; but Risler Ain6 was there, almost as deeply moved — good Risler, the friend in need, who had paid all the expenses of the sad ceremony, so that the mourning carriages were superb, with silver-fringed draperies, and the bier was strewn with white roses and violets. In the wretched. 2^6 Fromont and Risler. dismal hall opening on Rue de Braque, those mod- est white decorations under the tapers, those trem- bling flowers sprinkled with holy water, bore a striking resemblance to the destiny of that poor child, whose faintest smiles had always been drenched with tears. The procession moved slowly through the winding streets. At the head stalked Delobelle, shaken by sobs, almost as deeply moved on his own account, a poor father burying his child, as on his dead daugh- ter's, and, in the background of his sincere sorrow, his ever-present vain personality, like a stone in the bed of a stream, unmoved by the rushing waters. The pomp and parade of the ceremony, the black line which blocked travel in the streets as it passed, the draped carriages, the Rislers' little coupe which Sidonie had sent to give tone to the occasion, — it all flattered and excited him, do what he would. Unable to contain himself, he turned to Robricart, who was walking beside him : " Did you notice? " " What do you mean? " The unhappy father, wiping his eyes, murmured, not without a touch of pride : " There are two private carriages." Dear little Zizi, so kindly and so simple ! All that ostentation of sorrow, all those solemn-faced mourners were hardly suited to her. But happily Mamma Delobelle, whom they had been unable to keep from watching her little one's departure, was standing behind the drawn blinds of the work-room window. She Promised not to Try Again. 29>j "Adieu! adieu!" said the mother in an under- tone, ahnost to herself, wringint^ her hands with the senseless gesture of a dotard or a madwoman. Softly as those farewell words were said, Desiree Delobelle must have heard them. 288 Fromont and Rislcr. BOOK FOURTH. THE FANCIFUL LEGEND OF THE LITTLE BLUE MAN. You may believe me or not, as you choose, but I am a firm believer in the little blue man. Not that I have ever seen him ; but a friend of mine, a poet, in whom I have every confidence, has fre- quently told me that he found himself face to face with that strange little imp one night, and this is how it happened. My friend had been weak enough to give his tailor a note ; and like all men of imagination under similar circumstances, as soon as his signa- ture was given he had supposed that he was rid of his debt forever, and all thought of the note passed from his mind. Now it happened that our poet was awakened with a start one night by a strange noise in his chimney. He thought at first that it was some cold-blooded little sparrow seeking the w^armth from the dying fire, or a weathercock annoyed by a change in the wind. But after a moment, as the noise became more dis- tinct, he clearly distinguished the jingling of a bag of gold-pieces mingled with a vague rattling of TJie Fanciful Lcgejid. 289 chains. At the same time he heard a shrill little voice, like a locomotive whistle in the distance, clear as the crowing of a rooster, shout to him from the roof: " The note ! the note ! " "Ah! my God! my note!" said the poor fel- low, suddenly remembering that the document he had given his tailor fell due in a week; and he did nothing until morning but toss and turn, seek- ing sleep in every corner of his bed and finding only the thought of that accursed note of hand. The next night and the next and every night thereafter, he was awakened at the same time and in the same way ; the same jingling of money, the rattling of a chain, and the little voice crying with a sneering laugh : " The note ! the note ! " The worst part of it was that, as the day when the note was to mature came nearer and nearer, the voice became shriller and fiercer, more full of threats of execution and bankruptcy. Ill-fated poet ! your fatiguing labors of the day, your scouring of the city to obtain money, were not enough, it seems ; to cap the climax, that cruel little voice must come and rob you of sleep and rest. To whom did that fantastic voice belong, in God's name? What malicious spirit could take pleasure in martyrizing him thus? lie determined to set his mind at rest. Accordingly one night, instead of going to bed, he put out his light, opened his window, and waited. I need not tell you that in his capacity of l}Tic poet, my friend lived way up in the air, on a level with the roofs. For several hours he saw nothing 19 290 Fromont and Risler, but that picturesque expanse of roofs packed closely together, and sloping toward each other, through which streets ran in all directions like great precipices, and the even surface of which was broken capriciously by chimneys and gable ends notched by a ray of moonlight. It was like a seccnd city above dark and slumbering Paris, an aeria/ city suspended in mid-air between the black void below and the dazzling light of the moon. M / friend waited, waited a long while. At last, abo"«t two or three o'clock in the morning, just as all the steeples rising out of the darkness were passing the hour from one to another, he heard a light step close at hand running over the tiles and slates, and a shrill little voice called into the chim- siey: "The note! the note!" Thereupon, by leaning out a little, my poet spied the villainous little man-tormenting imp who had spoiled his sleep for a week. He could not tell me anything positively as to his size; the moon plays you such tricks by the fantastic dimensions it gives to objects and their shadows. He noticed only that the strange devilkin was dressed like the messengers from the Bank, blue coat with silver buttons, crush hat, a sergeant's stripes on his sleeve, and that he had a leather wallet almost as big as himself under his arm, the key to which hung at the end of a long chain and jangled madly at every step, like the bag of money which he waved in the other hand. Thus it was that my friend caught a glimpse of the little blue fellow, as he flitted swiftly across a moonbeam; The Fanciful Legend. 291 for he seemed very hurried, full of business, cleared the streets at one leap and ran from chimney to chimney, c^liding over the roofs. That infernal little man has such a numerous clientage, you see. There arc so many tradesmen in Paris, so many men who dread the end of the month, so many poor devils who have signed a note of hand or written the word " accepted " across a draft. To all those people the little blue man gave as he passed his warning cry. He uttered it over factories, at that hour lifeless and silent, over great financial houses, sleeping amid the luxurious silence of their gardens, over the houses of five and six floors, the uneven, incon- gruous roofs that are massed together in the heart of the poorer quarters. " The note ! the note ! " From end to end of the city, in that crystal atmos- phere which intense cold and bright moonlight produce in high places, the little strident voice rang out pitilessly. Wherever it was heard it banished sleep, awoke anxiety, wearied the mind and the eyes, and sent a sort of vague shudder of unrest and insomnia from the attic to the cellar of Parisian houses. Think what you will of this legend, at all events here is something of which I can affirm the truth in support of my poet's talc : one night, near the end of January, old Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont Jeune and Risler Ainc, was awakened with a start in his little house at Mont- rouge by the same teasing voice, the same rattling of chains, followed by that fatal cry: 292 Fromont and Risler, "The note!" " That is true," thought the worthy man, sitting up in bed ; " day after to-morrow will be the last day of the month. And I have the courage to sleep ! " In truth, a considerable sum of money must be raised : a hundred thousand francs to be paid on two obligations, and at a moment when, for the first time in thirty years, the strong-box of the house of Fromont was absolutely empty. What was to be done? Sigismond had tried several times to speak to Fromont Jeune, but he seemed to shun the burdensome responsibility of business, and when he walked through the offices was always in a hurry, feverishly excited, and seemed neither to see nor hear anything about him. He answered the old cashier's anxious questions, gnawing his moustache : " All right, all right, my old Planus. Don't dis- turb yourself, I will look into it." And as he said it he seemed to be thinking of something else, to be a thousand leagues away from his surroundings. It was rumored in the factory, where his liaison with Madame Risler was no longer a secret to anybody, that Sidonie deceived him, made him very unhappy; and, indeed, his mistress's whims wor- ried him much more than his cashier's anxiety. As for Risler, no one ever saw him; he passed his days shut up in a room under the eaves, overseeing the mysterious, interminable manufacture of his machines. This indifference on the part of the employers The Fanciful Legend. 293 to the affairs of the factory, this absohite lack of oversight, had led by slow degrees to general demoralization. Workmen and clerks did as they pleased, came late to their work and disappeared early, with no thought of the old bell, which, after regulating the hours of work so many years, seemed now to sound the alarm of impending dis- aster. Some business was still done, because an established house will go on alone for years by force of the first impetus ; but what ruin, what chaos beneath that apparent prosperity ! Sigismond knew it better than any one, and that is why the little blue man's cry had roused him so quickly from his sleep. As if to cee his way more clearly amid the multitude of painful thoughts which whirled madly through his brain, the cashier lighted his candle, sat down on his bed, and thought: "Where were they to find that hundred thousand francs?" To be sure there was more than that owing to the firm. There were old accounts that had been dragging along for years, balances due from the Prochassons and others ; but what a humiliation it would be for him to go about collecting all those ancient bills ! That sort of thing is not done in the higher business circles; it is better suited to petty retail concerns. And yet even that would be preferable to a protest. Oh ! the thought that the messenger from the Bank would come to his grating with a self-assured, confident air and tranquilly place his notes on the shelf, and that he, Planus, Sigismond Planus, would be obliged to say to him : 294 Frojuont and Risler. "Take the notes back. I have no funds to meet them." No, no ! That was not possible. Any sort of humiliation was preferable to that. " Well it 's decided. I will go to-morrow," sighed the poor cashier. And while he tossed about in torture, unable to close an eye until morning, the blue man, continu- ing his rounds, shook his bag of money and his chain over an attic on Boulevard Beaumarchais to which the illustrious Delobelle had moved with his wife after Desiree's death. Alas! the little lame girl had not gone astray in her predictions. When she had gone, Mamma Delobelle was not long able to continue her work upon the birds and insects for ornament. Her eyes were dimmed with tears, her old hands trembled so that she could not mount the hum- ming-birds straight, and despite all her efforts, their faces retained a piteous, grieved expression. She was obliged to give up. Thereupon the brave woman took up sewing. She mended laces and embroideries, and gradually descended to the level of a seamstress. But her constantly decreasing earnings hardly sufficed for the most necessary household expenses, and Delobelle, whose exact- ing profession of actor /// partibns compelled him to spend money freely, was driven to incur debts. He owed his tailor, his bootmaker, his shirtmaker ; but what disturbed him most were the famous breakfasts he had eaten at the cafe on the boule- vard, in his managerial days. The Fanciful Legend. 295 The bill amounted to two hundred and fifty francs, payable at the end of January, and there was no hope of further renewal; so that the little blue man's cry sent a shiver throui^h his every limb. Only one day more before it was due ! Only one day more to procure the two hundred and fifty francs ! If he failed to procure them, everything in their apartment would be sold. Sold the poor furniture, never renewed since the beginning of their housekeeping — insufficient, to be sure, and inconvenient, but dear by reason of the memories awakened by its frayed edges, by the signs of long usage on certain corners. Sold the long table of the birds and insects for ornament, at one end of which he had supped for twenty years. Sold Zizi's great armchair, at which they could not look without tears, and which seemed to have retained something of their darling, her movements, her attitudes, the prostration of her long days of toil and dreaming. It would surely kill Mamma Delo- belle to see all those precious souvenirs taken away. As he thought of that, the unlucky strolling player, whose dense selfishness did not always shield him from the stings of remorse, tossed and turned in his bed, heaved profound sighs; and all the while he had before his eyes D6siree's little pale face, with its imploring, affectionate expres- sion, which she turned anxiously toward him as she died, asking him under her breath to give up — to give up — What could it have been that she 296 Fromout and Risler, wanted her father to give up? She had died before she succeeded in telling him ; but Delobelle had partly understood none the less, and since then uneasiness and doubt had found their way into that pitiless nature ; to-night they added cruelly to the burden of his pecuniary perplexities. " The note ! the note ! " This time it was Monsieur Chebe's chimney down which the little blue man hurled his fateful cry as he passed. It should be said that Monsieur Chebe had recently embarked in some considerable enter- prise, a " standing " business, very vague, exces- sively vague, which consumed a deal of money. On several different occasions Risler and Sidonie had been obliged to pay their father's debts, on the express condition that he would remain in retirement, that he would let business alone ; but these constant plunges were necessary to his exist- ence. He took the plunge each time with renewed courage, with a more restless activity. When he had no money. Monsieur Chebe gave his signature ; indeed, he deplorably abused that signature of his, always relying on the profits of the undertaking to meet his engagements. The devil of it was that the profits never appeared, whereas the notes he had signed, after roving from one end of Paris to the other for months, returned to the house with despairing punctuality, all black with hieroglyphics picked up on their travels. As it happened, his January engagements were very heavy, and when he heard the little blue man The Fanciful Legend. 297 pass, he suddenly remembered that he had not a sou with which to meet them. Death ! Me must needs go once more and humble himself before that Risler, run the risk of being refused, confess that he had broken his word. The poor devil's agony as he thought of those things was heightened by the silence of night, when the eye is unoccupied, when the mind has nothing to distract it, and by the horizontal position which, by dint of making the whole body helpless, abandons the mind, with- out means of defence, to its terrors and its anxieties. Again and again Monsieur Chebc lighted his lamp, picked up his newspaper and struggled vainly to read, to the vast displeasure of good Madame Chebe, who groaned softly and turned toward the wall in order not to see the light. And meanwhile the infernal little blue man, enchanted with his mischief-making, went his way with his sneering laugh to jingle his bag of money and his chain a little farther on. Behold him on Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, above a great factory where all the windows are dark save a single one on the first floor at the end of the garden. Notwithstanding the late hour, Georges Fromont had not yet retired. He was sitting by the fire, with his head in his hands, in the blind and dumb concentration due to irreparable misfortune, think- ing of Sidonie, of that horrible Sidonie who was asleep at that moment on the floor above. She was positively driving him mad. She was false to him, he was sure of it, — she was false to him with the Toulousan tenor, that Cazabon, alias Cazaboni, 29^^ Fromont and Risler. whom Madame Dobson had brought to the house. For a long time he had implored her not to receive that man; but Sidonie would not listen to him, and on that very day, speaking of a grand ball she was about to give, she had declared explicitly that nothing should prevent her inviting her tenor. " Then he 's your lover ! " Georges had ex- claimed angrily, his eyes gazing into hers. She had not denied it ; she had not even turned her eyes away. But, still with the utmost coolness, she had informed him, with her wicked little smile, that she admitted no man's right to judge or to interfere with her actions, that she was free, that she proposed to remain free and not to allow him to tyrannize over her any more than Risler. The}' had passed an hour so, in her carriage, with the shades lowered, disputing, insulting each other, almost fighting. And to think that he had sacrificed everything to that woman, — his fortune, his honor, even his lovely Claire, who lay sleeping with her child in the adjoining room — a whole lifetime of happiness within reach of his hand, which he had spurned for that vile creature ! Now she had admitted that she did not love him, that she loved another. And he, the coward, still longed for her. In heaven's name what potion had she given him? Carried away by indignation that made the blood boil in his veins, Georges Fromont started - from his armchair and strode feverishly up and down the room, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the sleeping house like living insomnia. The The Fanciful Legend. 299 other was asleep upstairs. She could sleep by fav^or of her heedless, remorseless nature. Perhaps too she was thinking of her Cazaboni. When that thought passed through his mind, Georges had a mad longing to go up, to wake Risler, to tell him everything and destroy himself with her. Really that deluded husband was too idiotic ! Why did he not watch her more closely? She was pretty enough, yes, and vicious enough too for every precaution to be taken with her. And it was while he was struggling amid such cruel and unfruitful reflections as these that the little blue man's cry of alarm suddenly rang out above the whistling of the wind. " The notes ! the notes ! " The miserable wretch ! Tn his wrath he had entirely forgotten them. And }'et he had long watched the approach of that terrible last day of January. How many times, between two assigna- tions, when his mind, free for a moment from thoughts of Sidonie, recurred to his business, to the realities of life — how many times had he said to himself: "That day will be the end of ever>'- thing ! " But as with all those who live in the delirium of intoxication, his cowardice convinced him that it was too late to mend matters, and he returned more quickly and more determinedly to his evil courses, in order to forget, to divert his thoughts. But now it was no longer possible to divert his thoughts. He saw the impending disaster clearly, in its full meaning; and Sigismond Planus's 300 Fromont and Risler. wrinkled, solemn face rose before him with its sharply-cut features, whose absence of expression softened their "harshness, and his light German- Swiss eyes, which had haunted him for many weeks with their impassive stare. Well, no, he had not the hundred thousand francs, nor did he know where to get them. In the past six months he had played heavily and lost enormous sums, in his effort to gratify his mistress's ruinous whims. In addition to that, there had been the failure of a banker, and that inexorable balance-sheet. Nothing was left but the factory, and in what a condition ! Where was he to turn now ; what could he do? The crisis which, a few hours before, seemed to him a chaos, an eddying whirl in which he could see nothing distinctly and whose very confusion was a source of hope, appeared to him at that moment with appalling distinctness. An empty cash-box, closed doors, notes protested, ruin. That is what he saw whichever way he turned. And when, on top of all the rest, came the thought of Sidonie's treachery, the wretched, desperate man, finding nothing to cling to in that shipwreck, suddenly uttered a sob, a cry of agony, as if ap- pealing for help to some higher power. " Georges, Georges, it 's I. What is the matter? " His wife stood before him, his wife who now waited for him every night, watching anxiously for his return from the Club, for she still believed that he passed his evenings there. Seeing her husband TJic Fanciful Legend. 301 change, grow more depressed day by day, Claire fancied that he must be in great trouble concerning money, probably on account of losses at play. She had been told that he played a great deal, and notwithstanding the indifference with which he treated her, she was anxious for him, and longed to have him make her his confidant, give her an opportunity to show her generosity and affection. That night she had heard him walking very late in his room. As her little daughter had a severe cough and required her care every moment, she had divided her solicitude between the child's suf- fering and the father's, and had lain there, listening to every sound, in one of those tearful, sorrowful vigils in which women summon all the courage they possess to enable them to support the heavy burden of manifold duty. At last the child fell asleep, and Claire, hearing the father sob, ran to him. Oh ! what boundless, though tardy remorse overwhelmed him when he saw her before him, so deeply moved, so lovely and so loving ! Yes, she was in very truth the true companion, the faithful friend. How could he have deserted her? For a long, long time he wept upon her shoulder, unable to speak. And it was fortunate that he did not speak, for he would have told her all, all. The unhappy man felt the need of pouring out his heart, — an irresistible longing to accuse himself, to ask forgiveness, to lessen the weight of the remorse that was crushing him. She spared him the pain of uttering a word : 302 Froinont and R is lev. "You have been gambling, have you not? You have lost — lost heavily?" He moved his head affirmatively ; then, when he was able to speak, he confessed that he must have a hundred thousand francs for the day after the morrow, and that he did not know how to obtain them. She did not reproach him. She was one of those women who, when face to face with disaster, think only of repairing it, without a word of recrim- ination. Indeed, in the bottom of her heart she blessed this misfortune which brought him nearer to her and became a bond between their two lives, which had long lain so far apart. She reflected a moment. Then, with an effort indicating a resolu- tion which had cost a bitter struggle, she said : " All is not lost as yet. I will go to Savigny to- morrow and ask my grandfather for the money." He would never have dared to suggest that to her. Indeed, it would never have occurred to him. She was so proud and old Gardinois so hard 1 Surely that was a great sacrifice for her to make for him, and a striking proof of her love. He was suddenly conscious of that feeling of warmth, of lightness about the heart that comes after danger has passed. Claire appeared to him like a super- natural creature endowed with the gift of soothing and consoling, just as the other, up yonder, had the gift of fascination and destruction. He would gladly have knelt before that lovely face, which her superb black hair, negligently twisted for the night, framed with a glossy blue-black halo, and The Fancifiil Legend. 303 in which the somewhat severe Hnes of the rcj^ular features were softened b)' an adorably tender expression. " Claire, Claire, — how cjood you are ! " VV^ithout replying, she led him to their child's cradle. "Kiss her," she said softly; and as they stood there side by side, their heads leaning over the child, whose breath, quiet now but still a little quickened by the racking cough, Georges was afraid of waking her, and he embraced the mother passionately. Certain it is that that was the first effect of that sort that the appearance of the little blue fellow ever produced in a household. Ordinarily, wher- ever that horrible little imp goes, he severs hands and hearts, and turns the mind aside from its most cherished affections by agitating it with the innu- merable anxieties aroused by the rattling of his chain and his ill-omened cry from the house-tops : " The note ! the note ! " 304 Fromont and Risler, II. REVELATIONS. "Ah! here's Sigismond. How goes it, Pere Sigismond? How's business? Is it good with you? " The old cashier smiled affably, shook hands with the master, his wife, and his brother, and, as they talked, looked curiously about. It was a manufac- tory of wall-papers on Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the establishment of the little Prochassons, who were beginning to be formidable rivals. Those former employes of the house of Fromont had set up on their own account, beginning in a very small way, and had gradually succeeded in making for themselves a place on 'Change. Fromont the uncle had assisted them for a long while with his credit and his money; the result being most friendly re- lations between the two firms, and a balance — some ten or fifteen thousand francs — which had never been definitely adjusted, because they knew that money was in good hands when the Prochas- sons had it. Indeed, the appearance of the factory was most reassuring. The chimneys proudly shook their plumes of smoke. The dull roar of constant toil Revelations. 305 indicated that the worksliops were full of work nun and activity. The buildings were in good repair, the windows clean ; everything had an aspect of enthusiasm, of good humor, of discipline ; and be- hind the grating in the counting-room sat the wife of one of the brothers, simply dressed, with her hair neatly brushed, and an air of authority on her youthful face, deeply intent upon a long column of figures. Old Sigismond thought bitterly of the difference between the house of Fromont, once so wealthy, now living entirely upon its former reputation, and the ever-increasing prosperity of the establishment before his eyes. His stealthy glance penetrated to the darkest corners, seeking some defect, some- thing to criticise; and his failure to find anj'thing made his heart heavy and his smile forced and anxious. What embarrassed him most of all was the ques- tion how he should approach the subject of the money due his emplo\'crs without bctra}-ing the emptiness of the strong-box. The poor man as- sumed a jaunty, unconcerned air wliich was truly pitiful to see. — Business was good — very good. lie happened to be passing through the quarter and thought he would come in a moment — that was natural, was it not? One likes to sec old friends. But these preambles, these constantly expanding circumlocutions, did not bring him to the point he wished to reach ; on the contrar}% they led him awa)' from his goal, and imagining that he detected 3o6 From out and Risler, amazement in the eyes of those who listened to him, he went completely astray, stammered, lost his head, and, as a last resort, took his hat and pre- tended to go. At the door he suddenly bethought himself: " Ah ! by the way, as long as I am here — " He gave a litUe wink which he thought sly, but which was in reality heartrending. " As long as I am here, suppose we settle that old account." The two brothers and the young woman in the counting-room gazed at one another a second, unable to understand. "Account? What account, pray?" Then all three began to laugh at the same mo- ment, and heartily too, as if at a jest, a rather broad jest, on the part of the old cashier. — "Go along with you, you sly old Pere Planus ! " — The old man laughed with them ! He laughed without any desire to laugh, simply to do as the others did. At last they explained. Fromont Jeune had come in person, six months before, to collect the balance in their hands. Sigismond felt that his strength was going. He summoned courage however to reply: "Ah! yes; true. I had forgotten. — Sigismond Planus is growing old, that's plain. I am failing, my children, I am failing." And the goodman went away wiping his eyes, in which still glistened great tears caused by the hearty laugh he had just enjoyed. The young pec- Rev e la tions. ^oj pic behind him exchanged glances and shook their heads. They understood. The blow he had received was so crushing that the cashier, as soon as he was out-of-doors, was obliged to sit down on a bench. So that was why Georges did not come to the counting-room for money. He made his collections in person. What had taken place at the Prochassons had probably been repeated everywhere else. It was quite use- less, therefore, for him to subject himself to further humiliation. Yes, but the notes, the notes ! — That thought renewed his strength. He wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead and set out once more to try his fortune with a customer in the faubourg. But this time he took his precautions and called to the cashier from the doorway, without entering : "Good-morning, Pere So-and-So. — I want to ask you a question." He held the door half open, his hand clenched upon the knob. "When did we settle our last bill? I forgot to enter it." Oh ! it was a long while ago, a very long while, that their last bill was settled. I'romont Jeune's receipt was dated in September. It was five months ago. The door was hastily closed. Another ! Evi- dently it would be the same thing everywhere. " Ah ! Monsieur Chorche, Monsieur Chorche," muttered poor Sigismond ; and while he pursued his pilgrimage, with bent head and trembling legs, 3oS Fro7nont and Risler. Madame Fromont Jeune's carriage passed him close, on its way to the Orleans station ; but Claire did not see old Planus, any more than she had seen, when she left her house a few moments earlier, Monsieur Chebe in his long frock-coat and the illustrious Delobelle in his stovepipe hat, turning into Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes at opposite ends, each with the factory and Risler's wallet for his ob- jective point. The young woman was much too deeply engrossed by what she had before her to look into the street. Think of it ! It was horrible. To go and ask M. Gardinois for a hundred thousand francs, — ■ M. Gardinois, a man who boasted that he had never borrowed or loaned a sou in his life, who never lost an opportunity to tell how, on one occasion, being driven to ask his father for forty francs to buy a pair of trousers, he had repaid the loan in small amounts. In his dealings with everybody, even with his children, M. Gardinois followed those tra- ditions of avarice which the earth, the cruel earth, often ungrateful to those who till it, seems to in- culcate in all peasants. The goodman did not pro- pose that any part of his colossal fortune should go to his children during his lifetime. "They'll find my property when I am dead," he often said. Acting upon that principle, he had married his daughter, the elder Madame Fromont, without one sou of dowry, and he never forgave his son-in-law for having made a fortune without assistance from him. For it was one of the peculiarities of that Revelations. 309 nature, made up of vanity and selfishness in equal parts, to wish that everyone should need his help, should bow before his wealth. When the Fromonts expressed in his presence their satisfaction at the prosperous turn their business was beginning to take, his sharp, cunning little blue eye would smile ironically, and he would growl : " We shall see what it all comes to at the end," in a tone that made them shudder. Sometimes too, at Savigny, in the evening, when the park, the avenues, the blue slates of the chateau, the red brick of the stables, the ponds and watercourses shone resplen- dent, bathed in the golden glory of a lovely sunset, this eccentric parvenu would say aloud before his children, after casting his eyes about: " The one thing that consoles me for dying some day is that no one in the family will ever be rich enough to keep a chateau that costs fifty thousand francs a year to keep up." And yet, with that latter-day tenderness which even the sternest grandfathers find in the depths of their hearts, old Gardinois would gladly have made a pet of his granddaughter. But Claire, even as a child, had felt an invincible repugnance for the former peasant's hardness of heart and vainglori- ous selfishness. And when affection forms no bonds between those who are separated b}- differ- ence in education, such repugnance is increased by innumerable trifles. When Claire married Georges, the goodman said to Madame Fromont: " If your daughter wishes, I will give her a royal present; but she must ask for it." 3IO Fromojit and Risler. And Claire got nothing, as she would not ask for anything. What a bitter humiliation to come, three years later, to beg a hundred thousand francs from the generosity she had formerly spurned, to humble herself, to face the endless sermons, the sneering raillery, the whole seasoned with Berrichon jests; with phrases smacking of the soil, with the taunts, often well-deserved, which narrow but logical minds can utter on occasion, and which sting with their vulgar patois like an insult from an inferior. Poor Claire ! Her husband, her father were about to be humiliated in her person. She must necessarily confess the failure of the one, the down- fall of the house which the other had founded and of which he had while he lived been so proud. The thought that she would be called upon to de- fend all that she loved best in the world made her strong and weak at the same time. It was eleven o'clock when she reached Savigny. As she had given no warning of her visit, the car- riage from the chateau was not at the station, and she had no choice but to walk. It was a cold morning and the roads were dry and hard. The north wind blew freely across the arid fields and the river, and swept unopposed through the leafless trees and bushes. The chateau appeared under the low-lying clouds, with its long line of low walls and hedges separating it from the surrounding fields. The slates on the roof were as gloomy as the sky they reflected ; and that magni- ficent summer residence, completely transformed by Revelations. 311 the bitter, silent winter, without a leaf on its trees or a pigeon on its roofs, seemed to have naught of life save its rippling watercourses and the murmur- ing of the tall poplars as they bowed majestically to one another, shaking the magpies' nests hidden among their topmost branches. At a distance Claire fancied that the home of her youth wore a surly, depressed air. It seemed to her that Savigny watched her approach with the cold, aristocratic expression which it assumed for passengers on the high road, who stopped at the iron spikes of its gateways. Oh ! the cruel aspect of everything ! And yet not so cruel after all. For, with its tightly-closed exterior, Savigny seemed to say to her: "Begone — do not come in!" And if she had chosen to listen, Claire, renouncing her plan of speaking to her grandfather, would have returned at once to Paris to maintain the rc[)osc of her life. But she did not understand, poor child, and already the great Newfoundland, who had recognized her, came leaping through the dead leaves and sniffed at the gate. " Good-morning, Frangoise. Where is grand- papa?" the young woman asked the gardener's wife, who came to open the gate, fawning and false and trembling, like all the servants at the chateau when they felt that the master's eye was upon them. Grandpapa was in his office, a little ell independ- ent of the main house, where he j^assed his days fumbling among boxes and pigeonholes and great 312 Fromont and Risler. books with green backs, with the rage for bureau- cracy due to his early ignorance and the strong impression made upon him long before by the office of the notary in his village. At that moment he was closeted there with his keeper, a sort of country spy, a paid informer who kept him posted as to all that was said and done in the neighborhood. He was the master's favorite. His name was Fouinat,^ and he had the flat, crafty, bloodthirsty face appropriate to his name. When his granddaughter entered, pale and trembling under her furs, the old man understood that something serious and unusual had happened, and he made a sign to Fouinat, who disappeared, gliding through the half-open door as if he were entering the very wall. " What 's the matter, little one? Why, you 're all perliitee," said the grandfather, seated behind his huge desk. Perlute, in the Berrichon dictionary, signifies troubled, excited, upset, and applied perfectly to Claire's condition. Her rapid walk in the cold country air, the effort she had made in order to do what she was doing, imparted an unwonted expres- sion to her face, which was much less reserved than usual. Without the slightest encouragement on his part, she kissed him and seated herself in front of the fire, where old stumps, surrounded by dry moss and pine needles picked up in the paths, were smouldering with occasional outbursts of life and 1 hfouine is a pole-cat. Revelations. 313 the hissing of sap. She did not even take time to shake off the hoar-frost that stood in beads on her veil, but began to speak at once, faithful to her resolution to state the object of her visit imme- diately upon entering the room, before she allowed herself to be intimidated by the atmosphere of fear and respect which encompassed the grandfather and made of him a sort of awe-inspiring deity. She required all her courage not to become con- fused, not to interrupt her narrative before that piercing gaze which transfixed her, enlivened from her first words by a malicious joy, before that savage mouth whose corners seemed tightly closed by premeditated reticence, obstinacy, a denial of any sort of sensibility. She went on to the end at one bound, respectful without humility, concealing her emotion, steadying her voice by the conscious- ness of the truth of her story. Really, seeing them thus face to face, he cold and calm, stretched out in his arm-chair, with his hands in the pockets of his gray swansdown waistcoat, she carefully choos- ing her words, as if each of them might condemn or absolve her, you would never have said that it was a child before her grandfather, but an accused person before the examining magistrate. His thoughts were entirely engrossed by the joy, the pride of his triumph. So they were conquered at last, those proud upstarts of Fromonts ! So they needed old Gardinois at last, did they? Vanity, his dominating passion, overflowed in his whole manner, do what he would. When she had fin- ished, he took the floor in his turn, began naturally 314 Fromont and Risler, enough with " I was sure of it — I ahvays said so — I knew we should see what it would all come to" — and continued in the same vulgar, insulting tone, ending with the declaration that, " in view of his principles, which were well known in the family," he would not lend a sou. Then Claire spoke of her child, of her husband's name, which was also her father's, and which would be dishonored by the failure. The old man was as cold, as implacable as ever, and took advantage of her humiliation to humiliate her still more ; for he belonged to the race of worthy rustics who, when their enemy is down, never leave him with- out leaving on his face the marks of the nails in their shoes. " All I can say to you, little one, is that Savigny is open to you. Let your husband come here. I happen to need a secretary. Very well, Georges can do my writing for twelve hundred francs a year and board for the whole family. Offer him that from me, and come." She rose indignantly. She had come as his child and he received her as a beggar. They had not reached that point yet, thank God ! " Do you think so? " queried M. Gardinois with a savage twinkle in his eye. Claire shuddered and walked toward the door without replying. The old man detained her with a gesture. " Look out ; you don't know what you 're refus- ing. It 's in your interest, you understand, that I suggest bringing your husband here. You don't Revelations. 3 1 5 know the life he's leading up yonder. Of course you don't know it, or you 'd never come and ask me for money to go where yours has gone. Ah ! I know all about your man's affairs. I have my police at Paris, yes, and at Asnicres, as well as at Savigny. I know what the fellow does with his days and his nights ; and I don't choose that my crowns shall go to the places where he goes. They 're not clean enough for money honestly earned." Claire's eyes opened wide in amazement and horror, for she felt that a terrible drama entered her life at that moment through the little low door of denunciation. The old man continued with a sneer: " That little Sidonie has fine sharp teeth." " Sidonie ! " " Faith, yes, to be sure. I have told you the name. At all events you 'd have found it out some day or other. In fact, it 's an astonishing thing that, since the time — But you women are so vain! The idea that a man can deceive you is the last idea to come into your head. Well, yes, Sidonie's the one who has got it all out of him, — with her husband's consent, by the way." He went on pitilessly to tell the young wife the source of the money for the house at Asnieres, the horses, the carriages, and how the pretty little nest on Avenue Gabriel was furnished. He ex- plained everything in detail. It was clear that, having found a new opportunity to exercise his mania for espionage, he had availed himself of 3i6 Fromont and Rislcr. it to the utmost; perhaps, too, there was at the bottom of it all, a vague, carefully concealed rage against his little Chebe, the anger of a senile passion never avowed. Claire listened to him without speaking, with a smile of utter incredulity. That smile irritated the old man, spurred on his malice. "Ah! you don't believe me. Ah ! you want proofs, do you ? " And he gave her proofs, heaped them upon her, overpowered her with knife-thrusts in the heart. She had only to go to Darches, the jeweller on Rue de la Paix. A fortnight before, Georges had bought a diamond necklace there for thirty thou- sand francs. It was his New Year's gift to Sidonie. Thirty thousand francs for diamonds at the moment of becoming bankrupt ! He might have talked the entire day and Claire would not have interrupted him. She felt that the slightest effort would cause the tears that filled her eyes to overflow, and she was determined to smile, to smile to the end, the dear brave-hearted crea- ture. From time to time she cast a sidelong glance at the road. She was in haste to go, to fly from the sound of that spiteful voice, which pursued her pitilessly. At last he stopped; he had told the whole story. She bowed and walked toward the door. "Are you going? What a hurry you're in!" said the grandfather, following her outside. At heart he was a little ashamed of his savagery. "Won't you breakfast with me? " She shook her head, not having strength to speak. Revelations. 3 1 7 " At least wait till the carriage is ready — some- one will drive you to the station." No, still no. And she walked on with the old man at her heels. Proudly, and with head erect, she crossed the courtyard, filled with souvenirs of her childhood, without once looking behind. And yet what echoes of hearty laughter, what sunbeams of her younger days were imprinted in the tiniest grain of gravel in that courtyard ! Her favorite tree, her favorite bench, were still in the same place. She had not a glance for them, nor for the pheasants in the aviary, nor even for the great dog Kiss, who followed her docilely, awaiting the caress which she did not give him. She had come as a child of the house, she went away as a stranger, her mind filled with horrible thoughts which the slightest reminder of her placid and happy past could not have failed to aggravate. " Adieu, grandfather." " Adieu, then." And the gate closed upon her brutally. As soon as she was alone, she began to walk swiftly, swiftly, almost to run. She was not going away, she was escaping. Suddenly, when she reached the end of the wall of the estate, she found herself in front of the little green gate, surrounded by nasturtiums and honeysuckle, where the chateau mail-box was. She stopped instinctively, struck by one of those sudden awakenings of the memory 3i8 Fromont and Risler. which take place within us at critical moments and place before our eyes with wonderful clearness of outline the most trivial acts of our lives bearing any relation to present disasters or joys. Was it the red sun that suddenly broke forth from the clouds, flooding the level expanse with its oblique rays in that winter afternoon as at the sunset hour iu August? Was it the silence that surrounded her, broken only by the harmonious sounds of nature, which are almost alike at all seasons? Whatever the cause, she saw herself once more as she was, at that same spot, three years before, on a certain day when she placed in the post a letter inviting Sidonie to come and pass a month with her in the country. Something told her that all her misfortunes dated from that moment. " Ah ! if I had known — if I had known!" And she fancied that she could still feel between her fingers the satiny envelope, ready to drop into the box. Thereupon, as she reflected what an innocent, hopeful, happy child she was at that moment, she cried out indignantly, gentle creature that she was, against the injustice of life. She asked herself: " Why is it? What have I done? " Then she suddenly exclaimed : " No ! it is n't true. It is n't possible. He lied to me." And as she went on toward the station, the unhappy girl tried to convince herself, to make herself believe what she said. But she did not succeed. The truth dimly seen is like the veiled sun, which tires the eyes far more than its most brilliant rays. In the semi-obscurity which still enveloped Revelations, 3 1 9 her misfortune, the poor woman's sight was keener than she could have wished. Now she understood and accounted for certain pecuHar circumstances in her husband's hfe, his frequent absences, his restlessness, his embarrassed behavior on certain days, and the abundant details which he sometimes volunteered, upon returning home, concerning his movements, mentioning names as proofs which she did not ask. PVom all these conjectures the evi- dence of his wrong-doing was made up. And still she refused to believe it and looked forward to her arrival in Paris to set her doubts at rest. There was no one at the station, a lonely, cheer- less little station, where no traveller ever shows his face in winter. As Claire sat there awaiting the train, gazing vaguely at the station-master's melan- choly little garden, and the debris of climbing plants running along the fences by the track, she felt a moist, warm breath on her glove. It was her friend Kiss, who had followed her and was re- minding her of their happy romps together in the old days with little shakes of the head, short leaps, capers of joy tempered by humility, concluding by stretching his beautiful white coat at full length at his mistress's feet, on the cold floor of the waiting- room. Those humble caresses which sought her out, like a hesitating offer of devotion and s}'mpa- thy, caused the sobs she had so long restrained to break forth at last. But suddenly she felt ashamed of her weakness. She rose and sent the dog away, sent him away pitilessly with voice and gesture, pointing to the house in the distance, with a stern 320 Fromont and Risler. face which poor Kiss had never seen. Then she hurriedly wiped her eyes and her moist hands ; for the train for Paris was approaching and she knew that in a moment she should need all her courage. Claire's first thought on leaving the train was to take a cab and drive to the jeweller on Rue de la Paix, who had, as her grandfather alleged, supplied Georges with a diamond necklace. If that should prove to be true, then all the rest was true. Her dread of learning the truth was so great that, when she reached her destination and alighted in front of that magnificent establishment, she stopped, afraid to enter. To give herself countenance, she pretended to be deeply interested in the jewels displayed in velvet cases ; and one who had seen her, quietly but fashionably dressed, leaning for- ward to look at that gleaming and attractive display, would have taken her for a happy wife engaged in selecting a bracelet, rather than an anxious, sorrow- stricken soul who had come thither to discover the secret of her life. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. At that time of day, in winter. Rue de la Paix presents a truly dazzling aspect. In that luxurious neighbor- hood life moves quickly between the short morning and the early evening. There are carriages mov- ing swiftly in all directions, an uninterrupted rumbling, and on the sidewalks a coquettish haste, a rustling of silks and furs. Winter is the real Parisian season. To see that devil's own Paris in all its beauty and wealth and happiness, one must watch the current of its life beneath a lowering Rev e la tions. 321 sky, heavy with snow. Nature is absent from the picture, so to speak. No wind, no sunh'ght. Just enough hght for the dullest colors, the faintest reflections to produce an admirable efifect, from the reddish-gray tone of the monuments to the pearls of jet which bestud a woman's dress. Theatre and concert posters shine resplendent, as if illumined by the effulgence of the footlights. The shops are crowded. It seems that all those people must be preparing for perpetual festivities. And at such times, if any sorrow is mingled with that bustle and tumult, it seems the more terrible for that reason. For five minutes Claire suffered martyrdom worse than death. Yonder, on the road to Savigny, in the vast expanse of the deserted fields, her despair spread out as it were in the sharp air and seemed to enfold her less closely. Here she was stifling. The voices beside her, the footsteps, the heedless jostling of people who passed, all added to her torture. At last she entered the shop. " Ah ! yes, madame, certainly, — Monsieur Fre- mont. A necklace of diamonds and roses. We could make you one like it for twenty-five thousand francs." That was five thousand less than for him. "Thanks, monsieur," said Claire, " I will think it over." A mirror in front of her, in which she saw her dark-ringed eyes and her dcathi}' pallor, frightened her. She went out quickly, walking stiffly in order not to fall. 32 2 Fromo7it and Risler. She had but one idea, to escape from the street, from the noise ; to be alone, quite alone, so that she might plunge headlong into that abyss of heartrending thoughts, of black things dancing madly> in the depths of her mind. Oh ! the coward, the infamous villain ! And to think that only last night she was speaking comforting words to him, had her arms about him ! Suddenly, with no knowledge of how it hap- pened, she found herself in the courtyard of the factory. Through what streets had she come? Had she come in a carriage or on foot? She had no remembrance. She had acted unconsciously, as in a dream. The sentiment of reality returned, pitiless and poignant, when she reached the steps of her little house. Risler was there, superintend- ing several men who were carrying potted plants up to his wife's apartments in preparation for the magnificent party she was to give that very even- ing. With his usual tranquillity he directed the work, protected the tall branches which the work- men might have broken : " Not like that. Bend it over. Look out for the carpet." The atmosphere of pleasure and merry-making, which had so revolted her a moment before, pur- sued her to her own house. It was too much, on top of all the rest ! She rebelled ; and as Risler saluted her, affectionately and with deep respect as always, her face assumed an expression of intense disgust, and she passed without speaking to him, without seeing the amazement that opened his great honest eyes. Revelations. 323 From that moment her course was determined upon. Wrath, a wrath born of uprightness and sense of justice, guided her actions. She hardly took time to kiss her child's rosy- cheeks before running to her mother's room. " Come, mamma, dress yourself quickly. We are going away. We are going away." The old lady rose slowly from the armchair in which she was sitting, busily engaged cleaning her watch chain by inserting a pin between every two links with infinite care. " Come, conic, hurry. Get your things ready." Her voice trembled, and the poor monomaniac's room seemed a horrible place to her, all glistening as it was with the cleanliness that had gradually become a mania. She had reached one of those fateful moments when the loss of one illusion causes you to lose them all, enables you to look to the very depths of human misery. The realization of her utter isolation, between her half-mad mother, her faithless husband, her too young child, came upon her for the first time; but it served only to strengthen her in her resolution. In a moment the whole household was busily engaged in making preparations for this abrupt, unexpected departure. Claire hurried the bewil- dered servants and dressed her mother and the child, who laughed merrily amid all the excite- ment. She was anxious to go before Georges's return, so that he might find the cradle empty and the house deserted. Where should she go? She 324 Fromont and Risler. did not know as yet. Perhaps to an aunt's at Orleans, perhaps to Savigny, no matter where. What she must do first of all was — go, fly from that atmosphere of treachery and falsehood. At that moment she was in her bedroom, pack- ing a trunk, making a pile of her effects, — a heart- rending occupation. Every object that she touched set in motion wdiole worlds of thoughts, of memo- ries. There is so much of ourselves in anything that we use. At times the odor of a sachet-bag, the pattern of a bit of lace, was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Suddenly she heard a heavy footstep in the salon, the door of which was partly open ; then there was a slight cough, as if to let her know that there was some one there. She supposed that it was Risler : for no one else had the right to enter her apartments so unceremoni- ously. The idea of having to endure the presence of that hypocritical face, that false smile, was so distasteful to her that she rushed to close the door. " I am not at home to anyone." The door resisted her efforts, and Sigismond's square head appeared in the opening. "It's me, madame," he said, in an undertone. " I have come to get the money." "What money?" demanded Claire, for she no longer remembered why she had gone to Savigny. " Sh ! The funds to meet my note to-morrow. Monsieur Georges, when he went out, told me that you would hand it to me very soon." " Ah ! yes — true. The hundred thousand francs. Revelations. 325 I haven't them, Monsieur Planus; I haven't any- thing." " Then," said the cashier, in a strange voice, as if he were speaking to himself, " then it means failure." And he turned slowly away. Failure ! She sank on a chair, appalled, crushed. For the last few hours the downfall of her hap- piness had caused her to forget the downfall of the house ; but she remembered now. So her husband was ruined ! In a little while, when he returned home, he would learn of the disaster, and he would learn at the same time that his wife and child had gone ; that he was left alone in the midst of the wreck. All alone, that weak, easily influenced creature, who could only weep and complain and shake his fist at life, like a child. What would become of the miserable man? She pitied him, notwithstanding his crime. Then the thought came to her that she would perhaps seem to have fled at the approach of bankruptcy, of povert>'. Georges might say to himself: " If I had been rich, she would have forgiven me ! " Ought she to allow him to entertain that doubt? To a generous, noble heart like Claire's, nothing more than that was necessary to change her plans. Instantly she was conscious that her feeling of re- pugnance, of revolt, began to grow less poignant, 326 Fromo7it and Rislcr. and a sudden ray of light seemed to make her duty clearer to her. When they came to tell her that the child was dressed and the trunks ready, her mind was made up anew. " It is no matter," she replied gently. " We are not going away." TJic Day of Reckoning. 327 III. THE DAY OF RECKONING. The great clock of Saint-Gcrvais struck one in the morning. It was so cokl that the fine snow, flying through the air, hardened as it fell, covering the pavements with a slippery white blanket. Risler, wrapped in his cloak, was hurrying home from the brewery through the deserted streets of the Marais. He had been celebrating, in company with his two faithful borrowers, Chebe and Delo- belle, his first moment* of leisure, the end of that endless period of seclusion during which he had been superintending the manufacture of his press, with all the gropings, the joys, and the disappoint- ments of the inventor. It had been long, very long. At the last moment he had discovered a defect. The crane did not work well ; and he had had to revise his plans and drawings. At last, on that very day, the new machine had been tried. Everything had succeeded to his heart's desire. The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had paid a debt, by giving the house of Fromont the benefit of a new machine, which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours of the 328 Fromont and Risler. workmen, and at the same time double the profits and the reputation of the factory. So that he in- dulged in beautiful dreams, I promise you, as he plodded along. His footsteps rang out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and happy gait of his thoughts. What plans, what hopes ! He could replace the chalet at Asnieres — which Sidonie was beginning to look upon as a mere hovel — by a fine country estate ten or fifteen leagues from Paris; he could give Monsieur Chebe a little larger allowance, and accommodate Delo- belle more frequently, for his unfortunate wife was working herself to death; and lastly he could send for Frantz to come home. That was his most cherished wish. He never ceased to think of the poor boy, — an exile in an unhealthy country, at the mercy of a tyrannical management, which sent its employes home on leave, to recall them almost immediately without explanation ; for Risler still had upon his mind Frantz's abrupt, inexplicable departure on his last journey, and his brief appear- ance in Paris, which had revived all his affectionate memories of their life together without giving him time to feel that his brother was really there. So he proposed, when the press was fairly started, to find some little corner in the factory where Frantz could be made useful and could lay the foundations of genuine prosperity. As always, Risler thought only of the happiness of others. His only selfish satisfaction consisted in seeing everybody about him smiling. The Day of Rcckoniiig. 329 Quickening his pace, he reached the corner of Rue des Vieillcs-Haudriettes. A long hne of car- riages was standing in front of the factory, and the light of their lanterns in the street, the shadows of the drivers seeking shelter from the snow in corners and angles that those old buildings have retained despite the straightening of the sidewalks, gave an animated aspect to that deserted, silent quarter. " Yes, yes ! to be sure," thought the honest fellow, " we have a ball at our house." He re- membered that Sidonie was giving a grand musi- cal and dancing part}-, which she had excused him from attending, by the way, " knowing that he was very busy." In the midst of his plans, of his vi- sions of wealth dispensed with generous hand, this festivity, the echoes of which reached his ears, was all that was needed to complete his satisfaction and his pride. With a certain solemnity of manner he pushed open the heavy gate, which was left ajar for the going and coming of the guests, and saw the whole second floor of the little house at the end of the garden brilliantly illuminated. Shadows passed and repassed behind the flutter- ing veil of the curtains; the orchestra seemed to follow the movements of those stealthy apparitions with the rising and falling of its muffled notes. Dancing was in progress. Risler let his eyes rest for a moment on that phantasmagoria of the ball, and fancied that he recognized Sidonie's shadow in a small room adjoining the salon. She was standing erect in her magnificent cos- 33^ Fromoiit and Risler. tume, in the attitude of a pretty woman before her mirror. A shorter shadow behind her, Madame Dobson doubtless, was repairing some accident to the dress, retying the knot of a ribbon tied about her neck, its long ends floating down to the flounces of the train. It was all very indistinct, but the woman's graceful figure was recognizable in those faintly traced outlines, and Risler tarried long admiring her. The contrast on the first floor was most striking. There was no light visible, with the exception of a little lamp shining through the lilac hangings of the bedroom. Risler noticed that circumstance, and as the little girl had been ailing a few days before, he felt anxious about her, remembering Madame Georges's strange agitation when she passed him by so hurriedly in the afternoon ; and he retraced his steps as far as Pere Achille's lodge to inquire. The lodge was full. Coachmen were warming themselves around the stove, chatting and laughing amid the smoke from their pipes. When Risler appeared there was profound silence, a cunning, inquisitive, significant silence. They had evidently been speaking of him, " Is the Fromonts' child still sick?" he asked. " No, not the child, monsieur." " Monsieur Georges sick? " " Yes, he was taken when he came home to- night. I went right ofi" to get the doctor. He said that it would n't amount to anything, that all monsieur needed was rest." The Day of Reckonhig. 2>Z^ As Risler closed the door Perc Achillc added, under his breath, with the half-fearful, half-auda- cious insolence of an inferior, who would like to be listened to and yet not distinctly heard : " Ah ! dame, they 're not cutting such a shine on the first floor as they are on the second." This is what had happened. Fromont Jeune, on returning home during the evening, had found his wife with such a changed, heart-broken face, that he at once divined a catas- trophe. But he had become so accustomed in the past two years to impunity for his crime, that it did not for one moment occur to him that his wife could have been informed of his conduct. Claire, for her part, to avoid humiliating him, was gen- erous enough to speak only of Savigny. "Grandpapa refused," she said. The miserable man turned frightfully pale. "I am lost — I am lost," he muttered two or three times in the wild accents of fever; and his sleepless nights, a last terrible scene which he had had with Sidonie, trying to induce her not to give this party on the eve of his downfall, Monsieur Gar- dinois's refusal, all these maddening things which followed so closely on one another's heels and had agitated him terribly one after another, culminated in a genuine nervous attack. Claire took pity on him, put him to bed and established herself by his side ; but her voice had lost that affectionate in- tonation which soothes and persuades. There was in her gestures, in the way in which she 332 Fromont and Risler. arranged the pillow under the patient's head and prepared a quieting draught, a strange indifference, listlessness. " But I have ruined you ! " Georges said from time to time, as if to rouse her from that apathy, which made him uncomfortable. She replied with a proud, disdainful gesture. Ah ! if he had done only that to her ! At last, however, his nerves became quieter, the fever subsided and he fell asleep. She remained to attend to his wants. " It IS my duty," she said to herself Her duty ! She had reached that point with that man whom she had adored so blindly, with the hope of a long and happy life together. At that moment the ball in Sidonie's apartments began to become very animated. The ceiling trembled rhythmically, for Madame had had all the carpets removed from her salons for the greater comfort of the dancers. Sometimes, too, the sound of voices reached Claire's ears in puffs, and fre- quent tumultuous applause, from which one could divine the great number of the guests, the crowded condition of the salons. Claire was lost in thought. She did not waste time in regrets, in fruitless lamentations. She knew that life was inflexible and that all the argu- ments in the world will not arrest the cruel logic of its inevitable progress. She did not ask herself how that man had succeeded in deceiving her so long, — how he could have sacrificed the honor and The Day of Reckoning. 333 happiness of his family for a mere caprice. That was the fact, and all her reflections could not wipe it out, could not repair the irreparable. The sub- ject that engrossed her thoughts was the future. A new existence was unfolding before her eyes, dark, cruel, full of privation and toil ; and, strangely enough, the prospect of ruin, instead of terrifying her, restored all her courage. The idea of the change of abode made necessary by the economy they would be obliged to practise, of work made compulsory for Georges and perhaps for herself, infused an indefinable energy into the distressing calmness of her despair. What a heavy burden of souls she was going to have with her three children : her mother, her child and her husband ! The feeling of responsibility prevented her giving way too much to her misfortune, to the shipwreck of her love ; and in proportion as she forgot herself in the thought of the weak creatures she had to protect, she realized more fully the meaning of the word " sacrifice," so vague on careless lips, so serious when it becomes a rule of life. Such were the poor woman's thoughts during that sad vigil, a vigil of arms and tears, while she was preparing her forces for the great battle. Such was the scene lighted by the modest little lamp which Risler had seen from below, like a star fallen from the radiant chandeliers of the ball-room. Reassured by Pcre Achille's reply, the honest fellow thought of going up to his bedroom, avoid- ing the festivities and the guests, for whom he cared but little. 334 Fromont and Risler. On such occasions he used a small servants' staircase communicating with the counting-room. So he walked through the many-windowed work- shops, which the moon, reflected by the snow, made as light as at noon-day. He breathed the atmosphere of the day of toil, a hot stifling atmos- phere, heavy with the odor of boiled talc and varnish. The papers spread out on the dryers formed long, rustling paths. On all sides tools were lying about, and blouses hanging here and there ready for the morrow. Risler never walked through the shops without a feeling of pleasure. Suddenly he spied a light in Planus's office, at the end of that long line of deserted rooms. The old cashier was still at work, at one o'clock in the morning ! It w^as really most extraordinary. Risler's first impulse was to retrace his steps. In fact, since his unaccountable falling-out with Sigismond, since the cashier had adopted that at- titude of cold silence toward him, he had avoided meeting him. His wounded friendship had always led him to shun an explanation ; he had a sort of pride in not asking Planus why he bore him ill-will. But, on that evening, Risler felt so strongly the need of cordial sympathy, of pouring out his heart to someone, and then it was such an excellent op- portunity for a tete-a-tete with his former friend, that he did not try to avoid him but boldly entered the counting-room. The cashier was sitting there, motionless, among heaps of papers and great books, which he had been turning over, and some of which had fallen to The Day of Reckoning. 335 the floor. At the sound of his employer's foot- steps, he did not even Hft his eyes. He had recog- nized Risler's step. The latter, somewhat abashed, hesitated a moment ; then, impelled by one of those secret springs which we have within us and which guide us, despite ourselves, in the path of our destiny, he walked straight to the cashier's grating. " Sigismond," he said, in a grave voice. The old man raised his head and displayed a shrunken face down which two great tears were rolling, the first perhaps that that animate column of figures had ever shed in his life. "You are crying, old man? What's the trouble? " And honest Risler, deeply touched, held out his hand to his friend, who hastily withdrew his. That movement of repulsion was so instinctive, so brutal, that all Risler's emotion changed to indignation. He drew himself up with stern dignity. " I offer you my hand, Sigismond Planus ! " he said. "And I refuse to take it," said Planus, rising. There was a terrible pause, during which they heard the muffled music of the orchestra upstairs and the noise of the ball, the dull, wearing noise of floors shaken b)' the rh}-thmic movement of the dance. "Why do you refuse to take my hand?" de- manded Risler simply, while the grating upon which he leaned trembled with a metallic shudder. Sigismond was facing him, with both hands on 33^ Fromont and Rislcr. his desk, as if to emphasize and drive home what he was about to say in reply. "Why? Because you have ruined the house, because in a few hours a messenger from the Bank will come and stand where you are, to collect a hundred thousand francs, and because, thanks to you, I haven't a sou in the cash-box — that's why!" Risler was stupefied. " I have ruined the house — I ? " "Worse than that, monsieur. You have allowed it to be ruined by your wife, and you have arranged with her to get the benefit of our ruin and your dis- honor. Oh ! I can see your game well enough. The money your wife has wormed out of the wretched Fromont, the house at Asnieres, the diamonds and all the rest is invested in her name, of course, out of reach of disaster; and of course you can retire from business now." "Oh! — oh!" exclaimed Risler in a faint voice, a restrained voice rather, that was insufficient for the multitude of thoughts it strove to express; and as he stammered helplessly he drew the grat- ing toward him with such force that he broke off a piece of it. Then he staggered, fell to the floor and lay there motionless, speechless, retaining only, in what little life was still left in him, the firm de- termination not to die until he had justified himself. That determination must have been very powerful ; for while his temples throbbed madly, hammered by the blood that turned his face purple, while his ears were ringing and his glazed eyes seemed already turned toward the terrible unknown, the The Day of Reckoning. 'Xi'hl unhappy man muttered to himself in a thick voice, the voice of a shipwrecked man speakin^^ with his mouth full of water in a howling gale: " I must Hve — I must live." When he recovered consciousness, he was sitting on the cushioned bench on which the workmen sat huddled together on pay-day, his cloak on the floor, his cravat untied, his shirt open at the neck, cut open by Sigismond's knife. Luckily for him he had cut his hands when he tore the grating apart ; the blood had flowed freely and that acci- dent was enough to avert an attack of apoplexy. On opening his eyes he saw on either side old Sigismond and Madame Georges, whom the cashier had summoned in his distress. As soon as Risler could speak, he said to her in a choking voice : "Is this true, Madame Chorchc, — is this true that he just told me?" She had not the courage to deceive him, so she turned her eyes away. "So," continued the poor fellow, " so the house is ruined, and I — " " No, Risler, my friend. No, not you." "My wife, was it not? Oh! it is horrible! This is how I have paid my debt of gratitude to you. But you, Madame Chorche, you could not have believed that I was a party to this infann? " "No, my friend, no, be calm. I know that }'Ou are the most honorable man on earth." He looked at her a moment, with trembling lips and clasped hands, for there was something infan- tile in all the manifestations of that artless nature. 33*^ Fromo7tt and Risler. " Oh ! Madame Chorche, Madame Chorche," he murmured. " When I think that I am the one who has ruined you." In the terrible blow which overwhelmed him, and by which his heart, overflowing with love for Si- donie, was most deeply wounded, he refused to see anything but the financial disaster to the house of Fromont, caused by his blind devotion to his wife. Suddenly he stood erect. " Come," he said, "let us not give way to emo- tion. We must see about settling our accounts." Madame Fromont was afraid. " Risler, Risler — where are you going? " She thought that he was going up to Georges' s room. Risler understood her and smiled in superb disdain. " Never fear, madame. Monsieur Georges can sleep in peace. I have something more urgent to do than avenge my honor as a husband. W^ait for me here. I will come back." He darted toward the narrow staircase ; and Claire, relying upon his word, remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of uncertainty which seem interminable because of all the conjectures with which they are thronged. A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk filled the dark and narrow staircase. Sidonie appeared first, in ball costume, gor- geously arrayed and so pale that the jewels that glistened everywhere on her dead white flesh The Day of Reckon in g. 339, seemed more alive than she, as if scattered over the cold marble of a statue. The brcathlessness due to dancing, the trembling of intense excitement and her rapid descent, caused her to shake from head to foot, and her floating ribbons, her ruffles, her flowers, her rich and fashionable attire drooped tragically about her. Risler followed her, laden with jewel-cases, caskets and papers. Upon reach- ing his apartments he had pounced upon his wife's desk, seized everything valuable that it contained, jewels, certificates, title-deeds of the house at Asnieres ; then, standing in the doorway, he had shouted into the ball-room : " Madame Risler ! " She had run quickly to him, and that brief scene had in no wise disturbed the guests, then at the height of the evening's enjoyment. When she saw her husband standing in front of the desk, the drawers broken open and overturned on the carpet with the numberless trifles they contained, she realized that something terrible was taking place. " Come at once," said Risler, " I know all." She tried to assume an innocent, dignified atti- tude ; but he seized her by the arm with such force that Frantz's words came to her mind : " It will kill him perhaps, but he will kill you first." As she was afraid of death, she allowed herself to be led away without resistance, and had not even the strength to lie. "Where are we going?" she asked in a low voice. Risler did not answer. She had but time to 340 Froniont and Risler, throw over her shoulders, with the care for herself that never failed her, a light tulle veil, and he dragged her, pushed her rather, down the stairs leading to the counting-room, which he descended at the same time, his steps in hers, fearing that his prey would escape him. " There," he said as he entered the room. " We have stolen, we make restitution. Look, Planus, you can raise money with all this stuff." And he placed on the cashier's desk all the fashionable plunder with which his arms were filled, feminine trinkets, trivial aids to coquetry, stamped papers. Then he turned to his wife : " Now, your jewels. Come, be quick." She complied slowly, opened regretfully the locks of bracelets and buckles, and above all the superb clasp of her diamond necklace on which the initial of her name — a gleaming S — resembled a sleeping serpent, imprisoned in a circle of gold. Risler, thinking that she was too slow, ruthlessly broke the fragile fastenings. Luxury shrieked beneath his fingers, as if it were being whipped. " Now, it's my turn," he said, " I too must give up everything. Here is my portfolio. What else have I? What else have I? " He searched his pockets feverishly. " Ah ! my watch. With the chain it will bring four thousand francs. My rings, my wedding ring. Everything goes into the cash-box, everything. We have a hundred thousand francs to pay this morning. As soon as it's daylight we must go to work, sell out and pay our debts. I know some- The Day of Reckoning. 341 one who wants the house at Asniercs. That can be arranged at once." He alone talked and acted. Sigismond and Madame Georges watched him without speaking. As for Sidonie, she seemed unconscious, lifeless. The cold air blowing from the garden through the little door, which was opened at the time of Risler's swoon, made her shiver, and she mechanically drew the folds of her scarf around her shoulders, her e}'es fixed on vacancy, her thoughts wandering. Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before his partner's wife, he said : " Down on your knees." Madame Fromont drew back, remonstrated. " No, no, Risler, not that." " It must be," said the implacable Risler. " Res- titution, reparation. Down on your knees then, wretched woman ! " And with irresistible force he threw Sidonie at Claire's feet; then, still holding her arm : "You will repeat after me, word for word, what I am going to say: Madame, — " Sidonie, half dead with fear, repeated faintly: " Madame, — " "A whole lifetime of humility and submission — " "A whole lifetime of himiil - No, I cannot!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet with the agility 342 Fromont and Rislcr. of a deer ; and, wresting herself from Risler's grasp, through tliat open door which had tempted her from the beginning of this horrible scene, luring her out into the darkness of the night to the liberty obtainable by flight, she rushed from the house, braving the falling snow and the wind that stung her bare shoulders. " Stop her, stop her — Risler, Planus, I implore you. In pity's name do not let her go in this way." Planus stepped toward the door. Risler detained him. " I forbid you to stir ! I ask your pardon, madame, but we have more important matters than this to consider. Madame Risler concerns us no longer. We have to save the honor of the house of Fromont, which alone is at stake, which alone fills my thoughts at this moment." Sigismond put out his hand. "You are a noble man, Risler. Forgive me for having suspected you." Risler pretended not to hear him. "A hundred thousand francs to pay, you say? How much is there left in the strong-box?" He sat gravely down behind the grating, looking over the books of account, the certificates of stock in the funds, opening the jewel-cases, estimating with Planus, whose father had been a jeweller, the value of all those diamonds, which he had once so admired on his wife, having no suspicion of their value. Meanwhile Claire, trembling from head to foot, looked out through the window at the little garden, The Day of Reckoning. 343 white with snow, where Sidonie's footsteps were ah-eady effaced by the fast-faUinc; flakes, as if to bear witness that that precipitate departure was without hope of return. Upstairs they were dancing stiH. The mistress of the house was supposed to be busy with the pre- parations for supper, while she was flying, bare- headed, forcing back sobs and shrieks of rage. Where was she going? She had started off hke a mad woman, running across the garden and the courtyard of the factory, and under the dark arches, where the cruel, freez- ing wind blew in eddying circles. Pere Achilla did not recognize her ; he had seen so many shadows wrapped in white pass his lodge that night. The young woman's first thought was to join the tenor Cazaboni, whom at the last she had not dared to invite to her ball ; but he lived at Mont- martre, and that was very far away in the garb in which she then was; and then, would he be at home? Her parents would take her in doubtless; but she could alread)' hear Madame Chebe's lamen- tations and the little man's sermon untlcr three heads. Thereupon she thought of Delobelle, her old Delobelle. In the downfall of all her splendors, she remembered the man who had first initiated her into fashionable life, who had given her lessons in dancing and deportment when she was a little girl, laughed at her pretty ways and taught her to look upon herself as beautiful before an}-one had ever told her that she was so. Something told her 344 Fromoiit and Risler. that that fallen star would take her part against all others. She entered one of the carriages standing at the gate and ordered the driver to take her to the actor's lodgings on Boulevard Beaumarchais. For some time past Mamma Delobelle had been making straw hats for export, — a dismal trade if ever there was one, and one that brought in barely two francs fifty for twelve hours' work. And Delobelle continued to grow fat in the same degree that his " sainted wife " grew thin. At the very moment when some one knocked hurriedly at his door he had just discovered a fragrant soup an frontage, which had been kept hot in the ashes on the hearth. The actor, who had been witness- ing at Beaumarchais some dark-browed melodrama drenched with gore even to the illustrated head- lines of its poster, was startled by that knock at such an advanced hour. " Who is there? " he asked in some alarm. "It's I, Sidonie. Open the door quickly," She entered the room, shivering all over, and, throwing aside her wrap, went close to the stove where the fire was at the point of death. She began to talk at once, to pour out the wrath that had been stifling her for an hour, and while she was describing the scene in the factory, lowering her voice because of Madame Delobelle, who was asleep close by, the magnificence of her costume in that poor, bare fifth floor, the glaring whiteness of her disordered finery amid the heaps of coarse hats and the wisps of straw strewn about the The Day of Reckoning. 345 room, all combined to produce the effect of a veri- table drama, of one of those terrible upheavals of life when ranks, feelings, fortunes, are suddenly jumbled together. "Oh! I shall never return home. It's all over. Free, I am free ! " " But who could have betrayed you to your husband?" asked the actor. " It was Frantz ! I am sure it was Frantz. He would n't have believed it from anybody else. Only last evening a letter came from Egypt. Oh ! how he treated me before that woman ! To force me to kneel. But I '11 be revenged. Luckily I took something to revenge myself with before I came away." And her smile of former days played about the corners of her pale lips. The old strolling player listened to it all with deep interest. Notwithstanding his compassion for that poor devil of a Risler, and for Sidonie her- self for that matter, who seemed to him, in theatri- cal parlance, " a beautiful culprit," he could not help viewing the affair from a purely scenic stand- point, and finally cried out, carried away by his hobby : " What a first-class situation for a fifth act ! " She did not hear him. Absorbed by some evil thought, which made her smile in anticipation, she stretched out her dainty shoes saturated with snow, and her openwork stockings to the fire. "Well, what do you propose to do now? " Delo- belle asked after a moment. 346 Fromoiit and Risler. " Stay here till daylight. Get a little rest. Then I will see." " I have no bed to ofifer you, my poor girl. Mamma Delobelle has gone to bed." " Don't you worry about me, my dear Delobelle. I '11 sleep in that armchair. I won't be in your way, I tell you ! " The actor heaved a sigh. " Ah ! yes, that armchair. It was our poor Zizi's. She sat up many a night in it, when work was pressing. Ah me ! those who leave this world are much the happiest." He had always at hand such selfish, comforting maxims. He had no sooner uttered that one than he discovered with dismay that his soup would soon be stone cold. Sidonie noticed his movement. " Why, you were just eating your supper, were n't you? Pray go on." " Dame ! yes, what would you have? It 's part of the trade, of the hard existence we fellows live. For you see, my girl, I stand firm. I have n't given up. I never will give up." What still remained of Desiree's soul in that wretched household in which she had lived twenty years must have shuddered at that terrible declara- tion. He never will give up ! " No matter what people may say," continued Delobelle, " it 's the noblest profession in the world. You are free, you depend upon nobody. Devoted to the service of glory and the public ! Ah ! I know what I would do in your place. As The Day of Reckoning. 347 if you were born to live with all those bourgeois, what the devil ! What you need is the artistic life, the fever of success, the unexpected, intense emotion." As he spoke he took his scat, tucked his napkin in his neck and helped himself to a great plateful of soup. "To say nothing of the fact that your triumphs as a pretty woman would in no wise interfere with your triumph as an actress. By the way, do you know, you must take a few lessons in elocution. With your voice, your intelligence, your charms, you would have a magnificent prospect." Then he added abruptly, as if to initiate her into the joys of the dramatic art: " But it occurs to me that perhaps you have not supped ! Excitement makes one hollow; sit there and take this plate. I am sure that you have n't eaten soup an frontage for a long while." He turned the closet topsy-turvy to find her a spoon and napkin ; and she took her scat opposite him, assisting him and laughing a little at the diffi- culties attending her entertainment. She was less pale already, and there was a pretty sparkle in her eyes, composed of the tears of a moment before and the present gayety. The strolling-actress ! All her happiness in life was lost forever : honor, family, wealth. She was driven from her house, stripped, dishonored. She had undergone all pos- sible himiiliations and disasters. That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and 348 JFromont and Rislcr. joyously holding her own under Delobelle's jocose remarks concerning her vocation and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true coun- try. What more was going to happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unfore- seen and whimsical existence to consist? She was thinking about that as she fell asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; but she was thinking of her revenge, too, her cherished revenge which she held in her hand, all ready for use, and so unerring, so fierce ! The New Clerk. 349 IV. THE NEW CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF FROMONT. It was broad daylight when Fromont Jcune awoke. All night long, between the drama that was being enacted below him, and the festivity in joyous progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of utter prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or of a defeated general on the night following his de- feat ; a sleep from which one would wish never to awake, and in which one has a foretaste of death in the absence of all sensation. The bright light streaming through his curtains, made more glaring by the deep snow with which the garden and the surrounding roofs were covered, recalled him to the consciousness of things as they were. He felt a shock through his whole being, and, even before his mind began to work, that vague impression of melancholy which misfortunes, momentarily forgotten, leave in their place. All the familiar noises of the factory, the dull, panting breath of the machinery, were in full activity. So the world still existed ! and by slow degrees the idea of responsibility awoke in him. 350 Fromont and Rislcr. "To-day is the day," he said to himself, with an involuntary movement toward the dark side of the room, as if he longed to bury himself anew in his long sleep. The factory bell rang, then other bells in the neighborhood, then the Angelus. " Noon ! Already ! How I have slept ! " He felt some little remorse and a great sense of relief at the thought that the drama of settling-day had passed off without him. What had they done downstairs? Why did they not call him? He rose, put aside the curtains and saw Risler and Sigismond talking together in the garden. And it was so long since they had spoken to each other! What in heaven's name had happened? When he was ready to go down he found Claire at the door of his room. "You must not go out," she said. "Why not?" " Stay here. I will explain it to you." "But what's the matter? Did anyone come from the Bank? " " Yes, they came — the notes are paid." "Paid?" " Risler obtained the money. He has been rushing about with Planus since early morning. It seems that his wife had superb jewels. The diamond necklace alone brought twenty thousand francs. He has also sold their house at Asniercs with all it contained ; but as time was required to record the deed. Planus and his sister advanced the money." The New Clerk. 351 She turned away from him as slie spoke. He, on his side, hung his head to avoid her glance. " Risler is an honorable man," she continued, " and when he learned from whom his wife received all her magnificent things — ■" " What ! " exclaimed Georges in dismay. " He knows? " " All," Claire replied, lowering her voice. The wretched man turned pale, stammered feebly : "Why then — you?" " Oh ! I knew it all before Risler did. Remem- ber that, when I came home last night, I told you that I had heard very cruel things down at Sa- vigny, and that I would have given ten years of my life not to have made that journey." " Claire ! " Moved by a mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife ; but her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly written in the stern indifference manifest in her whole bearing, that he dared not take her to his heart as he longed to do, but simply murmured under his breath : " Forgive ! — forgive ! " " You must think mc very calm," said the brave woman ; " but I shed all my tears ycsterda}'. You may have thought that I was weeping over our ruin; you were mistaken. WMiilc one is j'oung and strong as we are, such cowardly conduct is not permissible. We are armed against want and can fight it face to face. No, I was weeping for our 352 Fromont and Risler. departed happiness, for you, for the madness that led you to throw away your only, your true friend." She was lovely, lovelier than Sidonie had ever been, as she spoke thus, enveloped by a pure light which seemed to fall upon her from a great height, like the radiance of a fathomless, cloudless sky; whereas the other's irregular features had always seemed to owe their brilliancy, their saucy, insolent charm to the false glamour of the footlights in some cheap theatre. The touch of statuesque immobil- ity formerly noticeable in Claire's face was vivified by anxiety, by doubt, by all the torture of pas- sion ; and like those gold ingots which have their full value only when the Mint has placed its stamp upon tliem, those beautiful features stamped with the effigy of sorrow had acquired since the pre- ceding day an ineffaceable expression which per- fected their beauty. Georges gazed at her in admiration. She seemed to him more alive, more womanly, and worthy of adoration by virtue of their separation, of all the obstacles that he now knew to stand between them. Remorse, despair, shame entered his heart simul- taneously with this new love, and he would have fallen on his knees at her feet. " No, no, do not kneel," said Claire ; " if you knew what you remind me of, if you knew what a lying face, distorted with hatred, I saw at my feet last night ! " " Ah ! but I am not lying," replied Georges with a shudder. " Claire, I implore you, in the name of our child — " The Nciu Clerk. 353 At that moment some one knocked at the door. " Get up, pray. You see that hfe has claims upon us," she said in a low voice, and with a bitter smile ; then she asked what was wanted. Monsieur Risler had sent for monsieur to come down to the office. " Very well," she said ; " say that he will come." Georges stepped toward the door, but she stopped him, " No, let me go. He must not see you yet," "But—" " I wish you to stay here. You have no idea of the indignation and wrath of that poor man, whom you have deceived. If you had seen him last night, crushing his wife's wrists ! " As she said it, she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to herself; but Georges did not wince, and replied simply: " My life belongs to that man." " It belongs to me, too ; and I do not wish you to go down. There has been scandal enough in my father's house. Remember that the whole factory is aware of what is going on. Every one is watching us, spying upon us. It required all the authority of the foremen to keep the men at work to-day, to compel them to keep their inquis- itive looks on their work." " But I shall seem to be hiding." " And suppose it were so ! That is just like a man. They do not recoil from the worst crimes : betraying a wife, betraying a friend; but the thought that they may be accused of being afraid 23 354 Fromont and Risler. touches them more nearly than anything. More- over, hsten to what I say. Sidonie has gone, she has gone forever; and if you leave this house I shall think that you have gone to join her." " Very well, I will stay," said Georges. " I will do whatever you wish." Claire went down into Planus's office. To see Risler striding back and forth with his hands behind his back, as calm as usual, no one would ever have suspected all that had taken place in his life since the night before. As for Sigis- mond, he was fairly beaming, for he saw nothing in it all beyond the fact that the notes had been paid at maturity, and that the honor of the firm was safe and sound. When Madame Fromont appeared, Risler smiled sadly and shook his head. " I thought that you would prefer to come down in his place ; but you are not the one with whom I have to deal. It is absolutely necessary that I should see him and talk with him. We have taken care of the notes that fell due. this morning; the crisis has passed ; but we have to come to an un- derstanding about many matters." " Risler, my friend, I beg you to wait a little longer." "Why, Madame Chorche? there's not a minute to lose. Oh ! I suspect that you are afraid I may give way to an outbreak of anger. Have no fear, — let him have no fear. You know what I told you, that the honor of the house of Fromont is to be assured before my own. I have endangered it The N'czu Clerk. 355 by my fault. First of all, I must repair the evil I have done, or allowed to be done." *' Your conduct toward us is worthy of all admi- ration, my good Risler; I know it well." " Oh ! madame, if you could see him ! he 's a saint," said poor Sigismond, who, not daring to speak to his friend, was determined at all events to manifest his remorse. "But aren't you afraid?" continued Claire, " Human endurance has its limits. It may be that in presence of the man who has injured you so — " Risler took her hands, gazed into her eyes with grave admiration, and said : " You dear creature, who speak of nothing but the injury done to me ! Do you not know that I hate him as bitterly for his falseness to you? But nothing of that sort has any existence for me at this moment. You see in me simply a business man who wishes to have an understanding with his partner for the good of the firm. So let him come down without the slightest fear, and if you dread an}' outbreak on my part, stay here with us. I shall need only to look at my old master's daugh- ter to be reminded of my promise and my duty." "I trust you, my friend," said Claire; and she went up to bring her husband. The first minute of the interview was terrible. Georges was deeply moved, humiliated, pale as death. He would have preferred a hundred times over to be looking into the barrel of that man's pistol at twenty paces, awaiting his fire, instead of appearing before him as an unpunished culprit 35^ Frornont and Risler. and being compelled to confine his feelings within the commonplace limits of a business conversation. Risler affected not to look at him and continued to pace the floor as he talked : " Our house is passing through a terrible crisis. We have averted the disaster for to-day ; but this is not the last of our obligations. That cursed in- vention has kept my mind away from the business for a long while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have fol- lowed the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in a year, they went to work at the proper time. I expect that you will make it your business to change all that. As for me, I am going to work at my drawings again. Our patterns are old- fashioned. We must have new ones for the new machines. I have great confidence in our presses. The experiments have succeeded beyond my hopes. We unquestionably have in them a means of build- ing up our business. I did n't tell you sooner because I wanted to surprise you ; but we have no more surprises for each other, have we, Georges? " There was such a stinging note of irony in his voice that Claire shuddered, fearing an outbreak; but he continued, quite in his natural manner: "Yes. I think I can promise that in six months the Risler Press will begin to show magnificent results. But those six months will be very hard to The New Clerk. 357 live through. We must limit ourselves, cut down our expenses, save in every way that we can. We have five draughtsmen now, hereafter we will have but two. I will undertake to make the absence of the others of no consequence by working nights. Furthermore, beginning with this month, I abandon my interest in the firm. I will take my salary as foreman as before and nothing more," Fromont attempted to speak, but a gesture from his wife restrained him and Risler continued : " I am no longer your partner, Georges. I am once more the clerk that I should never have ceased to be. From this day our partnership articles are cancelled. I insist upon it, you under- stand, I insist upon it. We will remain in that relation to each other until the house is out of difficulty and I can — But what I shall do then concerns me alone. This is what I wanted to say to you, Georges. You must give your attention to the factory diligently, you must show yourself, make it felt that you are master now, and I believe there will turn out to be, among all our misfortunes, some that can be retrieved." During the silence that followed, they heard the sound of wheels in the garden, and two great furni- ture vans stopped at the door, " I beg your pardon," said Risler, " but I must leave you a moment. Those are the vans from the public auction rooms ; they have come to take aw'ay all my furniture from upstairs." "What! you are going to sell your furniture too?" asked Madame Fromont. 35^^ Fromont and Risler. " Certainly — to the last piece. I am simply giving it back to the firm. It belongs to it." " But that is impossible," said Georges. " I can- not allow that." Risler turned upon him indignantly. "What's that? What is it that you can't allow?" Claire checked him with an imploring gesture. "True — true," he muttered; and he hurried from the room to escape the sudden temptation to give vent to all that there was in his heart. The second floor was deserted. The servants, who had been paid and dismissed in the morning, had abandoned the apartments to the disorder of the day following a ball ; and they wore the aspect peculiar to places where a drama has been enacted, and which are left in suspense, as it were, between the events that have happened and those that are still to happen. The open doors, the rugs lying in heaps in the corners, the salvers laden with glasses, the preparations for the supper, the table still set and untouched, the dust of the ball on all the fur- niture, its odor mingled with the fumes of punch, of withered flowers, of rice powder — all these details attracted Risler's notice as he entered. In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from OrpJiee aiix Enfers on the music- shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of The Nciv Clerk. 359 watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part. They began to remove the furniture. Risler watched the men at work with an indiffer- ent air, as if he were in a stranger's house. That magnificence which had once made him so happy and proud, inspired in him now an insurmountable disgust. But, when he entered his wife's bedroom, he was conscious of a vague emotion. It was a large room hung with blue satin under white lace. A veritable cocotte's nest. There were torn and rumpled tulle ruffles lying about, bows and artificial flowers. The wax candles around the mirror had burned down to the end and cracked the bobeches; and the bed, with its lace flounces and valances, its great curtains raised and drawn back, untouched in the general confusion, seemed like the bed of a corpse, a state bed on which no one would ever sleep again. Risler's first feeling upon entering the room was one of mad indignation, a longing to pounce upon the things before him, to tear and rend and shatter everything. Nothing, you see, resembles a woman so much as her bedroom. Even v/hen she is absent, her image still smiles in the mirrors that have reflected it. A little something of her, of her favorite perfume, remains in everything she has touched. Her attitudes are reproduced in the cushions of the couch, and one can follow her go- ings and comings between the mirror and the toilet table among the patterns of the carpet. The o 60. Fi'omont and Rislcr. one thing above all others in that room that re- called Sidonic was an etagere covered with childish toys, pett}', trivial knick-knacks, microscopic fans, dolls' tea-sets, gilded shoes, little shepherds and shepherdesses facing one another, exchanging cold, gleaming porcelain glances. That etagere was Sidonie's very soul, and her thoughts, always com- monplace, petty, vain and empty, resembled those gewgaws. Yes, in very truth, if Risler, while he held her in his grasp last night, had in his frenzy broken that fragile little head, a whole world of etagere ornaments would have come from it in place of a brain. The poor man was thinking sadly of all these things amid the ringing of hammers and the heavy footsteps of the furniture-movers, when he heard an interloping, authoritative step behind him, and Monsieur Chebe appeared, little Monsieur Chebe, flushed and breathless and shooting flames from his eyes. He assumed, as always, a very high tone with his son-in-law. "What does this mean? What's this I hear? Ah! so you're moving, are you?" " I am not moving. Monsieur Chebe — I am selling out." The little man gave a leap like a scalded carp. "You are selling out? What are you selling, pray? " " I am selling everything," said Risler in a hol- low voice, without even looking at him. " Come, come, son-in-law, be reasonable. God knows I don't say that Sidonie's conduct — But, for The Nczv Clerk. 361 my part, I know nothing about it. I never wanted to know anything. Only I must remind you of your dignity. People wash their dirty linen in private, deuce take it ! They don't make spec- tacles of themselves as you 've been doing ever since morning. Just see ever}'body at the work- shop windows; and on the porch too! Why you 're the talk of the quarter, my dear fellow." " So much the better. The dishonor was public, the reparation must be public too." This apparent calmness, this indifference to all his observations, exasperated Monsieur Chebe. He suddenly changed his tactics, and adoi)ted, in addressing his son-in-law, the serious, peremptory tone which one uses with children or lunatics. "Well, I say that you haven't any right to take an)-thing away from here. I remonstrate formally, with all my strength as a man, with all my author- ity as a father. Do you suppose I am going to let you drive my child into the gutter? No, indeed. Oh ! no, indeed. Enough of such nonsense as that. Nothing more shall go out of the rooms." And Monsieur Chebe, having closed the door, planted himself in front of it with an heroic gesture. Deuce take it ! his own interest was at stake in the matter. The fact was that when his child was once in the gutter he ran great risk of not ha\ing a feather bed to sleep on himself. He was superb in that attitude of an indignant father, but he did not keep it long. Two hands, two vises, seized his wrists, and he founJ himself in the middle of the room, leaving the doorway clear for the workmen. 362 Fromont and Risler. " Chebe, my boy, just listen," said Risler, leaning over him. " I am at the end of my forbearance. Since this morning I have been making superhuman efforts to restrain myself, but it would take very little now to make my anger burst all bonds, and w^oe to the man on whom it falls. I am quite cap- able of killing some one. Come! Be off at once — " There was such an intonation in his son-in-law's voice, and the way that son-in-law shook him as he spoke was so eloquent that Monsieur Chebe was fully convinced. He even stammered an apology. Certainly Risler had good reason for acting as he had. All honorable people would be on his side. And he backed toward the door as he spoke. When he reached it, he inquired timidly if Madame Chebe's little allowance would be continued. " Yes," was Risler's reply, " but never go beyond it, for my position here is not what it was. I am no longer a partner in the house." Monsieur Chebe stared at him in amazement, and assumed the idiotic expression which led many people to believe that the accident that had hap- pened to him — exactly like the Due d'Orleans's, you know — was not a fable of his own invention ; but he dared not make the slightest observation. Surely some one had changed his son-in-law. Was this really Risler, this species of tiger-cat, who bristled up at the slightest word and talked of nothing less than killing people? He took to his heels, recovered his self-posses- sion at the foot of the stairs, and walked acrpss the courtyard with the air of a conqueror. The New Clerk. 363 When all the rooms were cleared and empty, Risler walked through them for the last time, then took the key and went down to Planus's office to hand it to Madame Georges. " You can let the apartment," he said, " it will be so much added to the income of the factory." "But you, my friend ? " " Oh ! I don't need much. An iron bed up under the eaves. That 's all a clerk wants. For, I repeat, I am nothing but a clerk from this time on. A useful clerk, by the way, faithful and courageous, of whom you will have no occasion to complain, I promise you." Georges, who was going over the books with Planus, w'as so affected by hearing the poor fellow talk in that strain that he left his seat precipitate!}'. He was suffocated by his sobs. Claire too was deeply moved ; she went to the new clerk of the house of Fromont and said to him : " Risler, I thank you in my father's name." At that moment Pcrc Achille appeared with the mail. Risler took the pile of letters, opened them tranquilly one by one, and passed them over to Sigismond. " Here 's an order for Lj'on. — Why was n't it answered at Saint-Eticnnc? " He plunged with all his energy into these details, and he brought to them a keen intelligence, due to the constant straining of the mind toward peace and forgetfulness. Suddenly, among those huge envelopes, stamped 364 Fromont and Risler. with the names of business houses, the paper of which and the manner of folding smelt of the office and of hasty despatch, he discovered one smaller one, carefully sealed, and hidden so cunningly between the others that at first he did not notice it. He recognized instantly that long, fine, firm writ- ing, — To Monsieur Risler — Personal. — It was Sidonie's writing. When he saw it he felt the same sensation he had felt in the bedroom upstairs. All his love, all the hot wrath of the betrayed husband poured back into his heart with the frantic force that makes assassins. What was she writing to him? what lie had she invented now? He was about to open the letter ; then he paused. He realized that, if he should read that, it would be all over with his courage ; so he leaned over to the old cashier, and said in an undertone : " Sigismond, old man, will you do me a favor?" " I should think so ! " said the worthy man en- thusiastically. He was so delighted to hear his friend speak to him in the kindly voice of the old days. " Here 's a letter someone has written me, which I don't wish to read now. I am sure it would inter- fere with my thinking and living. You must keep it for me, and this with it." He took from his pocket a little package care- fully tied, and handed it to him through the grating. " That is all I have left of the past, all I have left of that woman. I have determined not to see her nor anything that reminds me of her, until my task TJic New Clerk. 365 here is concluded, and concluded satisfactorily, — I need all my intelligence, }'ou understand. You will pay the Chebes' allowance. If she herself should ask for anything, you will give her what she needs. But you will never mention my name. And you will keep this package safe for mc until I ask you for it." Sigismond locked the letter and package in a secret drawer of his desk with other valuable papers. Risler returned at once to his correspond- ence ; but all the time he had before his eyes the slender English letters traced by a little hand which he had so often and so ardently pressed to his heart. 366 Fromont and Risler. V. THE CAFfi CHANTANT, What a rare, what a conscientious clerk did that new clerk of the house of Fromont prove to be ! Every day his lamp was the first to be lighted and the last to disappear from the windows of the factory. A little room had been arranged for him under the eaves, exactly like the one he had formerly occupied with Frantz, a veritable Trappist's cell, furnished with an iron cot and a white wooden table that stood under his brother's portrait. He led the same busy, regular, retired life as in those old days. He worked constantly, and had his meals brought from the same little creamery. But alas ! the dis- appearance forever of youth and hope deprived those memories of all their charm. Luckily he still had Frantz and Madame Chorche, the only two human beings of whom he could think without a feeling of sadness. Madame Chorche was always at hand, always on the watch to minister to his comfort, to console him ; and Frantz wrote to him frequently, without ever mentioning Sidonie, by the way. Risler supposed that some one had written him of the disaster that had befallen him, and he The Cafe CJmpJant. 367 too avoided all allusion to the subject in his letters. "Oh! when I can send for him to come home! " That was his dream, his sole ambition : to rehabi- litate the factory and recall his brother. Meanwhile the days succeeded one anoth.er, al- ways the same to him in the restless activity of business and the hcartrendinc^ solitude of his f^rief. Every morning he went down and walked through the workshops, where the profound respect he inspired, his stern, silent countenance had re-estab- lished the orderly conditions that had been mo- mentarily disturbed. In the beginning there had been much gossip, and various explanations of Sidonie's departure had been put forward. Some said that she had fled with a lover, others that Ris- ler had turned her out. The one fact that upset all conjectures was the attitude of the two partners toward each other, apparently as unconstrained as before. Sometimes, however, when they were talk- ing together in the office, with no one by, Risler w^ould suddenly start convulsively, as a vision of the crime passed before his eyes. Thereupon he would feel a frantic longing to leap upon the villain, seize him b)" the throat, strangle him without pity; but the thought of Madame Chorchc was always there to hold him back. Should he be less courageous, less master of himself than that young wife? Neither Claire nor Fromont nor anybody else suspected what was taking place within him. They could barely de- tect a severity, an inflexibility in his conduct, which were not habitual with him. Risler awed 368 Fromont and Rislcr. the workmen now; and those of them upon whom his white hair, whitened in one night, his drawn, prematurely old features did not impose respect, quailed before his strange glance — a glance from eyes of a bluish-black like a gun-barrel. Whereas he had always been very kind and affable with the workmen, he had become pitilessly severe in regard to the slightest infraction of the rules. One would have said that he was taking vengeance upon him- self for some indulgence in the past, blind, culpable indulgence, for which he blamed himself Surely he was a marvellous clerk, was this new clerk of the house of Fromont. Thanks to him, the factory bell, notwithstanding the quavering of its old, cracked voice, had very soon resumed its authority ; and the man who guided the whole establishment denied himself the slightest recreation. Sober as an apprentice, he left three-fourths of his salary with Planus for the Chebes' allowance, but he never asked any ques- tions about them. Punctually on the last day of the month the little man appeared to collect his little income, stiff and majestic in his dealings with Sigismond, as became an annuitant on duty. Ma- dame Chebe had tried to obtain an interview with her son-in-law, whom she pitied and loved ; but the bare appearance of her palm-leaf shawl on the steps put Sidonie's husband to flight. In truth the courage with which he armed him- self was more apparent than real. The memory of his wife never left him. What had become of her? What was she doing? He was almost angry 77/6 Cafe Chaiitant. 369 with Planus for never mentioning her. That letter above all things, that letter which he had had the courage not to open, disturbed him. He thought of it constantly. Ah! if he had dared, how he would have liked to ask Sigismond for it ! One day the temptation was too strong. He was alone in the office. The old cashier had gone out to lunch, leaving the key in his drawer, a most extraordinary thing. Risler could not resist. He opened the drawer, lifted the papers and searched for his letter. It was not there. Sigismond must have put it away even more carefully, perhaps with a prevision of what had actually happened. In his heart Risler was not sorry for his discomfiture ; for he well knew that, if he had found the letter, it would have been the end of the resigned and active life which he imposed upon himself with so much difficulty. Through the week it was all very w^ell. Exist- ence was endurable, absorbed by the innumerable duties of the factory, and so fatiguing that, when night came, Risler fell on his bed like a lifeless mass. But Sunday was long and painful. The silence of the deserted yards and workshops opened a far wider field to his thoughts. He tried to work ; but he missed the encouragement of the others' work. He alone was busy in that great, empty factory whose very breath was arrested. The locked doors, the closed blinds, the hoarse voice of Pere Achille playing with his dog in the deserted courtyard, all spoke of solitude. And the quarter also produced the same cftcct. In the streets, 24 2,JO: Fromojit and Rislcr. which seemed wider because of their emptiness, and where the passers-by were few and silent, the bells ringing for vespers had a melancholy sound, and sometimes an echo of the uproar of Paris, rumbling wheels, a belated hand-organ, the click of a toy-peddler's clappers, broke the silence, as if to make it even more noticeable. Risler would try to invent new combinations of flowers and leaves, and as he handled his pencil, his thoughts, not finding sufficient food there, would escape him, would fly back to his past hap- piness, to his ineradicable misfortunes, would suffer martyrdom, and then, on returning, would ask the poor somnambulist, still seated at his table : " What have you done in my absence ? " Alas ! he had done nothing. Oh ! the long, heartbreaking, cruel Sundays ! Consider that there was mingled with all these per- plexities in his mind the superstitious reverence of the common people for holy days, for the twenty- four hours of rest, wherein one recovers strength and courage. If he had gone out, the sight of a workingman with his wife and child would have made him weep, but his monkish seclusion reserved for him other forms of suffering, the despair of recluses, their terrible outbreaks of rebellion when the god to whom they have consecrated themselves does not respond to their sacrifices. Now, Risler's god was work, and as he no longer found comfort or serenity therein, he no longer believed in it but cursed it. Often in those hours of combat the door of the The Cafe Chan taut. 0/ draughting-room would open gently and Claire Fremont would appear. The poor man's loneli- ness throughout those long Sunday afternoons filled her with pity, and she would come with her little girl to bear him company, knowing by expe- rience how contagious is the sweet joyousness of children. The little one, who could now walk alone, would slip from her mother's arms to run to her friend. Rislcr would hear the little hurried steps. He would feel the light breath behind him, and instantly he would be conscious of a soothing, rejuvenating influence. She would throw her plump little arms around his neck with affectionate warmth, with her artless, causeless laugh, and a kiss from her little mouth which had never lied. Claire Fromont, standing in the doorway, would smile as she looked at them. " Risler, my friend," she w^ould say, "you must come down into the garden a while, — you work too hard. You will be sick." " No, no, madame, — on the contrary, work is what saves me. It keeps me from thinking." Then, after a long pause, she would continue : " Come, my dear Risler, you must try to forget." Risler would shake his head. "Forget! Is that possible? There are some things beyond one's strength. A man may forgive, but he never forgets." The child almost always succeeded in dragging him down to the garden. Willy-nill)', he must play ball or in the gravel with her ; but her play- fellow's awkwardness and lack of enthusiasm soon 372 Fromont and Risler. impressed the little girl. Then she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely between the rows of box, with her hand in her friend's. After a moment Risler would entirely forget that she was there ; but, although he did not realize it, the warmth of that little hand in his had a magnetic, softening effect upon his diseased mind. A man may forgive, but he never forgets ! Poor Claire herself knew something about it; for she had never forgotten, notwithstanding her great courage and the conception she had formed of her duty. To her, as to Risler, her environment was a constant reminder of her sufferings. The' objects amid which she lived pitilessly reopened the wound that was ready to close. The staircase, the garden, the court-yard, all those witnesses, those dumb witnesses of her husband's crime, as- sumed on certain days an implacable expression. Even the care, the precautions her husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in which he called attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the evening, and took pains to tell her where he had been during the day, served only to remind her the more forcibly of his wrong-doing. Sometimes she longed to ask him to forbear, — to say to him : " Do not do too much." Faith was shattered within her, and the horrible agony of the priest who doubts and seeks at the same time to remain faithful to his vows, betrayed itself in her bitter smile, her cold, uncomplaining gentleness. Georges was wofully unhappy. He loved his The Cafe Chan taut. 272> wife now. The nobility of her character had van- quished him. There was admiration in his love, and — why not say it? — Claire's sorrow filled the place of the coquetry which was contrary to her nature, and the lack of which had always been a defect in her husband's e)'es. He was one of that strange type of men who love to make conquests. Sidonie, capricious and cold as she was, responded to that whim of his heart. After parting from her with a most tender farewell, he found her indiffer- ent and forgetful the next day, and that incessant need of wooing her back to him took the place of genuine passion. Serenity in love wearied him as a voyage without storms wearies a sailor. On this occasion he had been very near shipwreck with his wife, and the danger had not passed even yet. He knew that Claire was alienated from him and entirely devoted to the child, — the only link be- tween them thenceforth. Their separation made her seem lovelier, more desirable, and he put forth all his powers of fascination to recapture her. He felt how hard a task it would be, and that he had no ordinary, frivolous heart to deal with. But he did not despair. Sometimes a vague gleam in the depths of the mild and apparently impassive glance with which she watched his efforts, bade him hope. As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. And let no one be astonished at that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to attach them securely to each other. Georges was incapable of receiving lasting impres- sions unless they were constantly renewed ; Sidonie, 374 Fromont and Risler. for her part, had no power to inspire any noble or durable sentiment. It was one of those cocotte- dandy intrigues, compounded of vanity, of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor con- stancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely fatal, and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, if he had seen her again, he might have had a relapse of his disease ; but the hurricane of flight had carried Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was impossible. At all events, it was a relief for him to be able to live without lying; and the new life he was leading, a life of hard work and self-denial, with the goal of success in the distance, was not distasteful to him. Luckily ; for the courage and determination of both partners were none too much to put the house on its feet once more. The poor house of Fromont was taking in water on all sides. So Pere Planus still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and the ominous vision of the little blue man. But, by dint of economy, they always succeeded in paying. Soon four Risler presses were definitively set up and used in the work of the factory. People began to take a deep interest in them, in the wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the industry, were greatly disturbed concerning that marvellous " rotary and dodecagonal " ma- chine. Then one fine day the Prochassons appeared and offered three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent rights. The Cafe Chaniant. 375 "What shall wc do?" Fromont Jciinc asked Risler Ainc. The latter shrugged his shoulders with an indif- ferent air. " Decide for yourself. It does n't concern me. I am only a clerk." The words spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont's bewildered joy, and re- minded him of the gravity of a situation which he was always on the point of forgetting. But, when he was alone with his dear Madame Chorche, Risler advised her not to accept the Prochassons' offer. "Wait, — don't be in a hurry. Later you will get a better price." He spoke only of them in that affair in which his share was so glorious. She felt that he was already preparing to cut himself adrift from their future. Meanwhile orders came pouring in, accumulated on their hands. The quality of the paper, the fall in price because of the improved methods of manufacture, made competition impossible. There was no doubt that a colossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont. The factory had re- sumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum. Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen who filled them. Perc Planus never raised his nose from his desk ; you could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers, jotting down in magnificently moulded figures the profits of the Risler press. 276 Fromont and Risler. Risler still worked as before, without change or rest. The return of prosperity brought no alteration in his secluded habits, and it was from the highest window on the topmost floor of the house that he listened to the ceaseless roar of his machines. He was no less gloomy, no less taciturn. One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Manchester, had received the gold medal, whereby its success was definitively established. Madame Georges called Risler into the garden at the luncheon hour, wishing to be the first to tell him the good news. For the moment a proud smile relaxed his pre- maturely old, gloomy features. His inventor's vanity, his pride in his renown, above all the idea of repairing thus magnificently the wrong done to the firm by his wife, gave him a moment of true happiness. He pressed Claire's hands and mur- mured, as in the old happy days : " I am very happy. I am very happy." But what a difference in tone ! He said it with- out enthusiasm, hopelessly, with the satisfaction of a task accomplished, and nothing more. The bell rang for the workmen to return and Risler went calmly upstairs to resume his work as on other days. In a moment he came down again. In spite of all, that news had excited him more than he cared to show. He wandered over the garden, prowled around the counting-room, smiling sadly at Pere Planus through the window. The Cafe CJumtaiit. ^yy "What's the matter with him?" the old cashier wondered. " What does he want of me? " At last, when night came and it was time to close the office, Risler summoned courage to go and speak to him. " Planus, my old friend, I would like — " He hesitated a moment. " I would like you to give me — the letter, you know, the little letter and the package." Sigismond stared at him in utter amazement. In his innocence he had imagined that Risler never thought of Sidonie, that he had entirely forgotten her. " What — you want — ? " " Ah ! look you, I have well earned it, I can think of myself a little now. I have thought enough of the others." "You are right," said Planus. "Well, this is what we '11 do. The letter and package are at my house at Montrouge. If you choose we will go and dine together at the Palais-Royal, as in the good old times. I will stand treat. We '11 water your medal with a bottle of wine, something choice ! Then we '11 go to the house together. You can get your trinkets, and if it's too late for you to go home, Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, shall make up a bed for you, and you shall pass the night with us. We're very comfortable there — it's in the country. To-morrow morning at seven o'clock we '11 come back to the factory by the first omnibus. Come, old fellow, give me this pleasure. If you don't, I shall think you still bear your old Sigismond a grudge." 37S Fromont and Risler. Risler accepted. He cared but little about com- memorating his medal, but he wanted to gain a few hours in opening the little letter he had at last earned the right to read. He must dress. That was quite a serious matter, for he had lived in a workman's jacket the past six months. And what an event in the factory ! Madame Fromont was informed at once. "Madame, Madame! Monsieur Risler 's going out ! " Claire looked at him from her window, and that tall body, bowed by sorrow, leaning on Sigismond's arm, aroused in her a profound, unusual emotion which she remembered ever after. In the street people bowed to Risler with great interest. Even their greetings made him warm about the heart. He was so in need of kindness ! But the noise of vehicles made him a little dizzy. " My head is spinning," he said to Planus. " Lean hard on me, old fellow — don't be afraid." And honest Planus drew himself up, escorting his friend with the artless, unconventional pride of a peasant of the South bearing aloft his village saint. At last they arrived at the Palais-Royal. The garden was full of people. They had come to hear the music, and one and all were trying to find seats amid clouds of dust and the scraping of chairs. The two friends hurried into the restau- rant to avoid all that turmoil. They established themselves in one of the large salons on the first floor, from which they could see the green trees, TJie Cafe Chan taut. 379 the promcnadcrs, and the water spurting from the fountain between the two melanchol}' flower- gardens. To Sigismond it was the ideal of magnifi- cence, that restaurant, with gilding everywhere, around the mirrors, in the chandelier and even on the figured wall-paper. The white napkin, the roll, the menu of a table d'hote dinner filled his soul with joy. "We are comfortable here, are n't we?" he said to Risler. And he exclaimed at each of the courses of that banquet at two francs fifty, and insisted on filling his friend's plate. " Eat that — it's good." The other, notwithstanding his desire to do honor to the fete, seemed preoccupied and kept his eyes always out-of-doors. " Do you remember, Sigismond? " he said, after a pause. The old cashier, engrossed in his memories of long ago, of Risler's first employment at the factory, replied : "I should think I do remember — listen! The first time we dined together at the Palais-Royal was in February, '46, the year we put in the planchcs- platcs at the factory." Risler shook his head. " Oh ! no — I mean three years ago. It was in that room just opposite that we dined on that memorable evening." And he pointed to the great windows of the salon of Cafe Vefour, gleaming in the rays of the 380 Fror.iont and Risler. setting sun like the chandeliers at a wedding feast. " Ah ! yes, true," murmured Sigismond, abashed. What an unlucky idea of his to bring his friend to a place that recalled such painful things ! Risler, anxious not to cast a gloom upon their banquet, abruptly raised his glass. " Come ! here 's your health, my old comrade." He tried to change the subject. But a moment later he himself led the conversation back to it again, and asked Sigismond, in an undertone, as if he were ashamed : " Have you seen her? " " Your wife? No, never." " She has n't written again? " " No — never again." " But you must have heard of her. What has she been doing these six months? Does she live with her parents ? " "No." Risler turned pale. He hoped that Sidonie would have returned to her mother, that she would have worked, as he had done, to forget and atone. He had often thought that he would arrange his life according to what he should learn of her when he should have the right to speak of her; and in one of those far-off futures, which have the vagueness of a dream, he some- times fancied himself living in exile with the Chebes in some unknown land, where nothing would remind him of his past shame. It was not a definite plan, to be sure ; but the thought lived The Cafe Chatitant. 381 in the depths of his mind like a hope, caused by the need that all human creatures feel of finding their lost happiness. " Is she in Paris? " he asked, after a few moments* reflection. " No. She went away three months ago. No one knows where she has gone." Sigismond did not add that she had gone with her Cazaboni, whose name she now bore, that they were making the circuit of the provincial cities together, that her mother was in despair, never saw her, and heard of her only through Delobellc. Sigismond did not deem it his duty to mention all that, and after his last words, " She has gone away," he held his peace. Risler, for his part, dared ask no further questions. While they sat there, facing each other, both embarrassed by the long silence, the military band began to play under the trees in the garden. They played one of those Italian operatic overtures which seem to have been written expressly for public open-air resorts ; the swiftly-flowing notes, as they rise into the air, blend with the *' psst ! psst ! " of the swallows and the silvery plash of the fountain. The blaring brass brings out in bold relief the mild warmth of the closing hours of those summer days, so long and enervating in Paris; it seems as if one could hear nothing else. The distant rumbling of wheels, the cries of children playing, the footsteps of the promenaders are wafted away in those resonant, gushing, refreshing waves of melody, as useful to the people of Paris as the daily watering 382 Fromont and Risler. of their pavements. On all sides the faded flowers, the trees white with dust, the faces made pale and wan by the heat, all the sorrows, all the miseries of a great city, sitting dreamily, with bowed head, on the benches in the garden, feel its comforting, refreshing influence. The air is stirred, renewed by those strains that traverse it, filling it with harmony. Poor Risler felt as if the tension upon all his nerves were relaxed. " A little music does one good," he said, with glistening eyes. " My heart is heavy, old fellow," he added, in a lower tone ; " if you knew — " They sat without speaking, their elbows resting on the window-sill, while their coffee was served. Then the music ceased, the garden became deserted. The light that had loitered in the cor- ners crept upward to the roofs, cast its last rays upon the highest window-panes, followed by the birds, the swallows, which saluted the close of day with a farewell chirp from the gutter where they were huddled together. " Well, where shall we go ? " said Planus, as they left the restaurant. " Wherever you choose." On the first floor of a building on Rue Mont- pensier, close at hand, there was a cafe cJiantajit, to which many people seemed to be going. "Suppose we go up?" said Planus, desirous of banishing his friend's melancholy at any cost, " the beer is excellent." Risler acceded to the suggestion ; for six months he had not tasted beer. The Cafe Chaiilaut. t^^t^ It was a former restaurant transformed into a concert hall. There were three large rooms, separated by gilded pillars, the partitions having been removed ; the decoration was in the Moorish style, bright red, pale blue, with little crescents and turbans for ornament. Although it was still early, the place was full; and even before entering one had a feeling of suffocation, simply from seeing the swarms of people sitting around the tables, and at the farther end, half-hidden by the rows of pillars, the white- robed women crowded on a raised platform, in the heat and glare of the gas. Our two friends had much difficulty in finding seats, and had to be content with a place behind a pillar from which they could see only half of the platform, then occupied by a superb monsieur in black coat and yellow gloves, curled and waxed and oiled, who was singing in a vibrating voice : Mes beaux lions aux crins dor^s, Du sang des troupeaux alt^rds, Halte li ! — Je fais scntinclld ! i The audience — small tradesmen of the quarter with their wives and daughters — seemed highly enthusiastic ; especially the women. He repre- sented so perfectly the beau ideal of the shop- keeper imagination, that magnificent shepherd of the desert, who talked to the lions with such an air 1 My noble lions with golden manes Who thirst for the blood of my flocks, Stand back ! — I am on sentry-go I 384 Fromoiit and Risler. of authority and tended his flocks in full evening dress. And so, despite their bourgeois bearing, their modest costumes and their expressionless shopgirl smiles, all those ladies, putting out their little mouths toward the hook of sentiment, cast languishing glances upon the singer. It was truly comical to see that glance at the platform suddenly change and become contemptuous and fierce as it fell upon the husband, the poor husband tranquilly drinking a glass of beer opposite his wife : " You would never be capable of doing sentry duty in the very teeth of lions, and in a black coat too, and with yellow gloves ! " And the husband's eye seemed to reply : " Ah ! dame, yes, he 's quite a buck, that fellow." Being decidedly indifferent to heroism of that stamp, Risler and Sigismond were drinking their beer without paying much attention to the music, when, at the end of the song, amid the applause and yells and uproar that followed it, Pere Planus uttered an exclamation : "Why, that's funny; one would say — but no, I 'm not mistaken. It is he, it's Delobelle ! " It was, in fact, the illustrious actor, whom he had discovered in the front row near the platform. His gray head was turned partly away from them. He was leaning carelessly against a pillar, hat in hand, in his grand make-up as leading man : dazzlingly white linen, hair curled with the tongs, black coat with a camellia in the buttonhole like the ribbon of an order. He "lanced at the crowd from time The Cafe Cliajiiant. 385 to time with a patronizing air: but his eyes were most frequently turned toward the platform, with encouraging little gestures and smiles and pre- tended applause, addressed to some one whom Pere Planus could not see from his seat. There was nothing very extraordinary in the presence of the illustrious Delobclle at a cafe con- cert, as he spent all his evenings away from home ; and yet the old cashier felt vaguely disturbed, especially when he discovered in the same row a blue cape and a pair of steely eyes. It was Madame Dobson, the sentimental singing teacher. The conjunction of those two faces amid the pipe-smoke and the confusion of the crowd, produced upon Sigismond the effect of two ghosts evoked by the coincidences of a bad dream. He was afraid for his friend, without knowing exactly why; and sud- denly it occurred to him to take him away. " Let 's go, Risler. The heat here is enough to kill one." Just as they rose — for Risler was no more anxious to stay than to go — the orchestra, consist- ing of a piano and several violins, struck up a peculiar refrain. There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room, and cries of " Hush ! hush ! sit down ! " They were obliged to resume their seats. Risler too was beginning to be disturbed. " I know that tunc," he said to himself. " Where have I heard it? " A thunder of applause and an exclamation from Planus made him raise his eyes. 25 386 Fromont and Risler. " Come, come, let us go out," said the cashier, trying to lead him away. But it was too late. Risler had already seen his wife come forward to the front of the platform and courtesy to the audience with a ballet-dancer's smile. She wore a white dress, as on the night of the ball ; but her whole costume was much less rich and shockingly immodest. The dress was hardly caught at the shoulders ; her hair flew about in a blonde mist over her eyes, and about her neck was a necklace of pearls too large to be real, spaced with bits of tinsel. Delo- belle was right : the Bohemian life was best suited to her. Her beauty had gained an indefinably reck- less expression, which was its most characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who has escaped from all restraint, placed herself at the mercy of every accident, and is descending stage by stage to the lowest depths of the Parisian hell, from which nothing is powerful enough to lift her up and restore her to the pure air and the light. And how perfectly at ease she seemed in her strolling life ! With what self-possession she walked to the front of the platform ! Ah ! if she could have seen the desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in the hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost that equivocal placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those wheedling, languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame Dobson had ever been able to teach her: T/ie Cafe Chantant. 2^^"] Pauv' pitit Mamz'elle Zizi, C'est ramou, I'amou qui tourne la tete ii H. Risler had risen, in spite of Planus's efforts. " Sit down ! sit down ! " the people shouted. The wretched man heard nothing. He was looking at his wife. C'est I'amou, I'amou qui tourne la tete \ li, Sidonie repeated affectedly. For a moment he wondered if he should not leap on the platform and kill her. Red flames shot before his eyes and he was blinded with frenzy as it were. Then, suddenly, shame and disgust seized upon him and he rushed from the hall, overturning chairs and tables, pursued by the terror and imprecations of all those scandalized bourgeois. 388 Fromont and Risler. VI. SIDONIE'S VENGEANCE. Never had Sigismond Planus returned home so late without giving his sister warning, during the twenty years and more that he had lived at Mont- rouge. Consequently Mademoiselle Planus was terribly worried. Living as she did in community of ideas and of everything else with her brother, having but one mind for herself and him, the old maid had felt for several months the rebound of all the old cashier's anxiety and indignation ; and the effect was still noticeable in her tendency to trem- ble and become agitated on slight provocation. At the slightest tardiness on Sigismond's part, she would think : "Ah! mon Dieu! If only nothing has happened at the factory ! " That is why, on the evening in question, when the hens and chickens were all asleep on their perches, and the dinner had been removed un- touched, Mademoiselle Planus was sitting in the little ground-floor living-room, waiting, in great agitation. At last, about eleven o'clock, some one rang. A timid, melancholy ring, in no wise resembling Sigismond's vigorous pull. Sidonics Vengeance. 389 " Is it you, Monsieur Planus? " queried the old maid from behind the door. It was he ; but he was not alone. A tall, bent old man accompanied him and, as they entered, bade her good-evening in a slow, hesitating voice. Not till then did Mademoiselle Planus recognize Risler Aine, whom she had not seen since the days of the New Year's calls, that is to say, some time before the dramas at the factory. She could hardly restrain an exclamation of pity; but the grave taciturnity of the two men told her that she must hold her peace. " Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, you will put clean sheets on my bed. Our friend Risler does us the honor to pass the night with us." The old maid hastened away to prepare the bed- room with an almost affectionate zeal ; for, as we know, outside of " Monsieur Planus, my brother," Risler was the only man excepted from the general reprobation in which she enveloped the whole sex. Upon leaving the cafe concert, Sidonie's hus- band had had a moment of frantic excitement. He leaned on Planus's arm, every nerve in his body strained to the utmost. At that moment he had no thought of going to Montrouge to get the letter and the package. "Leave me — go away," he said to Sigismond. "I must be alone." But the other knew better than to abandon him thus to his despair. Unnoticed by Risler, he led him away from the factory, and as his affectionate heart suggested to the old cashier what he had best 390 Fromo7it and Risler. say to his friend, he talked to him all the time of Frantz, his little Frantz whom he loved so dearly. "That was genuine afifection, genuine and trust- worthy. No treachery to fear with such hearts as that ! " While they talked they left behind them the noisy streets of the centre of Paris, They walked along the quays, skirted the Jardin des Plantes, plunged into Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Risler followed where the other led. Sigismond's words did him so much good ! In due time they came to the Bievre, bordered at that point with tanneries whose tall drying-houses with open sides were outlined in blue against the sky; and then the ill-defined plains of Montsouris, vast tracts of land scorched and stripped of vegeta- tion by the fiery breath that Paris exhales around its daily toil, like a monstrous dragon, whose breath of flame and smoke suffers no vegetation within its range. From Montsouris to the fortifications of Mont- rouge is but a step. When they had reached that point. Planus had no great difficulty in taking his friend home with him. He thought, and justly, that his tranquil fireside, the spectacle of a placid, fraternal, devoted affection, would give the wretched man's heart a sort of foretaste of the happiness that was in store for him with his brother Frantz. And, in truth, the charm of the little household began to operate as soon as they arrived. " Yes, yes, you are right, old fellow," said Risler, pacing the floor of the living-room, " I must n't Sidonies Vengeance. 39 1 think of that woman any more. She 's like a dead woman to me now. I have nobody left in the workl but my little Frantz ; I don't know yet whether I shall send for him to come home or go out and join him ; the one thing that 's certain is that we are going to stay together. Ah ! I longed so to have a son ! Now I have found one. I want no other. When I think that for a moment I had an idea of killing myself! Nonsense! it would make Madame What-d' ye-call yonder too happy. On the contrary I mean to live, to live with my Frantz and for him, and for nothing else." " Bravo ! " said Sigismond, " that 's the way I want to hear you talk." At that moment Mademoiselle Planus came to say that the room was ready. Risler apologized for the trouble he was causing them. "You are so comfortable, so happy here. Really it's too bad to burden you with my melancholy." "Ah! my old friend, you can arrange just such happiness as ours for yourself," said honest Sigis- mond with beaming face. " I have my sister, you have your brother. What do we lack? " Risler smiled vaguely. He fancied himself al- ready installed with Frantz in a quiet little qiiaker- ish house like that. Decidedly that was an excellent idea of Pere Planus. " Come to bed," he said triumphantly. " We '11 go and show you your room." 392 Fromont and Risler. Sigismond Planus's bedroom was on the ground- floor, a large room simply but neatly furnished, with cottonade curtains at the windows and the bed, and little squares of carpet on the polished floor, in front of the chairs. The dowager Madame Fromont herself could have found nothing to say as to the orderly and cleanly aspect of the place. On a shelf or two against the wall were a few books : Manual of Fishing, The Perfect Coimtry Housewife, Bareme's Book-keeping. That was the whole of the intellectual equipment of the room. Pere Planus glanced proudly around. The glass of water was in its place on the walnut table, the box of razors on the dressing-case. "You see, Risler. Here's everything you need. And if you should want anything else, the keys are in all the drawers — you have only to turn them. Just see what a beautiful view you get from here. It *s a little dark just now, but when you wake up in the morning, you '11 see ; it 's magnificent." He opened the window. Great drops of rain were beginning to fall, and lightning flashes rend- ing the darkness disclosed the long silent line of the fortifications, with telegraph poles at intervals, or the frowning door of a casemate. Now and then the footsteps of a patrol making the rounds, the clash of muskets or swords, reminded them that they were within the military zone. That was the outlook so vaunted by Planus, — a melancholy outlook if ever there were one. ** And now good-night. Sleep well." Sidoiiics Vengeance. 393 But, as the old cashier was leaving the room, his friend called him back : " Sigismond." " Here ! " said the goodman, and he waited. Risler blushed slightly and moved his lips like a man who is about to speak ; then, with a mighty effort, he said : "No, no — nothing. Good-night, old man." In the dining-room the brother and sister talked together a long while in low tones. Planus de- scribed the terrible occurrence of the evening, the meeting with Sidonie; and you can imagine the " Oh ! these women ! " and " Oh ! these men ! " At last, when they had locked the little garden door, Mademoiselle Planus went up to her room, and Sigismond made himself as comfortable as possible in a small cabinet adjoining. About midnight the cashier was aroused by his sister calling him in a terrified whisper: " Monsieur Planus, my brother?" "What is it?" "Did you hear?" "No. What?" " Oh ! it was awful. Something like a deep sigh, but so loud and so sad ! It came from the room below." They listened. Without, the rain was falling in torrents, with the dreary rustling of leaves that makes the country seem so lonely and so vast. " It's the wind," said Planus. " I am sure not. Hush ! Listen ! " Amid the tumult of the storm, they heard a wail- 394 Fromo7it and Risler. ing sound, like a sob, in which a name was pro- nounced with difficulty : " Frantz ! Frantz ! " It was horrible and pitiful. When the Christ on the Cross sent up to heaven through the empty void his despairing cry : Eli, eli, lama sabachthani, they who heard him must have felt the same species of superstitious terror that suddenly seized upon Mademoiselle Planus. " I am afraid," she whispered ; " suppose you go and look — " "No, no, let us let him alone. He is thinking of his brother. Poor fellow ! It 's the very thought of all others that will do him the most good." And the old cashier went to sleep again. The next morning he woke as usual when the drums beat the reveille in the fortifications ; for the little family, surrounded by barracks, regulated its life by the military calls. The sister had already risen and was feeding the hens. When she saw Sigismond she came to him in some agitation. "It's very strange," she said, "I hear nothing stirring in Monsieur Risler's room. But the win- dow is wide open." Sigismond, greatly surprised, went and knocked at his friend's door. "Risler! Risler!" He called in great anxiety : "Risler, are you there? Are you asleep?" There was no reply. He opened the door. The room was cold. It was evident that the Sidonies Vengeance. 395 damp air had been blowing in all ni^ht throii;;h the open window. At the first glance he cast at the bed, Sigismond thought: " He hasn't been to bed " — for the clothes were undisturbed and the condition of the room, even in the most trivial details, revealed an agitated vigil : the still smok- ing lamp, which he had neglected to extinguish, the carafe, drained to the last drop by the fever of insomnia; but the thing that filled the cashier with dismay was to find the commode drawer wide open in which he had carefully bestowed the letter and package intrusted to him by his friend. The letter was no longer there. The package lay on the table, open, revealing a photograph of Sidonie at fifteen. With her high-necked dress, her rebellious hair parted over the forehead, the em- barrassed pose of a gawky girl, the little Chcbe of the old days, Mademoiselle Le Mire's apprentice, bore little resemblance to the Sidonie of to-day. And that was why Risler had kept that photograph, as a souvenir, not of his wife, but of the " little one." Sigismond was in dire dismay. "It's my fault," he said to himself "I ought to have taken away the keys. Hut who would have supposed that he was still thinking of her? — He had sworn so many times that that woman no longer existed for him." At that moment Mademoiselle Planus entered the room with consternation written on her face. " Monsieur Risler has gone." she exclaimed. " Gone? Why, was n't the garden gate locked? " 396 Fromont and Risler. " He climbed over the wall. You can see his footprints." They looked at each other, terrified beyond measure. " It was the letter ! " thought Planus. Evidently that letter from his wife must have made some extraordinary revelation to Risler ; and, in order not to disturb his hosts, he had made his escape noiselessly through the window like a burglar. Why? With what end in view? " You will see, sister," said poor Planus, as he dressed himself with all haste, "you will see that that hussy has played him still another trick." And when the old maid tried to encourage him, the goodman recurred to his favorite refrain : " / haf 710 gonjidcnce ! " As soon as he was dressed, he darted out of the house. Risler's footprints could be distinguished on the rain-soaked ground as far as the gate of the little garden. He must have gone before daybreak, for the squares of vegetables and the flower-beds were trampled down at random by deep footprints with long spaces between ; there were marks of heels on the garden-wall and the mortar was crumbled slightly on top. The brother and sister went out on the road skirting the fortifications. There it was impossible to follow the footprints. They could tell nothing more than that Risler had gone in the direction of the Orleans road. " After all," Mademoiselle Planus ventured to say, " we are very good to torment ourselves about Sidonies Vengeance. 397 him ; perhaps he has simply gone back to the factory." Sigismond shook his head. Ah ! if he had said all that he thought ! " You go back to the house, sister. I will go and see." And the old " I kaf 710 gojijidcncc" started off like a hurricane, his white mane standing even more erect than usual. At that hour, on the road skirting the fortifica- tions, there was an endless procession of soldiers and market-gardeners, guard-mounting, officers' horses out for exercise, sutlers with their parapher- nalia, all the bustle and activity that is seen in the morning in the neighborhood of forts. Planus was striding along amid the tumult, when suddenly he stopped. At the foot of the bank, on the left, in front of a small square building, with the inscription : CITY OF PARIS, ENTRANCE TO THE QUARRIES, on the rough plaster, he saw a crowd assembled, and soldiers' and custom-house officers' uniforms, mingled with the shabby, dirty blouses of barrier- loafers. The old man instinctively approached. A customs officer, seated on the stone step below a round postern with iron bars, was talking with many gestures, as if he were acting out his narrative. " He was where I am," he said. " He had hanged himself sitting, by pulling with all his strength on the cord ! It 's plain that he had made 398 Fromont and Risler. up his mind to die, for he had a razor in his pocket that he 'd have used in case the cord had broken." A voice in the crowd exclaimed : " Poor devil ! " Then another, a tremulous voice, choking with emotion, asked timidly : " Is it quite certain that he 's dead? " Everybody looked at Planus and began to laugh. " Well, here 's a greenhorn," said the officer. " Don't I tell you that he was all blue this morning, when we cut him down to take him to the Chas- seurs' barracks ! " The barracks were not far away ; and yet Sigis- mond Planus had all the difficulty in the world in dragging himself so far. In vain did he say to himself that suicides are of frequent occurrence in Paris, especially in those regions ; that not a day passes that a dead body is not found somewhere along that long line of fortifications, as upon the shores of a tempestuous sea, — he could not escape the horrible presentiment that had oppressed his heart since early morning. " Ah ! you have come to see the man that hanged himself," said the quartermaster-sergeant at the door of the barracks. " See ! there he is." The body had been laid on a table supported by trestles in a sort of shed. A cavalry cloak that had been thrown over it covered it from head to foot, and fell in the shroud-like folds which all things assume that come in contact with the rigidity of death. A group of officers and several soldiers in duck trousers were looking on at a distance, talking in whispers as in a church ; and an assistant- Sidoiiics Vengeance. 399 surgeon was writing a report of the death on the sill of a high window. To him Sigismond ad- dressed himself. " I would like very much to see him," he said softly. " Go and look." He walked to the table, hesitated a minute, then, summoning courage, uncovered a swollen ' face, a tall, motionless body in its rain-soaked garments. *' She has killed you at last, my old comrade," murmured Planus, and fell on his knees, sobbing bitterly. The officers had come forward, gazing curiously at the body, which was left uncovered. "Look, surgeon," said one of them. " His hand is closed, as if he were holding something in it." "That is so," the surgeon replied, drawing nearer. " That sometimes happens in the last convulsions. You remember at Solferino, Com- mandant Bordy held his little daughter's miniature in his hand like that? We had much difficulty in taking it from him." As he spoke he tried to open the poor, tightly- closed dead hand. " Look ! " said he, " it 's a letter that he is hold- ing so tight." He was about to read it ; but one of the officers took it from his hands and passed it to Sigismond, who was still kneeling. " Here, monsieur. Perhaps you will find in this some last wish to be carried out." 400 Fromont and Risler. Sigismond Planus rose. As the room was dark, he walked with faltering step to the window, and read, his eyes dimmed by tears: " Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and forever ! What is the use of struggling and fighting against fate? Our crime is stronger than we are. . . ." It was the letter which Frantz had written to his sister-in-law a year before, and which Sidonie had sent to her husband on the day following their scene, to revenge herself on him and his brother at the same time. Risler could have survived his wife's treachery, but his brother's treachery had killed him on the spot. When Sigismond understood, he was petrified with horror. He stood there, with the letter in his hand, gazing mechanically through the open window. The clock struck six. Yonder, over Paris, whose muffled roar they could hear although they could not see the city, a cloud of smoke arose, heavy and hot, moving slowly upward, with a fringe of red and black around its edges, like the powder-smoke on a field of battle. Little by little, steeples, white buildings, a gilded cupola, shook themselves clear of the mist, and burst forth in a splendid awakening. Then the thousands of tall factory chimneys, towering above that sea of clustered roofs, began with one accord to breathe forth their quivering vapor, with the energy of a steamer about to sail. Life was be- Sidonies Vengeance. 40 1 ginning anew. Forward, ye wheels! And so much the worse for him who lags behind ! Thereupon old Planus gave way to a terrible outburst of wrath. "Ah! harlot — harlot!" he cried, shaking his fist; and no one could say whether he was ad- dressing the woman or the city. 26 "^i^°^S\iS \ \1\ 11 11 *AA 000 931 "33V" 7