BONNE MAMAN
Paul de Gery went three times a week in the evening to take his lessonin bookkeeping in the Joyeuses' dining-room, not far from that littleparlour in which he had seen the family the first day, and while withhis eyes fixed on his teacher he was being initiated into all themysteries of "debtor and creditor," he used to listen, in spite ofhimself, for the light sounds coming from the industrious group behindthe door, with thoughts dwelling regretfully on the vision of all thosepretty brows bent in the lamplight. M. Joyeuse never said a word of hisdaughters; jealous of their charms as a dragon watching over beautifulprincesses in a tower, and excited by the fantastic imaginings of hisexcessive affection for them, he would answer with marked brevity theinquiries of his pupil regarding the health of "the young ladies," sothat at last the young man ceased to mention them.
He was surprised, however, at not once seeing that Bonne Maman whosename was constantly recurring in the conversation of M. Joyeuse,entering into the least details of his existence, hovering over thehousehold like the emblem of its perfect ordering and of its peace.
So great a reserve on the part of a venerable lady who must assuredlyhave passed the age at which the interest of young men is to be feared,seemed to him exaggerated. The lessons, however, were good ones,given with great clearness, the teacher having an excellent systemof demonstration, and only one fault, that of becoming absorbed insilences, broken by sudden starts and exclamations let off like rockets.Apart from this, he was the best of masters, intelligent, patient, andconscientious, and Paul learned to know his way through the complexlabyrinth of commercial books and resigned himself to ask nothingbeyond.
One evening, towards nine o'clock, as the young man had risen to go, M.Joyeuse asked him if he would do him the honour of taking a cup of teawith his family, a custom dating from the time when Mme. Joyeuse, _nee_de Saint-Amand, was alive, she having been used to receive her friendson Thursdays. Since her death and the change in the financial position,the friends had become dispersed; but his little weekly function hadbeen kept up.
Paul having accepted, the good old fellow opened the door and called:
"Bonne Maman!"
An alert footstep in the passage, and immediately the face of a girl oftwenty, in a halo of abundant brown hair, made its appearance.
De Gery, stupefied, looked at M. Joyeuse.
"Bonne Maman?"
"Yes, it is a name that we gave her when she was a little girl. With herfrilled cap, her authority as the eldest child, she had a quaint littleair. We thought her like her grandmother. The name has clung to her."
From the honest fellow's tone as he spoke thus, one felt that to himthis grandparent's title applied to such an embodiment of attractiveyouth seemed the most natural thing in the world. Every one else thoughtas he did on the point; both her sisters, who had hastened to theirfather's side, grouping themselves round him somewhat as in the portraitexhibited in the window on the ground floor, and the old servantwho placed on the table in the little drawing-room a magnificenttea-service, a relic of the former splendours of the household. Everyone called the girl "Bonne Maman" without her ever once having growntired of it, the influence of that sacred title touching the affectionof each one with a deference which flattered her and gave to her idealauthority a singular gentleness of protection.
Whether or not it were by reason of this appellation of grandmotherwhich as a child he had learned to reverence, de Gery felt aninexpressible attraction towards this young girl. It was not like thesudden shock which he had received from that other, that emotionalagitation in which were mingled the desire to flee, to escape from apossession and the persistent melancholy of the morrow of a festivity,extinguished candles, the lost refrains of songs, perfumes vanishedinto the night. In the presence of this young girl as she stoodsuperintending the family table, seeing if anything were wanting,enveloping her children, her grandchildren, with the active tendernessof her eyes, there came to him a longing to know her, to be countedamong her old friends, to confide to her things which he confessed onlyto himself; and when she offered him his cup of tea without any of themincings of society or drawing-room affectations, he would have liked tosay with the rest a "Thank you, Bonne Maman," in which he would have putall his heart.
Suddenly, a cheerful knock at the door made everybody start.
"Ah, here comes M. Andre. Elise, a cup quickly. Jaia, the little cakes."At the same time, Mlle. Henriette, the third of M. Joyeuse's daughters,who had inherited from her mother, _nee_ de Saint-Amand, a certaininstinct for society, observing the number of visitors who seemed likelyto crowd their rooms that evening, rushed to light the two candles onthe piano.
"My fifth act is finished," cried the newcomer as he entered, then hestopped short. "Ah, pardon," and his face assumed a rather discomfitedexpression in the presence of the stranger. M. Joyeuse introducedthem to each other: "M. Paul de Gery--M. Andre Maranne," not withouta certain solemnity. He remembered the receptions held formerly byhis wife, and the vases on the chimneypiece, the two large lamps, thewhat-not; the easy chairs grouped in a circle had an air of joining inthis illusion, and seemed more brilliant by reason of this unaccustomedthrong.
"So your play is finished?"
"Finished, M. Joyeuse, and I hope to read it to you one of theseevenings."
"Oh, yes, M. Andre. Oh, yes," said all the girls in chorus.
Their neighbour was in the habit of writing for the stage, and no onehere doubted of his success. Photography, in any case, promised fewerprofits. Clients were very rare, passers-by little disposed to business.To keep his hand in and to save his new apparatus from rusting, M. Andrewas accustomed to practise anew on the family of his friends oneach succeeding Sunday. They lent themselves to his experimentswith unequalled long-suffering; the prosperity of this suburbanphotographer's business was for them all an affair of _amour propre_,and awakened, even in the girls, that touching confraternity of feelingwhich draws together the destinies of people as insignificant inimportance as sparrows on a roof. Andre Maranne, with the inexhaustibleresources of his great brow full of illusion, used to explain withoutbitterness the indifference of the public. Sometimes the season wasunfavourable, or, again, people were complaining of the bad state ofbusiness generally, and he would always end with the same consolingreflection, "When _Revolt_ is produced!" That was the title of his play.
"It is surprising all the same," said the fourth of M. Joyeuse'sdaughters, twelve years old, with her hair in a pigtail, "it issurprising that with such a good balcony so little business shouldresult."
"And, if he were established on the Boulevard des Italiens," remarks M.Joyeuse thoughtfully, and he is launched forth!--riding his chimeratill it is brought to the ground suddenly with a gesture and these wordsuttered sadly: "Closed on account of bankruptcy." In the space of amoment the terrible visionary has just installed his friend in splendidquarters on the Boulevard, where he gains enormous sums of money, at thesame time, however, increasing his expenditure to so disproportionate anextent that a fearful failure in a few months engulfs both photographerand his photography. They laugh heartily when he gives this explanation;but all agree that the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, although less brilliant, ismuch more to be depended upon than the Boulevard des Italiens. Besides,it happens to be quite near the Bois de Boulogne, and if once thefashionable world got into the way of passing through it--That exaltedsociety which was so much sought by her mother, is Mlle. Henriette'sfixed idea, and she is astonished that the thought of receiving "lehigh-life" in his little apartment on the fifth floor makes theirneighbour laugh. The other week, however, a carriage with livery hadcalled on him. Only just now, too, he had a very "swell" visit.
"Oh, quite a great lady!" interrupts Bonne Maman. "We were at the windowon the lookout for father. We saw her alight from her carriage and lookat the show-frame; we made sure that her visit was for you."
"It was for me," said Andre, a little embarrassed.
"For a moment we were afraid that she was going to pass on l
ike so manyothers, on account of your five flights of stairs. So all four of ustried to attract her without her knowing it, by the magnetism of ourfour staring pairs of eyes. We drew her gently by the feathers of herhat and the laces of her cape. 'Come up then, madame, come up,' andfinally she entered. There is so much magnetism in eyes that are kindlydisposed."
Magnetism she certainly had, the dear creature, not only in her glances,indeterminate of colour, veiled or gay like the sky of her Paris, but inher voice, in the draping of her dress, in everything about her, even tothe long curl, falling over the neck erect and delicate as a statue's.
Tea having been served, while the gentlemen finished their cups andtalked--old Joyeuse was always very long over everything he did, byreason of his sudden expeditions to the moon--the girls brought outtheir work, the table became covered with wicker baskets, embroideries,pretty wools that rejuvenated with their bright tints the faded flowersof the old carpet, and the group of the other evening gathered oncemore within the bright circle defined by the lamp-shade, to the greatsatisfaction of Paul de Gery. It was the first evening of the kind thathe had spent in Paris; it recalled to him others of a like sort very faraway, lulled by the same innocent laughter, the peaceful sound producedby scissors as they are put down on the table, by a needle as it piercesthrough linen, or the rustle of a page turned over, and dear faces,disappeared for ever, gathered also around the family lamp, alas! soabruptly extinguished.
Having been admitted to this charming intimacy, he remained in it, tookhis lessons in the presence of the girls and was encouraged to chat withthem when the good old man closed his big book. Here everything restedhim after the whirl of that life into which he was thrown by theluxurious social existence of the Nabob; he come to renew his strengthin this atmosphere of honesty, of simplicity, tried, too, to findhealing there for the wounds with which a hand more indifferent thancruel stabbed his heart mercilessly.
"Some women have hated me, other women have loved me. She who has hurtme most never either loved or hated me." Paul had met that woman of whomHenri Heine speaks. Felicia was full of welcome and cordiality for him.There was no one whom she treated with more favour. She used to reservefor him a special smile wherein one felt the kindliness of an artist'seye arrested by and dwelling on a pleasing type, and the satisfaction ofa jaded mind amused by anything new, however simple in appearance it maybe. She liked that reserve, suggestive in a southerner, the honestyof that judgment, independent of every artistic or social formula andenlivened by a touch of provincial accent. These things were a changefor her from the zigzag stroke of the thumb illustrating a eulogy withits gesture of the studio, from the compliments of comrades on the wayin which she would snub some old fellow, or again from those affectedadmirations, from the "char-ar-ming, very nice indeed's" with whichyoung men about town, sucking the knobs of their canes, were accustomedto regale her. This young man at any rate did not say such things asthat to her. She had nicknamed him Minerva, on account of his apparenttranquility and the regularity of his profile; and the moment she sawhim, however far-off, she would call:
"Ah, here comes Minerva. Hail, beautiful Minerva! Put down your helmetand let us have a chat."
But this familiar, almost fraternal, tone convinced the young man thathe would make no further advance into that feminine comradeship inwhich tenderness was wanting, and that he lost each day something ofhis charm--the charm of the unforeseen--in the eyes of that woman bornweary, who seemed to have already lived her life and found in all thatshe heard or saw the insipidity of a repetition. Felicia was bored.Her art alone could distract her, carry her away, transport her into adazzling fairyland, whence she would fall back worn out, surprisedeach time by this awakening like a physical fall. She used to drawa comparison between herself and those jelly-fish whose transparentbrilliancy, so much alive in the cool movements of the waves, drift totheir death on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During thosetimes devoid of inspiration, when the artist's hand was heavy onhis instrument, Felicia, deprived of the one moral support of herintellectual being, became unsociable, unapproachable, a tormentingmocker--the revenge taken of human weakness on the tired brains ofgenius. After having brought tears to the eyes of every one who caredfor her, raking up painful recollections or enervating anxieties, shereached the lowest depths of her fatigue, and as there was always somefun in her, even in her _ennui_ in a kind of caged wild-beast's howl,which she called "the cry of the jackal in the desert," and which usedto make the good Crenmitz turn pale.
Poor Felicia! That life of hers was indeed a frightful desert when artdid not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, whereeverything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonousimmensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke'scaprice, in which all was overwhelmed by an arid sand driven by blastingfates. Paul was conscious of that void, desired to escape it; butsomething held him back, like a weight which unrolls a chain, and inspite of the calumnies he heard, and notwithstanding the odd whims ofthe strange creature, he dallied deliciously after her, at the priceof bearing away with him from this long lover's contemplation only thedespair of a believer reduced to the adoring of images alone.
The refuge lay down there, in that remote quarter of the town where thewind blew so hard, yet without preventing the flame from mounting whiteand straight--it was the family circle presided over by Bonne Maman. Oh!she at least was not bored, she never uttered the cry of the "jackalin the desert." Her life was far too full; the father to encourage, tosustain, the children to teach, all the material cares of a home wherethe mother's hand is wanting, those preoccupations that awake with thedawn and are put to sleep by the evening, unless indeed it bring themback in dream, one of those devotions, tireless but without apparenteffort, very pleasant for poor human egotism, because they dispense fromall gratitude and hardly make themselves felt, so light is their hand.She was not the courageous daughter who works to support her parents,gives private lessons from morning to night, forgets in the excitementof a profession all the troubles of the household. No, she hadunderstood her task in a different sense, a sedentary bee restrictingher cares to the hive, without once humming out of doors in the open airamong the flowers. A thousand functions: tailoress, milliner, menderof clothes, bookkeeper also for M. Joyeuse, who, incapable of allresponsibility, left to her the free disposal of their means, to bepianoforte-teacher, governess.
As it happens in families that have been in a good position, Aline,as the eldest daughter, had been educated at one of the bestboarding-schools in Paris. Elise had been with her there for two years;but the last two, born too late, and sent to small day-schools in thelocality, had all their studies yet to complete, and this was no easymatter, the youngest laughing upon every occasion from sheer goodhealth, warbling like a lark intoxicated with the delight of green corn,and flying away far out of sight of desk and exercises, while Mlle.Henriette, ever haunted by her ideas of grandeur, her love of luxuriousthings, took to work hardly less unwillingly. This young person offifteen, to whom her father had transmitted something of his imaginativefaculties, was already arranging her life in advance and declaredformally that she should marry one of the nobility, and would neverhave more than three children: "A boy to inherit the name and two littlegirls--so as to be able to dress them alike."
"Yes, that's right," Bonne Maman would say, "you shall dress them alike.In the meantime, let us attend to our participles a little."
But the one who caused the most concern was Elise, with her examinationtaken thrice without success, always failing in history and preparingherself anew, seized by a deep fear and a mistrust of herself whichmade her carry about with her everywhere and open every moment thatunfortunate history of France, in the omnibus, in the street, even atthe luncheon-table; she was already a grown girl and very pretty, andshe no longer possessed that little mechanical memory of childhoodwherein dates and events lodge themselves for the whole of one's life.Beset by other preoccupations, the lesson was forgotten in an instant,d
espite the apparent application of the pupil, with her long lashesfringing her eyes, her curls sweeping over the pages, and her rosymouth animated by a little quiver of attention, repeating ten times insuccession: "Louis, surnamed le Hutin, 1314-1316; Philip V, surnamedthe Long, 1316-1322. Ah, Bonne Maman, it's no good; I shall never knowthem." Whereupon Bonne Maman would come to her assistance, help herto concentrate her attention, to store up a few of those dates of theMiddle Ages, barbarous and sharp as the helmets of the warriors of theperiod. And in the intervals of these occupations, of this generaland constant superintendence, she yet found time to do some prettyneedlework, to extract from her work-basket some delicate crochet laceor a piece of tapestry on which she was engaged and to which she clungas closely as the young Elise to her history of France. Even when shetalked, her fingers never remained unoccupied for a moment.
"Do you never take any rest?" said de Gery to her, as she counted underher breath the stitches of her tapestry, "three, four, five," to securethe right variation in the shading of the colours.
"But this is a rest from work," she answered. "You men cannot understandhow good needlework is for a woman's mind. It gives order to thethoughts, fixes by a stitch the moment that passes what would otherwisepass with it. And how many griefs are calmed, anxieties forgotten,thanks to this wholly physical act of attention, to this repetition ofan even movement, in which one finds--of necessity and very quickly--theequilibrium of one's whole being. It does not hinder me from followingthe conversation around me, from listening to you still better than Ishould if I were doing something. Three, four, five."
Oh, yes, she listened. That was apparent in the animation of her face,in the way in which she would suddenly straighten herself as she sat,needle in air, the thread taut over her raised little finger. Then shewould quickly resume her work, sometimes after putting in a thoughtfulword, which agreed generally with the opinions of friend Paul.
An affinity of nature, responsibilities and duties similar in character,drew these two young people together, interested each of them in theother's occupations. She knew the names of his two brothers Pierre andLouis, his plans for their future when they should have left school.Pierre wanted to be a sailor. "Oh, no, not a sailor," Bonne Maman wouldsay, "it will be much better for him to come to Paris with you." Andwhen he admitted that he was afraid of Paris for them, she laughed athis fears, called him provincial, full of affection for the cityin which she had been born, in which she had grown to chaste youngwomanhood, and that gave her in return those vivacities, those naturalrefinements, that jesting good-humour which incline one to believethat Paris, with its rain, its fogs, its sky which is no sky, is theveritable fatherland of woman, whose nerves it heals gently and whosequalities of intelligence and patience it develops.
Each day Paul de Gery came to appreciate Mlle. Aline better--he was theonly person in the house who so called her--and, strange circumstance,it was Felicia who completed the cementing of their intimacy. Whatrelations could there exist between the artist's daughter, moving in thehighest spheres, and this little middle-class girl buried in thedepths of a suburb? Relations of childhood and of friendship, commonrecollections, the great court-yard of the Institution Belin, wherethey had played together for three years. Paris is full of thesejuxtapositions. A name uttered by chance in the course of a conversationbrought out suddenly the bewildered question:
"You know her then?"
"Do I know Felicia? Why, our desks were next each other in the firstform. We had the same garden. Such a nice girl, and so handsome andclever!"
And, observing the pleasure with which she was listened to, Aline usedto recall the times which already formed a past for her, seductive andmelancholy like all pasts. She was very much alone in life, the littleFelicia. On Thursdays, when the visitors' names were called out in theparlour, there was no one for her; except from time to time a good butrather absurd lady, formerly a dancer, it was said, whom Felicia calledthe Fairy. In the same way she used to have pet names for all the peopleshe cared for and whom she transformed in her imaginations. In theholidays they used to see each other. Mme. Joyeuse, while she refused toallow Aline to visit the studio of M. Ruys, used to invite Felicia overfor whole days, very short days they seemed, minglings of study, music,dual dreams, young intimate conversations. "Oh, when she used to talk tome of her art, with that enthusiasm which she put into everything, howdelighted I was to listen to her! How many things I have understoodthrough her, of which I should never have had any idea. Even now when wego to the Louvre with papa, or to the exhibition of the 1st of May,that special feeling I have about a beautiful piece of sculpture, a goodpicture, carries me back immediately to Felicia. In my early girlhoodshe represented art to me, and it corresponded with her beauty. Hernature was a little vague, but so kind, I always felt she was somethingsuperior to myself, that bore me to great heights without frighteningme. Suddenly she stopped coming to see me. I wrote to her; no reply.Later on, fame came to her; to me great sorrows, absorbing duties. Andof all that friendship, which was very deep, however, since I cannotspeak of it without--'three, four, five'--nothing now remains except oldmemories like dead ashes."
Bending over her work, the brave girl made haste to count her stitches,to imprison her regret in the capricious designs of her tapestry, whilede Gery, moved as he heard the testimony of those pure lips against thecalumnies of rejected young dandies or of jealous comrades, felt himselfraised, restored to the proud dignity of his love. This sensation wasso sweet to him that he returned in search of it very often, not onlyon the evenings of the lessons, but on other evenings, too, and almostforgot to go to see Felicia for the pleasure of hearing Aline talk abouther.
One evening, as he was leaving the Joyeuses' home, Paul met theneighbour, M. Andre, on the landing, who was waiting for him and tookhis arm feverishly.
"Monsieur de Gery," he said in a trembling voice, with eyes thatglittered behind their spectacles, the one feature of his face that wasvisible in the darkness. "I have an explanation to ask from you. Willyou come up to my rooms for a moment?"
There had only been between this young man and himself the banalrelations of two persons accustomed to frequent the same house, whom notie unites, who seem ever separated by a certain antipathy of nature, ofmanner of life. What explanation could there be called for between them?He followed him with much perplexed curiosity.
The aspect of the little studio, chilly under its top-light, the emptyfireplace, the wind blowing as though they were out of doors and makingthe candle flicker, the solitary light on the scene of the night'slabour of a poor and lonely man, reflected on sheets of paper scribbledover and scattered about, in short, this atmosphere of habitationswherein the soul of the inhabitants lives on its own aspirations, causedde Gery to understand the visionary air of Andre Maranne, his long hairthrown back and streaming loose, that somewhat excessive appearance,very excusable when it is paid for by a life of sufferings andprivations, and his sympathy immediately went out to this courageousfellow whose intrepidity of spirit he guessed at a glance. But theother was too deeply moved by emotion to notice the progress of thesereflections. As soon as the door was closed upon them, he said, with theaccent of a stage hero addressing the perfidious seducer, "M. de Gery, Iam not yet a Cassandra."
And seeing the stupefaction of de Gery:
"Yes, yes," he went on, "we understand each other. I have knownperfectly well what it is that draws you to M. Joyeuse's house, andthe eager welcome with which you are received there has not escaped mynotice either. You are rich, you are of noble birth, there can be nohesitation between you and the poor poet who follows a ridiculous tradein order to give himself full time to reach a success which perhaps willnever come. But I shall not allow my happiness to be stolen from me.We must fight, monsieur, we must fight," he repeated, excited by thepeaceful calm of his rival. "For long I have loved Mlle. Joyeuse. Thatlove is the end, the joy, and the strength of an existence which is veryhard, in many respects painful. I have only it in the world, and I wouldrath
er die than give it up."
Strangeness of the human soul! Paul did not love the charming Aline. Hiswhole heart belonged to the other. He thought of her simply as a friend,the most adorable of friends. But the idea that Maranne was interestedin her, that she no doubt returned this regard, gave him the jealousshiver of an annoyance, and it was with some considerable sharpness thathe inquired whether Mlle. Joyeuse was aware of this sentiment of Andre'sand had in any way authorized him thus to proclaim his rights.
"Yes, monsieur, Mlle. Elise knows that I love her, and before yourfrequent visits--"
"Elise? It is of Elise you are speaking?"
"And of whom, then, should I be speaking? The two others are too young."
He fully entered into the traditions of the family, this Andre. For him,Bonne Maman's age of twenty years, her triumphant grace, were obscuredby a surname full of respect and the attributes of a Providence whichseemed to cling to her.
A very brief explanation having calmed Andre Maranne's mind, he offeredhis apologies to de Gery, begged him to sit down in the arm-chairof carved wood which was used by his sitters, and their conversationquickly assumed an intimate and sympathetic character, brought about bythe so abrupt avowal at its opening. Paul confessed that he, too, was inlove, and that he came so often to M. Joyeuse's only in order to speakof her whom he loved with Bonne Maman, who had known her formerly.
"That is my case, too," said Andre. "Bonne Maman knows all my secrets;but we have not yet ventured to say anything to the father. My positionis too unsatisfactory. Ah, when I shall have got _Revolt_ produced!"
Then they talked of that famous drama, _Revolt_, upon which he had beenat work for six months, day and night, which had kept him warm all thewinter, a very severe winter, but whose rigours the magic of compositionhad tempered in the little studio, which it transformed. It was there,within that narrow space, that all the heroes of his piece had appearedto his poet's vision like familiar gnomes dropped from the roof orriding moon-beams, and with them the gorgeous tapestries, the glitteringchandeliers, the park scenes with their gleaming flights of steps, allthe luxurious circumstance expected in stage effects, as well asthe glorious tumult of his first night, the applause of which wasrepresented for him by the rain beating on the glass roof and the boardsrattling in the door, while the wind, driving below over the murkytimber-yard with a noise as of far-off voices, borne near and anewcarried off into the distance, resembled the murmurs from the boxesopened on the corridor to let the news of his success circulate amongthe gossip and wonderment of the crowd. It was not only fame and moneythat it was destined to procure him, this thrice-blessed play, butsomething also more precious still. With what care accordingly did henot turn over the leaves of the manuscript in five thick books, allbound in blue, books like those that the Levantine was accustomed tostrew about on the divan where she took her siestas, and that she markedwith her managerial pencil.
Paul, having in his turn approached the table in order to examine themasterpiece had his glance attracted by a richly framed portrait of awoman, which, placed so near to the artist's work, seemed to be there topreside over it. Elise, doubtless? Oh, no, Andre had not yet the rightto bring out from its protecting case the portrait of his little friend.This was a woman of about forty, gentle of aspect, fair, and extremelyelegant. As he perceived her, de Gery could not suppress an exclamation.
"You know her?" asked Andre Maranne.
"Why, yes. Mme. Jenkins, the wife of the Irish doctor. I have had supperat their house this winter."
"She is my mother." And the young man added in a lower tone:
"Mme. Maranne made a second marriage with Dr. Jenkins. You aresurprised, are you not, to see me in these poor surroundings, while myrelatives are living in the midst of luxury? But, you know, the chancesof family life sometimes group together natures that differ very widely.My stepfather and I have never been able to understand each other. Hewished to make me a doctor, whereas my only taste was for writing. So atlast, in order to avoid the continual discussions which were painful tomy mother, I preferred to leave the house and plough my furrow alone,without the help of anybody. A rough business. Funds were wanting. Thewhole fortune has gone to that--to M. Jenkins. The question was toearn a livelihood, and you are aware what a difficult thing that is forpeople like ourselves, supposed to be well brought-up. To think thatamong all the accomplishments gained from what we are accustomed to calla complete education, this child's play was the only thing I could findby which I could hope to earn my bread. A few savings, my own purse,slender like that of most young men, served to buy my first outfit andI installed myself here far away, in the remotest region of Paris, inorder not to embarrass my relatives. Between ourselves, I don't expectto make a fortune out of photography. The first days especially werevery difficult. Nobody came, or if by chance some unfortunate wight didmount, I made a failure of him, got on my plate only an image blurredand vague as a phantom. One day, at the very beginning, a wedding-partycame up to me, the bride all in white, the bridegroom with awaistcoat--like that! And all the guests in white gloves, which theyinsisted on keeping on for the portrait on account of the rarity of suchan event with them. No, I thought I should go mad. Those blackfaces, the great white patches made by the dresses, the gloves, theorange-blossoms, the unlucky bride, looking like a queen of Niam-niamunder her wreath merging indistinguishably into her hair. And all ofthem so full of good-will, of encouragements to the artist. I began themover again at least twenty times, and kept them till five o'clock in theevening. And then they only left me because it was time for dinner. Canyou imagine that wedding-day passed at a photographer's?"
While Andre was recounting to him with this good humour the troubles ofhis life, Paul recalled the tirade of Felicia that day when Bohemianshad been mentioned, and all that she had said to Jenkins of their loftycourage, avid of privations and trials. He thought also of Aline'spassion for her beloved Paris, of which he himself was only acquainted,for his part, with the unwholesome eccentricities, while the great cityhid in its recesses so many unknown heroisms and noble illusions. Thislast impression, already experienced within the sheltered circle of theJoyeuse's great lamp, he received perhaps still more vividly in thisatmosphere, less warm, less peaceful, wherein art also entered to addits despairing or glorious uncertainty; and it was with a moved heartthat he listened to Andre Maranne as he spoke to him of Elise, ofthe examinations which it was taking her so long to pass, of thedifficulties of photography, of all that unforeseen element in his lifewhich would end certainly "when he could have secured the productionof _Revolt_," a charming smile accompanying on the poet's lips this sooften expressed hope, which he was wont himself to hasten to make funof, as though to deprive others of the right to do so.