Chapter V: Part 5

"Yes, the bonus will certainly be doubled," thought the visionary as he walked along; and already he saw himself, a month hence, ascending the staircase leading to Hemerlingue's private office, with his fellow-clerks, for their New Year's call. The banker announced the good news; then he detained M. Joyeuse for a private interview. And lo! that employer, usually so cold, and encased in his yellow fat as in a bale of raw silk, became affectionate, fatherly, communicative. He wished to know how many daughters Joyeuse had.

"I have three--that is to say, four, Monsieur le Baron. I always get confused about them. The oldest one is such a little woman."

How old were they?

"Aline is twenty, Monsieur le Baron. She's the oldest. Then we have Élise who is eighteen and preparing for her examination, Henriette who is fourteen, and Zaza or Yaia who is only twelve."

The pet name Yaia amused Monsieur le Baron immensely; he also inquired as to the resources of the family.

"My salary, Monsieur le Baron, nothing but that. I had a little money laid by, but my poor wife's sickness and the girls' education--"

"What you earn is not enough, my dear Joyeuse. I raise you to a thousand francs a month."

"Oh! Monsieur le Baron, that is too much!"

But, although he had uttered this last phrase aloud, in the face of a policeman who watched with a suspicious eye the little man who gesticulated and shook his head so earnestly, the poor visionary did not awake. He joyously imagined himself returning home, telling the news to his daughters, and taking them to the theatre in the evening to celebrate that happy day. God! how pretty the Joyeuse girls were, sitting in the front of their box! what a nosegay of rosy cheeks! And then, on the next day, lo and behold the two oldest are sought in marriage by--Impossible to say by whom, for M. Joyeuse suddenly found himself under the porch of the Hemerlingue establishment, in front of a swing-door surmounted by the words, "Counting Room" in gold letters.

"I shall always be the same," he said to himself with a little laugh, wiping his forehead, on which the perspiration stood in beads.

Put in good humor by his fancy, by the blazing fires in the long line of offices, with inlaid floors and wire gratings, keeping the secrets confided to them in the subdued light of the ground floor, where one could count gold pieces without being dazzled by them, M. Joyeuse bade the other clerks a cheery good-morning, and donned his working-coat and black velvet cap. Suddenly there was a whistle from above; and the cashier, putting his ear to the tube, heard the coarse, gelatinous voice of Hemerlingue, the only, the genuine Hemerlingue--the other, the son, was always absent--asking for M. Joyeuse. What! was he still dreaming? He was greatly excited as he took the little inner stairway, which he had ascended so jauntily just before, and found himself in the banker's office, a narrow room with a very high ceiling, and with no other furniture than green curtains and enormous leather arm-chairs, proportioned to the formidable bulk of the head of the house. He was sitting there at his desk, which his paunch prevented him from approaching, corpulent, puffing, and so yellow that his round face with its hooked nose, the face of a fat, diseased owl, shone like a beacon light in that solemn, gloomy office. A coarse, Moorish merchant mouldering in the dampness of his little courtyard. His eyes gleamed an instant beneath his heavy slow-moving eyelids when the clerk entered; he motioned to him to approach, and slowly, coldly, with frequent breaks in his breathless sentences, instead of: "M. Joyeuse, how many daughters have you?" he said this:

"Joyeuse, you have assumed to criticize in our offices our recent operations on the market in Tunis. No use to deny it. What you said has been repeated to me word for word. And as I can't allow such things from one of my clerks, I notify you that with the end of this month you will cease to be in my employ."

The blood rushed to the clerk's face, receded, returned, causing each time a confused buzzing in his ears, a tumult of thoughts and images in his brain.

His daughters!

What would become of them?

Places are so scarce at that time of year!

Want stared him in the face, and also the vision of a poor devil falling at Hemerlingue's feet, imploring him, threatening him, leaping at his throat in an outburst of desperate frenzy. All this agitation passed across his face like a gust of wind which wrinkles the surface of a lake, hollowing out shifting caverns of all shapes therein; but he stood mute on the same spot, and at a hint from his employer that he might withdraw, went unsteadily down to resume his task in the counting-room.

That evening, on returning to Rue Saint-Ferdinand, M. Joyeuse said nothing to his daughters. He dared not. The thought of casting a shadow upon that radiant gayety, which was the whole life of the house, of dimming with great tears those sparkling eyes, seemed to him unendurable. Moreover he was timid and weak, one of those who always say: "Let us wait till to-morrow." So he waited before speaking, in the first place until the month of November should be at an end, comforting himself with the vague hope that Hemerlingue might change his mind, as if he did not know that unyielding will, like the flabby, tenacious grasp of a mollusk clinging to its gold ingot. Secondly, when his accounts were settled and another clerk had taken his place at the tall desk at which he had stood so long, he hoped speedily to find something else and to repair the disaster before he was obliged to avow it.

Every morning he pretended to start for the office, allowed himself to be equipped and escorted to the door as usual, his great leather bag all ready for the numerous parcels he was to bring home at night. Although he purposely forgot some of them because of the approach of the perplexing close of the month, he no longer lacked time in which to do his daughters' errands. He had his day to himself, an interminable day, which he passed in running about Paris in search of a place. They gave him addresses and excellent recommendations. But in that month of December, when the air is so cold and the days are so short, a month overburdened with expenses and anxieties, clerks suffer in patience and employers too. Every one tries to end the year in tranquillity, postponing to the month of January, when time takes a great leap onward toward another station, all changes, ameliorations, attempts to lead a new life.

Wherever M. Joyeuse called, he saw faces suddenly turn cold as soon as he explained the purpose of his visit. "What! you are no longer with Hemerlingue and Son? How does that happen?" He would explain the condition of affairs as best he could, attributing it to a caprice of his employer, that violent-tempered Hemerlingue whom all Paris knew; but he was conscious of a cold, suspicious accent in the uniform reply: "Come and see us after the holidays." And, timid as he was at best, he reached a point at which he hardly dared apply anywhere, but would walk back and forth twenty times in front of the same door, nor would he ever have crossed the threshold but for the thought of his daughters. That thought alone would grasp his shoulder, put heart into his legs and send him to opposite ends of Paris in the same day, to exceedingly vague addresses given him by comrades, to a great bone-black factory at Aubervilliers, for instance, where they made him call three days in succession, and all for nothing.

Oh! the long walks in the rain and frost, the closed doors, the employer who has gone out or has visitors, the promises given and suddenly retracted, the disappointed hopes, the enervating effect of long suspense, the humiliation in store for every man who asks for work, as if it were a shameful thing to be without it. M. Joyeuse experienced all those heartsickening details, and he learned too how the will becomes weary and discouraged in the face of persistent ill-luck. And you can imagine whether the bitter martyrdom of "the man in search of a place" was intensified by the fantasies of his imagination, by the chimeras which rose before him from the pavements of Paris, while he pursued his quest in every direction.

For a whole month he was like one of those pitiful marionettes who soliloquize and gesticulate on the sidewalks, and from whom the slightest jostling on the part of the crowd extorts a somnambulistic ejaculation: "I said as much," or "Don't you doubt it, monsieur." You pass on, you almost laugh, but you are moved to pity at the unconsciousness of those poor devils, possessed by a fixed idea, blind men led by dreams, drawn on by an invisible leash. The terrible feature of it all was this, that when M. Joyeuse returned home, after those long, cruel days of inaction and fatigue, he must enact the comedy of the man returning from work, must describe the events of the day, tell what he had heard, the gossip of the office, with which he was always accustomed to entertain the young ladies.

In humble households there is always one name that comes to the lips more frequently than others, a name that is invoked on days of disaster, that plays a part in every wish, in every hope, even in the play of the children, who are permeated with the idea of its importance, a name that fills the rôle of a sub-providence in the family, or rather of a supernatural household god. It is the name of the employer, the manager of the factory, the landlord, the minister, the man, in short, who holds in his powerful hand the welfare, the very existence of the family. In the Joyeuse household it was Hemerlingue, always Hemerlingue; ten, twenty times a day the name was mentioned in the conversation of the girls, who associated it with all their plans, with the most trivial details of their girlish ambitions: "If Hemerlingue would consent. It all depends on Hemerlingue." And nothing could be more delightful than the familiar way in which those children spoke of the wealthy boor whom they had never seen.

They asked questions about him. Had their father spoken to him? Was he in good humor? To think that all of us, however humble we may be, however cruelly enslaved by destiny, have always below us some poor creature more humble, more enslaved than ourselves, in whose eyes we are great, in whose eyes we are gods, and, as gods, indifferent, scornful or cruel.

We can fancy M. Joyeuse's torture when he was compelled to invent incidents, to manufacture anecdotes concerning the villain who had dismissed him so heartlessly after ten years of faithful service. However, he played his little comedy in such way as to deceive them all completely. They had noticed only one thing, and that was that their father, on returning home at night, always had a hearty appetite for the evening meal. I should say as much! Since he had lost his place, the poor man had ceased to eat any luncheon.

The days passed. M. Joyeuse found nothing. Yes, he was offered a clerkship at the _Caisse Territoriale_, which he declined, being too well acquainted with the banking operations, with all the nooks and corners of financial Bohemia in general and the _Caisse Territoriale_ in particular, to step foot in that den.

"But," said Passajon--for it was Passajon, who, happening to meet the good man and finding that he was unemployed, had spoken to him of taking service with Paganetti--"but I tell you again that it's all right. We have plenty of money. We pay our debts. I have been paid; just see what a dandy I am."

In truth, the old clerk had a new livery, and his paunch protruded majestically beneath his tunic with silver buttons. For all that, M. Joyeuse had withstood the temptation, even after Passajon, opening wide his bulging eyes, had whispered with emphasis in his ear these words big with promise:

"The Nabob is in it."

Even after that, M. Joyeuse had had the courage to say no. Was it not better to die of hunger than to enter the service of an unsubstantial house whose books he might some day be called upon to examine as an expert before a court of justice?

So he continued to wander about; but he was discouraged and had abandoned his search for employment. As it was necessary for him to remain away from home, he loitered in front of the shop-windows on the quays, leaned for hours on the parapets, watching the river and the boats discharging their cargoes. He became one of those idlers whom we see in the front rank of all street crowds, taking refuge from a shower under porches, drawing near the stoves on which the asphalters boil their tar in the open air, to warm themselves, and sinking on benches along the boulevard when their feet can no longer carry them.

What an excellent way of lengthening one's days, to do nothing!

On certain days, however, when M. Joyeuse was too tired or the weather too inclement, he waited at the end of the street until the young ladies had closed their window, then went back to the house, hugging the walls, hurried upstairs, holding his breath as he passed his own door, and took refuge with the photographer, André Maranne, who, being aware of his catastrophe, offered him the compassionate welcome which poor devils extend to one another. Customers are rare so near the barriers. He would sit for many hours in the studio, talking in an undertone, reading by his friend's side, listening to the rain on the window-panes or the wind whistling as in mid-ocean, rattling the old doors and window-frames in the graveyard of demolished buildings below. On the next floor he heard familiar sounds, full of charm for him, snatches of song accompanying the work of willing hands, a chorus of laughter, the piano lesson given by _Grandmamma_, the tic-tac of the metronome, a delicious domestic hurly-burly that warmed his heart. He lived with his darlings, who certainly had no idea that they had him so near at hand.

Once, while Maranne was out, M. Joyeuse, acting as a faithful custodian of the studio and its brand-new equipment, heard two little taps on the ceiling of the fourth floor, two separate, very distinct taps, then a cautious rumbling like the scampering of a mouse. The intimacy between the photographer and his neighbors justified this prisoner-like method of communication, but what did that mean? How should he answer what seemed like a call? At all hazards he repeated the two taps, the soft drumming sound, and the interview stopped there. When André Maranne returned, he explained it. It was very simple: sometimes, during the day, the young ladies, who never saw their neighbor except in the evening, took that means of inquiring for his health and whether business was improving. The signal he had heard signified: "Is business good to-day?" and M. Joyeuse had instinctively but unwittingly replied: "Not bad for the season." Although young Maranne blushed hotly as he said it, M. Joyeuse believed him. But the idea of frequent communication between the two households made him fear lest his secret should be divulged, and thereafter he abstained from what he called his "artistic days." However, the time was drawing near when he could no longer conceal his plight, for the end of the month was at hand, complicated by the end of the year.

Paris was already assuming the usual festal aspect of the last weeks of December. That is about all that is left in the way of national or popular merrymaking. The revels of the carnival died with Gavarni, the religious festivals, the music of which we scarcely hear above the din of the streets, seclude themselves behind the heavy church doors, the Fifteenth of August has never been aught but the Saint-Charlemagne of the barracks; but Paris has retained its respect for the first day of the year.

Early in December a violent epidemic of childishness is apparent in the streets. Wagons pass, laden with gilded drums, wooden horses, playthings by the score. In the manufacturing districts, from top to bottom of the five-story buildings, former palaces of the Marais, where the shops have such lofty ceilings and stately double doors, people work all night, handling gauze, flowers and straw, fastening labels on satin-covered boxes, sorting out, marking and packing; the innumerable details of the toy trade, that great industry upon which Paris places the sign-manual of its refined taste. There is a smell of green wood, of fresh paint, of glistening varnish, and in the dust of the garrets, on the rickety stairways where the common people deposit all the mud through which they have tramped, chips of rosewood are strewn about, clippings of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the débris of the treasures employed to dazzle childish eyes. Then the shop-windows array themselves. Behind the transparent glass the gilt binding of gift-books ascends like a gleaming wave under the gas-lights, rich stuffs of kaleidoscopic, tempting hues display their heavy, graceful folds, while the shop-girls, with their hair piled high upon their heads and ribbons around their necks, puff their wares with the little finger in the air, or fill silk bags, into which the bonbons fall like a shower of pearls.

But face to face with this bourgeois industry, firmly established and intrenched behind its gorgeous shop fronts, is the ephemeral industry carried on in the stalls built of plain boards, open to the wind from the street, standing in a double row which gives the boulevard the aspect of a foreign market place. There are to be found the real interest, the poetry of New Year's gifts. Luxurious in the Madeleine quarter, less ostentatious toward Boulevard Saint-Denis, cheaper and more tawdry as you approach the Bastille, these little booths change their character to suit their customers, estimate their chances of success according to the condition of the purses of the passers-by. Between them stand tables covered with trifles, miracles of the petty Parisian trades, made of nothing, fragile and insignificant, but sometimes whirled away by fashion in one of its fierce gusts, because of their very lightness. And lastly, along the sidewalks, lost in the line of vehicles which brush against them as they stroll along, the orange-women put the final touch to this ambulatory commerce, heaping up the sun-colored fruit under their red lanterns, and crying: "La Valence!" in the fog, the uproar, the excessive haste with which Paris rushes to meet the close of the year.

Ordinarily M. Joyeuse made a part of the happy crowd that throngs the streets with a jingling of money in the pockets and packages in every hand. He would run about with _Grandmamma_ in quest of presents for the young ladies, stopping in front of the booths of the small shopkeepers whom the slightest indication of a customer excites beyond measure, for they are unfamiliar with the art of selling and have based upon that brief season visions of extraordinary profits. And there would be consultations and meditations, a never-ending perplexity as to the final selection in that busy little brain, always in advance of the present and of the occupation of the moment.

But that year, alas! there was nothing of the sort. He wandered sadly through the joyous city, sadder and more discouraged by reason of all the activity around him, jostled and bumped like all those who impede the circulation of the industrious, his heart beating with constant dread, for _Grandmamma_, for several days past, had been making significant, prophetic remarks at table on the subject of New Year's gifts. For that reason he avoided being left alone with her and had forbidden her coming to meet him at the office. But, struggle as he would, the time was drawing near, he felt it in his bones, when further mystery would be impossible and his secret would be divulged. Was this _Grandmamma_ of whom M. Joyeuse stood in such fear such a terrible creature, pray? _Mon Dieu_, no! A little stern, that was all, with a sweet smile which promised instant pardon to every culprit. But M. Joyeuse was naturally cowardly and timid; twenty years of housekeeping with a masterful woman, "a person of gentle birth," had enslaved him forever, like those convicts who are subjected to surveillance for a certain period after their sentences have expired. And he was subjected to it for life.

One evening the Joyeuse family was assembled in the small salon, the last relic of its splendor, where there still were two stuffed arm-chairs, an abundance of crochet-work, a piano, two Carcel lamps with little green caps, and a small table covered with trivial ornaments.

The true family exists only among the lowly.

For economy's sake only one fire was lighted for the whole house, and only one lamp around which all their occupations, all their diversions were grouped; an honest family lamp, whose old-fashioned shade--with night scenes, studded with brilliant points--had been the wonder and the delight of all the girls in their infancy. Emerging gracefully from the shadow of the rest of the room, four youthful faces, fair or dark, smiling or engrossed, bent forward in the warm, cheerful rays, which illumined them to the level of the eyes and seemed to feed the fire of their glances, the radiant youth beneath their transparent brows, to watch over them, to shelter them, to protect them from the black cold wind without, from ghosts, pitfalls, misery and terror, from all the sinister things that lurk in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris on a winter's night.

Thus assembled in a small room near the top of the deserted house, in the warmth and security of its neatly kept and comfortable home, the Joyeuse family resembles a family of birds in a nest at the top of a tall tree. They sew and read and talk a little. A burst of flame, the crackling of the fire, are the only sounds to be heard, save for an occasional exclamation from M. Joyeuse, who sits just outside of his little circle, hiding in the shadow his anxious brow and all the vagaries of his imagination. Now he fancies that, in the midst of the distress by which he is overwhelmed, the absolute necessity of confessing everything to his children to-night, to-morrow at latest, unforeseen succor comes to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends to him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, the accustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "From Monsieur le Baron." The _Imaginaire_ says this aloud. The pretty faces turn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretch wakes with a start.

Oh! how he reviles himself now for his delay in confessing everything, for the fallacious security which he has encouraged in his home and which he will have to destroy at one blow. Why need he have criticised that Tunisian loan? He even blames himself now for having declined a position at the _Caisse Territoriale_. Had he the right to decline it? Ah! what a pitiful head of a family, who lacked strength to maintain or to defend the welfare of his dear ones. And, in presence of the charming group sitting within the rays of the lamp, whose tranquil aspect is in such glaring contrast to his inward agitation, he is seized with remorse, which assails his feeble mind so fiercely that his secret comes to his lips, is on the point of escaping him in an outburst of sobs, when a ring at the bell--not an imaginary ring--startles them all and checks him as he is about to speak.

Who could have come at that hour? They had lived in seclusion since the mother's death, receiving almost no visitors. André Maranne, when he came down to pass a few moments with them, knocked familiarly after the manner of those to whom a door is always open. Profound silence in the salon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant--she had been in the family as long as the lamp--introduced a young man, a perfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of the charming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about the table. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, he set forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended to apply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy man of his acquaintance, old Passajon, to give him lessons in book-keeping. A friend of his was involved in some large financial enterprises, a stock company of some size. He was anxious to be of service to him by keeping an eye upon the employment of his funds and the rectitude of his associates' operations; but he was a lawyer, with a very imperfect knowledge of financial matters and the vernacular of the banking business. Could not M. Joyeuse, in a few months, with three or four lessons a week--"

"Why, yes indeed, monsieur, yes indeed," stammered the father, dazed by this unhoped-for chance; "I will willingly undertake to fit you in a month or two for this work of examining accounts. Where shall we have the lessons?"

"Here, if you please," said the young man, "for I am anxious that nobody should know that I am working at it. But I shall be very sorry if I am to put everybody to flight every time I appear, as I seem to have done this evening."

It was a fact that, as soon as the visitor opened his mouth, the four curly heads had disappeared, with much whispering and rustling of skirts, and the salon appeared very bare now that the great circle of white light was empty.

Always quick to take alarm where his daughters were concerned, M. Joyeuse replied that "the young ladies always retired early," in a short, sharp tone which said as plainly as could be: "Let us confine our conversation to our lessons, young man, I beg."

Thereupon they agreed upon the days and the hours in the evening.

As for the terms, that would be for monsieur to determine.

Monsieur named a figure.

The clerk turned scarlet; it was what he earned at Hemerlingue's.

"Oh! no, that is too much."

But the other would not listen; he hemmed and hawed and rolled his tongue around as if he were trying to say something that it was very difficult to say; then with sudden resolution:

"Here is your first month's pay."

"But, monsieur--"

The young man insisted. He was a stranger. It was fair that he should pay in advance. Evidently Passajon had told him. M. Joyeuse understood and said, beneath his breath: "Thanks, oh! thanks!" so deeply moved that words failed him. Life, it meant life for a few months, time to turn around, to find a situation. His darlings would be deprived of nothing. They would have their New Year's gifts. O Providence!

"Until Wednesday, then, Monsieur Joyeuse."

"Until Wednesday, Monsieur--?"

"De Géry--Paul de Géry."

They parted, equally dazzled, enchanted, one by the appearance of that unexpected saviour, the other by the lovely tableau of which he had caught a glimpse, all those maidens grouped around the table covered with books and papers and skeins, with an air of purity, of hard-working probity. That sight opened up to de Géry a whole new Paris, brave, domestic, very different from that with which he was already familiar, a Paris of which the writers of feuilletons and the reporters never speak, and which reminded him of his province, with an additional element, namely, the charm which the surrounding hurly-burly and turmoil impart to the peaceful shelter that they do not reach.

VI.

FELICIA RUYS.

"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we never see him at your house now? He was an attractive boy."

As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she always addressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabob which she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and putting down the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on the little sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoon flooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" every Sunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowing people to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from her work for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun, to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads and bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man, sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs, men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who came rather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that they would have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was at Felicia's to-day." Among them Paul de Géry, silent, engrossed by an admiration which sank a little deeper in his heart day by day, strove to comprehend the beautiful sphinx, arrayed in purple cashmere and unbleached lace, who worked bravely away in the midst of her clay, a burnisher's apron--reaching nearly to the neck--leaving naught visible save the proud little face with those transparent tones, those gleams as of veiled rays with which intellect and inspiration give animation to the features. Paul never forgot what had been said of her in his presence, he tried to form an opinion for himself, was beset by doubt and perplexity, yet fascinated; vowed every time that he would never come again, yet never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture, always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and a lace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn by years, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, her hands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins, always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and his apostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all. He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth he displayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and of the pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seeming to notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued to court the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom he had been so fond and whom he had attended until his last breath.

On this occasion, however, the question that Felicia propounded to him on the subject of his son seemed to him extremely disagreeable; and there was a frown upon his face, a genuine expression of ill-humor, as he replied:

"Faith, I know no more than you as to what has become of him. He has turned his back upon us altogether. He was bored with us. He cares for nothing but his Bohemia--"

Felicia gave a bound which made them all start, and with flashing eye and quivering nostril retorted:

"That is too much. Look you, Jenkins, what do you call Bohemia? A charming word, by the way, which should evoke visions of long wandering jaunts in the sunlight, halting in shady nooks, the first taste of luscious fruits and sparkling fountains, taken at random on the highroads. But since you have made of the word with all the charm attaching to it a stigma and an insult, to whom do you apply it? To certain poor long-haired devils, in love with freedom in rags and tatters, who starve to death on fifth floors, looking at the sky at too close quarters, or seeking rhymes under tiles through which the rain drips; to those idiots, fewer and fewer in number, who in their horror of the conventional, the traditional, of the dense stupidity of life, have taken a standing jump over the edge. But that's the way it used to be, I tell you. That's the Bohemia of Murger, with the hospital at the end, the terror of children, the comfort of kindred, Little Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf. That state of things came to an end a long while ago. To-day you know perfectly well that artists are the most well-behaved people on earth, that they earn money, pay their debts and do their best to resemble the ordinary man. There is no lack of genuine Bohemians, however; our society is made up of them, but they are found more particularly in your circle. _Parbleu!_ they are not labelled on the outside, and no one distrusts them; but so far as the uncertainty of existence and lack of order are concerned, they have no reason to envy those whom they so disdainfully call 'irregulars.' Ah! if one knew all the baseness, all the unheard-of, monstrous experiences that may be masked by a black coat, the most correct of your horrible modern garments! Jenkins, at your house the other evening, I amused myself counting all those adventurers of high--"

The little old lady, pink-cheeked and powdered, said to her softly from her seat:

"Felicia--take care--"

But she went on without listening to her:

"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Héry? And Mora himself? And--"

She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself.

"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuously of Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublime Jenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, of finance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and the higher you go the more of them there are, because high rank gives impunity and wealth closes many mouths."

She spoke with great animation, harshly, her lip curling in fierce disdain. The other laughed a false laugh and assumed an airy, condescending tone. "Ah! madcap! madcap!" And his glance, anxious and imploring, rested upon the Nabob, as if to beseech his forgiveness for that flood of impertinent paradoxes.

But Jansoulet, far from appearing to be vexed,--he who was so proud to pose for that lovely artist, so puffed up by the honor conferred upon him--nodded his head approvingly.

"She is right, Jenkins," he said, "she is right. We are the real Bohemia. Look at me, for instance, and Hemerlingue, two of the greatest handlers of money in Paris. When I think where we started from, all the trades that we tried our hands at! Hemerlingue, an old regimental sutler; and myself, who carried bags of grain on the wharves at Marseille for a living. And then the strokes of luck by which our fortunes were made, as indeed all fortunes are made nowadays. Bless my soul! Just look under the peristyle at the Bourse from three to five. But I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, with my mania for gesticulating when I talk, I've spoiled my pose--let's see, will this do?"

"It's of no use," said Felicia, throwing down her modelling-tool with the gesture of a spoiled child. "I can do nothing more to-day."

She was a strange girl, this Felicia. A true child of an artist, a genial and dissipated artist, according to the romantic tradition, such as Sébastien Ruys was. She had never known her mother, being the fruit of one of those ephemeral passions which suddenly enter a sculptor's bachelor life, as swallows enter a house of which the door is always open, and go out again at once, because they cannot build nests there.

On that occasion the lady, on taking flight, had left with the great artist, then in the neighborhood of forty, a beautiful child whom he had acknowledged and reared, and who became the joy and passion of his life. Felicia had remained with her father until she was thirteen, importing a childish, refining element into that studio crowded with idlers, models, and huge greyhounds lying at full length on divans. There was a corner set aside for her, for her attempts at sculpture, a complete equipment on a microscopic scale, a tripod and wax; and old Ruys would say to all who came in:

"Don't go over there. Don't disturb anything. That's the little one's corner."

The result was that at ten years of age she hardly knew how to read and handled the modelling-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would have liked to keep the child, who never annoyed him in any way, with him permanently, a tiny member of the great brotherhood. But it was a pitiful thing to see the little maid exposed to the free and easy manners of the habitués of the house, the incessant going and coming of models, the discussions concerning an art that is purely physical, so to speak; and at the uproarious Sunday dinner-table, too, sitting in the midst of five or six women, with all of whom her father was on the most intimate terms, actresses, dancers, singers, who, when dinner was at an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revelling in the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house. Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, a polished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly. Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted by all that passed over her little mind because it was so near the ground.

Every summer she went to pass a few days with her godmother, Constance Crenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, who was for so long a time called by all Europe the "illustrious dancer," and who was living quietly in seclusion at Fontainebleau.

The arrival of the "little devil" introduced into the old lady's life, for a time, an element of excitement from which she had the whole year to recover. The frights that the child caused her with her audacious exploits in leaping and riding, the passionate outbreaks of that untamed nature, made the visit both a delight and a terrible trial to her,--a delight, because she worshipped Felicia, the only domestic tie left the poor old salamander, retired after thirty years of _battus_ in the glare of the footlights; a trial, because the demon pitilessly pillaged the ex-dancer's apartments, which were as dainty and neat and sweet-smelling as her dressing-room at the Opéra, and embellished with a museum of souvenirs dated from all the theatres in the world.

Constance Crenmitz was the sole feminine element in Felicia's childhood. Frivolous, shallow, having all her life kept her mind enveloped in pink swaddling-clothes, she had at all events a dainty knack at housekeeping, and agile fingers clever at sewing, embroidering, arranging furniture, and leaving the trace of their deft, painstaking touch in every corner of a room. She alone undertook to train that wild young plant, and to awaken with care the womanly instincts in that strange creature, on whose figure cloaks and furs, all the elegant inventions of fashion, fell in folds too stiff, or performed other strange antics.

It was the dancer again--surely the little Ruys must not be abandoned--who, triumphing over the paternal selfishness, compelled the sculptor to assent to a necessary separation, when Felicia was twelve or thirteen years old; furthermore, she assumed the responsibility of finding a suitable boarding school, and purposely selected a very rich but very bourgeois establishment, pleasantly situated in a sparsely-settled faubourg, in a huge old-fashioned mansion, surrounded by high walls and tall trees,--a sort of convent, minus the restraint and contempt for serious studies.

Indeed, a great deal of hard work was done at Madame Belin's establishment, with no opportunities to go out except on great festivals, and no communication with the outside world except a visit from one's relatives on Thursday, in a little garden of flowering shrubs, or in the vast parlor with the carved and gilded panels above the doors. Felicia's first appearance in that almost monastic institution caused considerable commotion; her costume, selected by the Austrian ballet-dancer, her curly hair falling to the waist, her ungainly, boyish bearing, gave rise to some ill-natured remarks; but she was a Parisian and readily adapted herself to all situations, to all localities. In a few days she wore more gracefully than any of the others the little black apron, to which the most coquettish attached their watches, the straight skirt--a stern and cruel requirement at that period, when the prevailing fashion enlarged the circumference of woman with an infinite number of ruffles and flounces--and the prescribed arrangement of the hair, in two braids fastened together well down on the neck, after the fashion of Roman peasants.

Strangely enough, the assiduous work of the classes, their tranquil regularity, suited Felicia's nature, all intelligence and animation, in which a taste for study was enlivened by an overflow of childish spirits in the hours of recreation. Every one loved her. Among those children of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers, a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined to stiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and the respect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputation as an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest and greatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success in her studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, that element of superiority which produces its effect even upon very young girls.

In the purer atmosphere of the boarding-school, she felt the keenest pleasure in making herself womanly, in resuming her true sex, in learning order, regularity, in a different sense from that inculcated by the amiable dancer, whose kisses always retained a taste of rouge, and whose embraces always left an impression of unnaturally round arms. Père Ruys was enchanted, every time that he went to see his daughter, to find her more of a young lady, able to enter and walk about and leave a room with the pretty courtesy that made all of Madame Belin's boarders long for the _frou-frou_ of a long train.

At first he came often, then, as he lacked time for all the commissions accepted and undertaken, the advances upon which helped to pay for the disorder and heedlessness of his life, he was seen less frequently in the parlor. At last disease took a hand. Brought to earth by hopeless anæmia, for weeks he did not leave the house, nor work. He insisted upon seeing his daughter; and from the peaceful, health-giving shadow of the boarding-school Felicia returned to her father's studio, still haunted by the same cronies, the parasites that cling to every celebrity, among whom sickness had introduced a new figure in the person of Dr. Jenkins.

That handsome, open face, the air of frankness and serenity diffused over the whole person of that already well known physician, who talked of his art so freely, yet performed miraculous cures, and his assiduous attentions to her father, made a deep impression on the girl. Jenkins soon became the friend, the confidant, a vigilant and gentle guardian. Sometimes in the studio, when some one--the father himself most frequently--made a too equivocal remark or a ribald jest, the Irishman would frown and make a little noise with his lips, or else would divert Felicia's attention. He often took her to pass the day with Madame Jenkins, exerting himself to prevent her from becoming once more the wild creature of the ante-boarding school days, or indeed the something worse than that which she threatened to become, in the moral abandonment, the saddest of all forms of abandonment, in which she was left.

But the girl had a more powerful protector than the irreproachable but worldly example of the fair Madame Jenkins: the art which she adored, the enthusiasm it aroused in her essentially open nature, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which passed from her thoughtful brain, teeming with ideas, into her fingers with a little quiver of the nerves, a longing to see the thing done, the image realized. All day she worked at her sculpture, gave shape to her reveries, with the happy tact of instinct-guided youth, which imparts so much charm to first works; that prevented her from regretting too keenly the austere régime of the Belin institution, which was as perfect a safeguard and as light as the veil of a novice who has not taken her vows; and it also shielded her from perilous conversations to which in her one absorbing preoccupation she paid no heed.

Ruys was proud of the talent springing up by his side. As he grew weaker from day to day, having already reached the stage at which the artist regrets his vanishing powers, he followed Felicia's progress as a consolation for the close of his own career. The modelling-tool, which trembled in his hand, was seized at his side with virile firmness and self-assurance, tempered by all of the innate refinement of her being that a woman can apply to the realization of her ideal of an art. A curious sensation is that twofold paternity, that survival of genius, which abandons the one who is going away to pass into the one who is coming, like the lovely domestic birds which, on the eve of a death, desert the threatened roof for a more cheerful dwelling.

In the last days of her father's life, Felicia--a great artist, and still a child--did half of her father's work for him, and nothing could be more touching than that collaboration of the father and daughter, in the same studio, sculptors of the same group. Things did not always run smoothly. Although she was her father's pupil, Felicia's individuality was already inclined to rebel against any arbitrary guidance. She had the audacity of beginners, the presentiment of a great future felt only by youthful geniuses, and, in opposition to the romantic traditions of Sébastien Ruys, a tendency toward modern realism, a feeling that she must plant that glorious old flag upon some new monument.

Then there would be terrible scenes, disputes from which the father would come forth vanquished, annihilated by his daughter's logic, amazed at the rapid progress children make on the highroads, while their elders, who have opened the gates for them, remain stationary at the point of departure. When she was working for him Felicia yielded more readily; but concerning her own work she was intractable. For instance, the _Joueur de Boules_, her first exhibited work, which made such a tremendous hit at the Salon of 1862, was the occasion of violent disputes between the two artists, of such fierce controversy that Jenkins had to intervene and to superintend the removal of the figure, which Ruys had threatened to break.

Aside from these little dramas, which had no effect upon the love of their hearts, those two worshipped each other, with the presentiment and, as the days passed, the cruel certainty of an impending separation; when suddenly there came a horrible episode in Felicia's life. One day Jenkins took her home to dinner with him, as he often did. Madame Jenkins and her son were away for two days; but the doctor's years, his semi-paternal intimacy, justified him in inviting to his house, even in his wife's absence, a girl whose fifteen years, the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess resplendent with premature beauty, left her still almost a child.

The dinner was very lively, Jenkins cordial and agreeable as always. Then they went into the doctor's office; and suddenly, as they sat on the divan, talking in the most intimate and friendly way concerning her father, his health and their joint work, Felicia had a feeling as of the cold blast from an abyss between herself and that man, followed by the brutal embrace of a satyr's claw. She saw a Jenkins totally unknown to her, wild-eyed, stammering, with brutish laugh and insulting hands. In the surprise, the unexpectedness of that outbreak of the animal instinct, any other than Felicia, any child of her years, but genuinely innocent, would have been lost. The thing that saved her, poor child, was her knowledge. She had heard so many stories at her father's table! And then her art, her life at the studio. She was no _ingénue_. She at once understood what that embrace meant, she squirmed and struggled, then, finding that she was not strong enough, screamed. He was frightened, released her, and suddenly she found herself on her feet, free, with the man at her knees, weeping and imploring forgiveness. He had yielded to an attack of frenzy. She was so lovely, he loved her so dearly. He had struggled for months. But now it was all over--never again, oh! never again. He would not even touch the hem of her dress. She did not reply, but tremblingly rearranged her hair and her clothes with frenzied fingers. Go, she must go at once, alone. He sent a servant with her, and whispered, as she entered the carriage: "Above all things, not a word of this at home. It would kill your father." He knew her so well, he was so sure of closing her mouth by that thought, the villain, that he came the next day as if nothing had happened, effusive as always and with the same ingenuous face. She never did mention the incident to her father or to anybody else. But from that day a change took place in her, as if the springs of her pride were relaxed. She became capricious, had fits of lassitude, a curl of disgust in her smile, and sometimes she yielded to sudden outbursts of wrath against her father, and cast scornful glances upon him, rebuking him for his failure to watch over her.

"What is the matter with her?" Père Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, with the authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and a physical trouble. He himself avoided speaking to the girl, relying upon time to efface the sinister impression, and not despairing of obtaining what he desired, for he desired more eagerly than ever, being in the grasp of the insane passion of a man of forty-seven, the incurable passion of maturity; and that was the hypocrite's punishment. His daughter's strange state caused the sculptor genuine distress; but it was of brief duration. Ruys suddenly expired, fell to pieces all at once, like all those whom Jenkins attended. His last words were:

"Jenkins, I place my daughter in your care."

The words were so ironical in all their mournfulness that Jenkins, who was present at the last, could not avoid turning pale.

Felicia was even more stupefied than sorrowful. To the feeling of amazement at death, which she had never seen before, and which appeared in a guise so dear to her, was added the feeling of a terrible loneliness surrounded by darkness and perils.

Several friends of the sculptor assembled in a family council to deliberate concerning the future of the unfortunate, penniless orphan. They had found fifty francs in the catch-all in which Sébastien kept his money on a little commode in the studio, well known to his needy friends, who had recourse to it without scruple. No other patrimony, in cash at all events; only a most superb collection of artistic objects and curios, a few valuable pictures and some scattered outstanding claims hardly sufficient to cover his innumerable debts. They talked of a sale at auction. Felicia, on being consulted, replied that it was a matter of indifference to her whether they sold all or none, but that she begged them, for God's sake, to leave her in peace.

The sale did not take place, however, thanks to the godmother, the excellent Crenmitz, who suddenly made her appearance, as tranquil and gentle as always:

"Don't listen to them, my child, sell nothing. Your old Constance has fifteen thousand francs a year which were intended for you. You shall have the benefit of them now, that's all. We will live together here. I will not be in the way, you will see. You can work at your sculpture, while I keep the house. Does that suit you?"

It was said so affectionately, in the childish accent of foreigners expressing themselves in French, that the girl was deeply moved. Her stony heart opened, a burning flood poured from her eyes and she threw herself, buried herself in the ex-dancer's arms: "Oh! godmother, how good you are! Yes, yes; don't leave me again--stay with me always. Life frightens and disgusts me. I see so much hypocrisy and lying!" And when the old woman had made herself a silky, embroidered nest in the house, which resembled a traveller's camp filled with the treasures of all lands, those two widely different natures took up their life together.