AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by Clara Bell

 DEDICATION

 To Mademoiselle Marie de Montheau

 AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET

Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue duPetit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses whichenable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threateningwalls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated withhieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xsand Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident thatevery beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightestvehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof ofwhich no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet overthe roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as toshelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upperstory was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, inorder, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house. 

One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefullywrapped in his cloak, stood under the awning of a shop opposite thisold house, which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In point of fact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenthcentury offered more than one problem to the consideration of anobserver. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floorfour tall, narrow windows, close together, were filled as to the lowerpanes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by which aclever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customersinquire for. The young man seemed very scornful of this part of thehouse; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the secondfloor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingymuslin curtains behind the large Bohemian glass panes, did notinterest him either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so clumsily wrought that they mighthave found a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts to illustrate theearly efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazed withsmall squares of glass so green that, but for his good eyes, the youngman could not have seen the blue-checked cotton curtains whichscreened the mysteries of the room from profane eyes. Now and then thewatcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation, or of the silence inwhich the house was buried, like the whole neighborhood, dropped hiseyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary smile parted his lipseach time he looked at the shop, where, in fact, there were somelaughable details. 

A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared tohave bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrustedwith as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an oldduchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carvedjoist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. This picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must besaid that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comicala caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as bigas itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormousball, returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that theartist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passingobserver. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yetmore grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must havepuzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had beeneaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for thefigure of a spectator--so long, and thick, and furry were the tails ofour forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure fieldwhich ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name"Guillaume, " and to the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel. " Sun andrain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to theletters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changedplaces in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography. 

To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growingcleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, itmay be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems sowhimsical to many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of onceliving pictures by which our roguish ancestors contrived to temptcustomers into their houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were animals in cages whose skills astonished thepasser-by, and whose accomplishments prove the patience of thefifteenth-century artisan. Such curiosities did more to enrich theirfortunate owners than the signs of "Providence, " "Good-faith, " "Graceof God, " and "Decapitation of John the Baptist, " which may still beseen in the Rue Saint-Denis. 

However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire thecat, which a minute's attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. Theyoung man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after themanner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all themore remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore whitesilk stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He hadjust come, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hourhe had in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now outof curl, and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had beendressed _a la Caracalla_, a fashion introduced as much by David'sschool of painting as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles whichcharacterized the early years of this century. 

In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late, rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busystreet lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only tothose who have wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when itsroar, hushed for a moment, rises and spreads in the distance like thegreat voice of the sea. This strange young man must have seemed ascurious to the shopkeeping folk of the "Cat and Racket" as the "Catand Racket" was to him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxiousface look even paler than it really was. The fire that flashed in hisblack eyes, gloomy and sparkling by turns, was in harmony with thesingular outline of his features, with his wide, flexible mouth, hardened into a smile. His forehead, knit with violent annoyance, hada stamp of doom. Is not the forehead the most prophetic feature of aman? When the stranger's brow expressed passion the furrows formed init were terrible in their strength and energy; but when he recoveredhis calmness, so easily upset, it beamed with a luminous grace whichgave great attractiveness to a countenance in which joy, grief, love, anger, or scorn blazed out so contagiously that the coldest man couldnot fail to be impressed. 

He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of theloft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparitionof three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar asthe face of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments. These three faces, framed by the window, recalled the puffy cherubsfloating among the clouds that surround God the Father. Theapprentices snuffed up the exhalations of the street with an eagernessthat showed how hot and poisonous the atmosphere of their garret mustbe. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as heseemed, of the apprentices retired and came back holding an instrumentwhose hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and theyall grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, andsprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved thatthree chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthestcorner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceasedlaughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young manshook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as heglanced up at the empty window-frame. 

At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one ofthe clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners, of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavypanes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his longwaiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of thewhite cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frillof tumbled muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence. Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed here andthere through little openings left by her movements in sleep. Noexpression of embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, orthe calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works ofRaphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in thoseVirgins, and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrast betweenthe cheeks of that face on which sleep had, as it were, given highrelief to a superabundance of life, and the antiquity of the heavywindow with its clumsy shape and black sill. Like those day-blowingflowers, which in the early morning have not yet unfurled their cups, twisted by the chills of night, the girl, as yet hardly awake, let herblue eyes wander beyond the neighboring roofs to look at the sky;then, from habit, she cast them down on the gloomy depths of thestreet, where they immediately met those of her adorer. Vanity, nodoubt, distressed her at being seen in undress; she started back, theworn pulley gave way, and the sash fell with the rapid run, which inour day has earned for this artless invention of our forefathers anodious name, _Fenetre a la Guillotine_. The vision had disappeared. Tothe young man the most radiant star of morning seemed to be hidden bya cloud. 

During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters that protectedthe slight windows of the shop of the "Cat and Racket" had beenremoved as if by magic. The old door with its knocker was opened backagainst the wall of the entry by a man-servant, apparently coeval withthe sign, who, with a shaking hand, hung upon it a square of cloth, onwhich were embroidered in yellow silk the words: "Guillaume, successorto Chevrel. " Many a passer-by would have found it difficult to guessthe class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between thestrong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, thoughas numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding theprimitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all themerchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always thebest provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whosecommercial honesty never lay under the slightest suspicion. If some ofhis brethren in business made a contract with the Government, and hadnot the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it, however large the number of pieces tendered for. The wily dealer knewa thousand ways of extracting the largest profits without beingobliged, like them, to court patrons, cringing to them, or making themcostly presents. When his fellow-tradesmen could only pay in goodbills of long date, he would mention his notary as an accommodatingman, and managed to get a second profit out of the bargain, thanks tothis arrangement, which had made it a proverb among the traders of theRue Saint-Denis: "Heaven preserve you from Monsieur Guillaume'snotary!" to signify a heavy discount. 

The old merchant was to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop, as if by a miracle, the instant the servant withdrew. MonsieurGuillaume looked at the Rue Saint-Denis, at the neighboring shops, andat the weather, like a man disembarking at Havre, and seeing Franceonce more after a long voyage. Having convinced himself that nothinghad changed while he was asleep, he presently perceived the strangeron guard, and he, on his part, gazed at the patriarchal draper asHumboldt may have scrutinized the first electric eel he saw inAmerica. Monsieur Guillaume wore loose black velvet breeches, pepper-and-salt stockings, and square toed shoes with silver buckles. His coat, with square-cut fronts, square-cut tails, and square-cutcollar clothed his slightly bent figure in greenish cloth, finished withwhite metal buttons, tawny from wear. His gray hair was so accuratelycombed and flattened over his yellow pate that it made it look like afurrowed field. His little green eyes, that might have been piercedwith a gimlet, flashed beneath arches faintly tinged with red in theplace of eyebrows. Anxieties had wrinkled his forehead with as manyhorizontal lines as there were creases in his coat. This colorlessface expressed patience, commercial shrewdness, and the sort of wilycupidity which is needful in business. At that time these old familieswere less rare than they are now, in which the characteristic habitsand costume of their calling, surviving in the midst of more recentcivilization, were preserved as cherished traditions, like theantediluvian remains found by Cuvier in the quarries. 

The head of the Guillaume family was a notable upholder of ancientpractices; he might be heard to regret the Provost of Merchants, andnever did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce withoutcalling it the _Sentence of the Consuls_. Up and dressed the first ofthe household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old customs, he stoodsternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, ready toscold them in case they were late. These young disciples of Mercuryknew nothing more terrible than the wordless assiduity with which themaster scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in searchof evidence or traces of their pranks. But at this moment the oldclothier paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying todivine the motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silkstockings and a cloak cast alternately at his signboard and into thedepths of his shop. The daylight was now brighter, and enabled thestranger to discern the cashier's corner enclosed by a railing andscreened by old green silk curtains, where were kept the immenseledgers, the silent oracles of the house. The too inquisitive gazerseemed to covet this little nook, and to be taking the plan of adining-room at one side, lighted by a skylight, whence the family atmeals could easily see the smallest incident that might occur at theshop-door. So much affection for his dwelling seemed suspicious to atrader who had lived long enough to remember the law of maximumprices; Monsieur Guillaume naturally thought that this sinisterpersonage had an eye to the till of the Cat and Racket. After quietlyobserving the mute duel which was going on between his master and thestranger, the eldest of the apprentices, having seen that the youngman was stealthily watching the windows of the third floor, venturedto place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur Guillaume wasstanding. He took two steps out into the street, raised his head, andfancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine Guillaume inhasty retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant's perspicacity, shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his amorous apprenticewere suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man's presencehad excited in their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on its way to aneighboring stand, and jumped into it with an air of affectedindifference. This departure was a balm to the hearts of the other twolads, who had been somewhat uneasy as to meeting the victim of theirpractical joke. 

"Well, gentlemen, what ails you that you are standing there with yourarms folded?" said Monsieur Guillaume to his three neophytes. "Informer days, bless you, when I was in Master Chevrel's service, Ishould have overhauled more than two pieces of cloth by this time. "

"Then it was daylight earlier, " said the second assistant, whose dutythis was. 

The old shopkeeper could not help smiling. Though two of these youngfellows, who were confided to his care by their fathers, richmanufacturers at Louviers and at Sedan, had only to ask and to have ahundred thousand francs the day when they were old enough to settle inlife, Guillaume regarded it as his duty to keep them under the rod ofan old-world despotism, unknown nowadays in the showy modern shops, where the apprentices expect to be rich men at thirty. He made themwork like Negroes. These three assistants were equal to a businesswhich would harry ten such clerks as those whose sybaritical tastesnow swell the columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peaceof this solemn house, where the hinges were always oiled, and wherethe meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanlinesswhich reveals strict order and economy. The most waggish of the threeyouths often amused himself by writing the date of its firstappearance on the Gruyere cheese which was left to their tendermercies at breakfast, and which it was their pleasure to leaveuntouched. This bit of mischief, and a few others of the same stamp, would sometimes bring a smile on the face of the younger ofGuillaume's daughters, the pretty maiden who has just now appeared tothe bewitched man in the street. 

Though each of these apprentices, even the eldest, paid a round sumfor his board, not one of them would have been bold enough to remainat the master's table when dessert was served. When Madame Guillaumetalked of dressing the salad, the hapless youths trembled as theythought of the thrift with which her prudent hand dispensed the oil. They could never think of spending a night away from the house withouthaving given, long before, a plausible reason for such anirregularity. Every Sunday, each in his turn, two of them accompaniedthe Guillaume family to Mass at Saint-Leu, and to vespers. Mesdemoiselles Virginie and Augustine, simply attired in cotton print, each took the arm of an apprentice and walked in front, under thepiercing eye of their mother, who closed the little family processionwith her husband, accustomed by her to carry two large prayer-books, bound in black morocco. The second apprentice received no salary. Asfor the eldest, whose twelve years of perseverance and discretion hadinitiated him into the secrets of the house, he was paid eight hundredfrancs a year as the reward of his labors. On certain family festivalshe received as a gratuity some little gift, to which MadameGuillaume's dry and wrinkled hand alone gave value--netted purses, which she took care to stuff with cotton wool, to show off the fancystitches, braces of the strongest make, or heavy silk stockings. Sometimes, but rarely, this prime minister was admitted to share thepleasures of the family when they went into the country, or when, after waiting for months, they made up their mind to exert the rightacquired by taking a box at the theatre to command a piece which Parishad already forgotten. 

As to the other assistants, the barrier of respect which formerlydivided a master draper from his apprentices was that they would havebeen more likely to steal a piece of cloth than to infringe thistime-honored etiquette. Such reserve may now appear ridiculous; butthese old houses were a school of honesty and sound morals. Themasters adopted their apprentices. The young man's linen was caredfor, mended, and often replaced by the mistress of the house. If anapprentice fell ill, he was the object of truly maternal attention. Ina case of danger the master lavished his money in calling in the mostcelebrated physicians, for he was not answerable to their parentsmerely for the good conduct and training of the lads. If one of them, whose character was unimpeachable, suffered misfortune, these oldtradesmen knew how to value the intelligence he had displayed, andthey did not hesitate to entrust the happiness of their daughters tomen whom they had long trusted with their fortunes. Guillaume was oneof these men of the old school, and if he had their ridiculous side, he had all their good qualities; and Joseph Lebas, the chiefassistant, an orphan without any fortune, was in his mind destined tobe the husband of Virginie, his elder daughter. But Joseph did notshare the symmetrical ideas of his master, who would not for an empirehave given his second daughter in marriage before the elder. Theunhappy assistant felt that his heart was wholly given to MademoiselleAugustine, the younger. In order to justify this passion, which hadgrown up in secret, it is necessary to inquire a little further intothe springs of the absolute government which ruled the oldcloth-merchant's household. 

Guillaume had two daughters. The elder, Mademoiselle Virginie, was thevery image of her mother. Madame Guillaume, daughter of the SieurChevrel, sat so upright in the stool behind her desk, that more thanonce she had heard some wag bet that she was a stuffed figure. Herlong, thin face betrayed exaggerated piety. Devoid of attractions orof amiable manners, Madame Guillaume commonly decorated her head--thatof a woman near on sixty--with a cap of a particular and unvaryingshape, with long lappets, like that of a widow. In all theneighborhood she was known as the "portress nun. " Her speech was curt, and her movements had the stiff precision of a semaphore. Her eye, with a gleam in it like a cat's, seemed to spite the world because shewas so ugly. Mademoiselle Virginie, brought up, like her youngersister, under the domestic rule of her mother, had reached the age ofeight-and-twenty. Youth mitigated the graceless effect which herlikeness to her mother sometimes gave to her features, but maternalausterity had endowed her with two great qualities which made up foreverything. She was patient and gentle. Mademoiselle Augustine, whowas but just eighteen, was not like either her father or her mother. She was one of those daughters whose total absence of any physicalaffinity with their parents makes one believe in the adage: "God giveschildren. " Augustine was little, or, to describe her more truly, delicately made. Full of gracious candor, a man of the world couldhave found no fault in the charming girl beyond a certain meanness ofgesture or vulgarity of attitude, and sometimes a want of ease. Hersilent and placid face was full of the transient melancholy whichcomes over all young girls who are too weak to dare to resist theirmother's will. 

The two sisters, always plainly dressed, could not gratify the innatevanity of womanhood but by a luxury of cleanliness which became themwonderfully, and made them harmonize with the polished counters andthe shining shelves, on which the old man-servant never left a speckof dust, and with the old-world simplicity of all they saw about them. As their style of living compelled them to find the elements ofhappiness in persistent work, Augustine and Virginie had hithertoalways satisfied their mother, who secretly prided herself on theperfect characters of her two daughters. It is easy to imagine theresults of the training they had received. Brought up to a commerciallife, accustomed to hear nothing but dreary arguments and calculationsabout trade, having studied nothing but grammar, book-keeping, alittle Bible-history, and the history of France in Le Ragois, andnever reading any book but what their mother would sanction, theirideas had not acquired much scope. They knew perfectly how to keephouse; they were familiar with the prices of things; they understoodthe difficulty of amassing money; they were economical, and had agreat respect for the qualities that make a man of business. Althoughtheir father was rich, they were as skilled in darning as inembroidery; their mother often talked of having them taught to cook, so that they might know how to order a dinner and scold a cook withdue knowledge. They knew nothing of the pleasures of the world; and, seeing how their parents spent their exemplary lives, they very rarelysuffered their eyes to wander beyond the walls of their hereditaryhome, which to their mother was the whole universe. The meetings towhich family anniversaries gave rise filled in the future of earthlyjoy to them. 

When the great drawing-room on the second floor was to be prepared toreceive company--Madame Roguin, a Demoiselle Chevrel, fifteen monthsyounger than her cousin, and bedecked with diamonds; young Rabourdin, employed in the Finance Office; Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, the richperfumer, and his wife, known as Madame Cesar; Monsieur Camusot, therichest silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, with hisfather-in-law, Monsieur Cardot, two or three old bankers, and someimmaculate ladies--the arrangements, made necessary by the way inwhich everything was packed away--the plate, the Dresden china, thecandlesticks, and the glass--made a variety in the monotonous lives ofthe three women, who came and went and exerted themselves as nunswould to receive their bishop. Then, in the evening, when all threewere tired out with having wiped, rubbed, unpacked, and arranged allthe gauds of the festival, as the girls helped their mother toundress, Madame Guillaume would say to them, "Children, we have donenothing today. "

When, on very great occasions, "the portress nun" allowed dancing, restricting the games of boston, whist, and backgammon within thelimits of her bedroom, such a concession was accounted as the mostunhoped felicity, and made them happier than going to the great balls, to two or three of which Guillaume would take the girls at the time ofthe Carnival. 

And once a year the worthy draper gave an entertainment, when hespared no expense. However rich and fashionable the persons invitedmight be, they were careful not to be absent; for the most importanthouses on the exchange had recourse to the immense credit, thefortune, or the time-honored experience of Monsieur Guillaume. Still, the excellent merchant's daughters did not benefit as much as might besupposed by the lessons the world has to offer to young spirits. Atthese parties, which were indeed set down in the ledger to the creditof the house, they wore dresses the shabbiness of which made themblush. Their style of dancing was not in any way remarkable, and theirmother's surveillance did not allow of their holding any conversationwith their partners beyond Yes and No. Also, the law of the old signof the Cat and Racket commanded that they should be home by eleveno'clock, the hour when balls and fetes begin to be lively. Thus theirpleasures, which seemed to conform very fairly to their father'sposition, were often made insipid by circumstances which were part ofthe family habits and principles. 

As to their usual life, one remark will sufficiently paint it. MadameGuillaume required her daughters to be dressed very early in themorning, to come down every day at the same hour, and she orderedtheir employments with monastic regularity. Augustine, however, hadbeen gifted by chance with a spirit lofty enough to feel the emptinessof such a life. Her blue eyes would sometimes be raised as if topierce the depths of that gloomy staircase and those damp store-rooms. After sounding the profound cloistral silence, she seemed to belistening to remote, inarticulate revelations of the life of passion, which accounts feelings as of higher value than things. And at suchmoments her cheek would flush, her idle hands would lay the muslinsewing on the polished oak counter, and presently her mother would sayin a voice, of which even the softest tones were sour, "Augustine, mytreasure, what are you thinking about?" It is possible that tworomances discovered by Augustine in the cupboard of a cook MadameGuillaume had lately discharged--_Hippolyte Comte de Douglas_ and _LeComte de Comminges_--may have contributed to develop the ideas of theyoung girl, who had devoured them in secret, during the long nights ofthe past winter. 

And so Augustine's expression of vague longing, her gentle voice, herjasmine skin, and her blue eyes had lighted in poor Lebas' soul aflame as ardent as it was reverent. From an easily understood caprice, Augustine felt no affection for the orphan; perhaps she did not knowthat he loved her. On the other hand, the senior apprentice, with hislong legs, his chestnut hair, his big hands and powerful frame, hadfound a secret admirer in Mademoiselle Virginie, who, in spite of herdower of fifty thousand crowns, had as yet no suitor. Nothing could bemore natural than these two passions at cross-purposes, born in thesilence of the dingy shop, as violets bloom in the depths of a wood. The mute and constant looks which made the young people's eyes meet bysheer need of change in the midst of persistent work and cloisteredpeace, was sure, sooner or later, to give rise to feelings of love. The habit of seeing always the same face leads insensibly to ourreading there the qualities of the soul, and at last effaces all itsdefects. 

"At the pace at which that man goes, our girls will soon have to go ontheir knees to a suitor!" said Monsieur Guillaume to himself, as heread the first decree by which Napoleon drew in advance on theconscript classes. 

From that day the old merchant, grieved at seeing his eldest daughterfade, remembered how he had married Mademoiselle Chevrel under muchthe same circumstances as those of Joseph Lebas and Virginie. A goodbit of business, to marry off his daughter, and discharge a sacreddebt by repaying to an orphan the benefit he had formerly receivedfrom his predecessor under similar conditions! Joseph Lebas, who wasnow three-and-thirty, was aware of the obstacle which a difference offifteen years placed between Augustine and himself. Being also tooclear-sighted not to understand Monsieur Guillaume's purpose, he knewhis inexorable principles well enough to feel sure that the secondwould never marry before the elder. So the hapless assistant, whoseheart was as warm as his legs were long and his chest deep, sufferedin silence. 

This was the state of the affairs in the tiny republic which, in theheart of the Rue Saint-Denis, was not unlike a dependency of LaTrappe. But to give a full account of events as well as of feelings, it is needful to go back to some months before the scene with whichthis story opens. At dusk one evening, a young man passing thedarkened shop of the Cat and Racket, had paused for a moment to gazeat a picture which might have arrested every painter in the world. Theshop was not yet lighted, and was as a dark cave beyond which thedining-room was visible. A hanging lamp shed the yellow light whichlends such charm to pictures of the Dutch school. The white linen, thesilver, the cut glass, were brilliant accessories, and made morepicturesque by strong contrasts of light and shade. The figures of thehead of the family and his wife, the faces of the apprentices, and thepure form of Augustine, near whom a fat chubby-cheeked maid wasstanding, composed so strange a group; the heads were so singular, andevery face had so candid an expression; it was so easy to read thepeace, the silence, the modest way of life in this family, that to anartist accustomed to render nature, there was something hopeless inany attempt to depict this scene, come upon by chance. The strangerwas a young painter, who, seven years before, had gained the firstprize for painting. He had now just come back from Rome. His soul, full-fed with poetry; his eyes, satiated with Raphael and MichaelAngelo, thirsted for real nature after long dwelling in the pompousland where art has everywhere left something grandiose. Right orwrong, this was his personal feeling. His heart, which had long been aprey to the fire of Italian passion, craved one of those modest andmeditative maidens whom in Rome he had unfortunately seen only inpainting. From the enthusiasm produced in his excited fancy by theliving picture before him, he naturally passed to a profoundadmiration for the principal figure; Augustine seemed to be pensive, and did not eat; by the arrangement of the lamp the light fell full onher face, and her bust seemed to move in a circle of fire, which threwup the shape of her head and illuminated it with almost supernaturaleffect. The artist involuntarily compared her to an exiled angeldreaming of heaven. An almost unknown emotion, a limpid, seething loveflooded his heart. After remaining a minute, overwhelmed by the weightof his ideas, he tore himself from his bliss, went home, ate nothing, and could not sleep. 

The next day he went to his studio, and did not come out of it till hehad placed on canvas the magic of the scene of which the memory had, in a sense, made him a devotee; his happiness was incomplete till heshould possess a faithful portrait of his idol. He went many timespast the house of the Cat and Racket; he even ventured in once ortwice, under a disguise, to get a closer view of the bewitchingcreature that Madame Guillaume covered with her wing. For eight wholemonths, devoted to his love and to his brush, he was lost to the sightof his most intimate friends forgetting the world, the theatre, poetry, music, and all his dearest habits. One morning Girodet brokethrough all the barriers with which artists are familiar, and whichthey know how to evade, went into his room, and woke him by asking, "What are you going to send to the Salon?" The artist grasped hisfriend's hand, dragged him off to the studio, uncovered a small easelpicture and a portrait. After a long and eager study of the twomasterpieces, Girodet threw himself on his comrade's neck and huggedhim, without speaking a word. His feelings could only be expressed ashe felt them--soul to soul. 

"You are in love?" said Girodet. 

They both knew that the finest portraits by Titian, Raphael, andLeonardo da Vinci, were the outcome of the enthusiastic sentiments bywhich, indeed, under various conditions, every masterpiece isengendered. The artist only bent his head in reply. 

"How happy are you to be able to be in love, here, after coming backfrom Italy! But I do not advise you to send such works as these to theSalon, " the great painter went on. "You see, these two works will notbe appreciated. Such true coloring, such prodigious work, cannot yetbe understood; the public is not accustomed to such depths. Thepictures we paint, my dear fellow, are mere screens. We should dobetter to turn rhymes, and translate the antique poets! There is moreglory to be looked for there than from our luckless canvases!"

Notwithstanding this charitable advice, the two pictures wereexhibited. The _Interior_ made a revolution in painting. It gave birthto the pictures of genre which pour into all our exhibitions in suchprodigious quantity that they might be supposed to be produced bymachinery. As to the portrait, few artists have forgotten thatlifelike work; and the public, which as a body is sometimesdiscerning, awarded it the crown which Girodet himself had hung overit. The two pictures were surrounded by a vast throng. They fought forplaces, as women say. Speculators and moneyed men would have coveredthe canvas with double napoleons, but the artist obstinately refusedto sell or to make replicas. An enormous sum was offered him for theright of engraving them, and the print-sellers were not more favoredthan the amateurs. 

Though these incidents occupied the world, they were not of a natureto penetrate the recesses of the monastic solitude in the RueSaint-Denis. However, when paying a visit to Madame Guillaume, thenotary's wife spoke of the exhibition before Augustine, of whom she wasvery fond, and explained its purpose. Madame Roguin's gossip naturallyinspired Augustine with a wish to see the pictures, and with courageenough to ask her cousin secretly to take her to the Louvre. Hercousin succeeded in the negotiations she opened with Madame Guillaumefor permission to release the young girl for two hours from her dulllabors. Augustine was thus able to make her way through the crowd tosee the crowned work. A fit of trembling shook her like an aspen leafas she recognized herself. She was terrified, and looked about her tofind Madame Roguin, from whom she had been separated by a tide ofpeople. At that moment her frightened eyes fell on the impassionedface of the young painter. She at once recalled the figure of aloiterer whom, being curious, she had frequently observed, believinghim to be a new neighbor. 

"You see how love has inspired me, " said the artist in the timidcreature's ear, and she stood in dismay at the words. 

She found supernatural courage to enable her to push through the crowdand join her cousin, who was still struggling with the mass of peoplethat hindered her from getting to the picture. 

"You will be stifled!" cried Augustine. "Let us go. "

But there are moments, at the Salon, when two women are not alwaysfree to direct their steps through the galleries. By the irregularcourse to which they were compelled by the press, MademoiselleGuillaume and her cousin were pushed to within a few steps of thesecond picture. Chance thus brought them, both together, to where theycould easily see the canvas made famous by fashion, for once inagreement with talent. Madame Roguin's exclamation of surprise waslost in the hubbub and buzz of the crowd; Augustine involuntarily shedtears at the sight of this wonderful study. Then, by an almostunaccountable impulse, she laid her finger on her lips, as sheperceived quite near her the ecstatic face of the young painter. Thestranger replied by a nod, and pointed to Madame Roguin, as aspoil-sport, to show Augustine that he had understood. This pantomimestruck the young girl like hot coals on her flesh; she felt quite guiltyas she perceived that there was a compact between herself and the artist. The suffocating heat, the dazzling sight of beautiful dresses, thebewilderment produced in Augustine's brain by the truth of coloring, the multitude of living or painted figures, the profusion of giltframes, gave her a sense of intoxication which doubled her alarms. Shewould perhaps have fainted if an unknown rapture had not surged up inher heart to vivify her whole being, in spite of this chaos ofsensations. She nevertheless believed herself to be under the power ofthe Devil, of whose awful snares she had been warned of by thethundering words of preachers. This moment was to her like a moment ofmadness. She found herself accompanied to her cousin's carriage by theyoung man, radiant with joy and love. Augustine, a prey to anagitation new to her experience, an intoxication which seemed toabandon her to nature, listened to the eloquent voice of her heart, and looked again and again at the young painter, betraying the emotionthat came over her. Never had the bright rose of her cheeks shown instronger contrast with the whiteness of her skin. The artist saw herbeauty in all its bloom, her maiden modesty in all its glory. Sheherself felt a sort of rapture mingled with terror at thinking thather presence had brought happiness to him whose name was on every lip, and whose talent lent immortality to transient scenes. She was loved!It was impossible to doubt it. When she no longer saw the artist, these simple words still echoed in her ear, "You see how love hasinspired me!" And the throbs of her heart, as they grew deeper, seemeda pain, her heated blood revealed so many unknown forces in her being. She affected a severe headache to avoid replying to her cousin'squestions concerning the pictures; but on their return Madame Roguincould not forbear from speaking to Madame Guillaume of the fame thathad fallen on the house of the Cat and Racket, and Augustine quaked inevery limb as she heard her mother say that she should go to the Salonto see her house there. The young girl again declared herselfsuffering, and obtained leave to go to bed. 

"That is what comes of sight-seeing, " exclaimed Monsieur Guillaume--"aheadache. And is it so very amusing to see in a picture what you cansee any day in your own street? Don't talk to me of your artists! Likewriters, they are a starveling crew. Why the devil need they choose myhouse to flout it in their pictures?"

"It may help to sell a few ells more of cloth, " said Joseph Lebas. 

This remark did not protect art and thought from being condemned onceagain before the judgment-seat of trade. As may be supposed, thesespeeches did not infuse much hope into Augustine, who, during thenight, gave herself up to the first meditations of love. The events ofthe day were like a dream, which it was a joy to recall to her mind. She was initiated into the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all the ebband flow of feeling which could not fail to toss a heart so simple andtimid as hers. What a void she perceived in this gloomy house! What atreasure she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to sharehis glory! What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girlbrought up among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a youngcreature who, in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life ofelegance! A sunbeam had fallen into the prison. Augustine was suddenlyin love. So many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbedwithout reflection. At eighteen does not love hold a prism between theworld and the eyes of a young girl? She was incapable of suspectingthe hard facts which result from the union of a loving woman with aman of imagination, and she believed herself called to make him happy, not seeing any disparity between herself and him. To her the futurewould be as the present. When, next day, her father and motherreturned from the Salon, their dejected faces proclaimed somedisappointment. In the first place, the painter had removed the twopictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost her cashmere shawl. Butthe news that the pictures had disappeared from the walls since hervisit revealed to Augustine a delicacy of sentiment which a woman canalways appreciate, even by instinct. 

On the morning when, on his way home from a ball, Theodore deSommervieux--for this was the name which fame had stamped onAugustine's heart--had been squirted on by the apprentices whileawaiting the appearance of his artless little friend, who certainlydid not know that he was there, the lovers had seen each other for thefourth time only since their meeting at the Salon. The difficultieswhich the rule of the house placed in the way of the painter's ardentnature gave added violence to his passion for Augustine. 

How could he get near to a young girl seated in a counting-housebetween two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame Guillaume?How could he correspond with her when her mother never left her side?Ingenious, as lovers are, to imagine woes, Theodore saw a rival in oneof the assistants, to whose interests he supposed the others to bedevoted. If he should evade these sons of Argus, he would yet bewrecked under the stern eye of the old draper or of Madame Guillaume. The very vehemence of his passion hindered the young painter fromhitting on the ingenious expedients which, in prisoners and in lovers, seem to be the last effort of intelligence spurred by a wild cravingfor liberty, or by the fire of love. Theodore wandered about theneighborhood with the restlessness of a madman, as though movementmight inspire him with some device. After racking his imagination, itoccurred to him to bribe the blowsy waiting-maid with gold. Thus a fewnotes were exchanged at long intervals during the fortnight followingthe ill-starred morning when Monsieur Guillaume and Theodore had soscrutinized one another. At the present moment the young couple hadagreed to see each other at a certain hour of the day, and on Sunday, at Saint-Leu, during Mass and vespers. Augustine had sent her dearTheodore a list of the relations and friends of the family, to whomthe young painter tried to get access, in the hope of interesting, ifit were possible, in his love affairs, one of these souls absorbed inmoney and trade, to whom a genuine passion must appear a quitemonstrous speculation, a thing unheard-of. Nothing meanwhile, wasaltered at the sign of the Cat and Racket. If Augustine wasabsent-minded, if, against all obedience to the domestic code, she stoleup to her room to make signals by means of a jar of flowers, if shesighed, if she were lost in thought, no one observed it, not even hermother. This will cause some surprise to those who have entered intothe spirit of the household, where an idea tainted with poetry wouldbe in startling contrast to persons and things, where no one couldventure on a gesture or a look which would not be seen and analyzed. Nothing, however, could be more natural: the quiet barque thatnavigated the stormy waters of the Paris Exchange, under the flag ofthe Cat and Racket, was just now in the toils of one of these tempestswhich, returning periodically, might be termed equinoctial. For thelast fortnight the five men forming the crew, with Madame Guillaumeand Mademoiselle Virginie, had been devoting themselves to the hardlabor, known as stock-taking. 

Every bale was turned over, and the length verified to ascertain theexact value of the remnant. The ticket attached to each parcel wascarefully examined to see at what time the piece had been bought. Theretail price was fixed. Monsieur Guillaume, always on his feet, hispen behind his ear, was like a captain commanding the working of theship. His sharp tones, spoken through a trap-door, to inquire into thedepths of the hold in the cellar-store, gave utterance to thebarbarous formulas of trade-jargon, which find expression only incipher. "How much H. N. Z. ?"--"All sold. "--"What is left of Q. X. ?"--"Two ells. "--"At what price?"--"Fifty-five three. "--"Set down A. Atthree, with all of J. J. , all of M. P. , and what is left of V. D. O. "--A hundred other injunctions equally intelligible were spouted overthe counters like verses of modern poetry, quoted by romantic spirits, to excite each other's enthusiasm for one of their poets. In theevening Guillaume, shut up with his assistant and his wife, balancedhis accounts, carried on the balance, wrote to debtors in arrears, andmade out bills. All three were busy over this enormous labor, of whichthe result could be stated on a sheet of foolscap, proving to the headof the house that there was so much to the good in hard cash, so muchin goods, so much in bills and notes; that he did not owe a sou; thata hundred or two hundred thousand francs were owing to him; that thecapital had been increased; that the farmlands, the houses, or theinvestments were extended, or repaired, or doubled. Whence it becamenecessary to begin again with increased ardor, to accumulate morecrown-pieces, without its ever entering the brain of these laboriousants to ask--"To what end?"

Favored by this annual turmoil, the happy Augustine escaped theinvestigations of her Argus-eyed relations. At last, one Saturdayevening, the stock-taking was finished. The figures of the sum-totalshowed a row of 0's long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relaxthe stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the year. Theshrewd old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants toremain at table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed theirthimbleful of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriagewas heard. The family party were going to see _Cendrillon_ at theVarietes, while the two younger apprentices each received a crown ofsix francs, with permission to go wherever they chose, provided theywere in by midnight. 

Notwithstanding this debauch, the old cloth-merchant was shavinghimself at six next morning, put on his maroon-colored coat, of whichthe glowing lights afforded him perennial enjoyment, fastened a pairof gold buckles on the knee-straps of his ample satin breeches; andthen, at about seven o'clock, while all were still sleeping in thehouse, he made his way to the little office adjoining the shop on thefirst floor. Daylight came in through a window, fortified by ironbars, and looking out on a small yard surrounded by such black wallsthat it was very like a well. The old merchant opened the iron-linedshutters, which were so familiar to him, and threw up the lower halfof the sash window. The icy air of the courtyard came in to cool thehot atmosphere of the little room, full of the odor peculiar tooffices. 

The merchant remained standing, his hand resting on the greasy arm ofa large cane chair lined with morocco, of which the original hue haddisappeared; he seemed to hesitate as to seating himself. He lookedwith affection at the double desk, where his wife's seat, opposite hisown, was fitted into a little niche in the wall. He contemplated thenumbered boxes, the files, the implements, the cash box--objects allof immemorial origin, and fancied himself in the room with the shadeof Master Chevrel. He even pulled out the high stool on which he hadonce sat in the presence of his departed master. This stool, coveredwith black leather, the horse-hair showing at every corner--as it hadlong done, without, however, coming out--he placed with a shaking handon the very spot where his predecessor had put it, and then, with anemotion difficult to describe, he pulled a bell, which rang at thehead of Joseph Lebas' bed. When this decisive blow had been struck, the old man, for whom, no doubt, these reminiscences were too much, took up three or four bills of exchange, and looked at them withoutseeing them. 

Suddenly Joseph Lebas stood before him. 

"Sit down there, " said Guillaume, pointing to the stool. 

As the old master draper had never yet bid his assistant be seated inhis presence, Joseph Lebas was startled. 

"What do you think of these notes?" asked Guillaume. 

"They will never be paid. "

"Why?"

"Well, I heard the day before yesterday Etienne and Co. Had made theirpayments in gold. "

"Oh, oh!" said the draper. "Well, one must be very ill to show one'sbile. Let us speak of something else. --Joseph, the stock-taking isdone. "

"Yes, monsieur, and the dividend is one of the best you have evermade. "

"Do not use new-fangled words. Say the profits, Joseph. Do you know, my boy, that this result is partly owing to you? And I do not intendto pay you a salary any longer. Madame Guillaume has suggested to meto take you into partnership. --'Guillaume and Lebas;' will not thatmake a good business name? We might add, 'and Co. ' to round off thefirm's signature. "

Tears rose to the eyes of Joseph Lebas, who tried to hide them. 

"Oh, Monsieur Guillaume, how have I deserved such kindness? I only domy duty. It was so much already that you should take an interest in apoor orph----"

He was brushing the cuff of his left sleeve with his right hand, anddared not look at the old man, who smiled as he thought that thismodest young fellow no doubt needed, as he had needed once on a time, some encouragement to complete his explanation. 

"To be sure, " said Virginie's father, "you do not altogether deservethis favor, Joseph. You have not so much confidence in me as I have inyou. " (The young man looked up quickly. ) "You know all the secrets ofthe cash-box. For the last two years I have told you almost all myconcerns. I have sent you to travel in our goods. In short, I havenothing on my conscience as regards you. But you--you have a softplace, and you have never breathed a word of it. " Joseph Lebasblushed. "Ah, ha!" cried Guillaume, "so you thought you could deceivean old fox like me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocqbankruptcy?"

"What, monsieur?" replied Joseph Lebas, looking at his master askeenly as his master looked at him, "you knew that I was in love?"

"I know everything, you rascal, " said the worthy and cunning oldmerchant, pulling the assistant's ear. "And I forgive you--I did thesame myself. "

"And you will give her to me?"

"Yes--with fifty thousand crowns; and I will leave you as much bywill, and we will start on our new career under the name of a newfirm. We will do good business yet, my boy!" added the old man, getting up and flourishing his arms. "I tell you, son-in-law, there isnothing like trade. Those who ask what pleasure is to be found in itare simpletons. To be on the scent of a good bargain, to hold your ownon 'Change, to watch as anxiously as at the gaming-table whetherEtienne and Co. Will fail or no, to see a regiment of Guards marchpast all dressed in your cloth, to trip your neighbor up--honestly ofcourse!--to make the goods cheaper than others can; then to carry outan undertaking which you have planned, which begins, grows, totters, and succeeds! to know the workings of every house of business as wellas a minister of police, so as never to make a mistake; to hold upyour head in the midst of wrecks, to have friends by correspondence inevery manufacturing town; is not that a perpetual game, Joseph? Thatis life, that is! I shall die in that harness, like old Chevrel, buttaking it easy now, all the same. "

In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely lookedat his assistant, who was weeping copiously. "Why, Joseph, my poorboy, what is the matter?"

"Oh, I love her so! Monsieur Guillaume, that my heart fails me; Ibelieve----"

"Well, well, boy, " said the old man, touched, "you are happier thanyou know, by God! For she loves you. I know it. "

And he blinked his little green eyes as he looked at the young man. 

"Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!" exclaimed JosephLebas in his rapture. 

He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched bya hand of iron, and his astonished master spun him round in front ofhim once more. 

"What has Augustine to do with this matter?" he asked, in a voicewhich instantly froze the luckless Joseph. 

"Is it not she that--that--I love?" stammered the assistant. 

Much put out by his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat downagain, and rested his long head in his hands to consider theperplexing situation in which he found himself. Joseph Lebas, shamefaced and in despair, remained standing. 

"Joseph, " the draper said with frigid dignity, "I was speaking ofVirginie. Love cannot be made to order, I know. I know, too, that youcan be trusted. We will forget all this. I will not let Augustinemarry before Virginie. --Your interest will be ten per cent. "

The young man, to whom love gave I know not what power of courage andeloquence, clasped his hand, and spoke in his turn--spoke for aquarter of an hour, with so much warmth and feeling, that he alteredthe situation. If the question had been a matter of business the oldtradesman would have had fixed principles to guide his decision; but, tossed a thousand miles from commerce, on the ocean of sentiment, without a compass, he floated, as he told himself, undecided in theface of such an unexpected event. Carried away by his fatherlykindness, he began to beat about the bush. 

"Deuce take it, Joseph, you must know that there are ten years betweenmy two children. Mademoiselle Chevrel was no beauty, still she has hadnothing to complain of in me. Do as I did. Come, come, don't cry. Canyou be so silly? What is to be done? It can be managed perhaps. Thereis always some way out of a scrape. And we men are not always devotedCeladons to our wives--you understand? Madame Guillaume is very pious. . . . Come. By Gad, boy, give your arm to Augustine this morning as wego to Mass. "

These were the phrases spoken at random by the old draper, and theirconclusion made the lover happy. He was already thinking of a friendof his as a match for Mademoiselle Virginie, as he went out of thesmoky office, pressing his future father-in-law's hand, after sayingwith a knowing look that all would turn out for the best. 

"What will Madame Guillaume say to it?" was the idea that greatlytroubled the worthy merchant when he found himself alone. 

At breakfast Madame Guillaume and Virginie, to whom the draper had notyet confided his disappointment, cast meaning glances at Joseph Lebas, who was extremely embarrassed. The young assistant's bashfulnesscommended him to his mother-in-law's good graces. The matron became socheerful that she smiled as she looked at her husband, and allowedherself some little pleasantries of time-honored acceptance in suchsimple families. She wondered whether Joseph or Virginie were thetaller, to ask them to compare their height. This preliminary foolingbrought a cloud to the master's brow, and he even made such a point ofdecorum that he desired Augustine to take the assistant's arm on theirway to Saint-Leu. Madame Guillaume, surprised at this manly delicacy, honored her husband with a nod of approval. So the procession left thehouse in such order as to suggest no suspicious meaning to theneighbors. 

"Does it not seem to you, Mademoiselle Augustine, " said the assistant, and he trembled, "that the wife of a merchant whose credit is as goodas Monsieur Guillaume's, for instance, might enjoy herself a littlemore than Madame your mother does? Might wear diamonds--or keep acarriage? For my part, if I were to marry, I should be glad to takeall the work, and see my wife happy. I would not put her into thecounting-house. In the drapery business, you see, a woman is not sonecessary now as formerly. Monsieur Guillaume was quite right to actas he did--and besides, his wife liked it. But so long as a womanknows how to turn her hand to the book-keeping, the correspondence, the retail business, the orders, and her housekeeping, so as not tosit idle, that is enough. At seven o'clock, when the shop is shut, Ishall take my pleasures, go to the play, and into company. --But youare not listening to me. "

"Yes, indeed, Monsieur Joseph. What do you think of painting? That isa fine calling. "

"Yes. I know a master house-painter, Monsieur Lourdois. He iswell-to-do. "

Thus conversing, the family reached the Church of Saint-Leu. ThereMadame Guillaume reasserted her rights, and, for the first time, placed Augustine next herself, Virginie taking her place on the fourthchair, next to Lebas. During the sermon all went well betweenAugustine and Theodore, who, standing behind a pillar, worshiped hisMadonna with fervent devotion; but at the elevation of the Host, Madame Guillaume discovered, rather late, that her daughter Augustinewas holding her prayer-book upside down. She was about to speak to herstrongly, when, lowering her veil, she interrupted her own devotionsto look in the direction where her daughter's eyes found attraction. By the help of her spectacles she saw the young artist, whosefashionable elegance seemed to proclaim him a cavalry officer on leaverather than a tradesman of the neighborhood. It is difficult toconceive of the state of violent agitation in which Madame Guillaumefound herself--she, who flattered herself on having brought up herdaughters to perfection--on discovering in Augustine a clandestinepassion of which her prudery and ignorance exaggerated the perils. Shebelieved her daughter to be cankered to the core. 

"Hold your book right way up, miss, " she muttered in a low voice, tremulous with wrath. She snatched away the tell-tale prayer-book andreturned it with the letter-press right way up. "Do not allow youreyes to look anywhere but at your prayers, " she added, "or I shallhave something to say to you. Your father and I will talk to you afterchurch. "

These words came like a thunderbolt on poor Augustine. She felt faint;but, torn between the distress she felt and the dread of causing acommotion in church she bravely concealed her anguish. It was, however, easy to discern the stormy state of her soul from thetrembling of her prayer-book, and the tears which dropped on everypage she turned. From the furious glare shot at him by MadameGuillaume the artist saw the peril into which his love affair hadfallen; he went out, with a raging soul, determined to venture all. 

"Go to your room, miss!" said Madame Guillaume, on their return home;"we will send for you, but take care not to quit it. "

The conference between the husband and wife was conducted so secretlythat at first nothing was heard of it. Virginie, however, who hadtried to give her sister courage by a variety of gentle remonstrances, carried her good nature so far as to listen at the door of hermother's bedroom where the discussion was held, to catch a word ortwo. The first time she went down to the lower floor she heard herfather exclaim, "Then, madame, do you wish to kill your daughter?"

"My poor dear!" said Virginie, in tears, "papa takes your part. "

"And what do they want to do to Theodore?" asked the innocent girl. 

Virginie, inquisitive, went down again; but this time she stayedlonger; she learned that Joseph Lebas loved Augustine. It was writtenthat on this memorable day, this house, generally so peaceful, shouldbe a hell. Monsieur Guillaume brought Joseph Lebas to despair bytelling him of Augustine's love for a stranger. Lebas, who had advisedhis friend to become a suitor for Mademoiselle Virginie, saw all hishopes wrecked. Mademoiselle Virginie, overcome by hearing that Josephhad, in a way, refused her, had a sick headache. The dispute that hadarisen from the discussion between Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, when, for the third time in their lives, they had been of antagonisticopinions, had shown itself in a terrible form. Finally, at half-pastfour in the afternoon, Augustine, pale, trembling, and with red eyes, was haled before her father and mother. The poor child artlesslyrelated the too brief tale of her love. Reassured by a speech from herfather, who promised to listen to her in silence, she gathered courageas she pronounced to her parents the name of Theodore de Sommervieux, with a mischievous little emphasis on the aristocratic _de_. Andyielding to the unknown charm of talking of her feelings, she wasbrave enough to declare with innocent decision that she loved Monsieurde Sommervieux, that she had written to him, and she added, with tearsin her eyes: "To sacrifice me to another man would make me wretched. "

"But, Augustine, you cannot surely know what a painter is?" cried hermother with horror. 

"Madame Guillaume!" said the old man, compelling her to silence. --"Augustine, " he went on, "artists are generally little better thanbeggars. They are too extravagant not to be always a bad sort. Iserved the late Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur Lekain, andthe late Monsieur Noverre. Oh, if you could only know the tricksplayed on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by theChevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! Theyare a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nicemanners. Ah, your Monsieur Sumer--, Somm----"

"De Sommervieux, papa. "

"Well, well, de Sommervieux, well and good. He can never have beenhalf so sweet to you as Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was tome the day I got a verdict of the consuls against him. And in thosedays they were gentlemen of quality. "

"But, father, Monsieur Theodore is of good family, and he wrote methat he is rich; his father was called Chevalier de Sommervieux beforethe Revolution. "

At these words Monsieur Guillaume looked at his terrible better half, who, like an angry woman, sat tapping the floor with her foot whilekeeping sullen silence; she avoided even casting wrathful looks atAugustine, appearing to leave to Monsieur Guillaume the wholeresponsibility in so grave a matter, since her opinion was notlistened to. Nevertheless, in spite of her apparent self-control, whenshe saw her husband giving way so mildly under a catastrophe which hadno concern with business, she exclaimed:

"Really, monsieur, you are so weak with your daughters! However----"

The sound of a carriage, which stopped at the door, interrupted therating which the old draper already quaked at. In a minute MadameRoguin was standing in the middle of the room, and looking at theactors in this domestic scene: "I know all, my dear cousin, " said she, with a patronizing air. 

Madame Roguin made the great mistake of supposing that a Parisnotary's wife could play the part of a favorite of fashion. 

"I know all, " she repeated, "and I have come into Noah's Ark, like thedove, with the olive-branch. I read that allegory in the _Genie duChristianisme_, " she added, turning to Madame Guillaume; "the allusionought to please you, cousin. Do you know, " she went on, smiling atAugustine, "that Monsieur de Sommervieux is a charming man? He gave memy portrait this morning, painted by a master's hand. It is worth atleast six thousand francs. " And at these words she patted MonsieurGuillaume on the arm. The old draper could not help making a grimacewith his lips, which was peculiar to him. 

"I know Monsieur de Sommervieux very well, " the Dove ran on. "He hascome to my evenings this fortnight past, and made them delightful. Hehas told me all his woes, and commissioned me to plead for him. I knowsince this morning that he adores Augustine, and he shall have her. Ah, cousin, do not shake your head in refusal. He will be createdBaron, I can tell you, and has just been made Chevalier of the Legionof Honor, by the Emperor himself, at the Salon. Roguin is now hislawyer, and knows all his affairs. Well! Monsieur de Sommervieux hastwelve thousand francs a year in good landed estate. Do you know thatthe father-in-law of such a man may get a rise in life--be mayor ofhis _arrondissement_, for instance. Have we not seen Monsieur Dupontbecome a Count of the Empire, and a senator, all because he went asmayor to congratulate the Emperor on his entry into Vienna? Oh, thismarriage must take place! For my part, I adore the dear young man. Hisbehavior to Augustine is only met with in romances. Be easy, littleone, you shall be happy, and every girl will wish she were in yourplace. Madame la Duchesse de Carigliano, who comes to my 'At Homes, 'raves about Monsieur de Sommervieux. Some spiteful people say she onlycomes to me to meet him; as if a duchesse of yesterday was doing toomuch honor to a Chevrel, whose family have been respected citizensthese hundred years!

"Augustine, " Madame Roguin went on, after a short pause, "I have seenthe portrait. Heavens! How lovely it is! Do you know that the Emperorwanted to have it? He laughed, and said to the Deputy High Constablethat if there were many women like that in his court while all thekings visited it, he should have no difficulty about preserving thepeace of Europe. Is not that a compliment?"

The tempests with which the day had begun were to resemble those ofnature, by ending in clear and serene weather. Madame Roguin displayedso much address in her harangue, she was able to touch so many stringsin the dry hearts of Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, that at last shehit on one which she could work upon. At this strange period commerceand finance were more than ever possessed by the crazy mania forseeking alliance with rank; and the generals of the Empire took fulladvantage of this desire. Monsieur Guillaume, as a singular exception, opposed this deplorable craving. His favorite axioms were that, tosecure happiness, a woman must marry a man of her own class; thatevery one was punished sooner or later for having climbed too high;that love could so little endure under the worries of a household, that both husband and wife needed sound good qualities to be happy, that it would not do for one to be far in advance of the other, because, above everything, they must understand each other; if a manspoke Greek and his wife Latin, they might come to die of hunger. Hehad himself invented this sort of adage. And he compared suchmarriages to old-fashioned materials of mixed silk and wool. Still, there is so much vanity at the bottom of man's heart that the prudenceof the pilot who steered the Cat and Racket so wisely gave way beforeMadame Roguin's aggressive volubility. Austere Madame Guillaume wasthe first to see in her daughter's affection a reason for abdicatingher principles and for consenting to receive Monsieur de Sommervieux, whom she promised herself she would put under severe inquisition. 

The old draper went to look for Joseph Lebas, and inform him of thestate of affairs. At half-past six, the dining-room immortalized bythe artist saw, united under its skylight, Monsieur and Madame Roguin, the young painter and his charming Augustine, Joseph Lebas, who foundhis happiness in patience, and Mademoiselle Virginie, convalescentfrom her headache. Monsieur and Madame Guillaume saw in perspectiveboth their children married, and the fortunes of the Cat and Racketonce more in skilful hands. Their satisfaction was at its height when, at dessert, Theodore made them a present of the wonderful picturewhich they had failed to see, representing the interior of the oldshop, and to which they all owed so much happiness. 

"Isn't it pretty!" cried Guillaume. "And to think that any one wouldpay thirty thousand francs for that!"

"Because you can see my lappets in it, " said Madame Guillaume. 

"And the cloth unrolled!" added Lebas; "you might take it up in yourhand. "

"Drapery always comes out well, " replied the painter. "We should beonly too happy, we modern artists, if we could touch the perfection ofantique drapery. "

"So you like drapery!" cried old Guillaume. "Well, then, by Gad! shakehands on that, my young friend. Since you can respect trade, we shallunderstand each other. And why should it be despised? The world beganwith trade, since Adam sold Paradise for an apple. He did not strike agood bargain though!" And the old man roared with honest laughter, encouraged by the champagne, which he sent round with a liberal hand. The band that covered the young artist's eyes was so thick that hethought his future parents amiable. He was not above enlivening themby a few jests in the best taste. So he too pleased every one. In theevening, when the drawing-room, furnished with what Madame Guillaumecalled "everything handsome, " was deserted, and while she flitted fromthe table to the chimney-piece, from the candelabra to the tallcandlesticks, hastily blowing out the wax-lights, the worthy draper, who was always clear-sighted when money was in question, calledAugustine to him, and seating her on his knee, spoke as follows:--

"My dear child, you shall marry your Sommervieux since you insist; youmay, if you like, risk your capital in happiness. But I am not goingto be hoodwinked by the thirty thousand francs to be made by spoilinggood canvas. Money that is lightly earned is lightly spent. Did I nothear that hare-brained youngster declare this evening that money wasmade round that it might roll. If it is round for spendthrifts, it isflat for saving folks who pile it up. Now, my child, that finegentleman talks of giving you carriages and diamonds! He has money, let him spend it on you; so be it. It is no concern of mine. But as towhat I can give you, I will not have the crown-pieces I have picked upwith so much toil wasted in carriages and frippery. Those who spendtoo fast never grow rich. A hundred thousand crowns, which is yourfortune, will not buy up Paris. It is all very well to look forward toa few hundred thousand francs to be yours some day; I shall keep youwaiting for them as long as possible, by Gad! So I took your loveraside, and a man who managed the Lecocq bankruptcy had not muchdifficulty in persuading the artist to marry under a settlement of hiswife's money on herself. I will keep an eye on the marriage contractto see that what he is to settle on you is safely tied up. So now, mychild, I hope to be a grandfather, by Gad! I will begin at once to layup for my grandchildren; but swear to me, here and now, never to signany papers relating to money without my advice; and if I go soon tojoin old Father Chevrel, promise to consult young Lebas, yourbrother-in-law. "

"Yes, father, I swear it. "

At these words, spoken in a gentle voice, the old man kissed hisdaughter on both cheeks. That night the lovers slept as soundly asMonsieur and Madame Guillaume. 

Some few months after this memorable Sunday the high altar ofSaint-Leu was the scene of two very different weddings. Augustine andTheodore appeared in all the radiance of happiness, their eyes beamingwith love, dressed with elegance, while a fine carriage waited forthem. Virginie, who had come in a good hired fly with the rest of thefamily, humbly followed her younger sister, dressed in the simplestfashion like a shadow necessary to the harmony of the picture. Monsieur Guillaume had exerted himself to the utmost in the church toget Virginie married before Augustine, but the priests, high and low, persisted in addressing the more elegant of the two brides. He heardsome of his neighbors highly approving the good sense of MademoiselleVirginie, who was making, as they said, the more substantial match, and remaining faithful to the neighborhood; while they fired a fewtaunts, prompted by envy of Augustine, who was marrying an artist anda man of rank; adding, with a sort of dismay, that if the Guillaumeswere ambitious, there was an end to the business. An old fan-makerhaving remarked that such a prodigal would soon bring his wife tobeggary, father Guillaume prided himself _in petto_ for his prudencein the matter of marriage settlements. In the evening, after asplendid ball, followed by one of those substantial suppers of whichthe memory is dying out in the present generation, Monsieur and MadameGuillaume remained in a fine house belonging to them in the Rue duColombier, where the wedding had been held; Monsieur and Madame Lebasreturned in their fly to the old home in the Rue Saint-Denis, to steerthe good ship Cat and Racket. The artist, intoxicated with happiness, carried off his beloved Augustine, and eagerly lifting her out oftheir carriage when it reached the Rue des Trois-Freres, led her to anapartment embellished by all the arts. 

The fever of passion which possessed Theodore made a year fly over theyoung couple without a single cloud to dim the blue sky under whichthey lived. Life did not hang heavy on the lovers' hands. Theodorelavished on every day inexhaustible _fioriture_ of enjoyment, and hedelighted to vary the transports of passion by the soft languor ofthose hours of repose when souls soar so high that they seem to haveforgotten all bodily union. Augustine was too happy for reflection;she floated on an undulating tide of rapture; she thought she couldnot do enough by abandoning herself to sanctioned and sacred marriedlove; simple and artless, she had no coquetry, no reserves, none ofthe dominion which a worldly-minded girl acquires over her husband byingenious caprice; she loved too well to calculate for the future, andnever imagined that so exquisite a life could come to an end. Happy inbeing her husband's sole delight, she believed that herinextinguishable love would always be her greatest grace in his eyes, as her devotion and obedience would be a perennial charm. And, indeed, the ecstasy of love had made her so brilliantly lovely that her beautyfilled her with pride, and gave her confidence that she could alwaysreign over a man so easy to kindle as Monsieur de Sommervieux. Thusher position as a wife brought her no knowledge but the lessons oflove. 

In the midst of her happiness, she was still the simple child who hadlived in obscurity in the Rue Saint-Denis, and who never thought ofacquiring the manners, the information, the tone of the world she hadto live in. Her words being the words of love, she revealed in them, no doubt, a certain pliancy of mind and a certain refinement ofspeech; but she used the language common to all women when they findthemselves plunged in passion, which seems to be their element. When, by chance, Augustine expressed an idea that did not harmonize withTheodore's, the young artist laughed, as we laugh at the firstmistakes of a foreigner, though they end by annoying us if they arenot corrected. 

In spite of all this love-making, by the end of this year, asdelightful as it was swift, Sommervieux felt one morning the need forresuming his work and his old habits. His wife was expecting theirfirst child. He saw some friends again. During the tedious discomfortsof the year when a young wife is nursing an infant for the first time, he worked, no doubt, with zeal, but he occasionally sought diversionin the fashionable world. The house which he was best pleased tofrequent was that of the Duchesse de Carigliano, who had at lastattracted the celebrated artist to her parties. When Augustine wasquite well again, and her boy no longer required the assiduous carewhich debars a mother from social pleasures, Theodore had come to thestage of wishing to know the joys of satisfied vanity to be found insociety by a man who shows himself with a handsome woman, the objectof envy and admiration. 

To figure in drawing-rooms with the reflected lustre of her husband'sfame, and to find other women envious of her, was to Augustine a newharvest of pleasures; but it was the last gleam of conjugal happiness. She first wounded her husband's vanity when, in spite of vain efforts, she betrayed her ignorance, the inelegance of her language, and thenarrowness of her ideas. Sommervieux's nature, subjugated for nearlytwo years and a half by the first transports of love, now, in the calmof less new possession, recovered its bent and habits, for a whilediverted from their channel. Poetry, painting, and the subtle joys ofimagination have inalienable rights over a lofty spirit. Thesecravings of a powerful soul had not been starved in Theodore duringthese two years; they had only found fresh pasture. As soon as themeadows of love had been ransacked, and the artist had gathered rosesand cornflowers as the children do, so greedily that he did not seethat his hands could hold no more, the scene changed. When the paintershowed his wife the sketches for his finest compositions he heard herexclaim, as her father had done, "How pretty!" This tepid admirationwas not the outcome of conscientious feeling, but of her faith on thestrength of love. 

Augustine cared more for a look than for the finest picture. The onlysublime she knew was that of the heart. At last Theodore could notresist the evidence of the cruel fact--his wife was insensible topoetry, she did not dwell in his sphere, she could not follow him inall his vagaries, his inventions, his joys and his sorrows; she walkedgroveling in the world of reality, while his head was in the skies. Common minds cannot appreciate the perennial sufferings of a beingwho, while bound to another by the most intimate affections, isobliged constantly to suppress the dearest flights of his soul, and tothrust down into the void those images which a magic power compels himto create. To him the torture is all the more intolerable because hisfeeling towards his companion enjoins, as its first law, that theyshould have no concealments, but mingle the aspirations of theirthought as perfectly as the effusions of their soul. The demands ofnature are not to be cheated. She is as inexorable as necessity, whichis, indeed, a sort of social nature. Sommervieux took refuge in thepeace and silence of his studio, hoping that the habit of living withartists might mould his wife and develop in her the dormant germs oflofty intelligence which some superior minds suppose must exist inevery being. But Augustine was too sincerely religious not to takefright at the tone of artists. At the first dinner Theodore gave, sheheard a young painter say, with the childlike lightness, which to herwas unintelligible, and which redeems a jest from the taint ofprofanity, "But, madame, your Paradise cannot be more beautiful thanRaphael's Transfiguration!--Well, and I got tired of looking at that. "

Thus Augustine came among this sparkling set in a spirit of distrustwhich no one could fail to see. She was a restraint on their freedom. Now an artist who feels restraint is pitiless; he stays away, orlaughs it to scorn. Madame Guillaume, among other absurdities, had anexcessive notion of the dignity she considered the prerogative of amarried woman; and Augustine, though she had often made fun of it, could not help a slight imitation of her mother's primness. Thisextreme propriety, which virtuous wives do not always avoid, suggesteda few epigrams in the form of sketches, in which the harmless jest wasin such good taste that Sommervieux could not take offence; and evenif they had been more severe, these pleasantries were after all onlyreprisals from his friends. Still, nothing could seem a trifle to aspirit so open as Theodore's to impressions from without. A coldnessinsensibly crept over him, and inevitably spread. To attain conjugalhappiness we must climb a hill whose summit is a narrow ridge, closeto a steep and slippery descent: the painter's love was falling downit. He regarded his wife as incapable of appreciating the moralconsiderations which justified him in his own eyes for his singularbehavior to her, and believed himself quite innocent in hiding fromher thoughts she could not enter into, and peccadilloes outside thejurisdiction of a _bourgeois_ conscience. Augustine wrapped herself insullen and silent grief. These unconfessed feelings placed a shroudbetween the husband and wife which could not fail to grow thicker dayby day. Though her husband never failed in consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw that he kept for theouter world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly wouldlay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister meaning in thejocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancyof men. She made no complaints, but her demeanor conveyed reproach. 

Three years after her marriage this pretty young woman, who dashedpast in her handsome carriage, and lived in a sphere of glory andriches to the envy of heedless folk incapable of taking a just view ofthe situations of life, was a prey to intense grief. She lost hercolor; she reflected; she made comparisons; then sorrow unfolded toher the first lessons of experience. She determined to restrictherself bravely within the round of duty, hoping that by this generousconduct she might sooner or later win back her husband's love. But itwas not so. When Sommervieux, fired with work, came in from hisstudio, Augustine did not put away her work so quickly but that thepainter might find his wife mending the household linen, and his own, with all the care of a good housewife. She supplied generously andwithout a murmur the money needed for his lavishness; but in heranxiety to husband her dear Theodore's fortune, she was strictlyeconomical for herself and in certain details of domestic management. Such conduct is incompatible with the easy-going habits of artists, who, at the end of their life, have enjoyed it so keenly that theynever inquire into the causes of their ruin. 

It is useless to note every tint of shadow by which the brilliant huesof their honeymoon were overcast till they were lost in utterblackness. One evening poor Augustine, who had for some time heard herhusband speak with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de Carigliano, receivedfrom a friend certain malignantly charitable warnings as to the natureof the attachment which Sommervieux had formed for this celebratedflirt of the Imperial Court. At one-and-twenty, in all the splendor ofyouth and beauty, Augustine saw herself deserted for a woman ofsix-and-thirty. Feeling herself so wretched in the midst of a world offestivity which to her was a blank, the poor little thing could nolonger understand the admiration she excited, or the envy of which shewas the object. Her face assumed a different expression. Melancholy, tinged her features with the sweetness of resignation and the pallorof scorned love. Ere long she too was courted by the most fascinatingmen; but she remained lonely and virtuous. Some contemptuous wordswhich escaped her husband filled her with incredible despair. Asinister flash showed her the breaches which, as a result of hersordid education, hindered the perfect union of her soul withTheodore's; she loved him well enough to absolve him and condemnherself. She shed tears of blood, and perceived, too late, that thereare _mesalliances_ of the spirit as well as of rank and habits. As sherecalled the early raptures of their union, she understood the fullextent of that lost happiness, and accepted the conclusion that sorich a harvest of love was in itself a whole life, which only sorrowcould pay for. At the same time, she loved too truly to lose all hope. At one-and-twenty she dared undertake to educate herself, and make herimagination, at least, worthy of that she admired. "If I am not apoet, " thought she, "at any rate, I will understand poetry. "

Then, with all the strength of will, all the energy which every womancan display when she loves, Madame de Sommervieux tried to alter hercharacter, her manners, and her habits; but by dint of devouring booksand learning undauntedly, she only succeeded in becoming lessignorant. Lightness of wit and the graces of conversation are a giftof nature, or the fruit of education begun in the cradle. She couldappreciate music and enjoy it, but she could not sing with taste. Sheunderstood literature and the beauties of poetry, but it was too lateto cultivate her refractory memory. She listened with pleasure tosocial conversation, but she could contribute nothing brilliant. Herreligious notions and home-grown prejudices were antagonistic to thecomplete emancipation of her intelligence. Finally, a foregoneconclusion against her had stolen into Theodore's mind, and this shecould not conquer. The artist would laugh, at those who flattered himabout his wife, and his irony had some foundation; he so overawed thepathetic young creature that, in his presence, or alone with him, shetrembled. Hampered by her too eager desire to please, her wits and herknowledge vanished in one absorbing feeling. Even her fidelity vexedthe unfaithful husband, who seemed to bid her do wrong by stigmatizingher virtue as insensibility. Augustine tried in vain to abdicate herreason, to yield to her husband's caprices and whims, to devoteherself to the selfishness of his vanity. Her sacrifices bore nofruit. Perhaps they had both let the moment slip when souls may meetin comprehension. One day the young wife's too sensitive heartreceived one of those blows which so strain the bonds of feeling thatthey seem to be broken. She withdrew into solitude. But before long afatal idea suggested to her to seek counsel and comfort in the bosomof her family. 

So one morning she made her way towards the grotesque facade of thehumble, silent home where she had spent her childhood. She sighed asshe looked up at the sash-window, whence one day she had sent herfirst kiss to him who now shed as much sorrow as glory on her life. Nothing was changed in the cavern, where the drapery business had, however, started on a new life. Augustine's sister filled her mother'sold place at the desk. The unhappy young woman met her brother-in-lawwith his pen behind his ear; he hardly listened to her, he was so fullof business. The formidable symptoms of stock-taking were visible allround him; he begged her to excuse him. She was received coldly enoughby her sister, who owed her a grudge. In fact, Augustine, in herfinery, and stepping out of a handsome carriage, had never been to seeher but when passing by. The wife of the prudent Lebas, imagining thatwant of money was the prime cause of this early call, tried to keep upa tone of reserve which more than once made Augustine smile. Thepainter's wife perceived that, apart from the cap and lappets, hermother had found in Virginie a successor who could uphold the ancienthonor of the Cat and Racket. At breakfast she observed certain changesin the management of the house which did honor to Lebas' good sense;the assistants did not rise before dessert; they were allowed to talk, and the abundant meal spoke of ease without luxury. The fashionablewoman found some tickets for a box at the Francais, where sheremembered having seen her sister from time to time. Madame Lebas hada cashmere shawl over her shoulders, of which the value bore witnessto her husband's generosity to her. In short, the couple were keepingpace with the times. During the two-thirds of the day she spent there, Augustine was touched to the heart by the equable happiness, devoid, to be sure, of all emotion, but equally free from storms, enjoyed bythis well-matched couple. They had accepted life as a commercialenterprise, in which, above all, they must do credit to the business. Not finding any great love in her husband, Virginie had set to work tocreate it. Having by degrees learned to esteem and care for his wife, the time that his happiness had taken to germinate was to Joseph Lebasa guarantee of its durability. Hence, when Augustine plaintively setforth her painful position, she had to face the deluge of commonplacemorality which the traditions of the Rue Saint-Denis furnished to hersister. 

"The mischief is done, wife, " said Joseph Lebas; "we must try to giveour sister good advice. " Then the clever tradesman ponderouslyanalyzed the resources which law and custom might offer Augustine as ameans of escape at this crisis; he ticketed every argument, so tospeak, and arranged them in their degrees of weight under variouscategories, as though they were articles of merchandise of differentqualities; then he put them in the scale, weighed them, and ended byshowing the necessity for his sister-in-law's taking violent stepswhich could not satisfy the love she still had for her husband; and, indeed, the feeling had revived in all its strength when she heardJoseph Lebas speak of legal proceedings. Augustine thanked them, andreturned home even more undecided than she had been before consultingthem. She now ventured to go to the house in the Rue du Colombier, intending to confide her troubles to her father and mother; for shewas like a sick man who, in his desperate plight, tries everyprescription, and even puts faith in old wives' remedies. 

The old people received their daughter with an effusiveness thattouched her deeply. Her visit brought them some little change, andthat to them was worth a fortune. For the last four years they hadgone their way like navigators without a goal or a compass. Sitting bythe chimney corner, they would talk over their disasters under the oldlaw of _maximum_, of their great investments in cloth, of the way theyhad weathered bankruptcies, and, above all, the famous failure ofLecocq, Monsieur Guillaume's battle of Marengo. Then, when they hadexhausted the tale of lawsuits, they recapitulated the sum total oftheir most profitable stock-takings, and told each other old storiesof the Saint-Denis quarter. At two o'clock old Guillaume went to castan eye on the business at the Cat and Racket; on his way back hecalled at all the shops, formerly the rivals of his own, where theyoung proprietors hoped to inveigle the old draper into some riskydiscount, which, as was his wont, he never refused point-blank. Twogood Normandy horses were dying of their own fat in the stables of thebig house; Madame Guillaume never used them but to drag her on Sundaysto high Mass at the parish church. Three times a week the worthycouple kept open house. By the influence of his son-in-lawSommervieux, Monsieur Guillaume had been named a member of theconsulting board for the clothing of the Army. Since her husband hadstood so high in office, Madame Guillaume had decided that she mustreceive; her rooms were so crammed with gold and silver ornaments, andfurniture, tasteless but of undoubted value, that the simplest room inthe house looked like a chapel. Economy and expense seemed to bestruggling for the upper hand in every accessory. It was as thoughMonsieur Guillaume had looked to a good investment, even in thepurchase of a candlestick. In the midst of this bazaar, where splendorrevealed the owner's want of occupation, Sommervieux's famous picturefilled the place of honor, and in it Monsieur and Madame Guillaumefound their chief consolation, turning their eyes, harnessed witheye-glasses, twenty times a day on this presentment of their past life, to them so active and amusing. The appearance of this mansion and theserooms, where everything had an aroma of staleness and mediocrity, thespectacle offered by these two beings, cast away, as it were, on arock far from the world and the ideas which are life, startledAugustine; she could here contemplate the sequel of the scene of whichthe first part had struck her at the house of Lebas--a life of stirwithout movement, a mechanical and instinctive existence like that ofthe beaver; and then she felt an indefinable pride in her troubles, asshe reflected that they had their source in eighteen months of suchhappiness as, in her eyes, was worth a thousand lives like this; itsvacuity seemed to her horrible. However, she concealed this not verycharitable feeling, and displayed for her parents her newly-acquiredaccomplishments of mind, and the ingratiating tenderness that love hadrevealed to her, disposing them to listen to her matrimonialgrievances. Old people have a weakness for this kind of confidence. Madame Guillaume wanted to know the most trivial details of that alienlife, which to her seemed almost fabulous. The travels of Baron da laHoutan, which she began again and again and never finished, told hernothing more unheard-of concerning the Canadian savages. 

"What, child, your husband shuts himself into a room with naked women!And you are so simple as to believe that he draws them?"

As she uttered this exclamation, the grandmother laid her spectacleson a little work-table, shook her skirts, and clasped her hands on herknees, raised by a foot-warmer, her favorite pedestal. 

"But, mother, all artists are obliged to have models. "

"He took good care not to tell us that when he asked leave to marryyou. If I had known it, I would never had given my daughter to a manwho followed such a trade. Religion forbids such horrors; they areimmoral. And at what time of night do you say he comes home?"

"At one o'clock--two----"

The old folks looked at each other in utter amazement. 

"Then he gambles?" said Monsieur Guillaume. "In my day only gamblersstayed out so late. "

Augustine made a face that scorned the accusation. 

"He must keep you up through dreadful nights waiting for him, " saidMadame Guillaume. "But you go to bed, don't you? And when he has lost, the wretch wakes you. "

"No, mamma, on the contrary, he is sometimes in very good spirits. Notunfrequently, indeed, when it is fine, he suggests that I should getup and go into the woods. "

"The woods! At that hour? Then have you such a small set of rooms thathis bedroom and his sitting-room are not enough, and that he must runabout? But it is just to give you cold that the wretch proposes suchexpeditions. He wants to get rid of you. Did one ever hear of a mansettled in life, a well-behaved, quiet man galloping about like awarlock?"

"But, my dear mother, you do not understand that he must haveexcitement to fire his genius. He is fond of scenes which----"

"I would make scenes for him, fine scenes!" cried Madame Guillaume, interrupting her daughter. "How can you show any consideration to sucha man? In the first place, I don't like his drinking water only; it isnot wholesome. Why does he object to see a woman eating? What queernotion is that! But he is mad. All you tell us about him isimpossible. A man cannot leave his home without a word, and never comeback for ten days. And then he tells you he has been to Dieppe topaint the sea. As if any one painted the sea! He crams you with a packof tales that are too absurd. "

Augustine opened her lips to defend her husband; but Madame Guillaumeenjoined silence with a wave of her hand, which she obeyed by asurvival of habit, and her mother went on in harsh tones: "Don't talkto me about the man! He never set foot in church excepting to see youand to be married. People without religion are capable of anything. Did Guillaume ever dream of hiding anything from me, of spending threedays without saying a word to me, and of chattering afterwards like ablind magpie?"

"My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If theirideas were the same as other folks', they would not be men of genius. "

"Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married. What! A man of genius is to make his wife miserable? And because he isa genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever tosay black one minute and white the next, as he does, to interruptother people, to dance such rigs at home, never to let you know whichfoot you are to stand on, to compel his wife never to be amused unlessmy lord is in gay spirits, and to be dull when he is dull. "

"But, mother, the very nature of such imaginations----"

"What are such 'imaginations'?" Madame Guillaume went on, interruptingher daughter again. "Fine ones his are, my word! What possesses a manthat all on a sudden, without consulting a doctor, he takes it intohis head to eat nothing but vegetables? If indeed it were fromreligious motives, it might do him some good--but he has no morereligion than a Huguenot. Was there ever a man known who, like him, loved horses better than his fellow-creatures, had his hair curledlike a heathen, laid statues under muslin coverlets, shut his shuttersin broad day to work by lamp-light? There, get along; if he were notso grossly immoral, he would be fit to shut up in a lunatic asylum. Consult Monsieur Loraux, the priest at Saint Sulpice, ask his opinionabout it all, and he will tell you that your husband, does not behavelike a Christian. "

"Oh, mother, can you believe----?"

"Yes, I do believe. You loved him, and you can see none of thesethings. But I can remember in the early days after your marriage. Imet him in the Champs-Elysees. He was on horseback. Well, at oneminute he was galloping as hard as he could tear, and then pulled upto a walk. I said to myself at that moment, 'There is a man devoid ofjudgement. '"

"Ah, ha!" cried Monsieur Guillaume, "how wise I was to have your moneysettled on yourself with such a queer fellow for a husband!"

When Augustine was so imprudent as to set forth her serious grievancesagainst her husband, the two old people were speechless withindignation. But the word "divorce" was ere long spoken by MadameGuillaume. At the sound of the word divorce the apathetic old draperseemed to wake up. Prompted by his love for his daughter, and also bythe excitement which the proceedings would bring into his uneventfullife, father Guillaume took up the matter. He made himself the leaderof the application for a divorce, laid down the lines of it, almostargued the case; he offered to be at all the charges, to see thelawyers, the pleaders, the judges, to move heaven and earth. Madame deSommervieux was frightened, she refused her father's services, saidshe would not be separated from her husband even if she were ten timesas unhappy, and talked no more about her sorrows. After beingoverwhelmed by her parents with all the little wordless and consolingkindnesses by which the old couple tried in vain to make up to her forher distress of heart, Augustine went away, feeling the impossibilityof making a superior mind intelligible to weak intellects. She hadlearned that a wife must hide from every one, even from her parents, woes for which it is so difficult to find sympathy. The storms andsufferings of the upper spheres are appreciated only by the loftyspirits who inhabit there. In any circumstance we can only be judgedby our equals. 

Thus poor Augustine found herself thrown back on the horror of hermeditations, in the cold atmosphere of her home. Study was indifferentto her, since study had not brought her back her husband's heart. Initiated into the secret of these souls of fire, but bereft of theirresources, she was compelled to share their sorrows without sharingtheir pleasures. She was disgusted with the world, which to her seemedmean and small as compared with the incidents of passion. In short, her life was a failure. 

One evening an idea flashed upon her that lighted up her dark grieflike a beam from heaven. Such an idea could never have smiled on aheart less pure, less virtuous than hers. She determined to go to theDuchesse de Carigliano, not to ask her to give her back her husband'sheart, but to learn the arts by which it had been captured; to engagethe interest of this haughty fine lady for the mother of her lover'schildren; to appeal to her and make her the instrument of her futurehappiness, since she was the cause of her present wretchedness. 

So one day Augustine, timid as she was, but armed with supernaturalcourage, got into her carriage at two in the afternoon to try foradmittance to the boudoir of the famous coquette, who was nevervisible till that hour. Madame de Sommervieux had not yet seen any ofthe ancient and magnificent mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Asshe made her way through the stately corridors, the handsomestaircases, the vast drawing-rooms--full of flowers, though it was inthe depth of winter, and decorated with the taste peculiar to womenborn to opulence or to the elegant habits of the aristocracy, Augustine felt a terrible clutch at her heart; she coveted the secretsof an elegance of which she had never had an idea; she breathed in anair of grandeur which explained the attraction of the house for herhusband. When she reached the private rooms of the Duchess she wasfilled with jealousy and a sort of despair, as she admired theluxurious arrangement of the furniture, the draperies and thehangings. Here disorder was a grace, here luxury affected a certaincontempt of splendor. The fragrance that floated in the warm airflattered the sense of smell without offending it. The accessories ofthe rooms were in harmony with a view, through plate-glass windows, ofthe lawns in a garden planted with evergreen trees. It was allbewitching, and the art of it was not perceptible. The whole spirit ofthe mistress of these rooms pervaded the drawing-room where Augustineawaited her. She tried to divine her rival's character from the aspectof the scattered objects; but there was here something as impenetrablein the disorder as in the symmetry, and to the simple-minded youngwife all was a sealed letter. All that she could discern was that, asa woman, the Duchess was a superior person. Then a painful thoughtcame over her. 

"Alas! And is it true, " she wondered, "that a simple and loving heartis not all-sufficient to an artist; that to balance the weight ofthese powerful souls they need a union with feminine souls of astrength equal to their own? If I had been brought up like this siren, our weapons at least might have been equal in the hour of struggle. "

"But I am not at home!" The sharp, harsh words, though spoken in anundertone in the adjoining boudoir, were heard by Augustine, and herheart beat violently. 

"The lady is in there, " replied the maid. 

"You are an idiot! Show her in, " replied the Duchess, whose voice wassweeter, and had assumed the dulcet tones of politeness. She evidentlynow meant to be heard. 

Augustine shyly entered the room. At the end of the dainty boudoir shesaw the Duchess lounging luxuriously on an ottoman covered with brownvelvet and placed in the centre of a sort of apse outlined by softfolds of white muslin over a yellow lining. Ornaments of gilt bronze, arranged with exquisite taste, enhanced this sort of dais, under whichthe Duchess reclined like a Greek statue. The dark hue of the velvetgave relief to every fascinating charm. A subdued light, friendly toher beauty, fell like a reflection rather than a direct illumination. A few rare flowers raised their perfumed heads from costly Sevresvases. At the moment when this picture was presented to Augustine'sastonished eyes, she was approaching so noiselessly that she caught aglance from those of the enchantress. This look seemed to say to someone whom Augustine did not at first perceive, "Stay; you will see apretty woman, and make her visit seem less of a bore. "

On seeing Augustine, the Duchess rose and made her sit down by her. 

"And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, madame?" she saidwith a most gracious smile. 

"Why all the falseness?" thought Augustine, replying only with a bow. 

Her silence was compulsory. The young woman saw before her asuperfluous witness of the scene. This personage was, of all theColonels in the army, the youngest, the most fashionable, and thefinest man. His face, full of life and youth, but already expressive, was further enhanced by a small moustache twirled up into points, andas black as jet, by a full imperial, by whiskers carefully combed, anda forest of black hair in some disorder. He was whisking a riding whipwith an air of ease and freedom which suited his self-satisfiedexpression and the elegance of his dress; the ribbons attached to hisbutton-hole were carelessly tied, and he seemed to pride himself muchmore on his smart appearance than on his courage. Augustine looked atthe Duchesse de Carigliano, and indicated the Colonel by a sidelongglance. All its mute appeal was understood. 

"Good-bye, then, Monsieur d'Aiglemont, we shall meet in the Bois deBoulogne. "

These words were spoken by the siren as though they were the result ofan agreement made before Augustine's arrival, and she winged them witha threatening look that the officer deserved perhaps for theadmiration he showed in gazing at the modest flower, which contrastedso well with the haughty Duchess. The young fop bowed in silence, turned on the heels of his boots, and gracefully quitted the boudoir. At this instant, Augustine, watching her rival, whose eyes seemed tofollow the brilliant officer, detected in that glance a sentiment ofwhich the transient expression is known to every woman. She perceivedwith the deepest anguish that her visit would be useless; this lady, full of artifice, was too greedy of homage not to have a ruthlessheart. 

"Madame, " said Augustine in a broken voice, "the step I am about totake will seem to you very strange; but there is a madness of despairwhich ought to excuse anything. I understand only too well whyTheodore prefers your house to any other, and why your mind has somuch power over his. Alas! I have only to look into myself to findmore than ample reasons. But I am devoted to my husband, madame. Twoyears of tears have not effaced his image from my heart, though I havelost his. In my folly I dared to dream of a contest with you; and Ihave come to you to ask you by what means I may triumph over yourself. Oh, madame, " cried the young wife, ardently seizing the hand which herrival allowed her to hold, "I will never pray to God for my ownhappiness with so much fervor as I will beseech Him for yours, if youwill help me to win back Sommervieux's regard--I will not say hislove. I have no hope but in you. Ah! tell me how you could please him, and make him forget the first days----" At these words Augustine brokedown, suffocated with sobs she could not suppress. Ashamed of herweakness, she hid her face in her handkerchief, which she bathed withtears. 

"What a child you are, my dear little beauty!" said the Duchess, carried away by the novelty of such a scene, and touched, in spite ofherself, at receiving such homage from the most perfect virtue perhapsin Paris. She took the young wife's handkerchief, and herself wipedthe tears from her eyes, soothing her by a few monosyllables murmuredwith gracious compassion. After a moment's silence the Duchess, grasping poor Augustine's hands in both her own--hands that had a rarecharacter of dignity and powerful beauty--said in a gentle andfriendly voice: "My first warning is to advise you not to weep sobitterly; tears are disfiguring. We must learn to deal firmly with thesorrows that make us ill, for love does not linger long by a sick-bed. Melancholy, at first, no doubt, lends a certain attractive grace, butit ends by dragging the features and blighting the loveliest face. Andbesides, our tyrants are so vain as to insist that their slaves shouldbe always cheerful. "

"But, madame, it is not in my power not to feel. How is it possible, without suffering a thousand deaths, to see the face which once beamedwith love and gladness turn chill, colorless, and indifferent? Icannot control my heart!"

"So much the worse, sweet child. But I fancy I know all your story. Inthe first place, if your husband is unfaithful to you, understandclearly that I am not his accomplice. If I was anxious to have him inmy drawing-room, it was, I own, out of vanity; he was famous, and hewent nowhere. I like you too much already to tell you all the madthings he has done for my sake. I will only reveal one, because it mayperhaps help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for theaudacity of his behavior to me. He will end by compromising me. I knowthe world too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of atoo superior man. You should know that one may allow them to courtone, but marry them--that is a mistake! We women ought to admire menof genius, and delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living withthem? Never. --No, no. It is like wanting to find pleasure ininspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box toenjoy its brilliant illusions. But this misfortune has fallen on you, my poor child, has it not? Well, then, you must try to arm yourselfagainst tyranny. "

"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, Ialready detected some arts of which I had no suspicion. "

"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before youhave mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in theirway. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that mattermore than one clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent. But Idare wager you never could refuse your Theodore anything!"

"How refuse anything, madame, if one loves a man?"

"Poor innocent, I could adore you for your simplicity. You should knowthat the more we love the less we should allow a man, above all, ahusband, to see the whole extent of our passion. The one who lovesmost is tyrannized over, and, which is worse, is sooner or laterneglected. The one who wishes to rule should----"

"What, madame, must I then dissimulate, calculate, become false, forman artificial character, and live in it? How is it possible to live insuch a way? Can you----" she hesitated; the Duchess smiled. 

"My dear child, " the great lady went on in a serious tone, "conjugalhappiness has in all times been a speculation, a business demandingparticular attention. If you persist in talking passion while I amtalking marriage, we shall soon cease to understand each other. Listento me, " she went on, assuming a confidential tone. "I have been in theway of seeing some of the superior men of our day. Those who havemarried have for the most part chosen quite insignificant wives. Well, those wives governed them, as the Emperor governs us; and if they werenot loved, they were at least respected. I like secrets--especiallythose which concern women--well enough to have amused myself byseeking the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those worthywomen had the gift of analyzing their husbands' nature; instead oftaking fright, like you, at their superiority, they very acutely notedthe qualities they lacked, and either by possessing those qualities, or by feigning to possess them, they found means of making such ahandsome display of them in their husbands' eyes that in the end theyimpressed them. Also, I must tell you, all these souls which appear solofty have just a speck of madness in them, which we ought to know howto take advantage of. By firmly resolving to have the upper hand andnever deviating from that aim, by bringing all our actions to bear onit, all our ideas, our cajolery, we subjugate these eminentlycapricious natures, which, by the very mutability of their thoughts, lend us the means of influencing them. "

"Good heavens!" cried the young wife in dismay. "And this is life. Itis a warfare----"

"In which we must always threaten, " said the Duchess, laughing. "Ourpower is wholly factitious. And we must never allow a man to despiseus; it is impossible to recover from such a descent but by odiousmanoeuvring. Come, " she added, "I will give you a means of bringingyour husband to his senses. "

She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice toconjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace. They came to aback-staircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame deCarigliano pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped, looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of shrewdness and grace. "The Duc de Carigliano adores me, " said she. "Well, he dare not enterby this door without my leave. And he is a man in the habit ofcommanding thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery, butbefore me, --he is afraid!"

Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where thepainter's wife was led by the Duchess up to the portrait painted byTheodore of Mademoiselle Guillaume. On seeing it, Augustine uttered acry. 

"I knew it was no longer in my house, " she said, "but--here!----"

"My dear child, I asked for it merely to see what pitch of idiocy aman of genius may attain to. Sooner or later I should have returned itto you, for I never expected the pleasure of seeing the original hereface to face with the copy. While we finish our conversation I willhave it carried down to your carriage. And if, armed with such atalisman, you are not your husband's mistress for a hundred years, youare not a woman, and you deserve your fate. "

Augustine kissed the Duchess' hand, and the lady clasped her to herheart, with all the more tenderness because she would forget her bythe morrow. This scene might perhaps have destroyed for ever thecandor and purity of a less virtuous woman than Augustine, for theastute politics of the higher social spheres were no more consonant toAugustine than the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas, or MadameGuillaume's vapid morality. Strange are the results of the falsepositions into which we may be brought by the slightest mistake in theconduct of life! Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by anavalanche; if he hesitates, if he listens to the shouts of hiscomrades, he is almost certainly lost. In such a crisis the heartsteels itself or breaks. 

Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it isdifficult to describe. Her conversation with the Duchesse deCarigliano had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts. Like the sheep in the fable, full of courage in the wolf's absence, she preached to herself, and laid down admirable plans of conduct; shedevised a thousand coquettish stratagems; she even talked to herhusband, finding, away from him, all the springs of true eloquencewhich never desert a woman; then, as she pictured to herselfTheodore's clear and steadfast gaze, she began to quake. When sheasked whether monsieur were at home her voice shook. On learning thathe would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable thrill of joy. Like a criminal who has appealed against sentence of death, a respite, however short, seemed to her a lifetime. She placed the portrait inher room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of hope. Thatthis venture must decide her future life, she felt too keenly not toshiver at every sound, even the low ticking of the clock, which seemedto aggravate her terrors by doling them out to her. She tried to cheattime by various devices. The idea struck her of dressing in a waywhich would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing herhusband's restless temper, she had her room lighted up with unusualbrightness, feeling sure that when he came in curiosity would bringhim there at once. Midnight had struck when, at the call of the groom, the street gate was opened, and the artist's carriage rumbled in overthe stones of the silent courtyard. 

"What is the meaning of this illumination?" asked Theodore in gladtones, as he came into her room. 

Augustine skilfully seized the auspicious moment; she threw herselfinto her husband's arms, and pointed to the portrait. The artist stoodrigid as a rock, and his eyes turned alternately on Augustine, on theaccusing dress. The frightened wife, half-dead, as she watched herhusband's changeful brow--that terrible brow--saw the expressivefurrows gathering like clouds; then she felt her blood curdling in herveins when, with a glaring look, and in a deep hollow voice, he beganto question her:

"Where did you find that picture?"

"The Duchess de Carigliano returned it to me. "

"You asked her for it?"

"I did not know that she had it. "

The gentleness, or rather the exquisite sweetness of this angel'svoice, might have touched a cannibal, but not an artist in theclutches of wounded vanity. 

"It is worthy of her!" exclaimed the painter in a voice of thunder. "Iwill be avenged!" he cried, striding up and down the room. "She shalldie of shame; I will paint her! Yes, I will paint her as Messalinastealing out at night from the palace of Claudius. "

"Theodore!" said a faint voice. 

"I will kill her!"

"My dear----"

"She is in love with that little cavalry colonel, because he rideswell----"

"Theodore!"

"Let me be!" said the painter in a tone almost like a roar. 

It would be odious to describe the whole scene. In the end the frenzyof passion prompted the artist to acts and words which any woman notso young as Augustine would have ascribed to madness. 

At eight o'clock next morning Madame Guillaume, surprising herdaughter, found her pale, with red eyes, her hair in disorder, holdinga handkerchief soaked with tears, while she gazed at the floor strewnwith the torn fragments of a dress and the broken fragments of a largegilt picture-frame. Augustine, almost senseless with grief, pointed tothe wreck with a gesture of deep despair. 

"I don't know that the loss is very great!" cried the old mistress ofthe Cat and Racket. "It was like you, no doubt; but I am told thatthere is a man on the boulevard who paints lovely portraits for fiftycrowns. "

"Oh, mother!"

"Poor child, you are quite right, " replied Madame Guillaume, whomisinterpreted the expression of her daughter's glance at her. "True, my child, no one ever can love you as fondly as a mother. My darling, I guess it all; but confide your sorrows to me, and I will comfortyou. Did I not tell you long ago that the man was mad! Your maid hastold me pretty stories. Why, he must be a perfect monster!"

Augustine laid a finger on her white lips, as if to implore a moment'ssilence. During this dreadful night misery had led her to that patientresignation which in mothers and loving wives transcends in itseffects all human energy, and perhaps reveals in the heart of womenthe existence of certain chords which God has withheld from men. 

An inscription engraved on a broken column in the cemetery atMontmartre states that Madame de Sommervieux died at the age oftwenty-seven. In the simple words of this epitaph one of the timidcreature's friends can read the last scene of a tragedy. Every year, on the second of November, the solemn day of the dead, he never passesthis youthful monument without wondering whether it does not need astronger woman than Augustine to endure the violent embrace of genius?

"The humble and modest flowers that bloom in the valley, " he reflects, "perish perhaps when they are transplanted too near the skies, to theregion where storms gather and the sun is scorching. "

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Aiglemont, General, Marquis Victor d' The Firm of Nucingen A Woman of Thirty

Birotteau, Cesar Cesar Birotteau A Bachelor's Establishment

Camusot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons The Muse of the Department Cesar Birotteau

Cardot, Jean-Jerome-Severin A Start in Life Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cesar Birotteau

Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de Father Goriot Sarrasine

Carigliano, Duchesse de A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Peasantry The Member for Arcis

Guillaume Cesar Birotteau

Lebas, Joseph Cesar Birotteau Cousin Betty

Lebas, Madame Joseph (Virginie) Cesar Birotteau Cousin Betty

Lourdois Cesar Birotteau

Rabourdin, Xavier The Government Clerks Cesar Birotteau The Middle Classes

Roguin, Madame Cesar Birotteau Pierrette A Second Home A Daughter of Eve

Sommervieux, Theodore de The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon

Sommervieux, Madame Theodore de (Augustine) At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Cesar Birotteau