Chapter 1 Jean Servien was born in a back-shop in the _Rue Notre-Damedes Champs_. His father was a bookbinder and worked for theReligious Houses. Jean was a little weakling child, and his mothernursed him at her breast as she sewed the books, sheet by sheet,with the curved needle of the trade. One day as she was crossingthe shop, humming a song, in the words of which she found expressionfor the vague, splendid visions of her maternal ambition, herfoot slipped on the boards, which were moist with paste. Instinctively she threw up her arm to guard the child she heldclasped to her bosom, and struck her breast, thus exposed, asevere blow against the corner of the iron press. She felt novery acute pain at the time, but later on an abscess formed,which got well, but presently reopened, and a low fever supervenedthat confined her to her bed. There, in the long, long evenings, she would fold her littleone in her one sound arm and croon over him in a hot, feverishwhisper bits of her favourite ditty: The fisherman, when dawn is nigh, Peers forth to greet the kindling sky.... Above all, she loved the refrain that recurred at the end ofeach verse with only the change of a word. It was her littleJean's lullaby, who became, at the caprice of the words, turnand turn about, General, Lawyer, and ministrant at the altarin her fond hopes. A woman of the people, knowing nothing of the circumstances offashionable life, save from a few peeps at their outward pompand the vague tales of _concierges_, footmen, and cooks, shepictured her boy at twenty more beautiful than an archangel,his breast glittering with decorations, in a drawing-room fullof flowers, amid a bevy of fashionable ladies with manners everywhit as genteel as had the actresses at the _Gymnase_: _But for the nonce, on mother's breast, Sweet wee gallant, take thy rest._Presently the vision changed; now her boy was standing up gownedin Court, by his eloquence saving the life and honour of someillustrious client: _But for the nonce, on mother's breast, Sweet wee pleader, take thy rest._Presently again he was an officer under fire, in a brilliantuniform, on a prancing charger, victorious in battle, like thegreat Generals whose portraits she had seen one Sunday at Versailles: _But for the nonce, on mother's breast, Sweet wee general, take thy rest._But when night was creeping into the room, a new picture woulddazzle her eyes, a picture this of other and incomparably greaterglories. Proud in her motherhood, yet humble too at heart, she was gazingfrom the dim recesses of a sanctuary at her son, her Jean, cladin sacerdotal vestments, lifting the monstrance in the vaultedchoir censed by the beating wings of half-seen Cherubim. And shewould tremble awestruck as if she were the mother of a god, thispoor sick work-woman whose puling child lay beside her droopingin the poisoned air of a back-shop: _But for the nonce, on mother's breast, My sweet boy-bishop, take thy rest._One evening, as her husband handed her a cooling drink, she saidto him in a tone of regret: "Why did you disturb me? I could see the Holy Virgin among flowersand precious stones and lights. It was so beautiful! so beautiful!"She said she was no longer in pain, that she wished her Jean tolearn Latin. And she passed away. Chapter 2 The widower, who from the Beauce country, sent his son to hisnative village in the Eure-et-Loir to be brought up by kinsfolkthere. As for himself, he was a strong man, and soon learnedto be resigned; he was of a saving habit by instinct in bothbusiness and family matters, and never put off the green sergeapron from week's end to week's end save for a Sunday visit tothe cemetery. He would hang a wreath on the arm of the blackcross, and, if it was a hot day, take a chair on the way backalong the boulevard outside the door of a wine-shop. There, as hesat slowly emptying his glass, his eye would rest on the mothersand their youngsters going by on the sidewalk. These young wives, as he watched them approach and pass on, wereso many passing reminders of his Clotilde and made him feel sadwithout his quite understanding why, for he was not much givento thinking. Time slipped by, and little by little his dead wife grew to be atender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind. One night he triedin vain to recall Clotilde's features; after this experience,he told himself that perhaps he might be able to discover themother's lineaments in the child's face, and he was seized witha great longing to see this relic of the lost one once more,to have the child home again. In the morning he wrote a letter to his old sister, MademoiselleServien, begging her to come and take up her abode with the littleone in the _Rue Notre-Dame des Champs_. The sister, who had livedfor many years in Paris at her brother's expense, for indolencewas her ruling passion, agreed to resume her life in a city where,she used to say, folks are free and need not depend on theirneighbours. One autumn evening she arrived at the _Gare de l'Ouest_ with Jeanand her boxes and baskets, an upright, hard-featured, fierce-eyedfigure, all ready to defend the child against all sorts ofimaginary perils. The bookbinder kissed the lad and expressed hissatisfaction in two words. Then he lifted him pickaback on his shoulders, and bidding himhold on tight to his father's hair, carried him off proudly tothe house. Jean was seven. Soon existence settled down to a settled routine. At midday the old dame would don her shawl and set off with thechild in the direction of Grenelle. The pair followed the broad thoroughfares that ran between shabbywalls and red-fronted drinking-shops. Generally speaking, a skyof a dappled grey like the great cart-horses that plodded past,invested the quiet suburb with a gentle melancholy. Establishingherself on a bench, while the child played under a tree, she wouldknit her stocking and chat with an old soldier and tell him hertroubles--what a hard life it was in other people's houses. One day, one of the last fine days of the season, Jean, squattedon the ground, was busy sticking up bits of plane-tree bark inthe fine wet sand. That faculty of "pretending," by which childrenare able to make their lives one unending miracle, transformed ahandful of soil and a few bits of wood into wondrous galleries andfairy castles to the lad's imagination; he clapped his hands andleapt for joy. Then suddenly he felt himself wrapped in somethingsoft and scented. It was a lady's gown; he saw nothing exceptthat she smiled as she put him gently out of her way and walkedon. He ran to tell his aunt: "How good she smells, that lady!"Mademoiselle Servien only muttered that great ladies were nobetter than others, and that she thought more of herself withher merino skirt than all those set-up minxes in their flouncesand finery, adding: "Better a good name than a gilt girdle."But this talk was beyond little Jean's comprehension. The perfumedsilk that had swept his face left behind a vague sweetness, amemory as of a gentle, ghostly caress. Chapter 3 One evening in summer the bookbinder was enjoying the fresh airbefore his door when a big man with a red nose, past middle age andwearing a scarlet waistcoat stained with grease-spots, appeared,bowing politely and confidentially, and addressed him in a sing-songvoice in which even Monsieur Servien could detect an Italianaccent: "Sir, I have translated the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, the immortalmasterpiece of Torquato Tasso"--and a bulging packet of manuscriptunder his arm confirmed the statement. "Yes, sir, I have devoted sleepless nights to this glorious andungrateful task. Without family or fatherland, I have written mytranslation in dark, ice-cold garrets, on chandlers' wrappers,snuff papers, the backs of playing cards! Such has been the exile'stask! You, sir, you live in your own land, in the bosom of ahappy family--at least I hope so."This speech, which impressed him by its magniloquence and itsstrangeness, set the bookbinder dreaming of the dead woman hehad loved, and he saw her in his mind's eye coiling her beautifulhair as in the early days of their married life. The big man proceeded: "Man is like a plant which perishes when the storms uproot it. "Here is your son, is it not so? He is like you"--and layinghis hand on Jean's head, who clung to his father's coat-tailsin wonder at the red waistcoat and the sing-song voice, he askedif the child learned his lessons well, if he was growing up tobe a clever man, if he would not soon be beginning Latin. "That noble language," he added, "whose inimitable monuments haveoften made me forget my misfortunes. "Yes, sir, I have often breakfasted on a page of Tacitus and suppedon a satire of Juvenal."As he said the words, a look of sadness over-spread his shiningred face, and dropping his voice: "Forgive me, sir, if I hold out to you the casque of Belisarius. I am the Marquis Tudesco, of Venice. When I have received fromthe bookseller the price of my labour, I will not forget thatyou succoured me with a small coin in the time of my sharpesttrial."The bookbinder, case-hardened as he was against beggars, whoon winter evenings drifted into his shop with the east wind,nevertheless experienced a certain sympathy and respect for theMarquis Tudesco. He slipped a franc-piece into his hand. Thereupon the old Italian, like a man inspired, exclaimed: "One Nation there is that is unhappy--Italy, one generousPeople--France; and one bond that unites the twain--humanity. Ah! chiefest of the virtues, humanity, humanity!"Meantime the bookbinder was pondering his wife's last words: "Iwish my Jean to learn Latin." He hesitated, till seeing MonsieurTudesco bowing and smiling to go: "Sir," he said, "if you are ready, two or three times a week,to give the boy lessons in French and Latin, we might come toterms."The Marquis Tudesco expressed no surprise. He smiled and said: "Certainly, sir, as you wish it, I shall find it a delightfultask to initiate your son in the mysteries of the Latin rudiments. "We will make a man of him and a good citizen, and God knowswhat heights my pupil will scale in this noble land of freedomand generosity. He may one day be ambassador, my dear sir. Isay it: knowledge is power.""You will know the shop again," said the bookbinder; "there ismy name on the signboard."The Marquis Tudesco, after tweaking the son's ear amicably andbowing to the father with a dignified familiarity, walked awaywith a step that was still jaunty. Chapter 4 The Marquis Tudesco returned in due course, smiled at MademoiselleServien, who darted poisonous looks at him, greeted the bookbinderwith a discreet air of patronage, and had a supply of grammarsand dictionaries bought. At first he gave his lessons with exemplary regularity. He hadtaken a liking to these repetitions of nouns and verbs, which helistened to with a dignified, condescending air, slowly unrollinghis screw of snuff the while; he only interrupted to interjectlittle playful remarks with a geniality just touched with a traceof ferocity, that bespoke his real nature as an unctuous, cringingbully. He was jocular and pompous at the same time, and alwaysmade a pretence of being a long time in seeing the glass of wineput on the table for his refreshment. The bookbinder, regarding him as a clever man of ill-regulatedlife, always treated him with great consideration, for faultsof behaviour almost cease to shock us except among neighbours,or at most fellow-countrymen. Without knowing it, Jean found afund of amusement in the witticisms and harangues of his oldteacher, who united in himself the contradictory attributes ofhigh-priest and buffoon. He was great at telling a story, andthough his tales were beyond the child's intelligence, they didnot fail to leave behind a confused impression of recklessness,irony, and cynicism. Mademoiselle Servien alone never relaxed herattitude of uncompromising dislike and disdain. She said nothingagainst him, but her face was a rigid mask of disapproval, hereyes two flames of fire, in answer to the courteous greetingthe tutor never failed to offer her with a special roll of hislittle grey eyes. One day the Marquis Tudesco walked into the shop with a staggeringgait; his eyes glittered and his mouth hung half open in anticipationof racy talk and self-indulgence, while his great nose, his pinkcheeks, his fat, loose hands and his big belly, gallantly carried,gave him, beneath his jacket and felt hat, a perfect likeness toa little rustic god his ancestors worshipped, the old Silenus. Lessons that day were fitful and haphazard. Jean was repeatingin a drawling voice: _moneo, mones, monet ... monebam, monebas,monebat..._ Suddenly Monsieur Tudesco sprang forward, dragginghis chair along the floor with a horrid screech, and clappinghis hand on his pupil's shoulder: "Child," he said, "to-day I am going to give you a more profitablelesson than all the pitiful teaching I have confined myself toup to now. "It is a lesson of transcendental philosophy. Hearken carefully,child. If one day you rise above your station and come to knowyourself and the world about you, you will discover this, thatmen act only out of regard for the opinion of their fellows--and_per Bacco!_ they are consummate fools for their pains. Theydread other folks' blame and crave their approval. "The idiots fail to see that the world does not care a strawfor them, and that their dearest friends will see them glorifiedor disgraced without missing one mouthful of their dinner. Thisis my lesson, _caro figliuolo_, that the world's opinion is notworth the sacrifice of a single one of our desires. If you getthis into your pate, you will be a strong man and can boast youwere once the pupil of the Marquis Tudesco, of Venice, the exilewho has translated in a freezing garret, on scraps of refusepaper, the immortal poem of Torquato Tasso. What a task!"The child listened to the tipsy philosopher without understandingone word of his rigmarole; only Monsieur Tudesco struck him asa strange and alarming personage, and taller by a hundred feetthan anybody he had ever seen before. The professor warmed to his subject: "Ah!" he cried, springing from his seat, "and what profit didthe immortal and ill-starred Torquato Tasso win from all hisgenius? A few stolen kisses on the steps of a palace. And hedied of famine in a madhouse. I say it: the world's opinion,that empress of humankind, I will tear from her her crown andsceptre. Opinion tyrannizes over unhappy Italy, as over all theearth. Italy! what flaming sword will one day come to break herfetters, as now I break this chair?"In fact, he had seized his chair by the back and was poundingit fiercely on the floor. But suddenly he stopped, gave a knowing smile, and said in a lowvoice: "No, no, Marquis Tudesco, let be, let Venice be a prey to Teutonsavagery. The fetters of the fatherland are daily bread to theexiled patriot."His chin buried in his cravat, he stood chuckling to himself,and his red waistcoat rose and fell in jerks. Mademoiselle Servien, who sat by at the lesson knitting a stockingand for some moments had been watching the tutor, her spectaclespushed half-way up her forehead, with a look of amazement andsuspicion, exclaimed, as if talking to herself: "If it isn't abominable to come to people's houses in drink!"Monsieur Tudesco did not seem to hear her. His manner was quietand jocular again. "Child," he ordered, "write down the theme for an essay. Writedown: 'The worst thing... yes, the worst thing of all,' writeit down... 'is an old woman with a spiteful temper.'"And rising with the gracious dignity of a Prince of the Church,he bowed low to the aunt, gave the nephew's cheek a friendlytap, and marched out of the room. However, beginning with the very next lesson, he lavished everymark of respect on the old lady, and treated her to all his choicestairs and graces, rounding his elbows, pursing his lips, struttingand swaggering. She would not relax a muscle, and sat there assilent and sulky as an owl. But one day when she was hunting for her spectacles, as she wasalways doing, Monsieur Tudesco offered her his and persuaded herto try them; she found they suited her sight and felt a trifleless unamiable towards him. The Italian, pursuing his advantage,got into talk with her, and artfully turned the conversation uponthe vices of the rich. The old lady approved his sentiments, andan exchange of petty confidences ensued. Tudesco knew a sovereignremedy for catarrh, and this too was well received. He redoubledhis attentions, and the _concierge_, who saw him smiling to himselfon the doorstep, told Aunt Servien: "The man's in love with you."Of course she declared: "At my time of life a woman doesn't wantlovers," but her vanity was tickled all the same. Monsieur Tudescogot what he wanted--to have his glass filled to the brim everylesson. Out of politeness they would even leave him the pint jugonly half empty, which he was indiscreet enough to drain dry. One day he asked for a taste of cheese--"just enough to makea mouse's dinner," was his expression. "Mice are like me, theylove the dark and a quiet life and books; and like me they liveon crumbs."This pose of the wise man fallen on evil days made a bad impression,and the old lady became silent and sombre as before. When springtime came Monsieur Tudesco vanished. Chapter 4 The bookbinder, for all his scanty earnings, was resolved toenter Jean at a school where the boy could enjoy a regular andcomplete course of instruction. He selected a day-school notfar from the Luxembourg, because he could see the top branchesof an acacia overtopping the wall, and the house had a cheerfullook. Jean, as a little new boy (he was now eleven), was some weeksbefore he shook off the shyness with which his schoolfellows' loud voices and rough ways and his masters' ponderous gravityhad at first overwhelmed him. Little by little he grew used tothe work, and learned some of the tricks by means of whichpunishments were avoided; his schoolfellows found him so inoffensivethey left off stealing his cap and initiated him in the game ofmarbles. But he had little love for school-life, and when fiveo'clock came, prayers were over and his satchel strapped, itwas with unfeigned delight he dashed out into the street baskingin the golden rays of the setting sun. In the intoxication offreedom, he danced and leapt, seeing everything, men and horses,carriages and shops, in a charmed light, and out of sheer joy oflife mumbling at his Aunt Servien's hand and arm, as she walkedhome with him carrying the satchel and lunch-basket. The evening was a peaceful time. Jean would sit drawing picturesor dreaming over his copy-books at one end of the table whereMademoiselle Servien had just cleared away the meal. His fatherwould be busy with a book. As age advanced he had acquired ataste for reading, his favourites being La Fontaine's _Fables_,Anquetil's _History of France_, and Voltaire's _DictionnairePhilosophique_, "to get the hang of things," as he put it. His sister made fruitless efforts to distract his attention withsome stinging criticism of the neighbours or a question about"our fat friend who had not come back," for she made a pointof never remembering the Marquis Tudesco's name. Chapter 6 Before long Jean's whole mind was given over to the catechizingsand sermons and hymns preparatory to the First Communion. Intoxication with the music of chants and organ, drowned in thescent of incense and flowers, hung about with scapularies, rosaries,consecrated medals, and holy images, he, like his companions, assumeda certain air of self-importance and wore a smug, sanctified look. He was cold and unbending towards his aunt, who spoke with fartoo much unconcern about the "great day." Though she had longbeen in the habit of taking her nephew to Mass every Sunday,she was not "pious." Most likely she confounded in one commondetestation the luxury of the rich and the pomps of the Churchservice. She had more than once been overheard informing oneof the cronies she used to meet on the boulevards that she wasa religious woman, _but_ she could not abide priests, that shesaid her prayers at home, and these were every bit as good asthe fine ladies' who flaunted their crinolines in church. Hisfather was more in sympathy with the lad's new-found zeal; hewas interested and even a little impressed. He undertook to binda missal with his own hands against the ceremony. When the days arrived for retreats and general confessions, Jeanswelled with pride and vague aspirations. He looked for somethingout of the ordinary to happen. Coming out at evening fromSaint-Sulpice with two or three of his schoolfellows, he wouldfeel an atmosphere of miracle about him; some divine interposition_must_ be forthcoming. The lads used to tell each other strangestories, pious legends they had read in one of their little booksof devotion. Now it was a phantom monk who had stepped out of thegrave, showing the stigmata on hands and feet and the piercedside; now a nun, beautiful as the veiled figures in the Churchpictures, expiating in the fires of hell mysterious sins. Jeanhad _his_ favourite tale. Shuddering, he would relate how St. Francis Borgia, after the death of Queen Isabella, who was lovelybeyond compare, must have the coffin opened wherein she lay at restin her robe embroidered with pearls; in imagination he picturedthe dead Queen, invested her form with all the magic hues of theunknown, traced in her lineaments the enchantments of a woman'sbeauty in the dark gulf of death. And as he told the tale, he couldhear, in the twilight gloom, a murmur of soft voices sighing inthe plane trees of the Luxembourg. The great day arrived. The bookbinder, who attended the ceremonywith his sister, thought of his wife and wept. He was most favourably impressed by the _curé's_ homily, in whicha young man without faith was compared to an unbridled chargerthat plunges over precipices. The simile struck his fancy, andhe would quote it years after with approbation. He made up hismind to read the Bible, as he had read Voltaire, "to get thehang of things."Jean withdrew from the houselling cloth, wondering to be justthe same as ever and already disillusioned. He was never againto recover the first fervent rapture. Chapter 7 The holidays were near. An noon of a blazing hot day Jean wasseated in the shade on the dwarf-wall that bounded the schoolcount towards the headmaster's garden, He was playing languidlyat shovel-board with a schoolfellow, a lad as pretty as a girlwith his curls and his jacket of white duck. "Ewans," said Jean, as he pushed a pebble along one of the linesdrawn in charcoal on the stone coping, "Ewans, you must findit tiresome to be a boarder?""Mother cannot have me with her at home," replied the boy. Servien asked why. "Oh! Because----" stammered Ewans. He stared a long time at the white pebble he held in his handready to play, before he added: "My mother goes travelling.""And your father?""He is in America. I have never seen him. You've lost. Let's beginagain."Servien, who felt interested in Madame Ewans because of the superbboxes of chocolates she used to bring to school for her boy,put another question: "You love her very much, your mother I mean?""Of course I do!" cried the other, adding presently: "You must come and see me one day in the holidays at home. You'llfind our house is very pretty, there's sofas and cushions no end. But you must not put off, for we shall be off to the seasidesoon."At this moment a servant, a tall, thin man, appeared in theplayground and called out something which the shrill cries oftheir companions at play prevented the two seated on the wallfrom hearing. A fat boy, standing by himself with his face tothe wall with the unconcern born of long familiarity with thisform of punishment, clapped his two hands to his mouth trumpetwiseand shrieked: "Ewans, you're wanted in the parlour."The usher marched up: "Garneret," he ordered, "you will stand half an hour this eveningat preparation speaking when you were forbidden to. Ewans, goto the parlour."The latter clapped his hands and danced for joy, telling his friend: "It's my mother! I'll tell her you are coming to our house."Servien reddened with pleasure, and stammered out that he wouldask his father's leave. But Ewans had already scampered acrossthe yard, leaving a dusty furrow behind him. Leave was readily granted by Monsieur Servien, who was fullypersuaded that all boys admitted to so expensive a school born ofwell-to-do parents, whose society could not but prove advantageousto his son's manners and morals and to his future success inlife. Such information as Jean could give him about Madame Ewans wasextremely vague, but the bookbinder was well used to contemplatingthe ways of rich folks through a veil of impenetrable mystery. Aunt Servien indulged in sundry observations on the occasion ofa very general kind touching people who ride in carriages. Thenshe repeated a story about a great lady who, just like MadameEwans, had put her son to boarding-school, and who was mixed upin a case of illicit commissions, in the time of Louis-Philippe. She added, to clinch the matter, that the cowl does not makethe monk, that she thought herself, for all she did not wearflowers in her hat, a more honest woman than your society ladies,false jades everyone, concluding with her pet proverb: Bettera good name than a gilt girdle! Jean had never seen a gilt girdle, but he thought in a vague wayhe would very much like to have one. The holidays came, and one Thursday after breakfast his auntproduced a white waistcoat from the wardrobe, and Jean, dressedin his Sunday best, climbed on an omnibus which took him to theRue de Rivoli. He mounted four flights of a staircase, the carpetand polished brass stair-rods of which filled him with surpriseand admiration. On reaching the landing, he could hear the tinkling of a piano. He rang the bell, blushed hotly and was sorry he had rung. Hewould have given worlds to run away. A maid-servant opened thedoor, and behind her stood Edgar Ewans, wearing a brown hollandsuit, in which he looked entirely at his ease. "Come along," he cried, and dragged him into a drawing-room, intowhich the half-drawn curtains admitted shafts of sunlight thatwere flashed back in countless broken reflections from mirrorsand gilt cornices. A sweet, stimulating perfume hung about theroom, which was crowded with a superabundance of padded chairsand couches and piles of cushions. In the half-light jean beheld a lady so different from all he hadever set eyes on till that moment that he could form no notion ofwhat she was, no idea of her beauty or her age. Never had he seeneyes that flashed so vividly in a face of such pale fairness, orlips so red, smiling with such an unvarying almost tired-lookingsmile. She was sitting at a piano, idly strumming on the keyswithout playing any definite tune. What drew Jean's eyes aboveall was her hair, arranged in some fashion that struck him witha sense of mystery and beauty. She looked round, and smoothing the lace of her _peignoir_ withone hand: "You are Edgar's friend?" she asked, in a cordial tone, thoughher voice struck Jean as harsh in this beautiful room that wasperfumed like a church. "Yes, Madame.""You like being at school?""Yes, madame.""The masters are not too strict?""No, Madame.""You have no mother?"As she put the question Madame Evans' voice softened. "No, Madame.""What is your father?""A bookbinder, Madame"--and the bookbinder's son blushed as hegave the answer. At that moment he would gladly have consentednever to see his father more, his father whom he loved, if bythe sacrifice he could have passed for the son of a Captain inthe Navy or a Secretary of Embassy. He suddenly remembered thatone of his fellow-pupils was the son of a celebrated physicianwhose portrait was displayed in the stationers' windows. If only he had had a father like that to tell Madame Ewans of! But that was out of the question--and how cruelly unjust it was! He felt ashamed of himself, as if he had said something shocking. But his friend's mother seemed quite unaffected by the dreadfulavowal. She was still moving her hands at random up and downthe keyboard. Then presently: "You must enjoy yourself finely to-day, boys," she cried. "Wewill all go out. Shall I take you to the fair at Saint-Cloud?"Yes, Edgar was all for going, because of the roundabouts. Madame Ewans rose from the piano, patted her pale flaxen hairin place with a pretty gesture, and gave a sidelong look in themirror as she passed. "I'm going to dress," she told them; "I shall not be long."While she was dressing, Edgar sat at the piano trying to pickout a tune from an opera bouffe, and Jean, perched uncomfortablyon the edge of his chair, stared about the room at a host ofstrange and sumptuous objects that seemed in some mysteriousway to be part and parcel of their beautiful owner, and affectedhim almost as strangely as she herself had done. Preceded by a faint waft of scent and a rustle of silk, shereappeared, tying the strings of the hat that made a dainty diademabove her smiling eyes. Edgar looked at her curiously: "Why, mother, there's something... I don't know what. . . somethingthat alters you."She glanced in the mirror, examining her hair, which showed paleviolet shadows amid the flaxen plaits. "Oh! it's nothing," she said; "only I have put some powder inmy hair. Like the Empress," she added, and broke into anothersmile. As she was drawing on her gloves, a ring was heard, and the maidcame in to tell her mistress that Monsieur Delbèque was waitingto see her. Madame Ewans pouted and declared she could not receive him, whereuponthe maid spoke a few words in a very peremptory whisper. MadameEwans shrugged her shoulders. "Stay where you are!" she told the boys, and passed into thedining-room, whence the murmur of two voices could presently beheard. Jean asked Edgar, under his breath, who the gentleman was. "Monsieur Delbèque," Edgar informed him. "He keeps horses and acarriage. He deals in pigs. One evening he took us to the theatre,mother and me."Jean was surprised and rather shocked to find Monsieur Delbèquedealt in pigs. But he hid his surprise and asked if he was arelation. "Oh! no," said Edgar, "he's one of our friends. It's a long time... at least a year we have known him."Jean, harking back to his first idea, put the question: "Have you ever seen him selling his pigs?""How stupid you are!" retorted Edgar; "he deals in them wholesale. Mother says it's a famous trade. He has a cigar-holder with anamber mouthpiece and a woman all naked carved in meerschaum. Just think, the other day he came and told mother his wife wasmaking him atrocious scenes."Madame Ewans put in her head at the half-open door: "Come along," she said, and they set out. No sooner were theyin the street than a man, who was smoking, greeted Madame witha friendly wave of his gloved hand. She muttered between herteeth: "Shall we never be done with them?"The man began in a guttural voice: "I was just going to your place, my dear, to offer you a box ofTurkish cigarettes. But I see you are taking a boarding-schoolout for a walk--a regular boarding-school, 'pon my word! Youtake pupils, eh? I congratulate you. Make men of 'em, my dear,make men of 'em."Madame Ewans frowned and replied with a curl of the lips: "I am with my son and one of my son's friends."The gentleman threw a careless look at one of the lads--Jean Servienas it happened. "Capital, capital!" he exclaimed. "Is that one your son?""Not he, indeed!" she cried hotly. Jean felt he was looked down upon, and as she laid her hand onher son's shoulder with a proud gesture, he could not help noticinghis schoolfellow's easy air and elegant costume, at the same timecasting a glance of disgust at his own jacket, which had beencut down for him by his aunt out of an overcoat of his father's. "Shall we be honoured by your presence to-night at the _Bouffes_?"asked the gentleman. "No!" replied Madame Ewans, and pushed the two children forwardwith the tip of her sunshade. Stepping out gaily, they soon arrive under the chestnuts of theTuileries, cross the bridge, then down the river-bank, over theshaky gangway, and so on to the steamer pontoon. Now they are aboard the boat, which exhales a strong, healthysmell of tar under the hot sun. The long grey walls of theembankments slip by, to be succeeded presently by wooded slopes. Saint-Cloud! The moment the ropes are made fast, Madame Ewanssprings on to the landing-stage and makes straight for the shrillingof the clarinettes and thunder of the big drums, steering herlittle charges through the press with the handle of her sunshade. Jean was mightily surprised when Madame Ewans made him "try hisluck" in a lottery. He had before now gone with his aunt to sundrysuburban fairs, but she had always dissuaded him so peremptorilyfrom spending anything that he was firmly persuaded revolving-tablesand shooting-galleries were amusements only permitted to a classof people to which he did not belong. Madame Ewans showed thegreatest interest in her son's success, urging him to give thehandle a good vigorous turn. She was very superstitious about luck, "invoking" the big prizes,clapping her hands in ecstasy whenever Edgar won a halfpennyegg-cup, falling into the depths of despair at every bad shot. Perhaps she saw an omen in his failure; perhaps she was justblindly eager to have her darling succeed. After he had lost twoor three times, she pulled the boy away and gave the wooden disksuch a violent push round as set its cargo of crockery-ware andglass rattling, and proceeded to play on her own account--once,twice, twenty times, thirty times, with frantic eagerness. Thenfollowed quite a business about exchanging the small prizes forone big one, as is commonly done. Finally, she decided for aset of beer jugs and glasses, half of which she gave to each ofthe two friends to carry. But this was only a beginning. She halted the children beforeevery stall. She made them play for macaroons at _rouge etnoir_. She had them try their skill at every sort ofshooting-game, with crossbows loaded with little clay pellets,with pistols and carbines, old-fashioned weapons with caps andleaden bullets, at all sorts of distances, and at all kinds oftargets--plaster images, revolving pipes, dolls, balls bobbingup and down on top of a jet of water. Never in his life had Jean Servien been so busy or done so manydifferent things in so short a space of time. His eyes dazzled with uncouth shapes and startling colours, histhroat parched with dust, elbowed, crushed, mauled, hustled bythe crowd, he was intoxicated with this debauch of diversions. He watched Madame Ewans for ever opening her little purse ofRussia leather, and a new power was revealed to him. Nor wasthis all. There was the Dutch top to be set twirling, the woodenhorses of the merry-go-round to be mounted; they had to dashdown the great chute and take a turn in the Venetian gondolas,to be weighed in the machine and touch the arm of the "humantorpedo."But Madame Ewans could not help returning again and again tostand before the booth of a hypnotist from Paris, a clairvoyanteboasting a certificate signed by the Minster of Agriculture andCommerce and by three Doctors of the Faculty. She gazed enviouslyat the servant-girls as they trooped up blushing into the vanmeagrely furnished with a bed and a couple of chairs; but shecould not pluck up courage to follow their example. She recalled to mind how a hypnotist had once helped a friendof hers to recover some stolen forks and spoons. She had evengone so far as to consult a fortune-teller shortly before Edgar'sbirth, and the cards had foretold a boy. All three were tired out and overloaded with crockery, glass,reed-pipes, sticks of sugar-candy, cakes of ginger-bread andmacaroons. For all that, they paid a visit to the wax-works,where they saw Monseigneur Sibour's body lying in state at theArchbishop's Palace, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, modelsof people's legs and arms disfigured by various hideous diseases,and a Circassian maiden stepping out of the bath--"the puresttype of female beauty," as a placard duly informed the public. Madame Ewans examined this last exhibit with a curiosity thatvery soon became critical. "People may say what they please," she muttered; "if you offeredme the whole world, _I_ wouldn't have such big feet and sucha thick waist. And then, your regular features aren't one bitattractive. Men like a face that says something."When they left the tent, the sun was low and the dust hovered ingolden clouds over the throng of women, working-men, and soldiers. It was time for dinner; but as they passed the monkey-cage, MadameEwans noticed such a crush of eager spectators squeezing in betweenthe baize curtains on the platform in front that she could notresist the temptation to follow suit. Besides which, she wasdrawn by a motive of curiosity, having been told that monkeyswere not insensible to female charms. But the performance divertedher thoughts in another direction. She saw an unhappy poodle inred breeches shot as a deserter in spite of his honest looks. Tears rose to her eyes, she was so sensitive, so susceptibleto the glamour of the stage! "Yes, it's quite true," she sobbed; "yes, poor soldiers havebeen shot before now just for going off without leave to standby their mother's death-bed or for smacking a bullying officer'sface."Some old refrain of Béranger she had heard working folks singin her plebeian childhood rose to her memory and intensifiedher emotion. She told the children the lamentable tale of thecanine deserter's pitiful doom, and made them feel quite sad. No sooner were they outside the place, however, than an itineranttoy-seller with a paper helmet on his head set them splittingwith laughter. Dinner must be thought of. She knew of a tavern by the river-sidewhere you could eat a fry of fish in the arbour, and thitherthey betook themselves. The lady from Paris and the landlady of the inn greeted eachother with a wink of the eye. It was a long time since she hadseen Madame; she had no idea who the two young gentlemen were,but anyway they were dear little angels. Madame Ewans ordered themeal like a connoisseur, with a knowing air and all the properrestaurant tricks of phrase. All three sat silent, agreeablytired and enjoying the sensation, she with her bonnet-stringsflying loose, the boys leaning back against the trellis. Theycould see the river and its grassy banks through an archway ofwild vine. Their thoughts flowed softly on like the current beforetheir eyes, while the dusk and cool of the evening wrapped themin a soft caress. For the first time Jean Servien, as he gazedat Madame Ewans, felt the thrill of a woman's sweet proximity. Presently, warmed by a trifle of wine and water he had drunk,he became wholly lost in his dreams--visions of all sorts ofelegant, preposterous, chivalrous things. His head was stillfull of these fancies when he was dragged back to the fair-groundby Madame Ewans, who could never have enough of sight-seeingand noise. Illuminated arches spanned at regular intervals thebroad-walk, lined on either side by stalls and trestle-tables,but the lateral avenues gloomed dark and deserted under the tallblack trees. Loving couples paced them slowly, while the musicfrom the shows sounded muffled by the distance. They were stillthere when a band of fifes, trombones, and trumpets struck upclose by, playing a popular polka tune. The very first bar putMadame Ewans on her mettle. She drew Jean to her, settled hishands in hers and lifting him off the ground with a jerk of thehip, began dancing with him. She swung and swayed to the liltof the music; but the boy was awkward and embarrassed, and onlyhindered his partner, dragging back and bumping against her. She threw him off roughly and impatiently, saying sharply: "You don't know how to dance, eh? You come here, Edgar."She danced a while with him in the semi-darkness. Then, rosy andsmiling: "Bravo!" she laughed; "we'll stop now."Servien stood by in gloomy silence, conscious of his owninefficiency. His heart swelled with a sullen anger. He was hurt,and longed for somebody or something to vent his hate upon. The drive home was a silent one. Jean nearly gave himself crampin his determined efforts not to touch with his own the kneesof Madame Ewans' who dozed on the back seat of the conveyance. She hardly awoke enough to bid him good-bye when he alightedat his father's door. As he entered, he was struck for the first time by a smell ofpaste that seemed past bearing. The room where he had slept foryears, happy in himself and loved by others, seemed a wretchedhole. He sat down on his bed and looked round gloomily and moroselyat the holy-water stoup of gilt porcelain, the print commemoratinghis First Communion, the toilet basin on the chest of drawers,and stacked in the corners piles of pasteboard and ornamentalpaper for binding. Everything about him seemed animated by a hostile, malevolent,unjust spirit. In the next room he could hear his father moving. He pictured him at his work-bench, with his serge apron, calmand content. What a humiliation! and for the second time in adozen hours he blushed for his parentage. His slumbers were broken and uneasy; he dreamed he was turning,turning unendingly in complicated figures, and it was impossiblealways to avoid touching Madame Evans' knee, though all the timehe was horribly afraid of doing it. Then there was a great fieldfull of thousands and thousands of marble pigs stuck up on stonepedestals, among which he could see Monsieur Delbèque promenadingslowly up and down. Chapter 8 Next morning he awoke feeling sour-tempered and low-spirited. "Well, my boy," his father asked him, blowing noisily at eachspoonful of soup he absorbed, "well, did you enjoy yourselfyesterday?"He answered curtly and crossly. Everything stirred his gorge. His aunt's print gown filled him with a sort of rage. His father propounded a hundred minute inquiries; he would fainhave pictured the whole expedition to himself as he consumed hisbowl of soup. He had seen Saint-Cloud in his soldiering days;but he had never been there since. He had a bright idea; theywould go to Versailles, the three of them; his sister would seeto having a bit of veal cooked overnight, and they could takeit with them. They would have a look at the pictures, eat theirsnack on the great lawn, and have a fine time generally. Jean, who was horrified at the whole project, opened hisexercise-books and buried his head in his lessons, to avoid thenecessity of hearing any more and answering questions. He did notas a rule show such alacrity about setting to work. His fatherremarked on the fact, commending him for his zeal. "We should play," he announced, "when it is play-time, and workwhen it is the time to work," and _he_ set to work flatteninga piece of shagreen. Jean fell into a brown study. He had caught a glimpse of a worldhe knew to be for ever closed against him, but towards whichall the forces of his young heart drew him irresistibly. He didnot dream Madame Ewans could ever be different from what he hadseen her. He could not imagine her otherwise dressed or amid anyother surroundings. He knew nothing whatever of women; this onehad seemed motherly to him, and it was a mother such as MadameEwans he would have liked to have. But how his heart beat andhis brow burned as he pictured this imaginary mother a reality! Dating from the day at Saint-Cloud, Jean thought himself unhappy,and unhappy he became in fact. He was wilfully, deliberatelyinsubordinate, proud of breaking rules and defying punishments. He and his school-mates attended the classes of a _Lycée_ inthe _Quartier Latin_. Directly he had taken his place on theremotest bench in the well-warmed lecture-room, he would becomeabsorbed in some sentimental novel concealed under piles ofLatin and Greek authors. Sometimes the master, short-sighted ashe was, would catch the culprit in the act. Still, Jean had his hours of triumph. His translations wereremarkable, not for accuracy, but at any rate for elegance. So,too, his compositions sometimes contained happy phrases thatearned him high praise. On the theme, "The maiden Theano defendingAlcibiades against the incensed Athenians," he wrote a Latinoration that was warmly commended by Monsieur Duruy, the thenInspector of Public Instruction, and gained the young authorsome weeks of scholastic fame. On holidays he would roam the boulevards and gaze with greedyeyes at the jewels, the silks and satins, the bronzes, thephotographs of women, displayed in the shop-windows--the thousandand one gewgaws and frivolities of fashion that seemed to himto sum up the necessary conditions of happiness. His entry into the philosophy class was a red-letter day; hesported his first tall hat and smoked his first non-surreptitiouscigarettes. He possessed a certain brilliancy of mind and a keenwit that amused his companions, whose superior he was in giftsof imagination. His last vacation was passed in tolerable content. His father,thinking him looking pale, sent him on a visit to relatives livingin a village near Chartres. Jean, the tedious farm dinner ended,would go and sit under a tree and bury himself in a novel. Occasionally he would ride to the city in the miller's cart. Often he would be drenched all the way by the rain that felldrearily at nightfall. Then he would enjoy the fun of dryinghimself before the huge fireplace of some inn on the outskirtsof the town, beside the savoury roast on the turning spit. Heeven had a day's shooting with an old flint-lock fowling-pieceunder the auspices of his cousin the miller. In short, he couldboast on his return of having had a country holiday. Chapter 9 At eighteen he took his bachelor's degree. The evening after theexamination Monsieur Servien uncorked a bottle with a specialseal, which he had hoarded for years in anticipation of thisdomestic solemnity, and the contents of which had turned fromred to pink as they slowly fined. "A young man who carries his diploma in his pocket can enterevery door," Monsieur Servien observed, as he imbibed the winewith fitting respect; it had been good stuff once, but was pastits prime. Jean polished off the family repast rapidly and hurried away tothe theatre. His only ideas as yet of what a play was like werederived from the posters he had seen. He selected for tonightone of the big theatres where a tragedy was on the bill. He tookhis ticket for the pit with a vague idea it would be the talismanadmitting him to a new wonder-world of passion and emotion. Everytrifle is disconcerting to a troubled spirit, and on his entrancehe was surprised and sobered to see how few spectators there werein the stalls and boxes. But at the first scraping of the violinsas the orchestra tuned up, he glued his eyes to the curtain,which rose at last. Then, then he saw, in a Roman palace, leaning on the back of achair of antique shape, a woman who wore over her robe of whitewoollen the saffron-hued _palla_. Amid the trampling of feet, therustle of dresses and the shifting of stools, she was recitinga long soliloquy, accompanied by slow, deliberate gestures. Hefelt, as he gazed, a strange, unknown pleasure, that grew moreand more acute till it was almost pain. As scene followed scene,there entered a confidante, then a hero, then a crowd of supers. But he saw nothing but the apparition that had first fascinatedhim. His eyes fastened greedily on her beauty, caressing the twobare arms, encircled with rings of metal, gliding along the curveof the hips below the high girdle, plunging amid the brown locksthat waved above the brow and were tied back with three whitefillets; they clung to the moving lips and the white, moist teeththat ever and anon flashed in the glare of the footlights. Helonged to feel, to seize, to hold this lovely, living thing thatmoved before his eyes; in imagination he enfolded and embracedthe beautiful vision. The wait between the acts (for the tragedy involved a change ofscenery) was intolerably tedious. His neighbours were talkingpolitics and passing one another quarters of orange across him;the newspaper boy and the man who hired out opera-glasses deafenedhim with their bawling. He was in terror of some sudden catastrophethat might interrupt the play. The curtain rose once more, on a succession of scenes of politicalintrigue à la Corneille which had no meaning for Servien. Tohis joy the lovely being in the white robe came on again. Buthe had strained his sight too hard; he could see nothing; bydint of riveting his gaze on the long gold pendants that hungfrom the actress's ears, he was dazzled; his eyes swam and closedinvoluntarily, and he could hear no sound but the beating ofthe blood in his temples. By a supreme effort, in the last scene, he saw and heard her againclearly and distinctly, yet not as with his ordinary senses, forshe wore for him the elemental guise of a supernatural vision. When the prompter's bell tinkled and the curtain descended for thelast time, he had a feeling as though the universe had collapsedin irretrievable ruin. _Tartuffe_ was the after-piece; but neither the spirit and perfectionof the acting, nor the pretty face and plump shoulders of Elmire,nor the _soubrette_'s dimpled arms, nor the _ingénue_'s innocenteyes, nor the noble, witty lines that filled the theatre androused the audience to fresh attention, could stir his spiritthat hung entranced on the lips of a tragic heroine. As he stepped out into the street, the first breath of the coolnight air on his face blew away his intoxication. His senses cameback to him and he could think again; but his thoughts never leftthe object of his infatuation, and her image was the only thinghe saw distinctly. He was entranced, possessed; but the feelingwas delicious, and he roamed far and wide in the dark streets,making long detours by the river-side quays to lengthen out hisreveries, his heart full, overfull of passionate, voluptuousimaginings. He was content because he was weary; his soul laydrowned in a delicious languor that no pang of desire troubled;to look and long was more than sufficient as yet to still thecravings of his virgin appetites. He threw himself half dressed on his bed, overjoyed to cherishthe picture of her beauty in his heart. All he wanted was tolose himself in the enchanted sleep that weighed down his boyishlids. On waking, he gazed about him for something--he knew not what. Was he in love? He could not tell, but there was a void somewhere. Still, he felt no overmastering impulse, except to read the verseshe had heard the actress declaim. He took down from his shelvesa volume of Corneille and read through émilie's part. Every lineenchanted him, one as much as another, for did they not all evokethe same memory for him? His father and his aunt, with whom he passed his days, had grownto be only vague, meaningless shapes to him. Their broadestpleasantries failed to raise a smile, and the coarse realities ofa narrow, penurious existence had no power to disturb his happyserenity. All day long, in the back-shop where the penetratingsmell of paste mingled with the fumes of the cabbage-soup, helived a life of his own, a life of incomparable splendours. Hislittle Corneille, scored thickly with thumb-nail marks at everycouplet of émilie's, was all he needed to foster the fairestof illusions. A face and the tones of a voice were his world. In a few days he knew the whole tragedy by heart. He would declaimthe lines in a slow, pompous voice, and his aunt would remarkafter each speech, as she shredded the vegetables for dinner: "So you're for being a _curé_, are you, that you preach like theydo in church?"But in the main she approved of these exercises, and when MonsieurServien scratched his head doubtfully and complained that hisson would not make up his mind to any way of earning a living,she always took up the cudgels for the "little lad" and silencedthe bookbinder by telling him roundly he knew nothing about it--orabout anything else. So the worthy man went back to his calf-skins. All the same,albeit he could form no very clear idea of what was in his son'shead, for the latter having become a "gentleman" was beyond hispurview, he felt some disquietude to see a holiday, legitimateenough no doubt after a successful examination, dragging out tosuch a length. He was anxious to see his son earning money insome department of administration or other. He had heard speakof the _H?tel de Ville_ and the Government Offices, and heracked his brains to think of someone among his customers whomight interest himself in his son's future. But he was not theman to act precipitately. One day, when Jean Servien was out on one of the long walks he hadgot into the habit of taking, he read on a poster that his émilie,Mademoiselle Gabrielle T----, was appearing in that evening'spiece. This time, ignoring his aunt's disapproval, he donned hisSunday clothes, had his hair frizzed and curled, and took hisseat in the orchestra stalls. He saw her again! For the first few moments she did not seemso beautiful as he had pictured her. So long had he labouredand lain awake over the first image he had carried away of herthat the impression had become blurred, and the type that hadoriginally imprinted it on his heart no longer corresponded withthe result created by his mind's unconscious working. Then hewas disconcerted to see neither the white _stola_ and saffronmantle nor the bracelets and fillets that had seemed to him partand parcel of the beauty they adorned. Now she wore the turbanof Roxana and the wide muslin trousers caught in at the ankle. It was only by degrees he could grow reconciled to the change. He realized that her arms were a trifle thin, and that a toothstood back behind the rest in the row of pearls. But in the endher very defects pleased him, because they were hers, and he lovedher the better for them. This time, by the law of change which isof the very essence of life, and by virtue of the imperfectionthat characterizes all living creatures, she made a physicalappeal to his senses and called up the idea of a human being offlesh and blood, a creature you could cling to and make one withyourself. His admiration was lost in a flood of tenderness andinfinite sadness--and he burst into tears. The next day he conceived a great desire to see her as she wasin everyday life, dressed for the streets. It would be a sort ofintimacy merely to pass her on the pavement. One evening, when shewas playing, he watched for her at the stage-door, through whichemerged one after the other scene-shifters, actors, constables,firemen, dressers, and actresses. At last she appeared, muffledin her fur cloak, a bouquet in her hand, tall and pale--so palein the dusk her face seemed to him as if illumined by an inwardlight. She stood waiting on the doorstep till a carriage wascalled. He clasped both hands on his breast and thought he was going todie. When he found himself alone on the deserted _Quai_, he pluckeda leaf from the overhanging bough of a plane tree. Then, settinghis elbows on the parapet of the bridge, he tossed the leaf intothe river and watched it borne away by the current of the streamthat lay silvery in the moonlight, spangled with quivering lights. He watched it till he could see it no longer. Was it not theemblem of himself? He, too, was abandoning himself to the watersof a passion that shone bright and which he thought profound. Chapter 10 That year the _Champs de Mars_ was occupied by one of theseries of _Expositions Universelles_. Under the trees, inthe heat and dust, crowds were swarming towards the entrance. Jean passed the turnstiles and entered the palace of glass andiron. He was still pursuing his passion, for he associated thebeing he loved with all manifestations of art and luxury. Hemade for the park and went straight to the Egyptian pavilion. Egypt had filled his dreams from the day when all his thoughtshad been centred on one woman. In the avenue of sphinxes andbefore the painted temple he fell under the glamour that womenof olden days and strange lands exercise on the senses,--on thoseof lovers with especial force. The sanctuary was venerable inhis eyes, despite the vulgar use it was put to as part of theExhibition. Looking at the jewels of Queen Aahotep, who livedand was lovely in the days of the Patriarchs, he pondered sadlyover all that had been in the world and was no more. He picturedin fancy the black locks that had scented this diadem with thesphinx's head, the slim brown arms these, beads of gold and lapislazuli had touched, the shoulders that had worn these vulture'swings, the peaked bosoms these chains and gorgets had confined,the breast that had once communicated its warmth to yonder goldscarab?us with the blue wing-cases, the little royal hand thatonce held that poniard by the hilt wrought over with flowersand women's faces. He could not conceive how what was a dream tohim had been a reality for other men. Vainly he tried to followthe lapse of ages. He told himself that another living shapewould vanish in its turn, and it would be for nothing then thatit had been so passionately desired. The thought saddened andcalmed him. He thought, as he stood before these gewgaws fromthe tomb, of all these men who, in the abyss of bygone time,had in turn loved, coveted, enjoyed, suffered, whom death hadtaken, hungry or satiated, and made an end of the appetites ofall alike. A placid melancholy swept over him and held himmotionless, his face buried in his hands. Chapter 11 It was at breakfast the next morning that Jean noticed, for thefirst time, the venerable, kindly look of his father's face. Intruth, advancing years had invested the bookbinder's appearancewith a sort of beauty. The smooth forehead under the curlingwhite locks betokened a habit of peaceful and honest thoughts. Old age, while rendering the play of the muscles less active,veiled the distortion of the limbs due to long hours of labourat the bench under the more affecting disfigurements which lifeand _its_ long-drawn labours impress on all men alike. The oldman had read, thought, striven honestly to do his best, and wonthe saving grace a simple faith bestows on the humble of heart;for he had become a religious man and a regular attendant atthe church of his parish. Jean told himself it would be an easyand a grateful task to cherish such a father, and he resolved toinaugurate a life of toil and sacrifice. But he had no employmentand no notion what to do. Shut up in his room, he was filled with a great pity for himselfand longed to recover the peace of mind, the calm of the senses, thehappy life that had vanished along with the leaf he had abandonedthat evening to the drifting current. He opened a novel, but atthe first mention of love he pitched the volume down, and fellto reading a book of travel, following the steps of an Englishexplorer into the reed palace of the King of Uganda. He ascendedthe Upper Nile to Urondogami; hippopotamuses snorted in the swamps,waders and guinea-fowl rose in flight, while a herd of antelopessped flying through the tall grasses. He was recalled from far,far away by his aunt shouting up the stairs: "Jean! Jean! come down into the shop; your father wants you."A stout, red-faced man, with the bent shoulders that come ofmuch stooping over the desk, sat beside the counter. MonsieurServien's eyes rested on his face with a deprecating air. When the boy appeared, the stranger asked if this was the youngman in question, adding in a scolding voice: "You are all the same. You work and sweat and wear yourselvesout to make your sons bachelors of arts, and you think the dayafter the examination the fine fellows will be posted Ambassadors. For God's sake! no more graduates, if you please! We can't tellwhat to do with 'em.... Graduates indeed! Why, they block theroad; they are cab-drivers, they distribute handbills in thestreets. You have 'em dying in hospital, rotting in the hulks! Why didn't you teach your son your own trade? Why didn't youmake a bookbinder of him? ... Oh! I know why; you needn't tellme,--out of ambition! Well, then! some day your son will die ofstarvation, blushing for your folly--and a good job too! The State! you say, the State! it's the only word you can put your tonguesto. But it's cluttered up, the State is! Take the Treasury; yousend us graduates who can't spell; what d'ye expect us to dowith all these loafers?"He drew his hand across his hot forehead. Then pointing a fingerto show he was addressing Jane: "At any rate, you write a good hand?"Monsieur Servien answered for his son, saying it was legible. "Legible! Legible!" repeated the great man--throwing his fathands about. "A copying clerk must write an even hand. Young man,do you write an even hand?"Jean said he did not know, his handwriting might have been spoilt,he had never thought very much about it. His questioner frowned: "That's very wrong," he blustered; "and I dare swear you youngfellows make a silly affectation of not writing decently.... Imay have a bit of influence at the Ministry, but you mustn'task me to do impossibilities."The bookbinder shrunk back with a scared glance. _He_ certainlydid not look the man to ask impossibilities. The other got up: "You will take lessons," he said, turning to Jean, "in writingand ciphering. You have eight months before you. Eight monthsfrom now the Minister will hold an examination. I will put yourname down. Do you set to work without losing a minute!"So saying, he pulled out his watch, as though to see if his protégéwas actually going to waste a single minute before beginning hisstudies. He directed Monsieur Servien to get to work withoutdelay on the books he was giving him to bind, and walked out ofthe shop. After the bookbinder had seen him to his carriage: "Jean, my boy," said he, "that is Monsieur Bargemont; I havespoken to him about you and you have heard what he had to say;he is going to help you to get into the Treasury Office, wherehe holds a high post. You understand what he told you about theexaminations; you know more about such things, praise God! thanI do. I am only an ignoramus, my lad, but I am your father. Nowlisten; I want to have a word of explanation with you, so thatfrom this day on till I go to where your dear mother is we canlook each other calmly in the face and understand one anotherat the first glance. Your mother loved you right well, Jean. There's not a gold mine in the world could give a notion of thewealth of affection that woman possessed. From the first momentyou saw the light, she lived, so to say, more in you than inherself. Her love was stronger than she could bear. Well, well,she is dead. It was nobody's fault."The old man turned his eyes involuntarily towards the darkestcorner of the shop, and Jean, looking in the same direction,caught sight of the sharp angles of the hand-press in the gloom. Monsieur Servien went on: "On her death-bed your mother asked me to make an educated manof you, for well she knew that education is the key that opensevery door. "I have done what she wished. She was no longer with us, Jean,and when a voice comes back to you from the grave and bids you doa thing 'that a blessing may come,' why, one must needs obey. Idid my best; and no doubt God was with me, for I have succeeded. You have your education; so far so good, but we must not havea blessing turn into a curse. And idleness is a curse. I haveworked like a packhorse, and given many a hard pull at the collar,in harness from morning to night. I remember in particular onelot of cloth covers for the firm of Pigoreau that kept me onthe job for thirty-six hours running. And then there was theyear when your examination fees had to be paid and I acceptedan order in the English style; it was a terrible bit of work,for it's not in my way at all, and at my time of life a man isnot good at new methods. They wanted a light sort of binding,with flexible boards as flimsy as paper almost. I shed tearsover it, but I learned the trick! Ah! it is a famous tool, is aworkman's hand! But an educated man's brain is a far more wonderfulthing still, and that tool you have, thanks to God in the firstplace, and to your mother in the second. It was she had the notionof educating you, I only followed her lead. Your work will belighter than mine, but you must do it. I am a poor man, as youknow; but, were I rich, I would not give you the means to leadan idle life, because that would be tempting you to vices andshaming you. Ah! if I thought your education had given you ataste for idleness, I should be sorry not to have made you aworking man like myself. But then, I know you have a good heart;you have not got into your stride yet, that's all! The firststeps will be uphill work; Monsieur Bargemont said so. The Stateservices are overcrowded; there are over many graduates--thoughit is well enough to be one. Besides, I shall be at your back;I will help you, I will work for you; I have a pair of stoutarms still. You shall have pocket-money, never fear; you willwant it among the folks you will live with. We will save andpinch. But you must help yourself, lad; never be afraid of hardwork, hit out from the shoulder and strike home. Good work neverspoiled play yet. Your job done, laugh and sing and amuse yourselfto your heart's content; you won't find me interfere. And, whenyou are a great man, if I am still in this world, don't you beafraid; I shall not get in your way. I am not a fellow to makea noise. We will hide away in some quiet hole, your aunt andI, and nobody will hear one word said of the old father."Aunt Servien, who had slipped into the shop and been listeningfor the last few moments, broke into sobs; she was quite readyto follow her brother and hide away in a corner; but when hernephew had risen to greatness, she would insist on going every dayto keep things straight in his grand house. She was not going toleave "the little lad" to be a prey to housekeepers--housekeepers,indeed, she called them housebreakers! "The creatures keep great hampers," she declared, "that swallowup bottles of wine, cold chickens, and other titbits, fine linen,old clothes, oil, sugar, and candles--the best pickings from arich man's house. No, I'll not let my little Jean be sucked todeath by such vampires. _I_ mean to keep your house in order. Noone will ever know I am your aunt. And if they did know, there'snobody, I should hope, could object. I don't know why anyoneshould be ashamed of me. They can lay my whole life bare, I havenothing to blush for. And there's many a Duchess can't say asmuch. As for forsaking the lad for fear of doing him a hurt,well, the notion is just what I expected of you, Servien; you'vealways been a bit simple-minded. _I_ mean to stay all my lifewith Jean. No, little lad, you'll never drive your old aunt outof your house, will you? And who could ever make your bed theway I can, my lamb?"Jean promised his father faithfully, oh! most faithfully, hewould lead a hardworking life. Then he shut himself up in hisroom and pictured the future to himself--long years of austereand methodical labour. He mapped out his days systematically. In the morning he wrotecopies to improve his handwriting, seated at a corner of theworkbench. After breakfast he did sums in his bedroom. Everyevening he went to the _Rue Soufflot_ by way of the Luxembourggardens to a private tutor's, and the old man would set himdictations and explain the rules of simple interest. On reachingthe gate adjoining the _Fontaine Médicis_ the boy always turnedround for a look at the statues of women he could discernstanding like white ghosts along the terrace. He had left behindon the path of life another fascinating vision. He never read a theatrical poster now, and deliberately forgothis favorite poets for fear of renewing his pain. Chapter 12 This new life pleased him; it slipped by with a soothing monotony,and he found it healthful and to his taste. One evening, as hewas coming downstairs at his old tutor's, a stout man offeredhim, with a sweep of the arm, the bill of fare advertising aneighbouring cook-shop; he carried a huge bundle of them underhis left arm. Then stopping abruptly: "_Per Bacco!_" cried the fellow; "it is my old pupil. Tall andstraight as a young poplar, here stands Monsieur Jean Servien!"It was no other than the Marquis Tudesco. His red waistcoat wasgone; instead he wore a sort of sleeved vest of coarse ticking,but his shining face, with the little round eyes and hooked nose,still wore the same look of merry, mischievous alertness thatwas so like an old parrot's. Jean was surprised to see him, and not ill-pleased after all. He greeted him affectionately and asked what he was doing now. "Behold!" replied the Marquis, "my business is to distributein the streets these advertisements of a local poisoner, andthereby to earn a place at the assassin's table to spread thefame of which I labour. Camoens held out his hand for charityin the streets of Lisbon. Tudesco stretches forth his in thebyways of the modern Babylon, but it is to give and not toreceive--lunches at 1 fr. 25, dinners at 1 fr. 75," and he offeredone of his bills to a passer-by, who strode on, hands in pockets,without taking it. Thereupon the Marquis Tudesco heaved a sigh and exclaimed: "And yet I have translated the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, themasterpiece of the immortal Torquato Tasso! But the brutal-mindedbooksellers scorn the fruit of my vigils, and in the empyreanthe Muse veils her face so as not to witness the humiliationinflicted on her nursling.""And what has become of you all the time since we last saw you?"asked the young man frankly. "God only knows, and 'pon my word! I think He has forgotten."Such was the Marquis Tudesco's oracular answer. He tied up his bundle of papers in a cloth, and taking his pupil bythe arm, urged him in the direction of the _Rue Saint-Jacques_. "See, my young friend," he said, "the dome of the Panthéon ishalf hidden by the fog. The School of Salerno teaches that thedamp air of evening is inimical to the human stomach. There isnear by a decent establishment where we can converse as twophilosophers should, and I feel sure your unavowed desire is toconduct your old instructor thither, the master who initiatedyou in the Latin rudiments."They entered a drinking-shop perfumed with so strong a reek ofkirsch and absinthe as took Servien's breath away. The room waslong and narrow, while against the walls varnished barrels withcopper taps were ranged in a long-drawn perspective that waslost in the thick haze of tobacco-smoke hanging in the air underthe gas-jets. At little tables of painted deal a number of menwere drinking; dressed in black and wearing tall silk hats,broken-brimmed and shiny from exposure to the rain, they sat andsmoked in silence. Before the door of the stove several pairsof thin legs were extended to catch the heat, and a thread ofsteam curled up from the toes of the owners' boots. A heavy torporseemed to weigh upon all this assemblage of pallid, impassivefaces. While Monsieur Tudesco was distributing hand-shakes to sundry oldacquaintances, Jean caught scraps of the conversation of those abouthim that filled him with a despairing melancholy--school ushersrailing at the cookery of cheap eating-houses, tipplers maunderingcontentedly to one another, enchanted at the profundity of theirown wisdom, schemers planning to make a fortune, politiciansarguing, amateurs of the fair sex telling highly-spiced anecdotesof love and women--and amongst it all this sentence: "The harmony of the spheres fills the spaces of infinity, andif we hear it not, it is because, as Plato says, our ears arestopped with earth."Monsieur Tudesco consumed brandy-cherries in a very elegant way. Then the waiter served two dantzigs in little glass cups. Jeanadmired the translucent liquor dotted with golden sparkles, andMonsieur Tudesco demanded two more. Then, raising his cup onhigh: "I drink to the health of Monsieur Servien, your venerable father,"he cried. "He enjoys a green and flourishing old age, at leastI hope so; he is a man superior to his mechanic and mercantilecondition by the benevolence of his behaviour to needy men ofletters. And your respected aunt? She still knits stockings withthe same zeal as of yore? At least I hope so. A lady of an austerevirtue. I conjecture you are wishing to order another dantzig,my young friend."Jean looked about him. The dram-shop was transfigured; the caskslooked enormous with their taps splendidly glittering, and seemedto stretch into infinity in a quivering, golden mist. But oneobject was more monstrously magnified than all the rest, andthat was the Marquis Tudesco; the old man positively toweredas huge as the giant of a fairy-tale, and Jean looked for himto do wonders. Tudesco was smiling. "You do not drink, my young friend," he resumed. "I conjectureyou are in love. Ah! love! love is at once the sweetest and thebitterest thing on earth. I too have felt my heart beat for awoman. But it is long years ago since I outlived that passion. Iam now an old man crushed under adverse fortune; but in happierdays there was at Rome a _diva_ of a beauty so magnificent anda genius so enthralling that cardinals fought to the death atthe door of her box; well, sir, that sublime creature I havepressed to my bosom, and I have been informed since that with herlast sigh she breathed my name. I am like an old ruined temple,degraded by the passage of time and the violence of men's hands,yet sanctified for ever by the goddess."This tale, whether it recalled in exaggerated terms some commonplaceintrigue of his young days in Italy, or more likely was a purefiction based on romantic episodes he had read in novels, wasaccepted by Jean as authentic and vastly impressive. The effectwas startling, amazing. In an instant he beheld, with all themiraculous clearness of a vision, there, standing between thetables, the queen of tragedy he adored; he saw the locks braidedin antique fashion, the long gold pendants drooping from eitherear, the bare arms and the white face with scarlet lips. Andhe cried aloud: "I too love an actress."He was drinking, never heeding what the liquor was; but lo! itwas a philtre he swallowed that revivified his passion. Then atorrent of words rose flooding to his lips. The plays he hadseen, _Cinna, Bajazet_, the stern beauty of émilie, thesweet ferocity of Roxana, the sight of the actress cloaked invelvet, her face shining so pale and clear in the darkness, hislongings, his hopes, his undying love, he recounted everythingwith cries and tears. Monsieur Tudesco heard him out, lapping up a glass of Chartreusedrop by drop the while, and taking snuff from a screw of paper. At times he would nod his head in approval and go on listeningwith the air of a man watching and waiting his opportunity. Whenhe judged that at last, after tedious repetitions and numberlessfresh starts, the other's confidences were exhausted, he assumeda look of gravity, and laying his fine hand with a gesture asof priestly benediction on the young man's shoulder: "Ah! my young friend," he said, "if I thought that what you feelwere true love... but I do not," and he shook his head and lethis hand drop. Jean protested. To suffer so, and not to be really in love? Monsieur Tudesco repeated: "If I thought that this were true love... but I do not, so far."Jean answered with great vehemence; he talked of death and plunginga dagger in his heart. Monsieur Tudesco reiterated for the third time: "I do not believe it is true love."Then Jean fell into a fury and began to rumple and tear at hiswaistcoat as if he would bare his heart for inspection. MonsieurTudesco took his hands and addressed him soothingly: "Well, well, my young friend, since it _is_ true love you feel,I will help you. I am a great tactician, and if King Carlo Albertohad read a certain memorial I sent him on military matters hewould have won the battle of Novara. He did not read my memorial,and the battle was lost, but it was a glorious defeat. How happythe sons of Italy who died for their mother in that thrice holybattle! The hymns of poets and the tears of women made enviabletheir obsequies. I say it: what a noble, what a heroic thingis youth! What flames divine escape from young bosoms to riseto the Creator! I admire above everything young folk who throwthemselves into ventures of war and sentiment with the impetuositynatural to their age."Tasso, Novara, and the _diva_ so beloved of cardinals mingledconfusedly in Jean Servien's heated brain, and in a burst ofsublime if fuddled enthusiasm he wrung the old villain's hand. Everything had grown indistinct; he seemed to be swimming inan element of molten metal. Monsieur Tudesco, who at the moment was imbibing a glass of kümmel,pointed to his waistcoat of ticking. "The misfortune is," he observed, "that I am garbed like aphilosopher. How show myself in such a costume among elegantfemales? 'Tis a sad pity! for it would be an easy matter forme to pay my respects to an actress at an important theatre. Ihave translated the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, that masterpieceof Torquato Tasso's. I could propose to the great actress whomyou love and who is worthy of your love, at least I hope so, aFrench adaptation of the _Myrrha_ of the celebrated Alfieri. What eloquence, what fire in that tragedy! The part of Myrrhais sublime and terrible; she will be eager to play it. Meantime,you translate _Myrrha_ into French verse; then I introduce youwith your manuscript into the sanctuary of Melpomene, when youbring with you a double gift--fame and love! What a dream, oh! fortunate young man!... But alas! 'tis but a dream, for how shouldI enter a lady's boudoir in this rude and sordid guise?"But the tavern was closing and they had to leave. Jean felt sogiddy in the open air he could not tell how he had come to loseMonsieur Tudesco, after emptying the contents of his purse intothe latter's hand. He wandered about all night in the rain, stumbling through thepuddles which splashed up the mud in his face. His brains buzzedwith the maddest schemes, that took shape, jostled one another,and tumbled to pieces in his head. Sometimes he would stop towipe the sweat from his forehead, then start off again on hiswild way. Fatigue calmed his nerves, and a clear purpose emerged. He went straight to the house where the actress lived, and fromthe street gazed up at her dark, shuttered windows; then, steppingup to the _porte-cochère_, he kissed the great doors. Chapter 13 Dating from that night Jean Servien spent his days in translating_Myrrha_ bit by bit, with an infinity of pains. The task havingtaught him something of verse-making, he composed an ode, whichhe sent by post to his mistress. The poem was writ in tears ofblood, yet it was as cold and insipid as a schoolboy's exercise. Still, he did get something said of the fair vision of a womanthat hovered for ever before his eyes, and of the door he hadkissed in a night of frenzy. Monsieur Servien was disturbed to note how his son had grownheedless, absent-minded, and hollow-eyed, coming back late atnight, and hardly up before noon. Before the mute reproach inhis father's eyes the boy hung his head. But his home-life wasnothing now; his whole thoughts were abroad, hovering aroundthe unknown, in regions he pictured as resplendent with poetry,wealth and pleasure. Occasionally, at a street corner, he would meet the Marquis Tudescoagain. He had found it impossible to replace his waistcoat ofticking. Moreover, he now advised Jean to pay his addresses toshop-girls. When the summer came, the theatrical posters announced in quicksuccession _Mithridate, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Rodogune, lesEnfants d'Edouard, la Fiammina_. Jean, having secured the moneyto pay for a seat by hook or by crook, by some bit of trickery orfalsehood, by cajoling his aunt or by a surreptitious raid onthe cash-box, would watch from an orchestra stall the startlingmetamorphoses of the woman he loved. He saw her now girt withthe white fillet of the virgins of Hellas, like those figurescarved with such an exquisite purity in the marble of the Greekbas-reliefs that they seem clad in inviolate innocence, now in aflowered gown, with powdered ringlets sweeping her naked shoulders,that had an inexpressible charm in their spare outlines suggestiveof the bitter-sweet taste of an unripe fruit. She reminded himin this attire of some old-time pastel of gallant ladies suchas the bookbinder's son had pored over in the dealers' shopson the _Quai Voltaire_. Anon she would be crowned with ahawk's crest, girdled with plaques of gold on which were tracedmagic symbols in clustered rubies, clad in the barbaric splendourof an Eastern queen; presently she would be wearing the blackhood, pointed above the brow, and the dusky velvet robe of aRoyal widow, like the portraits to be seen guarded as holy relicsin a chamber of the Louvre; last travesty of all (and it was inthis guise he found her most adorable), as a modern horsewoman,clothed from neck to heel in a close-fitting habit, a man's hatset rakishly on her dainty head. He would fain spend his life inthese romantic dreams, and devoured Racine, the Greek tragedians,Corneille, Shakespeare, Voltaire's verses on the death of AdrienneLecouvreur, and whatever in modern literature appealed to himas elegant or fraught with passion. But in all these creationsit was one image, and one only, that he saw. Going one evening to the dram-shop with the Marquis Tudesco,who had given up all idea of discarding his checked waistcoat,he made the acquaintance of an old man whose white hair lay inringlets on his shoulders and who still had the blue eyes of achild. He was an architect fallen to ruin along with the littleGothic erections he had raised at great expense in the Parissuburbs about 1840. His name was Théroulde, and the old fellow,whose smiling face belied his wretched condition, overflowedwith anecdotes of artists and pretty women. In his prosperous days he had built country villas for actressesand attended many a joyous house-warming, the fun and frolic ofwhich were still fresh in the light-hearted veteran's memory. Hehad long ceased to care who heard him, and primed with maraschino,he would unfold his reminiscences like some sumptuous tapestrygone to tatters. The bookseller's son, meeting an artist for thefirst time, listened to the old Bohemian with rapt enthusiasm. All these forgotten celebrities, or half-celebrities, all theseold young beauties of whom Théroulde spoke, came to life againfor him, fascinated him with an unexpected charm and a piquantsense of familiarity. Servien pictured them as he had seen themrepresented in the old foxed lithographs that litter the second-handbookstalls along the _Quais_, wearing the hair in flat bandeauxwith a jewel on a gold chain in the middle of the forehead, orelse in heavy ringlets _à l'Anglaise_ brushing the cheeks. Obsessedby his one idea, he endeavoured to recall one who seemed so wellacquainted with ladies of the stage to the present day. He spokeof tragedy, but Théroulde said he thought that sort of playsridiculous, and repeated a number of parodies. Jean mentionedGabrielle T----. "T----," exclaimed the artist-architect; "I knew her mother well."Never in all his life had Jean heard a sentence that interestedhim so profoundly. "I knew her in 1842," Théroulde went on, "at Nantes, where shecreated fourteen r?les in six weeks. And folks imagine actresseshave nothing to do! A fine thing, the stage! But the mischief is,there's not a single architect capable of building a playhousewith any sense. As to scenery, it is simply puerile, even at theOpera--so childish it might make a South Sea Islander blush. I have thought out a system of rollers in the flies so as toget rid of those long top-cloths that represent the sky withouta pretence at deceiving anyone. I have likewise invented anarrangement of lamps and reflectors so placed as to light thecharacters on the stage from above downwards, as the sun does,which is the rational way, and not from below upwards, as thefootlights do, which is absurd.""Of course it is," agreed Servien. "But you were speaking ofGabrielle T----'s mother.""She was a fine woman," replied the architect; "tall, dark, witha little moustache that became her to perfection.... You see theeffect of my roller contrivance--a vast sky shedding an equalillumination over the actors and giving every object its naturalshadows. _La Muette_ is being played, we will say; the famous_cavatina_, the slumber-song, is heard beneath a transparentsky, vaulted like the real thing and giving the impression ofboundless space. The effect of the music is doubled! Fenellawakes, crosses the boards with cadenced tread; her shadow, whichfollows her on the floor, is cadenced like her steps; it is natureand art both together. That is my invention! As for putting itin execution, why, the means are childishly simple."Thereupon he entered upon endless explanations, using technicalterms and illustrating his meaning with everything he could layhands on--glasses, saucers, matches. His frayed sleeves, as theyswept to and fro, wiped the marble top of the table and set theglasses rattling. Disturbed by the noise, the Marquis Tudesco,who was asleep, half opened his eyes mechanically. Servien kept nodding his approval and repeating that he quiteunderstood, to stop the old man's babble. Then he advised thearchitect to try and put his invention in practice; but he onlyshrugged his shoulders--it was years since he had left off tryinganything. After all, what did it matter to him whether his systemwas applied or no? He was an inventor! Recalled for the third time by his young listener to GabrielleT----'s mother: "She never had any great success on the stage," he declared;"but she was a careful woman and saved money. She was near onfifty when I came upon her again in Paris living with Adolphe, avery handsome young fellow of twenty-five or twenty-six, nephewof a stockbroker. It was the most loving couple, the merriest,happiest household in the world. Never once did I breakfast at theirlittle flat, fifth floor of a house in the _Rue Taitbout_,without being melted to tears. 'Eat, my kitten,' 'Drink, my lamb!' and such looks and endearments, and each so pleased with theother! One day he said to her: 'My kitten, your money does notbring you in what it ought; give me your scrip and in forty-eighthours I shall have doubled your capital.' She went softly to hercupboard and opening the glass doors, handed him her securitiesone by one with hands that trembled a little. "He took them unconcernedly and brought her a receipt the sameevening bearing his uncle's signature. Three months after shewas pocketing a very handsome income. The sixth month Adolphedisappeared. The old girl goes straight to the uncle with herscreed of paper. 'I never signed that,' says the stockbroker, 'andmy nephew never deposited any securities with me.' She flies likea mad-woman to the Commissary of Police, to learn that Adolphe,hammered at the Bourse, is off to Belgium, carrying with hima hundred and twenty thousand francs he had done another oldwoman out of. She never got over the blow; but we must say thisof her, she brought up her daughter mighty strictly, and showedherself a very dragon of virtue. Poor Gabrielle must feel hercheeks burn to this day only to think of her years at theConservatoire; for in those days her mother used to smack themsoundly for her, morning and evening. Gabrielle, why I can seeher now, in her sky-blue frock, running to lessons nibblingcoffee-berries between her teeth. She was a good girl, that.""You knew her!" cried Jean, for whom these confidences formedthe most exciting love adventure he had ever known. The old man assured him: "We used to have fine rides with her and a lot of artists in olddays on horseback and donkey-back in the woods of Ville d'Avray;she used to dress as a man, and I remember one day..." He finishedhis story in a whisper,--it was just as well. He went on to sayhe hardly ever saw her now that she was with Monsieur Didier,of the Crédit Bourguignon. The financier had sent the artiststo the right-about; he was a conceited, narrow-minded fellow,a dull, tiresome prig. Jean was neither surprised nor excessively shocked to hear thatshe had a lover, because having studied the ways of the ladiesof the theatre in the proverbs in verse of Alfred de Musset, hepictured the life of Parisian actresses without exception asone continual feast of wit and gallantry. He loved her; with orwithout Didier, he loved her. She might have had three hundredlovers, like Lesbia,--he would have loved her just as much. Isit not always so with men's passions? They are in love becausethey are in love, and in spite of everything. As for feeling jealousy of Monsieur Didier, he never so muchas thought of it. The infatuation of the lad! He was jealousof the men and women who saw her pass to and fro in the street,of the scene-shifters and workmen whom the business of the stagebrought into contact with her. For the present these were his onlyrivals. For the rest, he trusted to the future, the ineffablefuture big whether with bliss or torment. Indeed, the literatureof romance had inspired him with no small esteem of courtesans,if only their attitude was as it should be--leaning pensivelyon the balcony-rail of their marble palace. What did shock him in the rapscallion architect's stories, whatwounded his love without weakening it, was all the rather squalidelements these narratives implied in the actress's young days. Of all things in the world he thought anything sordid the mostrepugnant. Monsieur Tudesco, feeling sure his brandy-cherries would be paidfor, did not trouble himself to talk, and the conversation waslanguishing when the architect remarked casually: "By-the-by! As I was going to Bellevue yesterday on businessof my own, I came upon that actress of yours, young man, at hergate... oh! a rubbishy little villa, run up to last through alove affair, standing in six square yards of garden, meant togive a stock-broker some sort of notion what the country's like. She invited me in--but what was the use?"... She was at Bellevue! Jean forgot all the humiliating detailsthe old man had told him, retaining the one fact only, that shewas at Bellevue and it was possible to see her there in the sweetintimacy of the country. He got up to go. Monsieur Tudesco caught him by the skirt of hisjacket to detain him: "My young friend, you have my admiration; for I see you riseon daring pinions above the hindrances of a lowly station tothe realms of beauty, fame and wealth. You will yet cull thesplendid blossom that fascinates you, at least I hope so. But howmuch better had you loved a simple work-girl, whose affectionsyou could have beguiled by offering her a penn'orth of friedpotatoes and a seat among the gods to see a melodrama. I fear youare a dupe of men's opinion, for one woman is not very differentfrom another, and it is opinion, that mistress of the world, andnothing else, which sets a high price on some and a low one onothers. Do you profit, my young and very dear friend, by theexperience afforded me by the vicissitudes of fortune, whichare such that I am obliged at this present moment to borrow ofyou the modest sum of two and a half francs."So spake the Marquis Tudesco. Chapter 14 Jean had trudged afoot up the hill of Bellevue. Evening was falling. The village street ran upwards between low walls, brambles andthistles lining the roadway on either side. In front the woodsmelted into a far-off blue haze; below him stretched the city,with its river, its roofs, its towers and domes, the vast, smokytown which had kindled Servien's aspirations at the flaring lightsof its theatres and nurtured his feverish longings in the dustof its streets. In the west a broad streak of purple lay betweenheaven and earth. A sweet sense of peace descended on the landscapeas the first stars twinkled faintly in the sky. But it was notpeace Jean Servien had come to find. A few more paces on the stony high road and there stood the gatefestooned with the tendrils of a wild vine, just as it had beendescribed to him. He gazed long, in a trance of adoration. Peering through thebars, between the sombre boughs of a Judas tree, he saw a prettylittle white house with a flight of stone steps before the frontdoor, flanked by two blue vases. Everything was still, nobodyat the windows, nobody stirring on the gravel of the drive; nota voice, not a whisper, not a footfall. And yet, after a long,long look, he turned away almost happy, his heart filled withsatisfaction. He waited under the old walnut trees of the avenue till the windowslighted up one by one in the darkness, and then retraced hissteps. As he passed the railway station, to which people werehurrying to catch an incoming train, he saw amid the confusiona tall woman in a mantilla kiss a young girl who was taking herleave. The pale face under the mantilla, the long, delicate hands,that seemed ungloved out of a voluptuous caprice, how well heknew them! How he saw the woman from head to foot in a flash! His knees bent under him. He felt an exquisite languor, as ifhe would die there and then! No, he never believed she was sobeautiful, so beyond price! And he had thought to forget her! He had imagined he could live without her, as if she did notsum up in herself the world and life and everything! She turned into the lane leading to her house, walking at a smartpace, with her dress trailing and catching on the brambles, fromwhich with a backward sweep of the hand and a rough pull shewould twitch it clear. Jean followed her, pushing his way deliberately through the samebramble bushes and exulting to feel the thorns scratch and tearhis flesh. She stopped at the gate, and Jean saw her profile, in its purityand dignity, clearly defined in the pale moonlight. She was along time in turning the key, and Jean could watch her face, themore enthralling to the senses for the absence of any tokens ofdisturbing intellectual effort. He groaned in grief and rage tothink how in another second the iron bars would be close betweenher and him. No, he would not have it so; he darted forward, seized her bythe hand, which he pressed in his own and kissed. She gave a loud cry of terror, the cry of a frightened animal. Jean was on his knees on the stone step, chafing the hand heheld against his teeth, forcing the rings into the flesh of hislips. A servant, a lady's maid, came running up, holding a candle thathad blown out. "What is all this?" she asked breathlessly. Jean released the hand, which bore the mark of his violence ina drop of blood, and got to his feet. Gabrielle, panting and holding the wounded hand against her bosom,leant against the gate for support. "I want to speak to you; I must," cried Jean. "Here's pretty manners!" shrilled the maid-servant. "Go yourways," and she pointed with her candlestick first to one end,then to the other of the street. The actress's face was still convulsed with the shock of herterror. Her lips were trembling and drawn back so as to showthe teeth glittering. But she realized that she had nothing tofear. "What do you want with me?" she demanded. He had lost his temerity since he had dropped her hand. It wasin a very gentle voice he said: "Madame, I beg and beseech you, let me say one word to you alone.""Rosalie," she ordered, after a moment's hesitation, "take aturn or two in the garden. Now speak, sir," and she remainedstanding on the step, leaving the gate half-way open, as it hadbeen at the moment he had kissed her hand. He spoke in all the sincerity of his inmost heart: "All I have to say to you, Madame, is that you must not, youought not, to repulse me, for I love you too well to live withoutyou."She appeared to be searching in her memory. "Was it not you," she asked, "who sent me some verses?"He said it was, and she resumed: "You followed me one evening. It is not right, sir, not the rightthing, to follow ladies in the street.""I only followed _you_, and that was because I could not helpit.""You are very young.""Yes, but it was long ago I began to love you.""It came upon you all in a moment, did it not?""Yes, when I saw you.""That is what I thought. You are inflammable, so it seems.""I do not know, Madame. I love you and I am very unhappy. I havelost the heart to live, and I cannot bear to die, for then Ishould not see you any more. Let me be near you sometimes. Itmust be so heavenly!""But, sir, I know nothing about you.""That is my misfortune. But how _can_ I be a stranger for you? You are no stranger, no stranger in my eyes. I do not know anywoman, for me there is no other woman in the world but you."And again he took her hand, which she let him kiss. Then: "It is all very pretty," she said, "but it is not an occupation,being in love. What are you? What do you do?"He answered frankly enough: "My father is in trade; he is looking out for a post for me."The actress understood the truth; here was a little bourgeois,living contentedly on next to nothing, reared in habits ofpenuriousness, a hidebound, mean creature, like the petty tradesmenwho used to come to her whining for their bills, and whom sheencountered of a Sunday in smart new coats in the Meudon woods. She could feel no interest in him, such as he might have inspired,whether as a rich man with bouquets and jewels to offer her,or a poor wretch so hungry and miserable as to bring tears toher eyes. Dazzle her eyes or stir her compassion, it must beone or the other! Then she was used to young fellows of a moreenterprising mettle. She thought of a young violinist at theConservatoire who, one evening, when she was entertaining company,had pretended to leave with the rest and concealed himself in herdressing-room; as she was undressing, thinking herself alone, heburst from his hiding-place, a bottle of champagne in either handand laughing like a mad-man. The new lover was less diverting. However, she asked him his name. "Jean Servien.""Well, Monsieur Jean Servien, I am sorry, very sorry, to havemade you unhappy, as you say you are."At the bottom of her heart she was more flattered than grievedat the mischief she had done, so she repeated several times overhow very sorry she was. She added: "I cannot bear to hurt people. Every time a young man is unhappybecause of me, I am so distressed; but, honour bright, what doyou want me to do for you? Take yourself off, and be sensible. It's no use your coming back to see me. Besides, it would beridiculous. I have a life of my own to live, quite private, andit is out of the question for me to receive strange visitors."He assured her between his sobs: "Oh! how I wish you were poor and forsaken. I would come to youthen and we should be happy."She was a good deal surprised he did not take her by the waistor think of dragging her into the garden under the clump of treeswhere there was a bench. She was a trifle disappointed and in away embarrassed not to have to defend her virtue. Finding theconclusion of the interview did not match the beginning and theyoung man was getting tedious, she slammed the gate in his faceand slipped back into the garden, where he saw her vanish inthe darkness. She bore on her hand, beside a sapphire on her ring finger, adrop of blood. In her chamber, as she emptied a jug of water overher hands to wash away the stain, she could not help reflectinghow every drop of blood in this young man's veins would be shedfor her whenever she should give the word. And the thought madeher smile. At that moment, if he had been there, in that room,at her side, it may be she would not have sent him away. Chapter 15 Jean hurried down the lane and started off across country insuch a state of high exaltation as robbed him of all senses ofrealities and banished all consciousness whether of joy or pain. He had no remembrance of what he had been before the moment whenhe kissed the actress's hand; he seemed a stranger to himself. On his lips lingered a taste that stirred voluptuous fancies,and grew stronger as he pressed them one against the other. Next morning his intoxication was dissipated and he relapsedinto profound depression. He told himself that his last chancewas gone. He realized that the gate overhung with wild vine andivy was shut against him by that careless, capricious hand morefirmly and more inexorably than ever it could have been by thebolts and bars of the most prudish virtue. He felt instinctivelythat his kiss had stirred no promptings of desire, that he hadbeen powerless to win any hold on his mistress's senses. He had forgotten what he said, but he knew that he had spokenout in all the frank sincerity of his heart. He had exposed hisignorance of the world, his contemptible candour. The mischiefwas irreparable. Could anyone be more unfortunate? He had losteven the one advantage he possessed, of being unknown to her. Though he entertained no very high opinion of himself, he certainlyheld fate responsible for his natural deficiencies. He was poor,he reasoned, and therefore had no right to fall in love. Ah! if only he were wealthy and familiar with all the things idle,prosperous people know, how entirely the splendour of his materialsurroundings would be in harmony with the splendour of his passion! What blundering, ferocious god of cruelty had immured in the dungeonof poverty this soul of his that so overflowed with desires? He opened his window and caught sight of his father's apprenticeon his way back to the workshop. The lad stood there on the pavementtalking with naive effrontery to a little book-stitcher of hisacquaintance. He was kissing the girl, without a thought of thepassers-by, and whistling a tune between his teeth. The pretty,sickly-looking slattern carried her rags with an air, and worea pair of smart, well-made boots; she was pretending to pushher admirer away, while really doing just the opposite, for theslim yet broad-shouldered stripling in his blue blouse had acertain townified elegance and the "conquering hero" air of thesuburban dancing-saloons. When he left her, she looked backrepeatedly; but he was examining the saveloys in a pork-butcher'swindow, never giving another thought to the girl. Jean, as he looked on at the little scene, found himself envyinghis father's apprentice. Chapter 16 He read the same morning on the posters that _she_ was playingthat evening. He watched for her after the performance and saw herdistributing hand-shakes to sundry acquaintances before drivingoff. He was suddenly struck with something hard and cruel inher, which he had not observed in the interview of the nightbefore. Then he discovered that he hated her, abominated herwith all the force of his mind and muscles and nerves. He longedto tear her to pieces, to rend and crush her. It made him furiousto think she was moving, talking, laughing,--in a word, that shewas alive. At least it was only fair she should suffer, thatlife should wound her and make her heart bleed. He was rejoicedat the thought that she must die one day, and then nothing ofher would be left, of her rounded shape and the warmth of herflesh; none would ever again see the superb play of light inher hair and eyes, the reflections, now pale, now pearly, ofher dead-white skin. But her body, that filled him with suchrage, would be young and warm and supple for long years yet,and lover after lover would feel it quiver and awake to passion. She would exist for other men, but not for him. Was that to beborne? Ah! the deliciousness of plunging a dagger in that warm,living bosom! Ah! the bliss, the voluptuousness of holding herpinned beneath one knee and demanding between two stabs: "Am I ridiculous now?"He was still muttering suchlike maledictions when he felt a handlaid on his shoulder. Wheeling round, he saw a quaint figure--ahuge nose like a pothook, high, massive shoulders, enormous,well-shaped hands, a general impression of uncouthness combinedwith vigour and geniality. He thought for a moment where thisstrange monster could have come from; then he shouted: "Garneret!"Instantly his memory flew back to the court-yard and class-roomsof the school in the _Rue d'Assas_, and he saw a heavily builtlad, for ever under punishment, standing out face to the wallduring playtime, getting and giving mighty fisticuffs, a terriblefellow for plain speaking and hard hitting, industrious, yet athorn in the side of masters, always in ill-luck, yet ever andanon electrifying the class with some stroke of genius. He was glad enough to see his old school-fellow again, who struckhim as looking almost old with his puckered lids and heavy features. They set off arm in arm along the deserted _Quai_, and to theaccompaniment of the faint lapping of the water against the retainingwalls, told each other the history of their past--which was succinctenough, their present ideas, and their hopes for the future--whichwere boundless. The same ill-luck still pursued Garneret; from morn to eve hewas engaged on prodigiously laborious hack-work for a map-maker,who paid him the wages of one of his office boys; but his bighead was crammed with projects. He was working at philosophyand getting up before the sun to make experiments on thesusceptibility to light of the invertebrates; by way of studyingEnglish and politics at the same time, he was translating Mr. Disraeli's speeches; then every Sunday he accompanied MonsieurHébert's pupils on their geological excursions in the environs ofParis, while at night he gave lectures to working men on Italianpainting and political economy. There was never a week passedbut he was bowled over for twenty-four or forty-eight hours withan agonizing sick-headache. He spent long hours too with hisfiancée, a girl with no dowry and no looks, but of a loving,sensitive temper, whom he adored and fully intended to marry themoment he had five hundred francs to call his own. Servien could make nothing of the other's temperament, one thatlooks upon the world as an immense factory where the good workmanlabours, coat off and sleeves rolled up, the sweat pouring from hisbrow and a song on his lips. He found it harder still to conceivea love with which the glamour of the stage or the splendours ofluxurious living had nothing to do. Yet he felt there was somethingstrong and sensible and true about it all, and craving sympathyhe made Garneret the confidant of his passion, telling the talein accents of despair and bitterness, though secretly proud tobe the tortured victim of such fine emotions. But Garneret expressed no admiration. "My dear fellow," said he, "you have got all these romantic notionsout of trashy novels. How can you love the woman when you don'tknow her?"How, indeed? Jean Servien did not know; but his nights and days,the throbbings of his heart, the thoughts that possessed hismind to the exclusion of all else, everything convinced him thatit was so. He defended himself, talking of mystic influences,natural affinities, emanations, a divine unity of essence. Garneret only buried his face between his hands. It was abovehis comprehension. "But come," he said, "the woman is no differently constitutedfrom other women!"Obvious as it was, this consideration filled Jean Servien withamazement. It shocked him so much that, rather than admit itstruth, he racked his brains in desperation to find argumentsto controvert the blasphemy. Garneret gave his views on women. He had a judicial mind, hadGarneret, and could account for everything in the relations ofthe sexes; _but_ he could not tell Jean why one face glimpsedamong a thousand gives joy and grief more than life itself seemedable to contain. Still, he tried to explain the problem, for hewas of an eminently ratiocinative temper. "The thing is quite simple," he declared. "There are a dozenviolins for sale at a dealer's. I pass that way, common scraperof catgut that I am, I tune them and try them, and play overon each of them in turn, with false notes galore, some catchytune--_Au clair de la lune_ or _J'ai du bon tabac dans matabatière_--stuff fit to kill the old cow. Then Paganinicomes along; with one sweep of the bow he explores the deepestdepths of the vibrating instruments. The first is flat, the secondsharp, the third almost dumb, the fourth is hoarse, five othershave neither power nor truth of tone; but lo! the twelfth givesforth under the master's hand a mighty music of sweet, deep-voicedharmonies. It is a Stradivarius; Paganini knows it, takes it homewith him, guards it as the apple of his eye; from an instrumentthat for me would never have been more than a resonant wooden boxhe draws chords that make men weep, and love, and fall into avery ecstasy; he directs in his will that they bury this violinwith him in his coffin. Well, Paganini is the lover, the instrumentwith its strings and tuning-pegs is the woman. The instrumentmust be beautifully made and come from the workshop of a rightskilful maker; more than that, it must fall into the hands ofan accomplished player. But, my poor lad, granting your actressis a divine instrument of amorous music, I don't believe youcapable of drawing from it one single note of passion's fugue.... Just consider. I don't spend my nights supping with ladies ofthe theatre; but we all know what an actress is. It is an animalgenerally agreeable to see and hear, always badly brought up,spoilt first by poverty and afterwards by luxury. Very busy intothe bargain, which makes her as unromantic as anybody can wellbe. Something like a _concierge_ turned princess, and combiningthe petty spite of the porter's lodge with the caprices of theboudoir and the fagged nerves of the student. "You can hardly expect to dazzle T---- with the munificence andtastefulness of your presents. Your father gives you a hundredsous a week to spend; a great deal for a bookbinder, but verylittle for a woman whose gowns cost from five hundred to threethousand francs apiece. And, as you are neither a Manager tosign agreements, nor a Dramatic Author to apportion r?les, nora Journalist to write notices, nor a young man from the draper'sto take advantage of a moment's caprice as opportunity offerswhen delivering a new frock, I don't see in the least how youare to make her favour you, and I think your tragedy queen didquite right to slam her gate in your face.""Ah, well!" sighed Jean Servien, "I told you just now I lovedher. It is not true. I hate her! I hate her for all the tormentsshe has made me suffer, I hate her because she is adorable andmen love her. And I hate all women, because they all love someone,and that someone is not I!"Garneret burst out laughing. "Candidly," he grinned, "they are not so far wrong. Your lovehas no spark of anything affectionate, kindly, useful in it. Since the day you fell in love with Mademoiselle T----, haveyou once thought of sparing her pain? Have you once dreamed ofmaking a sacrifice for her sake? Has any touch of human kindnessever entered into your passion? Can it show one mark of manlinessor goodness? Not it. Well, being the poor devils we are, withour own way to push in life and nothing to help us on, we mustbe brave and good. It is half-past one, and I have to get upat five. Good night. Cultivate a quiet mind, and come and see Chapter 17 Jean had only three days left to prepare for his examination foradmission to the Ministry of Finance. These he spent at home,where the faces of father, aunt, and apprentice seemed strange andunfamiliar, so completely had they disappeared from his thoughts. Monsieur Servien was displeased with his son, but was too timidas well as too tactful to make any overt reproaches. His auntoverwhelmed him with garrulous expressions of doting affection;at night she would creep into his room to see if he was soundasleep, while all day long she wearied him with the tale of herpetty grievances and dislikes. Once she had caught the apprentice with her spectacles, her sacredspectacles, perched on his nose, and the profanation had lefta kind of religious horror in her mind. "That boy is capable of anything," she used to say. One of theboy's pet diversions was to execute behind the old lady's back awar-dance of the Cannibal Islanders he had seen once at a theatre. Sticking feathers he had plucked from a feather-broom in his hair,and holding a big knife without a handle between his teeth, hewould creep nearer and nearer, crouching low and advancing bylittle leaps and bounds, with ferocious grimaces which graduallygave place to a look of disappointed appetite, as a closer scrutinyshowed how tough and leathery his victim was. Jean could nothelp laughing at this buffoonery, trivial and ill-bred as itwas. His aunt had never got clearly to the bottom of the littlefarce that dogged her heels, but more than once, turning her headsharply, she had found reason to suspect something disrespectfulwas going on. Nevertheless, she put up with the lad because ofhis lowly origin. The only folks she really hated were the rich. She was furious because the butcher's wife had gone to a weddingin a silk dress. At the upper end of the _Rue de Rennes_, beside a plot of wasteand, was a stall where an old woman sold dusty ginger-bread andsticks of stale barley-sugar. She had a face the colour of brickdust under a striped cotton sun-bonnet, and eyes of a pale,steely blue. Her whole stock-in-trade had not cost a couple offrancs, and on windy days the white dust from houses buildingin the neighbourhood covered it like a coat of whitewash. Nursesand mothers would anxiously pull away their little ones who werecasting sheep's eyes at the sweetstuff: "Dirty!" they would say dissuasively; "dirty!"But the woman never seemed to hear; perhaps she was past feelinganything. She did not beg. Mademoiselle Servien used to bid hergood-day in passing, address her by name and fall into talk withher before the stall, sometimes for a quarter of an hour at atime. The staple of conversation with them both was the neighbours,accidents that had occurred in the public thoroughfares, casesof coachmen ill-using their horses, the troubles and trials oflife and the ways of Providence, "which are not always just."Jean happened to be present at one of these colloquies. He wasa plebeian himself, and this glimpse of the petty lives of thepoor, this peep into sordid existences of idle sloth and spiritlessresignation, stirred all the blood in his veins. In an instant,as he stood between the two old crones, with their drab facesand no outlook on life save that of the streets, now gloomy andempty, now full of sunshine and crowded traffic, the young manlearned more of human conditions than he had ever been taughtat school. His thoughts flew from this woman to that other, whowas so beautiful and whom he loved, and he saw life before himas a whole--a melancholy panorama. He told himself they mustdie both of them, and a hideous old woman, squatted before afew sodden sweetmeats, gave him the same impression of solemnserenity he had experienced at sight of the jewels from the Queenof Egypt's sepulchre. Chapter 18 After sitting all day over little problems in arithmetic, heset off in the evening in working clothes for the _Avenue del'Observatoire_. There, between two tallow candles, in frontof a hoarding covered with ballads in illustrated covers, a fellowwas singing in a cracked voice to the accompaniment of a guitar. A number of workmen and work-girls stood round listening to themusic. Jean slipped into the circle, urged by the instinct thatdraws a stroller with nothing to do to the neighbourhood of lightand noise and that love of a crowd which is characteristic ofyour Parisian. More isolated in the press, more alone than ever,he stood dreaming of the splendour and passion of some nobletragedy of Euripides or Shakespeare. It was some time before henoticed something soft touching and pressing against him frombehind. He turned round and saw a work-girl in a little blackhat with blue ribbons. She was young and pretty enough, but hismind was fixed on the awe-inspiring and superhuman graces ofan Electra or a Lady Macbeth. She went on nuzzling against hisback till he looked round again. "Monsieur," she said then; "will you just let me slip in frontof you? I am so little; I shan't stop your seeing."She had a nice voice. The poise of her head, lifted and thrownback on a plump neck, showed a pair of bright eyes and good teethbetween pouting lips. She glided, merry and alert, into the placeJean made for her without a word. The man with the guitar sang a ballad about caged birds and blossomsin flower-pots. "_Mine_," observed the work-girl to Jean, "are carnations, andI have birds too--canaries they are."At the moment he was thinking of some fair-faced chatelaine roamingunder the battlements of a donjon. The work-girl went on: "I have a pair,--you understand, to keep each other company. Twois a nice number, don't you think so?"He marched off with his visions under the old trees of the Avenue. After a turn or two up and down, he espied the little work-girlhanging on the arm of a handsome young fellow, fashionably dressed,wearing a heavy gold watch-chain. Her admirer was catching herby the waist in the dusk of the trees, and she was laughing. Then Jean Servien felt sorry he had scorned her advances. Chapter 19 Jean was called up for examination, but with his insufficientpreparation he got hopelessly fogged in the intricacies of adifficult, tricky piece of dictation and sums that were too longto be worked in the time allowed the candidates. He came home indespair. His father tried in his good-nature to reassure him. But a fortnight after came an unstamped letter summoning him tothe Ministry, and after a three hours' wait he was shown intoMonsieur Bargemont's private room. He recognized his own dictationin the big man's hand. "I am sorry," the functionary began, "to inform you that youhave entirely failed to pass the tests set you. You do not knowthe language of your own country, sir; you write _Maisons-Lafitte_without an 's' to _Maisons_. You cannot spell! and what is more,you do not cross your 't's.' You _must_ know at your age thata 't' ought to be crossed. It's past understanding, sir!"And striking fiercely at the sheet of foolscap on which the mistakeswere marked in red ink, he kept muttering: "It's past understanding,past understanding!" His face grew purple, and a swollen veinstood out on his forehead. A queer look in Jean's face gave himpause: "Young man," he resumed in a calmer voice, "whatever I can dofor you, I will do, be sure of that; but you must not ask me todo impossibilities. We cannot enlist in the service of the Stateyoung men who spell so badly they write _Maisons-Lafitte_ withoutan 's' to the _Maisons_. It is in a way a patriotic duty for aFrenchman to know his own language. A year hence, the Ministrywill hold another examination, and I will enter your name. You havea year before you; work hard, sir, and learn your mother-tongue."Jean stood there scarlet with rage, hate in his heart, his eyesaflame, his throat dry, his teeth clenched, unable to articulatea word; then he swung round like an automaton and darted fromthe room, banging the door after him with a noise of thunder;piles of books and papers rolled on to the floor of the Chief'soffice at the shock. Monsieur Bargemont was left alone to digest his stupefaction; evenso his first thought was to save the honour of his Department. He reopened the door and shouted, "Leave the room!" after Jean,who, mastered once more by his natural timidity, was flying likea thief down the corridors. Chapter 20 In the court, which was enlivened by a parterre of roses, Jean,carrying a letter in his hand, was trying to find his bearingsaccording to the directions given him in a low voice, as if itwere a secret, by the lay-brother who acted as doorkeeper. Hewas wandering uncertainly from door to door along the walls ofthe old silent buildings when a little boy noticed his plightand accosted him: "Do you want to see the Director? He is in his study with mamma. Go and wait in the parlour."This was a large hall with bare walls, a noble enough apartmentin its unadorned simplicity, in spite of the mean horsehair chairsthat stood round it. Above the fire-place, instead of a mirror,was a _Mater dolorosa_ that caught the eye by its dazzlingwhiteness. Big marble tears stood arrested in mid-career downthe cheeks, while the features expressed the pious absorptionof the Divine Mother's grief. Jean Servien read the inscriptioncut in red letters on the pedestal, which ran thus: PRESENTED TO THE REVEREND ABBE BORDIER, IN MEMORY OF PHILIPPE-GUY DE THIERERCHE, WHO DIED AT PAU, NOVEMBER 11, 1867, IN THE SEVENTEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, BY THE COUNTESS VALENTINE DE THIERERCHE, NéE DE BRUILLE DE SAINT-AMAND. _LAUDATE PUERI DOMINUM_ Then he forgot his anxieties, forgot he was there to beg foremployment, shook off the instinctive dread that had seized himon the threshold of the great silent house. He forgot his fearsand hopes--hopes of being promoted usher! He was absorbed bythis cruel domestic drama revealed to him in the inscription. A scion of one of the greatest families of France, a pupil ofthe Abbé Bordier, attacked by phthisis in the midst of his nowprofitless studies and leaving school, not to enjoy life andtaste the glorious pleasures only those contemn who have drainedthem to the dregs, but to die at a southern town in the arms ofhis mother whose overwhelming, but still self-conscious griefwas symbolized by this pompous memorial of her sorrow. He couldfeel, he could see it all. The three Latin words that representthe stricken mother saying: "Children, praise ye the Lord whohath taken away my child," astonished him by their austere piety,while at the same time he admired the aristocratic bearing thatwas preserved even in the presence of death. He was still lost in these day-dreams when an old priest beckonedhim to walk into an inner room. The worthy man took the letterof recommendation which Jean handed him, set on his big nose apair of spectacles with round glasses for all the world likethe two wheels of a miniature silver chariot, and proceeded toread the letter, holding it out at the full stretch of his arm. The windows giving on the garden stood open, and a tendril ofwild vine hung down on to the desk at the foot of a crucifix ofold ivory, while a light breeze set the papers on it flutteringlike white wings. The Abbé Bordier, his reading concluded, turned to the young man,showing a deeply lined countenance and a forehead beautifullypolished by age. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. Then the worn eyelids lifted slowly and discovered a pair of greyeyes of a shade that somehow reminded you of an autumn morning. He lay back in his armchair, his legs stretched out in front ofhim, displaying his silver-buckled shoes and black stockings. "It seems then, my dear boy," he began, "you wish, so my venerablefriend the Abbé Marguerite informs me, to devote yourself toteaching; and your idea would be to prepare for your degree whileat the same time performing the duties of an assistant masterto supervise the boys at their work. It is a humble office; butit will depend entirely on yourself, my dear young friend, todignify it by a heartfelt zeal and a determination to succeed. I shall entrust the studies of the _Remove_ to your care. Ourbursar will inform you of the conditions attaching to the post."Jean bowed and made to leave the room; but suddenly the Abbé Bordierbeckoned him to stop and asked abruptly: "You understand the rules of verse?""Latin verse?" queried Jean. "No, no! French verse. Now, would you rhyme _tr?ne_ with _couronne_? The rhyme is not, it must be allowed, quite satisfactory to theear, yet the usage of the great writers authorizes it."So saying, the old fellow laid hold of a bulky manuscript book. "Listen," he cried, "listen. It is St. Fabricius addressing theProconsul Flavius: _Achève, fais dresser l'appareil souhaité De ma mort, ou plut?t de ma félicité. Le Roi des Rois, du haut de son céleste tr?ne, Déjà me tend la palme et tresse ma couronne._"Do you think it would be better if he said: _Achève, fais dresser l'appareil souhaité De ma mort, ou plut?t de ma félicité. Je vois le Roi des Rois me tendre la couronne, Quel n'en est le prix quand c'est Dieu qui la donne!_"Doubtless these latter lines are more correct than the others,but they are less vigorous, and a poet should never sacrificemeaning to metre. _Le Roi des Rois, du haut de son céleste tr?ne, Déjà me tend la palme et tresse ma couronne."_This time, as he declaimed the verses, he went through thecorresponding gestures of tendering a gift and plaiting a garland. "It is better so," he added, "better so!"Jean, in some surprise, said yes, it was certainly better. "Certainly better, yes," cried the old poet, smiling with thehappy innocence of a little child. Then he confided in Jean that it was a very difficult thing indeedto write poetry. You must get the c?sura in the right place,bring in the rhyme naturally, make your rhythm run in diverscadences, now strong, now sweet, sometimes onomatopoetic, useonly words either elevated in themselves or dignified by thecircumstances. He read one passage of his Tragedy because he had his doubtsabout the number of feet in the line, another because he thoughtit contained some bold strokes happily conceived, then a thirdto elucidate the two first, eventually the whole five acts fromstart to finish. He acted the words as he read, modulating hisvoice to suit the various characters, stamping and storming,and to adjust his black skullcap--it _would_ tumble off at thepathetic parts--dealing himself a succession of sounding slapson the crown of his head. This sacred drama, in which no woman appeared, was to be playedby the pupils of the Institution at a forthcoming function. Theprevious year he had staged his first tragedy, _le Baptêmede Clovis_, in the same approved style. A regular, MonsieurSchuver, had arranged garlands of paper roses to represent thebattlefield of Tolbiac and the basilica at Rheims. To give awild, barbaric look to the boys who represented Clovis' henchmen,the sister superintendent of the wardrobe had tacked up theirwhite trousers to the knee. But the Abbé Bordier hoped greaterthings still for his new piece. Jean applauded and improved upon these ambitious projects. Hissuggestions for scenery and costumes were admirable. He wouldhave the ruthless Flavius seated on a curule chair of ivory,draped with purple, erected before a portico painted on the backcloth. The costumes of the Roman soldiers, he insisted, mustbe copied from those on Trajan's Column. His words opened superb vistas before the old priest's eyes;he was enchanted, ravished, yet full of doubts and fears. Alas! Monsieur Schuver was quite helpless if it came to designing anythingmore ambitious than his paper roses. Then Jean must needs takea look round in the shed where the properties were stored, andthe two discussed together how the stage must be set and theside-scenes worked. Jean took measurements, drew up a plan, workedout an estimate. He manifested a passionate eagerness that wassurprising, albeit the old priest took it all as a matter ofcourse. A batten would come here, a practicable door there. Theactor would enter there... But the worthy priest checked him: "Say the reciter, my dear boy; _actor_ is not a word forself-respecting people."Barring this trifling misunderstanding, they were in perfectaccord. The sun was setting by this time and the Abbé Bordier'sshadow, grotesquely elongated, danced up and down the sandy floorof the shed, while the old, broken voice declaimed tags of versethat echoed to the furthest recesses of the court. But Jean Servienwas smiling at the vision only _his_ eyes could see of Gabrielle,the inspirer of all his enthusiasm. Chapter 21 It was nearly the end of the long evening preparation and absolutequiet reigned in the schoolroom. The broad lamp-shades concentratedthe light on the tangled heads of the boys, who were working attheir lessons or sitting in a brown study with their noses onthe desks. The only sounds were the crackling of paper, the lads' breathing and the scratch, scratch of steel pens. The youngestthere, his cheeks still browned by the sea-breezes, was dreamingover his half-finished exercise of a beach on the Normandy coastand the sand-castles he and his friends used to build, to seethem swept away presently by the waves of the rising tide. At the top of the great room, at the high desk where theSuperintendent of Studies had solemnly installed him underneaththe great ebony crucifix, Jean Servien, his head between histwo hands, was reading a Latin poet. He felt utterly sad and lonely; but he had not realized yet thathis new life was an actual fact, and from moment to moment heexpected the schoolroom would suddenly vanish and the desks withtheir litter of dictionaries and grammars and the young headsgilded by the lamp-light melt into thin air. Suddenly a paper pellet, shot from the far end of the hall, struckhim on the cheek. He turned pale and cried in a voice shakingwith anger: "Monsieur de Grizolles, leave the room!"There was some whispering and stifled laughter, then peace wasrestored. The scratching of pens began again, and exercises werepassed surreptitiously from hand to hand for cribbing purposes. He was an usher. His father had come to this decision by the advice of MonsieurMarguerite, the _vicaire_ of his parish and a friend of the AbbéBordier. The bookbinder, having a high respect for knowledge,entertained a correspondingly high idea of the status of all itsministers. Assistant master struck him as an imposing title, andhe was delighted to have his son connected with an aristocraticand religious foundation. "Your son," the Abbé Marguerite told him, "will read for hisMaster's degree in the intervals of his duties, and the titleof Licencié-ès-Lettres will open the door to the higher walksof teaching. We have known assistants rise to high positionsin the University and even occupy Monsieur de Fontanes' chair."These considerations had clenched the bookbinder's resolution,and this was now the third day of Jean's ushership. Chapter 22 Three months had dragged by. It was a Friday; a hot, nauseatingsmell of fried fish filled the refectory; a strong drought blewcold about feet encased in wet boots; the walls dripped withmoisture, and outside the barred windows a fine rain was fallingfrom a grey sky. The boys, seated at marble-topped tables, weremaking a hideous rattle with their forks and tin cups, whileone of their schoolfellows, seated at the desk in the middle ofthe great room, was reading aloud, as the regulations direct,a passage from Rollin's _Ancient History_. Jean, at the head of a table, his nose in his ill-washed earthenwareplate, had cold feet and a sore heart. Something resembling rottenwood formed a deposit at the bottom of his glass, while the serverswere handing round dishes of prunes with their thumbs washing inthe juice. Now and again, amid the rattle of plates, the raspingvoice of the reader, a lad of seventeen, reached the usher's ears. He caught the name of Cleopatra and some scraps of sentences: "_She was about to appear before Antony at an age when womenunite with the flower of their beauty every charm of wit andintellect... her person more compelling than any magnificenceof adornment.... Her galley entered the Cydnus... the poop ofthe vessel shone resplendent with gold, the sails were of Tyrianpurple, the oars of silver._"Then the seductive names of _Nereids, flutes, perfumes_. Thehot blood flooded his cheeks. The woman who for him was the soleand only incarnation of the whole race of womankind throughout theages rose before his mental sight with a surprising clearness;every hair of his body stood on end in an agonizing spasm ofdesire, and he dug his nails into the palms of his hands. Thevision caused him an unspeakable yet delicious pain--Gabriellein a loose _peignoir_ at a small, daintily ordered table gaywith flowers and glasses. He saw it all quite clearly; his gazesearched every fold of the soft material that covered her bosomand rose and fell at each breath she drew. Face and neck andlively hands had a surprisingly brilliant yet so natural a sheenthat they exhaled amorous invitation as if they had been verilyof flesh and blood. The superb moulding of the lips, poutinglike a ripe mulberry, and the exquisite grain of the skin weremanifest--treasures such as men risk death and crime to win. It was the actress, in fine, seen by the two eyes which of alleyes in the whole world had learned to see her best. She was notalone; a man was looking at her with a penetrating intensity ashe filled her glass. They were straining one towards the other. Jean could not restrain his sobs. Suddenly he seemed to be fallingfrom the top of a high tower. The Superintendent of Studies wasstanding in front of him and saying: "Monsieur Servien, will you see about punishing that boy Laboriette,who is emptying his leavings in his neighbour's pocket?" Chapter 23 The Superintendent, with his large, flat face and the sly waysof a peasant turned monk, was a constant thorn in Jean's side. "_Be firm, be firm, sir_," was his parable every day, andhe never missed an opportunity of doing the usher an ill turnwith the Director. The early days of Jean's servitude had slipped by in an enervatingmonotony. With his quiet ways, tactful temper and air of kindlyaloofness, he was popular with the more sensible boys, whilethe others left him in peace, as he did them. But there was oneexception; Henri de Grizolles, a handsome young savage, proudof his aristocratic name, which he scribbled in big letters onhis light trousers, and overjoyed at the chance of hurting aninferior's feelings, had from the very first day declared waragainst the poor usher. He used to empty ink-bottles into hisdesk, stick cobbler's wax on his chair, and let off crackersin the middle of school. Hearing the disturbance, the Superintendent would march in withthe airs of a Police Inspector and bid Jean: "_Be firm, sir! be firm!_"Far from taking his advice, Jean affected an excessive easiness oftemper. One day he caught a boy in the act of drawing a caricatureof himself; he picked it up and glanced at it, then handed itback to the artist with a shrug of the shoulders. Such mildness was misconstrued and only weakened his authority. The usher's miseries grew acute, and he lost the patience thatalleviated his sufferings. He could not put up with the lads' restlessness, their happy laughter and light-hearted enjoymentof life. He showed temper, venting his spite on mere acts ofthoughtlessness or simple ebullitions of high spirits. Then he wouldfall into a sort of torpor. He had long fits of absentmindedness,during which he was deaf to every noise. It became the fashionto keep birds, plait nets, shoot arrows, and crow like a cockin Monsieur Jean Servien's class-room. Even the boys from otherdivisions would slip out of their own classrooms to peep in atthe windows of this one, about which such amazing stories weretold, and the ceiling of which was decorated with little figuresswinging at the end of a string stuck to the plaster with chewedpaper. De Grizolles had installed a regular Roman catapult for shootingkidney-beans at the usher's head. Jean would drive the young gentleman out of the room. TheSuperintendent of Studies would reinstate him, only to be turnedout again. And each time meant a fresh report to the Director. The Abbé Bordier, who never found patience to hear the worthySuperintendent out to the end, could only throw up his hands toheaven and declare they would be the death of him between them. But the impression became fixed in his mind that the Assistantin charge of the _Remove_ was a source of trouble. Chapter 24 Sunday was a day of cheerful indolence, devoted to attendingthe services in the Chapel, which was filled with the scent ofincense all day long. At Vespers, while the clear, boyish voicesintoned the long-drawn canticles, Jean would be gazing at somewoman's face half seen in the dusk of the galleries where thepupils' mothers and sisters knelt during the office, their haughtyair contradicting the humble attitude. At the sound of the _Avemaris stella_, the lowly bookbinder's son would lift his eyesto these ladies of high degree, the plainest of whom feels herselfa jewel of price and cherishes a natural and unaffected pride ofbirth. The chants and incense, the flowers and sacred images,whatever troubles the imagination and stimulates to prayer, allthese things united to enervate his spirit and deliver him atrembling victim to the glamour of these patrician dames. But it was Gabrielle he worshipped in them, Gabrielle to whomhe offered up his prayers, his supplications. All that elementin religion which gives to love the fascination of forbiddenfruit appealed powerfully to his imagination. Unbeliever thoughhe was, he loved the Magdalen's God and savoured the creed thathas bestowed on lovers one amorous bliss the more--the blissof losing their immortal souls. Chapter 25 Little by little the boys wearied of this insubordination, theirimaginations proving unequal to the invention of any new formsof mischief. Even de Grizolles himself left off shooting beans. Instead, he conceived the notion of brewing chocolate insidehis desk with a spirit-lamp and a silver patty-pan. Jean lefthim in peace and reopened his Sophocles with a sigh of relief. But the Superintendent, going by in the court, caught a smell ofcooking, searched the desks and unearthed the patty-pan, which heoffered, still warm, for the Reverend the Director's inspection,with the words: "There! that's what goes on in Monsieur Servien'sclass-room." The Director slapped his forehead, declared theywould be the death of him and ordered the patty-pan to be restoredto its owner. Then he sent for the Assistant in charge andadministered a severe reprimand, because he believed it to behis bounden duty to do so. The next day was a whole holiday, and Jean went to spend theday at his father's. The latter asked him if he was ready forhis professorial examination. "My lad," he adjured him, "be quick and find a good post if youwant me to see you in it. One of these days your aunt and I willbe going out at yonder door feet foremost. The old lady had afit of dizziness last week on the stairs. _I_ am not ill, butI can feel I am worn out. I have done a hard life's work in theworld."He looked at his tools, and walked away, a bent old man! Then Jean gathered up in both hands the old work-worn tools, allpolished with use, scissors, punches, knives, folders, scrapers,and kissed them, the tears running down his cheeks. At that moment his aunt came in, looking for her spectacles. Furtively, in a whisper, she asked him for a little money. Inold days she used to save the halfpence to slip them into the"little lad's " hand; now, grown feebler than the child, shetrembled at the idea of destitution; she hoarded, and asked charityof the priests. The fact is, her wits were weakening. Very oftenshe would inform her brother that she did not mean to let theweek pass without going to see the Brideaus. Now the Brideaus,jobbing tailors at Montrouge in their lifetime, had been dead,both husband and wife, for the last two years. Jean gave her alouis, which she took with a delight so ugly to see that thepoor lad took refuge out of doors. Presently, without quite knowing how, he found himself on the_Quai_ near the _Pont d'Iéna_. It was a bright day, but thegloomy walls of the houses and the grey look of the river banksseemed to proclaim that life is hard and cruel. Out in thestream a dredger, all drab with marl, was discharging one afterthe other its bucket-fuls of miry gravel. By the waterside astout oaken crane was unloading millstones, wheeling backwardsand forwards on its axis. Under the parapet, near the bridge,an old dame with a copper-red face sat knitting stockings asshe waited for customers to buy her apple-puffs. Jean Servien thought of his childhood; many a time had his aunttaken him to the same spot, many a time had they watched togetherthe dredger hauling aboard, bucketful by bucketful, the muddydregs of the river. Very often his aunt had stopped to exchangeideas with the old stallkeeper, while he examined the counterwhich was spread with a napkin, the carafe of liquorice-waterthat stood on it, and the lemon that served as stopper. Nothingwas changed, neither the dredger, nor the rafts of timber, northe old woman, nor the four ponderous stallions at either endof the _Pont d'Iéna_. Yes, Jean Servien could hear the trees along the _Quai_, thewaters of the river, the very stones of the parapet calling tohim: "We know you; you are the little boy his aunt, in a peasant'scap, used to bring here to see us in former days. But we shallnever see your aunt again, nor her print shawl, nor her umbrellawhich she opened against the sun; for she is old now and doesnot take her nephew walks any more, for he is a grown man now. Yes, the child is grown into a man and has been hurt by life,while he was running after shadows." Chapter 26 One day, in the midday interval, he was informed that a visitorwas asking for him in the parlour; the news filled him with delight,for he was very young and still counted on the possibilities ofthe unknown. In the parlour he found Monsieur Tudesco, wearinghis waistcoat of ticking and holding a peaked hat in one hand. "My young friend," began the Italian, "I learned from your respectedfather's apprentice that you were confined in this sanctuary ofstudious learning. I venture to say your fortune is overcastwith clouds, at least I fear it is. The lowliness of your estateis not gilded like that of the Latin poet, and you are strugglingwith a valiant heart against adverse fortune. That is why I amcome to offer you the hand of friendship, and I venture to sayyou will regard as a mark of my amity and my esteem the requestI proffer for a crown-piece, which I find needful to sustainan existence consecrated to learned studies."The parlour was filling with pupils and their friends and relations. Mothers and sons were exchanging sounding kisses, followed byexclamations of "How hot you are, dear!" and prolonged whisperings. Girls in light summer frocks were making sheep's eyes on the slyat their brothers' friends, while fathers were pulling cakesof chocolate out of their pockets. Monsieur Tudesco, entirely at his ease among these fine people, didnot seem at all aware of the young usher's hideous embarrassment. To the latter's "Come outside; we can talk better there," theold man replied unconcernedly, "Oh, no, I don't think so."He welcomed each lady who came in with a profound bow, anddistributed friendly taps on the cheek among the young aristocratsaround him. Lying back in an arm-chair and displaying his famous waistcoatto the very best advantage, he enlarged on such episodes of hislife as he thought most impressive: "The fates were vanquished," he was telling Servien, "my livelihoodwas assured. The landlord of an inn had entrusted his books to me,and under his roof I was devoting my attention to mathematicalcalculations, not, like the illustrious and ill-starred Galileo,to measure the stars, but to establish with exactitude the profitsand losses of a trader. After two days' performance of thesehonourable duties, the Commissary of Police made a descent uponthe inn, arrested the landlord and landlady and carried away myaccount books with him. No, I had not vanquished the fates!"Every head was turned, every eye directed in amazement towardsthis extraordinary personage. There was much whispering and somehalf-suppressed laughter. Jean, seeing himself the centre ofmocking glances and looks of annoyance, drew Tudesco towards thedoor. But just as the Marquis was making a series of sweepingbows by way of farewell to the ladies, Jean found himself faceto face with the Superintendent of Studies, who said to him: "Oh! Monsieur Servien, will you go and take detention in MonsieurSchuver's absence?"The Marquis pressed his young friend's hand, watched him departto his duties, and then, turning back to the groups gathered inthe parlour, he waved his hand with a gesture at once dignifiedand appealing to call for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I have translated into theFrench tongue, which Brunetto Latini declared to be the mostdelectable of all, the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, the gloriousmasterpiece of the divine Torquato Tasso. This great work I wrotein a garret without fire, on candle wrappers, on snuff papers----"At this point, from one corner of the parlour, a crow of childishlaughter went off like a rocket. Monsieur Tudesco stopped short and smiled, his hair flying, hiseye moist, his arms thrown open as if to embrace and bless; thenhe resumed: "I say it: the laugh of innocence is the ill-starred veteran'sjoy. I see from where I stand groups worthy of Correggio's brush,and I say: Happy the families that meet together in peace inthe heart of their fatherland! Ladies and gentlemen, pardon meif I hold out to you the casque of Belisarius. I am an old treeriven by the levin-bolt."And he went from group to group holding out his peaked felt hat,into which, amid an icy silence, fell coin by coin a dribbleof small silver. But suddenly the Superintendent of Studies seized the hat andpushed the old man outside. "Give me back my hat," bawled Monsieur Tudesco to the Superintendent,who was doing his best to restore the coins to the donors; "giveback the old man's hat, the hat of one who has grown grey inlearned studies."The Superintendent, scarlet with rage, tossed the felt into thecourt, shouting: "Be off, or I will call the police."The Marquis Tudesco took to his heels with great agility. The same evening the new Assistant was summoned to the Director'spresence and received his dismissal. "Unhappy boy! unhappy boy!" said the Abbé Bordier, beating hisbrow; "you have been the cause of an intolerable scandal, of asort unheard of in this house, and that just when I had so muchto do."And as he spoke, the scattered papers fluttered like white birdson the Director's table. Making his way through the parlour, Jean saw the _Mater dolorosa_as before, and read again the names of Philippe-Guy Thierercheand the Countess Valentine. "I hate them," he muttered through clenched teeth, "I hate themall."Meantime, the good priest felt a stir of pity. Every day theyhad badgered him with reports against Jean Servien. This time hehad given way; he had sacrificed the young usher; but he reallycould make nothing of this tale about a beggar. He changed hismind, ran to the door and called to the young man to corne back. Jean turned and faced him: "No!" he cried, "no! I can bear the life no longer; I am unhappy,I am full of misery--and hate.""Poor lad!" sight the Director, letting his arms drop by his side. That evening he did not write a single line of his Tragedy. Chapter 27 The kind-hearted bookbinder harassed his son with no reproaches. After dinner he went and sat at his shop-door, and looked at thefirst star that peeped out in the evening sky. "My boy," said he, "I am not a man of learning like you; butI have a notion--and you must not rob me of it, because it isa comfort to me--that, when I have finished binding books, Ishall go to that star. The idea occurred to me from what I haveread in the paper that the stars are all worlds. What is thatstar called?""Venus, father.""In my part of the world, they say it is the shepherd's star. It's a beautiful star, and I think your mother is there. Thatis why I should like to go there."The old man passed his knotted fingers across his brow, murmuring: "God forgive me, how one forgets those who are gone!"Jean sought balm for his wounded spirit in reading poetry and inlong, dreamy walks. His head was filled with visions--a welter ofsublime imaginings, in which floated such figures as Ophelia andCassandra, Gretchen, Delia, Ph?dra, Manon Lescaut, and Virginia,and hovering amid these, shadows still nameless, still almostformless, and yet full of seduction! Holding bowls and daggersand trailing long veils, they came and went, faded and grew vividwith colour. And Jean could hear them calling to him; "If everwe win to life, it will be through you. And what a bliss it willbe for you, Jean Servien, to have created us. How you will loveus!" And Jean Servien would answer them; "Come back, come back,or rather do not leave me. But I cannot tell how to make youvisible; you vanish away when I gaze at you, and I cannot netyou in the meshes of beautiful verse!"Again and again he tried to write poems, tragedies, romances;but his indolence, his lack of ideas, his fastidiousness broughthim to a standstill before half a dozen lines were written, andhe would toss the all but virgin page into the fire. Quicklydiscouraged, he turned his attention to politics. The funeralof Victor Noir, the Belleville risings, the _plébiscite_, filledhis thoughts; he read the papers, joined the groups that gatheredon the boulevards, followed the yelping pack of white blouses,and was one of the crowd that hooted the Commissary of Police ashe read the Riot Act. Disorder and uproar intoxicated him; hisheart beat as if it would burst his bosom, his enthusiasm roseto fever pitch, amid these stupid exhibitions of mob violence. Then to end up, after tramping the streets with other gaping idlerstill late at night, he would make his way back, with weary limbsand aching ribs, his head whirling confusedly with bombast andloud talk, through the sleeping city to the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There, as he strode past some aristocratic mansion and saw thescutcheon blazoned on its fa?ade and the two lions lying whitein the moonlight on guard before its closed portal, he wouldcast a look of hatred at the building. Presently, as he resumedhis march, he would picture himself standing, musket in hand, ona barricade, in the smoke of insurrection, along with workmenand young fellows from the schools, as we see it all representedin lithographs. One day in July, he saw a troop of white blouses moving alongthe boulevard and shouting: "To Berlin!" Ragamuffin street-boysran yelping round. Respectable citizens lined the sidewalks,staring in wonder, and saying nothing; but one of them, a stout,tall, red-faced man, waved his hat and shouted: "To Berlin! long live the Emperor!"Jean recognized Monsieur Bargemont. Chapter 28 On top of the ramparts. Bivouac huts and stacked rifles guardedby a sentinel. National Guards are playing shove ha'-penny. Theautumn sunshine lies clear and soft and splendid on the roofsof the beleaguered city. Outside the fortifications, the bare,grey fields; in the distance the barracks of the outlying forts,over which fleecy puffs of smoke sail upwards; on the horizonthe hills whence the Prussian batteries are firing on Paris,leaving long trails of white smoke. The guns thunder. They havebeen thundering for a month, and no one so much as hears themnow. Servien and Garneret, wearing the red-piped _képi_ and thetunic with brass buttons, are seated side by side on sand-bags,bending over the same book. It was a Virgil, and Jean was reading out loud the deliciousepisode of Silenus. Two youths have discovered the old god lyingin a drunken sleep--he is always drunk and it makes men mock athim, albeit they still revere him--and have bound him in chainsof flowers to force him to sing. ?glé, the fairest of the Na?ads,has stained his cheeks scarlet with juice of the mulberry, andlo! he sings. "He sings how from out the mighty void were drawn together thegerms of earth and air and sea and of the subtle fire likewise;how of these beginnings came all the elements, and the fluidglobe of the firmament grew into solid being; how presently theground began to harden and to imprison Nereus in the ocean, andlittle by little to take on the shapes of things. He sings howanon continents marvelled to behold a new-emerging sun; how theclouds broke up in the welkin and the rains descended, what timethe woods put forth their first green and beasts first prowledby ones and twos over the unnamed mountain-tops."Jean broke off to observe: "How admirably it all brings out Virgil's spirit, so seriousand tender! The poet has put a cosmogony in an idyll. Antiquitycalled him the Virgin. The name well befits his Muse, and weshould picture her as a Mnemosyne pondering over the works ofmen and the causes of things!"Meanwhile Garneret, with a more concentrated attention and hisfinger on the lines, was marshalling his ideas. The players werestill at their game, and the little copper discs they used forthrowing kept rolling close to his feet, and the canteen-womanpassed backwards and forwards with her little barrel. "See this, Servien," he said presently; "in these lines Virgil,or rather the poet of the Alexandrine age who was his model,has anticipated Laplace's great hypothesis and Charles Lyell'stheories. He shows cosmic matter, that negative something fromwhich everything must come, condensing to make worlds, the plasticrind of the globe consolidating; then the formation of islandsand continents; then the rains ceasing and first appearance ofthe sun, heretofore veiled by opaque clouds; then vegetable lifemanifesting itself before animal, because the latter cannot maintainitself and endure save by absorbing the elements of the former----"At that moment a stir was apparent along the ramparts. The playersbroke off their game and the two friends lifted their heads. It was a train of wounded going by. Under the curtains of thelumbering ambulance-waggons marked with the Geneva red cross couldbe seen livid faces tied up in bloodstained bandages. Linesmenand _mobiles_ tramped behind, their arms hanging in slings. TheNationals proffered them handfuls of tobacco and asked for news. But the wounded men only shook their heads and trudged stolidlyon their way. "Aren't _we_ to have some fighting soon as well as other fellows?"cried Garneret. To which Servien growled back: "We must first put down the traitors and incapables who governus, proclaim the Commune and march all together against thePrussians." Chapter 29 Hatred of the Empire which had left him to rot in a back-shopand a school class-room, love of the Republic that was to bringevery blessing in its train had, since the proclamation of September4, raised Jean Servien's warlike enthusiasm to fever heat. Buthe soon wearied of the long drills in the Luxembourg gardensand the hours of futile sentry-go behind the fortifications. The sight of tipsy shopkeepers in a frenzy of foolish ardour,half drink, half patriotism, sickened him, and this playing atsoldiers, tramping through the mud on an empty stomach, struckhim as after all an odious, ugly business. Luckily Garneret was his comrade in the ranks, and Servien feltthe salutary effect of that well-stored, well-ordered mind, theservant of duty and stern reality. Only this saved him from apassion, as futile in the past as it was hopeless in the future,which was assuming the dangerous character of a mental disease. He had not seen Gabrielle again for a long time. The theatreswere shut; all he knew, from the newspapers, was that she wasnursing the wounded in the theatre ambulance. He had no wishnow to meet her. When he was not on duty, he used to lie in bed and read (it was ahard winter and wood was scarce), or else scour the boulevards andmix with the throng of idlers in search of news. One evening, earlyin January, as he was passing the corner of the _Rue Drouot_, hisattention was attracted by the clamour of voices, and he sawMonsieur Bargemont being roughly handled by an ill-looking gangof National Guards. "I am a better Republican than any of you," the big man wasvociferating; "I have always protested against the infamies ofthe Empire. But when you shout: Vive Blanqui!... excuse me... I have a right to shout: Vive Jules Favre! excuse me, I have aperfect right----" But his voice was drowned in a chorus of yells. Men in _képis_ shook their fists at him, shouting: "Traitor! nosurrender! down with Badinguet!" His broad face, distraught withterror, still bore traces of its erstwhile look of smug effrontery. A girl in the crowd shrieked: "Throw him in the river!" and ahundred voices took up the cry. But just at that moment the crowdswayed back violently and Monsieur Bargemont darted into theforecourt of the _Mairie_. A squad of police officers receivedhim in their ranks and closed in round him. He was saved! Little by little the crowd melted away, and Jean heard a dozendifferent versions of the incident as it travelled withever-increasing exaggeration from mouth to mouth. The last comerslearned the startling news that they had just arrested a Germangeneral officer, who had sneaked into Paris as a spy to betraythe city to the enemy with the connivance of the Bonapartists. The streets being once more passable, Jean saw Monsieur Bargemontcome out of the _Mairie_. He was very red and a sleeve of hisovercoat was torn away. Jean made up his mind to follow him. Along the boulevards he kept him in view at a distance, and notmuch caring whether he lost track of him or no; but when theFunctionary turned up a cross street, the young man closed inon his quarry. He had no particular suspicion even now; a mereinstinct urged him to dog the man's heels. Monsieur Bargemontwheeled to the right, into a fairly broad street, empty and badlylighted by petroleum flares that supplied the place of the gaslamps. It was the one street Jean knew better than another. Hehad been there so often and often! The shape of the doors, thecolour of the shop-fronts, the lettering on the sign-boards,everything about it was familiar; not a thing in it, down tothe night-bell at the chemist's and druggist's, but called upmemories, associations, to touch him. The footsteps of the two menechoed in the silence. Monsieur Bargemont looked round, advanceda few paces more and rang at a door. Jean Servien had now come upwith him and stood beside him under the archway. It was the samedoor he had kissed one night of desperation, Gabrielle's door. Itopened; Jean took a step forward and Monsieur Bargemont, goingin first, left it open, thinking the National Guard there wasa tenant going home to his lodging. Jean slipped in and climbedtwo flights of the dark staircase. Monsieur Bargemont ascendedto the third floor and rang at a door on the landing, which wasopened. Jean could hear Gabrielle's voice saying: "How late you are coming home, dear; I have sent Rosalie to bed;I was waiting up for you, you see."The man replied, still puffing and panting with his exertions: "Just fancy, they wanted to pitch me into the river, thosescoundrels! But never you mind, I've brought you something mightyrare and precious--a pot of butter.""Like Little Red Ridinghood," laughed Gabrielle's voice. "Comein and you shall tell me all about it.... Hark! do you hear?""What, the guns? Oh! that never stops.""No, the noise of a fall on the stairs.""You're dreaming!""Give me the candle, I'm going to look."Monsieur Bargemont went down two or three steps and saw Jeanstretched motionless on the landing. "A drunkard," he said; "there's so many of them! They were drunkards,those chaps who wanted to drown me."He was holding his light to Jean's ashy face, while Gabrielle,leaning over the rail, looked on: "It's not a drunken man," she said; "he is too white. Perhapsit is a poor young fellow dying of hunger. When you're broughtdown to rations of bread and horseflesh----"Then she looked more carefully under frowning brows, and muttered: "It's very queer, it's really very queer!""Do you know him?" asked Bargemont. "I am trying to remember----"But there was no need to try; already she had recalled it all--howher hand had been kissed at the gate of the little house at Bellevue. Running to her rooms, she returned with water and a bottle ofether, knelt beside the fainting man, and slipping her arm, whichwas encircled by the white band of a nursing sister, under hisshoulders, raised Jean's head. He opened his eyes, saw her, heavedthe deepest sigh of love ever expelled from a human breast andfelt his lids fall softly to again. He remembered nothing; onlyshe was bending over him; and her breath had caressed his cheek. Now she was bathing his temples, and he felt a delicious senseof returning life. Monsieur Bargemont with the candle leant overJean Servien, who, opening his eyes for the second time, saw theman's coarse red cheek within an inch of the actress's delicateear. He gave a great cry and a convulsive spasm shook his body. "Perhaps it is an epileptic fit," said Monsieur Bargemont, coughing;he was catching cold standing on the staircase. She protested: "We cannot leave a sick man without doing something for him. Goand wake Rosalie."He remounted the stairs, grumbling. Meantime Jean had got to hisfeet and was standing with averted head. She said to him in a low tone: "So you love me still?"He looked at her with an indescribable sadness: "No, I don't love you any longer"--and he staggered down the stairs. Monsieur Bargemont reappeared: "It's very curious," he said, "but I can't make Rosalie hear."The actress shrugged her shoulders. "Look here, go away, will you? I have a horrid headache. Go away,Bargemont." Chapter 30 She was Bargemont's mistress! The thought was torture to JeanServien, the more atrocious from the unexpectedness of the discovery. He both hated and despised the coarse ruffian whose sham good-naturedid not impose on him, and whom he knew for a brutal, dull-witted,mean-spirited bully. That pimply face, those goggle eyes, thatforehead with the swollen black vein running across it, that heavyhand, that ugly, vulgar soul, could it be---- It sickened him tothink of it! And disgust was the thing of all others Servien'sdelicately balanced nature felt most keenly. His morality wasshaky, and he could have found excuse for elegant vices, refinedperversions, romantic crimes. But Bargemont and his pot of butter!... Never to possess the most adorable of women, never to see her more,he was quite willing for the sacrifice still, but to know her inthe arms of that coarse brute staggered the mind and renderedlife impossible. Absorbed in such thoughts, he found his way back instinctivelyto his own quarter of the city. Shells whistled over his headand burst with terrific reports. Flying figures passed him, theirheads enveloped in handkerchiefs and carrying mattresses on theirbacks. At the corner of the _Rue de Rennes_ he tripped over alamp-post lying across the pavement beside a half-demolishedwall. In front of his father's shop he saw a huge hole. He wentto open the door; a shell had burst it in and he could see thework-bench capsized in a dark corner. Then he remembered that the Germans were bombarding the leftbank, and he felt a sudden impulse to roam the streets under therain of iron. A voice hailed him, issuing from underground: "Is it you, my lad? Come in quick; you've given me a fine fright. Come down here; we are settled in the cellars."He followed his father and found beds arranged in the undergroundchambers, while the main cellar served as kitchen and sitting-room. The bookbinder had a map, and was pointing out to the _concierge_and tenants the position of the relieving armies. Aunt Serviensat in a dim corner, her eyes fixed in a dull stare, mumblingbits of biscuit soaked in wine. She had no notion of what washappening, but maintained an attitude of suspicion. The little assemblage, which had been living this subterraneanlife since the evening of the day before, asked what news youngServien brought. Then the bookbinder resumed the explanationswhich as an old soldier and a responsible man he had been askedto give the company. "The thing to do is," he continued, "to join hands with the Armyof the Loire, piercing the circle of iron that shuts us in. AdmiralLa Roncière has carried the positions at épinay away beyondLongjumeau----"Then turning to Jean: "My lad, just find me Longjumeau on the map; my eyes are notwhat they were at twenty, and these tallow candles give a verypoor light."At that moment a tremendous explosion shook the solid walls andfilled the cellar with dust. The women screamed; the porter wentoff to make his round of inspection, tapping the walls with hisheavy keys; an enormous spider scampered across the vaulted roof. Then the conversation was resumed as if nothing had happened,and two of the lodgers started a game of cards on an upturnedcask. Jean was dog-tired and fell asleep on the floor--a nightmare sleep. "Has the little lad come home?" asked Aunt Servien, still suckingat her biscuit. Chapter 31 Old Servien, in his working jacket, stepped up to the bed; then,creeping away again on tip-toe: "He is asleep, Monsieur Garneret, he is asleep. The doctor tellsus he is saved. He is a very good doctor! _You_ know that yourself,for he is your friend, and it was you brought him here. You havebeen our saviour, Monsieur Garneret."And the bookbinder turned his head away to wipe his eyes, walkedacross to the window, lifted the curtain and looked out intothe sunlit street. "The fine weather will quite set him up again. But we have hadsix terrible weeks. I never lost heart; it is not in the natureof things that a father should despair of his son's life; still,you know, Monsieur Garneret, he has been very ill. "The neighbours have been very good to us; but it was a hard jobnursing him in this cursed cellar. Just think, Monsieur Garneret,for twenty days we had to keep his head in ice.""You know that is the treatment for meningitis."The bookbinder came up confidentially to Garneret. He scratched hisear, rubbed his forehead, stroked his chin in great embarrassment. "My poor lad," he got started at last, "is in love, passionatelyin love. I have found it out from the things he said when hewas delirious. It is not my way to interfere with what does notconcern me; but as I see the matter is serious, I am going toask you, for his own good, to tell me who it is, if you knowher."Garneret shrugged his shoulders: "An actress! a tragedy actress! pooh!"The bookbinder pondered a moment; then: "Look you, Monsieur Garneret, I acted for the best in my poor boy'sinterest, but I blame myself. I tell myself this, the education Igave him has disqualified him for hard work and practical life.... An actress, you say, a tragedy actress? Tastes of that sort mustbe acquired in the schools. Those times he was attending hisclasses, I used to get hold of his exercise books after he hadgone to bed and read whatever there was in French. It was myway of checking his work; because, ignoramus as he may be, aman can see, with a little common sense, what is done properlyand what is scamped. Well, Monsieur Garneret, I was terrified tofind in his themes so many high-flown ideas; some of them werevery fine, no doubt, and I copied out on a paper those that struckme most. But I used to tell myself: All these grand speeches,all these histories, taken from the books of the ancient Romans,are going to put my lad's head in a fever, and he will never knowthe truth of things. I was right, my dear Monsieur Garneret;it is school learning, look you, has made him fall in love witha tragedy actress----"Jean Servien raised himself up in bed. "Is that you, Garneret? I am very glad to see you."Then, after listening a moment: "Why, what is that noise?" he asked. Garneret told him it was Mont Valérien firing on the fortifications. The Commune was in full swing. "Vive la Commune!" cried Jean Servien, and he dropped his headback on the pillow with a smile. Chapter 32 He was recovered and, with a book in his hand, was talking aquiet walk in the Luxembourg gardens. He had that feeling ofharmless selfishness, that self-pity that comes with convalescence. Of his previous life, all he cared to remember was a charmingface bending over him and a voice sweeter than the loveliestmusic murmuring: "So you love me still?" Oh! never fear, he wouldnot answer now as he did on that dreadful staircase: "I don'tlove you any longer." No, he would answer with eyes and lips andopen arms: "I shall love you always!" Still the odious spectre ofhis rival would cross his memory at times and cause him agonies. Suddenly his eyes were caught by an extraordinary sight. Two yards away from him in the garden, in front of the orange-house,was Monsieur Tudesco, burly and full-blown as usual, but howmetamorphosed in costume! He wore a National Guard's tunic, coveredwith glittering _aiguillettes_; from his red sash peeped thebutts of a brace of pistols. On his head was perched a _képi_with five gold bands. The central figure of a group of womenand children, he was gazing at the heavens with as much tenderemotion as his little green eyes were capable of expressing. His whole person breathed a sense of power and kindly patronage. His right hand rested at arm's length on a little boy's head,and he was addressing him in a set speech: "Young citizen, pride of your mother's heart, ornament of thepublic parks, hope of the Commune, hear the words of the proscribedexile. I say it: Young citizen, the 18th of March is a great day;it witnessed the foundation of the Commune, it rescued you fromslavery. Grave on your heart's core that never-to-be-forgottendate. I say it: We have suffered and fought for you. Son of thedisinherited and despairing, you shall be a free man!"He ended, and restoring the child to its mother, smiled uponhis listeners of the fair sex, who were lost in admiration ofhis eloquence, his red sash, his gold lace and his green oldage. Albeit it was three o'clock in the afternoon, he had not drunkmore than he could carry, and he trod the sandy walks with amien of masterful assurance amid the plaudits of the people. Jean advanced to meet him; he had a soft place in his heart forthe old man. Monsieur Tudesco grasped his hand with a fatherlyaffection and declaimed: "I am overjoyed to see my dear disciple, the child of my intellect. Monsieur Servien, look yonder and never forget the sight; it isthe spectacle of a free people."The fact is, a throng of citizens of both sexes was tramping overthe lawns, picking the flowers in the beds and breaking branchesfrom the trees. The two friends tried to find seats on a bench; but these wereall occupied by _fédérés_ of all ranks huddled up on them andsnoring in chorus. For this reason Monsieur Tudesco opined itwas better to adjourn to a café. They came upon one in the _Place de l'Odéon_, where MonsieurTudesco could display his striking uniform to his own satisfaction. "I am an engineer," he announced, when he was seated with hisbitter before him, "an engineer in the service of the Commune,with the rank of Colonel."Jean thought it mighty strange all the same. No doubt he had heardhis old tutor's tales about his confabulations at the dram-shopwith the leaders of the Commune, but it struck him as extraordinarythat the Monsieur Tudesco he knew should have blossomed into anengineer and Colonel under any circumstances. But there was thefact. Monsieur Tudesco manifested no surprise, not he! "Science!" he boasted, "science is everything! It's study doesit! Knowledge is power! To vanquish the myrmidons of despotism,we must have science. That is why I am an engineer with the rankof Colonel."And Monsieur Tudesco went on to relate how he was charged withvery special duties--to discover the underground passages whichthe instruments of tyranny had dug beneath the capital, tunnellingunder the two branches of the Seine, for the transport of munitionsof war. At the head of a gang of navvies, he inspected the palaces,hospitals, barracks and religious houses, breaking up cellarsand staving in drain-pipes. Science! science is everything! Healso inspected the crypts of churches, to unearth traces of thepriests' lubricity. Knowledge is power! After the bitter came absinthe, and Colonel Tudesco proposedfor Servien's consideration a lucrative post at the Delegacy forForeign Affairs. But Jean shook his head. He felt tired and had lost all heart. "I see what it is," cried the Colonel, patting him on the shoulder;"you are young and in love. There are two spirits breathe theirinspiration alternately in the ear of mankind--Love and Ambition. Love speaks the first; and you are still hearkening to his voice,my young friend."Jean, who had drunk _his_ share of absinthe, confessed that hewas deeper in love than ever and that he was jealous. He relatedthe episode of the staircase and inveighed bitterly against MonsieurBargemont. Nor did he fail to identify his case with the good ofthe Commune, by making out Gabrielle's lover to be a Bonapartistand an enemy of the people. Colonel Tudesco drew a note-book from his pocket, inscribedBargemont's name and address in it, and cried: "If the man has not fled like a poltroon, we will make a hostageof him! I am the friend of the Citizen Delegate in charge ofthe Prefecture of Police, and I say it: you shall be avengedon the infamous Bargemont! Have you read the decree concerninghostages? No? Read it then; it is an inimitable monument of thewisdom of the people. "I tear myself regretfully from your company, my young friend. But I must be gone to discover an underground passage the Sistersof Marie-Joseph, in their contumacy, have driven right from thePrison of Saint-Lazare to the Mother Convent in the village ofArgenteuil. It is a long tunnel by which they communicate withthe traitors at Versailles. Come and see me in my quarters atthe General Staff, in the _Place Vend?me_. Farewell andfraternal greeting!"Jean paid the Colonel's score and set out for home. The wallswere all plastered over with posters and proclamations. He readone that was half hidden under bulletins of victories: "Article IV. _All persons detained in custody by the verdictof the jury of accusation shall be hostages of the people ofParis._"Article V. _Every execution of a prisoner of war or a partisanof the government of the Commune of Paris shall be followed bythe instant execution of thrice the number of hostages detainedin virtue of Article IV, the same being chosen by lot._"He frowned dubiously and asked himself: "Can it be I have denounced a man as hostage?"But his fears were soon allayed; Colonel Tudesco was only a wind-bag,and could not really arrest people. Besides, was it crediblethat Bargemont, head of a Ministerial Department, was still inParis? And after all, if he did come to harm, well, so much theworse for him! Chapter 33 Two days after a cab with a musket barrel protruding from eitherwindow stopped before the bookbinder's shop. The two NationalGuards who stumbled out of it demanded to see the citizen JeanServien, handed him a sealed packet and signed to him to openthe door wide and wait for them. Next minute they reappearedcarrying a full-length portrait. It represented a woman of forty or thereabouts, with a yellowface, very long and disproportionately large for the frail, sicklybody it surmounted, and dressed in an unpretending black gown. She wore a sad, submissive look. Her grey eyes bespoke a contriteand fearful heart, the cheeks were pendulous and the loose chinalmost touched the bosom. Jean scrutinized the poor, pitifulface, but could recall no memory in connection with it. He openedthe letter and read: "_Commune of Paris--General Staff_. "Order to deliver to the citizen Jean Servien the portrait of Madame Bargemont. "Tudesco. "Colonel commanding the Subterranean Ways of the Commune."Jean wanted to ask the National Guards what it all meant, butalready the cab was driving off, bayonets protruding from bothwindows. The passers-by, who had long ceased to be surprised atanything, cast a momentary glance after the retreating vehicle. Jean, left alone with Madame Bargemont's portrait before him,began to ask himself why his disconcerting friend Tudesco hadsent it to him. "The wretch," he told himself, "must have arrested Bargemont andsacked his apartments."Meantime Madame Bargemont was gazing at him with a martyr's hauntingeyes. She looked so unhappy that Jean was filled with pity. "Poor woman!" he ejaculated, and turning the canvas face to thewall, he left the house. Presently the bookbinder returned to his work and, though anythingbut an inquisitive man, was tempted to look at this big picturethat blocked up his shop. He scratched his head, wondering ifthis could be the actress his son was in love with. He opined shemust be mightily taken with the young man to send him so largea portrait in so handsome a frame. He could not see anything tocapture a lover's fancy. "At any rate," he thought, "she does not look like a bad woman." Chapter 34 Jean stepped over the bodies of two or three drunked NationalGuards and found himself in the room occupied by Colonel Tudescoand in that worthy's presence. The Colonel lay snoring on a satinsofa, a cold chicken on the table at his elbow. He wore his spurs. Jean shook him roughly by the shoulder and asked him where theportrait came from, declaring that he, Jean, had not the smallestwish to keep it. The Colonel woke, but his speech was thick andhis memory confused. His mind was full of his underground passages. He was commander of them all and could not find one. There wassomething in this fact that offended his sense of justice. TheLady Superior of the Nuns of Marie-Joseph had refused to betraythe secret of the famous Saint-Lazare tunnel. "She has refused," declared the old Italian, "out of contumacy--andalso, perhaps, because there is no tunnel. And, since truth mustout, I'm bound to say, if I was not Commandant of the subterraneanpassages of the capital, I should really think there were none."His wits came back little by little. "Young man, you have seen the soldier reposing from his labours. What question have you come to ask the veteran champion of freedom?""About Bargemont? About that portrait?""I know, I know. I proceeded with a dozen men to his domicileto arrest him, but he had taken to flight, the coward! I carriedout a perquisition in his rooms. In the _salon_ I saw MadameBargemont's portrait and I said: 'That lady looks as sad as MonsieurJean Servien. They are both victims of the infamous Bargemont;I will bring them together and they shall console each other.' Monsieur Servien, oblige me by tasting that cognac; it comesfrom the cellar of your odious rival."He poured the brandy into two big glasses and hiccuped with alaugh: "The cognac of an enemy tastes well."Then he fell back on the sofa, muttering: "The soldier reposing----"His face was crimson. Jean shrugged his shoulders and left theroom. He had hardly opened the door when the old man began howlingin his sleep: "Help! help! they're murdering me."In an instant the _fédérés_ on guard hurled themselves upon Jean;he could feel the cold muzzles of revolvers at his temples andhear rifles banging off at random in the ante-room. The Colonel was raving in the frenzy of alcoholic delirium, writhingin horrible convulsions and yelling: "He has killed me! he hasmurdered me!""He has murdered the Colonel," the _fédérés_ took up the cry. "He has poisoned him. Take him before the court martial.""Shoot him right away. He's an assassin; the Versaillais havesent him.""Off with him to the lock-up!"Servien's denials and struggles were in vain. Again and againhe protested: "You can see for yourselves he's drunk and asleep!""Listen to him--he is insulting the sovereign people.""Pitch him in the river!""Swing him on a lamp-post.""Shoot him!"Bundled down the stairs, rifle-butts prodding him in the backto help him along, Jean was haled before an officer, who thereand then signed an order of arrest. Chapter 35 He had been in solitary confinement in a cell at the _dep?t_for sixteen days now--or was it fifteen?--he was not sure. Thehours dragged by with an excruciating monotony and tediousness. At the start he had demanded justice and loudly protested hisinnocence. But he had come to realize at last that justice hadno concern with his case or that of the priests and gendarmesconfined within the same walls. He had given up all thought ofpersuading the savage frenzy of the Commune to listen to reason,and deemed it the wisest thing to hold his tongue and the bestto be forgotten. He trembled to think how easily it might endin tragedy, and his anguish seemed to choke him. Sometimes, as he sat dreaming, he could see a tree against a patchof blue sky, and great tears would rise to his eyes. It was there, in his prison cell, Jean learned to know the shadowyjoys of memory. He thought of his good old father sitting at his work-bench ortightening the screw of the press; he thought of the shop packedwith bound volumes and bindings, of his little room where ofevenings he read books of travel--of all the familiar things ofhome. And every time he reviewed in spirit the poor thin romanceof his unpretending life, he felt his cheeks burn to think howit was all dominated, almost every episode controlled, by thisdrunken parasite of a Tudesco! It was true nevertheless! Paramountover his studies, his loves, his dangers, over all his existence,loomed the rubicund face of the old villain! The shame of it! He had lived very ill! but what a meagre life it had been too. How cruel it was, how unjust! and there was more of self-pityin the poor, sore heart than of anger. Every day, every hour he thought of Gabrielle; but how changedthe complexion of his love for her! Now it was a tender, tranquilsentiment, a disinterested affection, a sweet, soothing reverie. It was a vision of a wondrous delicacy, such as loneliness andunhappiness alone can form in the souls they shield from therude shocks of the common life--the dream of a holy life, a lifedim and overshadowed, vowed wholly and completely, without rewardor recompense, to the woman worshipped from afar, as that of thegood country _curé_ is vowed to the God who never steps downfrom the tabernacle of the altar. His gaoler was a good-natured _sous-officier_ who, amazed andhorrified at what was going forward, clung to discipline as asheet-anchor in the general shipwreck. He felt a rough, uncouthpity for his prisoners, but this never interfered with the strictperformance of his duties, and Jean, who had no experience ofsoldiers' ways, never guessed the man's true character. However,he grew less and less unbending and taciturn the nearer the armyof order approached the city. Finally, one day he had told his prisoner, with a wink of theeye: "Courage, lad! something's going to turn up soon."The same afternoon Jean heard a distant sound of musketry; then,all in a moment, the door of his cell opened and he saw an avalancheof prisoners roll from one end of the corridor to the other. Thegaoler had unlocked all the cells and shouted the words, "Everyman for himself; run for it!" Jean himself was carried along,down stairs and passages, out into the prison courtyard, andpitched head foremost against the wall. By the time he recoveredfrom the shock of his fall, the prisoners had vanished, and hestood alone before the open wicket. Outside in the street he heard the crackle of musketry and sawthe Seine running grey under the lowering smoke-cloud of burningParis. Red uniforms appeared on the _Quai de l'école_. The_Pont-au-Change_ was thick with _fédérés_. Not knowing whereto fly, he was for going back into the prison; but a body of_Vengeurs de Lutèce_, in full flight, drove him before theirbayonets towards the _Pont-au-Change_. A woman, a _cantinière_,kept shouting: "Don't let him go, give him his gruel. He's aVersaillais." The squad halted on the _Quai-aux-Fleurs_, and Jeanwas pushed against the wall of the _H?tel-Dieu_, the _cantinière_dancing and gesticulating in front of him. Her hair flying looseunder her gold-laced _képi_, with her ample bosom and her elasticfigure poised gallantly on the strong, well-shaped limbs, she hadthe fierce beauty of some magnificent wild animal. Her littleround mouth was wide open, yelling menaces and obscenities, as shebrandished a revolver. The _Vengeurs de Lutèce_, hard-pressedand dispirited, looked stolidly at their white-faced prisoneragainst the wall, and then looked in each other's faces. Herfury redoubled; threatening them collectively, addressing eachman by some vile nickname, pacing in front of them with a boldswing of the powerful hips, the woman dominated them, intoxicatedthem with her puissant influence. They formed up in platoon. "Fire!" cried the _cantinière_. Jean threw out his arms before him. Two or three shots went off. He could hear the balls flatten againstthe wall, but he was not hit. "Fire! fire!" The woman repeated the cry in the voice of an angry,self-willed child. She had been through the fighting, this girl, she had drunk herfill from staved-in wine-casks and slept on the bare ground,pell-mell with the men, out in the public square reddened withthe glare of conflagration. They were killing all round her,and nobody had been killed yet _for her_. She was resolved theyshould shoot her someone, before the end! Stamping with fury,she reiterated her cry: "Fire! Fire! Fire!"Again the guns were cocked and the barrels levelled. But the_Vengeurs de Lutèce_ had not much heart left; their leader hadvanished; they were disorganized, they were running away;sobered and stupefied, they knew the game was up. They were quitewilling all the same to shoot the bourgeois there at the wall,before bolting for covert, each to hide in his own hole. Jean tried to say: "Don't make me suffer more than need be!" buthis voice stuck in his throat. One of the _Vengeurs_ cast a look in the direction of the_Pont-au-Change_ and saw that the _fédérés_ were losing ground. Shouldering his musket, he said: "Let's clear out of the bl--y place, by God!"The men hesitated; some began to slink away. At this the _cantinière_ shrieked: "Bl--sted hounds! Then _I'll_ have to do his business for him!"She threw herself on Jean Servien and spat in his face; she abandonedherself to a frantic orgy of obscenity in word and gesture andclapped the muzzle of her revolver to his temple. Then he felt all was over and waited. A thousand things flashed in a second before his eyes; he sawthe avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take himwalking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy andwondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with stripsof plane-tree bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat the airwith his arms and fell forward face to the ground. The men finishedhim with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the corpsewith yells of joy. The fighting was coming closer. A well-sustained fire swept the_Quai_. The woman was the last to go. Jean Servien's body laystretched in the empty roadway. His face wore a strange look ofpeacefulness; in the temple was a little hole, barely visible;blood and mire fouled the pretty hair a mother had kissed withsuch transports of fondness. THE END