FROMONT AND RISLER By ALPHONSE DAUDET BOOK 2. CHAPTER VII THE TRUE PEARL AND THE FALSE "What can be the matter? What have I done to her?" Claire Fromont veryoften wondered when she thought of Sidonie. She was entirely ignorant of what had formerly taken place between herfriend and Georges at Savigny. Her own life was so upright, her mind sopure, that it was impossible for her to divine the jealous, mean-spiritedambition that had grown up by her side within the past fifteen years. And yet the enigmatical expression in that pretty face as it smiled uponher gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness which she could notunderstand. An affectation of politeness, strange enough betweenfriends, was suddenly succeeded by an ill-dissembled anger, a cold, stinging tone, in presence of which Claire was as perplexed as by adifficult problem. Sometimes, too, a singular presentiment, the ill-defined intuition of a great misfortune, was mingled with her uneasiness;for all women have in some degree a kind of second sight, and, even inthe most innocent, ignorance of evil is suddenly illumined by visions ofextraordinary lucidity. From time to time, as the result of a conversation somewhat longer thanusual, or of one of those unexpected meetings when faces taken bysurprise allow their real thoughts to be seen, Madame Fromont reflectedseriously concerning this strange little Sidonie; but the active, urgentduties of life, with its accompaniment of affections and preoccupations, left her no time for dwelling upon such trifles. To all women comes a time when they encounter such sudden windings in theroad that their whole horizon changes and all their points of view becometransformed. Had Claire been a young girl, the falling away of that friendship bit bybit, as if torn from her by an unkindly hand, would have been a source ofgreat regret to her. But she had lost her father, the object of hergreatest, her only youthful affection; then she had married. The childhad come, with its thrice welcome demands upon her every moment. Moreover, she had with her her mother, almost in her dotage, stillstupefied by her husband's tragic death. In a life so fully occupied, Sidonie's caprices received but little attention; and it had hardlyoccurred to Claire Fromont to be surprised at her marriage to Risler. He was clearly too old for her; but, after all, what difference did itmake, if they loved each other? As for being vexed because little Chebe had attained that lofty position, had become almost her equal, her superior nature was incapable of suchpettiness. On the contrary, she would have been glad with all her heartto know that that young wife, whose home was so near her own, who livedthe same life, so to speak, and had been her playmate in childhood, washappy and highly esteemed. Being most kindly disposed toward her, shetried to teach her, to instruct her in the ways of society, as one mightinstruct an attractive provincial, who fell but little short of beingaltogether charming. Advice is not readily accepted by one pretty young woman from another. When Madame Fromont gave a grand dinner-party, she took Madame Risler toher bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to vex her:"You have put on too many jewels, my dear. And then, you know, with ahigh dress one doesn't wear flowers in the hair. " Sidonie blushed, andthanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her inthe bottom of her heart. In Claire's circle her welcome was decidedly cold. The Faubourg Saint-Germain has its pretensions; but do not imagine that the Marais has none!Those wives and daughters of mechanics, of wealthy manufacturers, knewlittle Chebe's story; indeed, they would have guessed it simply by hermanner of making her appearance and by her demeanor among them. Sidonie's efforts were unavailing. She retained the manners of a shop-girl. Her slightly artificial amiability, sometimes too humble, was asunpleasant as the spurious elegance of the shop; and her disdainfulattitudes recalled the superb airs of the head saleswomen in the greatdry-goods establishments, arrayed in black silk gowns, which they takeoff in the dressing-room when they go away at night--who stare with animposing air, from the vantage-point of their mountains of curls, at thepoor creatures who venture to discuss prices. She felt that she was being examined and criticised, and her modesty wascompelled to place itself upon a war footing. Of the names mentioned inher presence, the amusements, the entertainments, the books of which theytalked to her, she knew nothing. Claire did her best to help her, tokeep her on the surface, with a friendly hand always outstretched; butmany of these ladies thought Sidonie pretty; that was enough to make thembear her a grudge for seeking admission to their circle. Others, proudof their husbands' standing and of their wealth, could not invent enoughunspoken affronts and patronizing phrases to humiliate the littleparvenue. Sidonie included them all in a single phrase: "Claire's friends--that isto say, my enemies!" But she was seriously incensed against but one. The two partners had no suspicion of what was taking place between theirwives. Risler, continually engrossed in his press, sometimes remained athis draughting-table until midnight. Fromont passed his days abroad, lunched at his club, was almost never at the factory. He had his reasonsfor that. Sidonie's proximity disturbed him. His capricious passion for her, thatpassion that he had sacrificed to his uncle's last wishes, recurred toooften to his memory with all the regret one feels for the irreparable;and, conscious that he was weak, he fled. His was a pliable nature, without sustaining purpose, intelligent enough to appreciate hisfailings, too weak to guide itself. On the evening of Risler's wedding--he had been married but a few months himself--he had experienced anew, inthat woman's presence, all the emotion of the stormy evening at Savigny. Thereafter, without self-examination, he avoided seeing her again orspeaking with her. Unfortunately, as they lived in the same house, astheir wives saw each other ten times a day, chance sometimes brought themtogether; and this strange thing happened--that the husband, wishing toremain virtuous, deserted his home altogether and sought distractionelsewhere. Claire was not astonished that it was so. She had become accustomed, during her father's lifetime, to the constant comings and goings of abusiness life; and during her husband's absences, zealously performingher duties as wife and mother, she invented long tasks, occupations ofall sorts, walks for the child, prolonged, peaceful tarryings in thesunlight, from which she would return home, overjoyed with the littleone's progress, deeply impressed with the gleeful enjoyment of allinfants in the fresh air, but with a touch of their radiance in thedepths of her serious eyes. Sidonie also went out a great deal. It often happened, toward night, that Georges's carriage, driving through the gateway, would compel MadameRisler to step hastily aside as she was returning in a gorgeous costumefrom a triumphal promenade. The boulevard, the shop-windows, thepurchases, made after long deliberation as if to enjoy to the full thepleasure of purchasing, detained her very late. They would exchange abow, a cold glance at the foot of the staircase; and Georges would hurryinto his apartments, as into a place of refuge, concealing beneath aflood of caresses, bestowed upon the child his wife held out to him, thesudden emotion that had seized him. Sidonie, for her part, seemed to have forgotten everything, and to haveretained no other feeling but contempt for that weak, cowardly creature. Moreover, she had many other things to think about. Her husband had just had a piano placed in her red salon, between thewindows. After long hesitation she had decided to learn to sing, thinking that itwas rather late to begin to play the piano; and twice a week MadameDobson, a pretty, sentimental blonde, came to give her lessons fromtwelve o'clock to one. In the silence of the neighborhood the a-a-a ando-oo, persistently prolonged, repeated again and again, with windowsopen, gave the factory the atmosphere of a boarding-school. And it was in reality a schoolgirl who was practising these exercises, an inexperienced, wavering little soul, full of unconfessed longings, with everything to learn and to find out in order to become a real woman. But her ambition confined itself to a superficial aspect of things. "Claire Fromont plays the piano; I will sing. She is considered arefined and distinguished woman, and I intend that people shall say thesame of me. " Without a thought of improving her education, Sidonie passed her liferunning about among milliners and dressmakers. "What are people going towear this winter?" was her cry. She was attracted by the gorgeousdisplays in the shop-windows, by everything that caught the eye of thepassers-by. The one thing that Sidonie envied Claire more than all else was thechild, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of itscradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet, maternalduties, demanding patience and self-abnegation, of the long rockings whensleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with freshwater. No! she saw in the child naught but the daily walk. It is sucha pretty sight, the little bundle of finery, with floating ribbons andlong feathers, that follows young mothers through the crowded streets. When she wanted company she had only her parents or her husband. Shepreferred to go out alone. The excellent Risler had such an absurd wayof showing his love for her, playing with her as if she were a doll, pinching her chin and her cheek, capering about her, crying, "Hou! hou!"or staring at her with his great, soft eyes like an affectionate andgrateful dog. That senseless love, which made of her a toy, a mantelornament, made her ashamed. As for her parents, they were anembarrassment to her in presence of the people she wished to know, andimmediately after her marriage she almost got rid of them by hiring alittle house for them at Montrouge. That step had cut short the frequentinvasions of Monsieur Chebe and his long frock-coat, and the endlessvisits of good Madame Chebe, in whom the return of comfortablecircumstances had revived former habits of gossip and of indolence. Sidonie would have been very glad to rid herself of the Delobelles in thesame way, for their proximity annoyed her. But the Marais was a centrallocation for the old actor, because the boulevard theatres were so near;then, too, Desiree, like all sedentary persons, clung to the familiaroutlook, and her gloomy courtyard, dark at four o'clock in winter, seemedto her like a friend, like a familiar face which the sun lighted up attimes as if it were smiling at her. As she was unable to get rid ofthem, Sidonie had adopted the course of ceasing to visit them. In truth, her life would have been lonely and depressing enough, had itnot been for the distractions which Claire Fromont procured for her. Each time added fuel to her wrath. She would say to herself: "Must everything come to me through her?" And when, just at dinner-time, a box at the theatre or an invitation forthe evening was sent to her from the floor below, while she was dressing, overjoyed at the opportunity to exhibit herself, she thought of nothingbut crushing her rival. But such opportunities became more rare asClaire's time was more and more engrossed by her child. When GrandfatherGardinois came to Paris, however, he never failed to bring the twofamilies together. The old peasant's gayety, for its freer expansion, needed little Sidonie, who did not take alarm at his jests. He wouldtake them all four to dine at Philippe's, his favorite restaurant, wherehe knew all the patrons, the waiters and the steward, would spend a lotof money, and then take them to a reserved box at the Opera-Comique orthe Palais-Royal. At the theatre he laughed uproariously, talked familiarly with the box-openers, as he did with the waiters at Philippe's, loudly demandedfootstools for the ladies, and when the performance was over insisted onhaving the topcoats and fur wraps of his party first of all, as if hewere the only three-million parvenu in the audience. For these somewhat vulgar entertainments, from which her husband usuallyexcused himself, Claire, with her usual tact, dressed very plainly andattracted no attention. Sidonie, on the contrary, in all her finery, infull view of the boxes, laughed with all her heart at the grandfather'sanecdotes, happy to have descended from the second or third gallery, herusual place in the old days, to that lovely proscenium box, adorned withmirrors, with a velvet rail that seemed made expressly for her lightgloves, her ivory opera-glass, and her spangled fan. The tawdry glitterof the theatre, the red and gold of the hangings, were genuine splendorto her. She bloomed among them like a pretty paper flower in a filigreejardiniere. One evening, at the performance of a successful play at the Palais-Royal, among all the noted women who were present, painted celebrities wearingmicroscopic hats and armed with huge fans, their rouge-besmeared facesstanding out from the shadow of the boxes in the gaudy setting of theirgowns, Sidonie's behavior, her toilette, the peculiarities of her laughand her expression attracted much attention. All the opera-glasses inthe hall, guided by the magnetic current that is so powerful under thegreat chandeliers, were turned one by one upon the box in which she sat. Claire soon became embarrassed, and modestly insisted upon changingplaces with her husband, who, unluckily, had accompanied them thatevening. Georges, youthful and elegant, sitting beside Sidonie, seemed her naturalcompanion, while Risler Allle, always so placid and self-effacing, seemedin his proper place beside Claire Fromont, who in her dark clothessuggested the respectable woman incog. At the Bal de l'Opera. Upon leaving the theatre each of the partners offered his arm to hisneighbor. A box-opener, speaking to Sidonie, referred to Georges as"your husband, " and the little woman beamed with delight. "Your husband!" That simple phrase was enough to upset her and set in motion a multitudeof evil currents in the depths of her heart. As they passed through thecorridors and the foyer, she watched Risler and Madame "Chorche" walkingin front of them. Claire's refinement of manner seemed to her to bevulgarized and annihilated by Risler's shuffling gait. "How ugly he mustmake me look when we are walking together!" she said to herself. Andher heart beat fast as she thought what a charming, happy, admired couplethey would have made, she and this Georges Fromont, whose arm wastrembling beneath her own. Thereupon, when the blue-lined carriage drove up to the door of thetheatre, she began to reflect, for the first time, that, when all wassaid, Claire had stolen her place and that she would be justified intrying to recover it. CHAPTER VIII THE BREWERY ON THE RUE BLONDEL After his marriage Risler had given up the brewery. Sidonie would havebeen glad to have him leave the house in the evening for a fashionableclub, a resort of wealthy, well-dressed men; but the idea of hisreturning, amid clouds of pipe-smoke, to his friends of earlier days, Sigismond, Delobelle, and her own father, humiliated her and made herunhappy. So he ceased to frequent the place; and that was something of asacrifice. It was almost a glimpse of his native country, that brewerysituated in a remote corner of Paris. The infrequent carriages, thehigh, barred windows of the ground floors, the odor of fresh drugs, ofpharmaceutical preparations, imparted to that narrow little Rue Blondel avague resemblance to certain streets in Basle or Zurich. The brewery was managed by a Swiss and crowded with men of thatnationality. When the door was opened, through the smoke-ladenatmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of avast, low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer standingin a row, the floor ankle-deep with sawdust, and on the counter greatsalad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts, and baskets ofpretzels fresh from the oven, their golden knots sprinkled with whitesalt. For twenty years Risler had had his pipe there, a long pipe marked withhis name in the rack reserved for the regular customers. He had also histable, at which he was always joined by several discreet, quietcompatriots, who listened admiringly, but without comprehending them, to the endless harangues of Chebe and Delobelle. When Risler ceased hisvisits to the brewery, the two last-named worthies likewise turned theirbacks upon it, for several excellent reasons. In the first place, M. Chebe now lived a considerable distance away. Thanks to the generosityof his children, the dream of his whole life was realized at last. "When I am rich, " the little man used to say in his cheerless rooms inthe Marais, "I will have a house of my own, at the gates of Paris, almostin the country, a little garden which I will plant and water myself. That will be better for my health than all the excitement of thecapital. " Well, he had his house now, but he did not enjoy himself in it. It wasat Montrouge, on the road that runs around the city. "A small chalet, with garden, " said the advertisement, printed on a placard which gave analmost exact idea of the dimensions of the property. The papers were newand of rustic design, the paint perfectly fresh; a water-butt plantedbeside a vine-clad arbor played the part of a pond. In addition to allthese advantages, only a hedge separated this paradise from another"chalet with garden" of precisely the same description, occupied bySigismond Planus the cashier, and his sister. To Madame Chebe that was amost precious circumstance. When the good woman was bored, she wouldtake a stock of knitting and darning and go and sit in the old maid'sarbor, dazzling her with the tale of her past splendors. Unluckily, herhusband had not the same source of distraction. However, everything went well at first. It was midsummer, and M. Chebe, always in his shirt-sleeves, was busily employed in getting settled. Each nail to be driven in the house was the subject of leisurelyreflections, of endless discussions. It was the same with the garden. He had determined at first to make an English garden of it, lawns alwaysgreen, winding paths shaded by shrubbery. But the trouble of it was thatit took so long for the shrubbery to grow. "I have a mind to make an orchard of it, " said the impatient little man. And thenceforth he dreamed of nothing but vegetables, long lines ofbeans, and peach-trees against the wall. He dug for whole mornings, knitting his brows in a preoccupied way and wiping his foreheadostentatiously before his wife, so that she would say: "For heaven's sake, do rest a bit--you're killing yourself. " The result was that the garden was a mixture: flowers and fruit, park andkitchen garden; and whenever he went into Paris M. Chebe was careful todecorate his buttonhole with a rose from his rose-bushes. While the fine weather lasted, the good people did not weary of admiringthe sunsets behind the fortifications, the long days, the bracing countryair. Sometimes, in the evening, when the windows were open, they sangduets; and in presence of the stars in heaven, which began to twinklesimultaneously with the lanterns on the railway around the city, Ferdinand would become poetical. But when the rain came and he could notgo out, what misery! Madame Chebe, a thorough Parisian, sighed for thenarrow streets of the Marais, her expeditions to the market of Blancs-Manteaux, and to the shops of the quarter. As she sat by the window, her usual place for sewing and observation, she would gaze at the damp little garden, where the volubilis and thenasturtiums, stripped of their blossoms, were dropping away from thelattices with an air of exhaustion, at the long, straight line of thegrassy slope of the fortifications, still fresh and green, and, a littlefarther on, at the corner of a street, the office of the Paris omnibuses, with all the points of their route inscribed in enticing letters on thegreen walls. Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumeagazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip withit, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around acorner, grazing the shop-windows with its wheels. As a prisoner, M. Chebe became a terrible trial. He could not work inthe garden. On Sundays the fortifications were deserted; he could nolonger strut about among the workingmen's families dining on the grass, and pass from group to group in a neighborly way, his feet encased inembroidered slippers, with the authoritative demeanor of a wealthylandowner of the vicinity. This he missed more than anything else, consumed as he was by the desire to make people think about him. So that, having nothing to do, having no one to pose before, no one tolisten to his schemes, his stories, the anecdote of the accident to theDuc d'Orleans--a similar accident had happened to him in his youth, youremember--the unfortunate Ferdinand overwhelmed his wife with reproaches. "Your daughter banishes us--your daughter is ashamed of us!" She heard nothing but that "Your daughter--your daughter--your daughter!"For, in his anger with Sidonie, he denied her, throwing upon his wife thewhole responsibility for that monstrous and unnatural child. It was agenuine relief for poor Madame Chebe when her husband took an omnibus atthe office to go and hunt up Delobelle--whose hours for lounging werealways at his disposal--and pour into his bosom all his rancor againsthis son-in-law and his daughter. The illustrious Delobelle also bore Risler a grudge, and freely said ofhim: "He is a dastard. " The great man had hoped to form an integral part of the new household, tobe the organizer of festivities, the 'arbiter elegantiarum'. Instead ofwhich, Sidonie received him very coldly, and Risler no longer even tookhim to the brewery. However, the actor did not complain too loud, andwhenever he met his friend he overwhelmed him with attentions andflattery; for he had need of him. Weary of awaiting the discerning manager, seeing that the engagement hehad longed for so many years did not come, it had occurred to Delobelleto purchase a theatre and manage it himself. He counted upon Risler forthe funds. Opportunely enough, a small theatre on the boulevard happenedto be for sale, as a result of the failure of its manager. Delobellementioned it to Risler, at first very vaguely, in a wholly hypotheticalform--"There would be a good chance to make a fine stroke. " Rislerlistened with his usual phlegm, saying, "Indeed, it would be a good thingfor you. " And to a more direct suggestion, not daring to answer, "No, "he took refuge behind such phrases as "I will see"--"Perhaps later"--"I don't say no"--and finally uttered the unlucky words "I must see theestimates. " For a whole week the actor had delved away at plans and figures, seatedbetween his wife and daughter, who watched him in admiration, andintoxicated themselves with this latest dream. The people in the housesaid, "Monsieur Delobelle is going to buy a theatre. " On the boulevard, in the actors' cafes, nothing was talked of but this transaction. Delobelle did not conceal the fact that he had found some one to advancethe funds; the result being that he was surrounded by a crowd ofunemployed actors, old comrades who tapped him familiarly on the shoulderand recalled themselves to his recollection--" You know, old boy. " Hepromised engagements, breakfasted at the cafe, wrote letters there, greeted those who entered with the tips of his fingers, held veryanimated conversations in corners; and already two threadbare authors hadread to him a drama in seven tableaux, which was "exactly what he wanted"for his opening piece. He talked about "my theatre!" and his letterswere addressed, "Monsieur Delobelle, Manager. " When he had composed his prospectus and made his estimates, he went tothe factory to see Risler, who, being very busy, made an appointment tomeet him in the Rue Blondel; and that same evening, Delobelle, being thefirst to arrive at the brewery, established himself at their old table, ordered a pitcher of beer and two glasses, and waited. He waited a longwhile, with his eye on the door, trembling with impatience. Whenever anyone entered, the actor turned his head. He had spread his papers on thetable, and pretended to be reading them, with animated gestures andmovements of the head and lips. It was a magnificent opportunity, unique in its way. He already fanciedhimself acting--for that was the main point--acting, in a theatre of hisown, roles written expressly for him, to suit his talents, in which hewould produce all the effect of-- Suddenly the door opened, and M. Chebe made his appearance amid the pipe-smoke. He was as surprised and annoyed to find Delobelle there asDelobelle himself was by his coming. He had written to his son-in-lawthat morning that he wished to speak with him on a matter of very seriousimportance, and that he would meet him at the brewery. It was an affairof honor, entirely between themselves, from man to man. The real factconcerning this affair of honor was that M. Chebe had given notice of hisintention to leave the little house at Montrouge, and had hired a shopwith an entresol in the Rue du Mail, in the midst of a business district. A shop? Yes, indeed! And now he was a little alarmed regarding hishasty step, anxious to know how his son-in-law would take it, especiallyas the shop cost much more than the Montrouge house, and there were somerepairs to be made at the outset. As he had long been acquainted withhis son-in-law's kindness of heart, M. Chebe had determined to appeal tohim at once, hoping to lead him into his game and throw upon him theresponsibility for this domestic change. Instead of Risler he foundDelobelle. They looked askance at each other, with an unfriendly eye, like two dogsmeeting beside the same dish. Each divined for whom the other waswaiting, and they did not try to deceive each other. "Isn't my son-in-law here?" asked M. Chebe, eying the documents spreadover the table, and emphasizing the words "my son-in-law, " to indicatethat Risler belonged to him and to nobody else. "I am waiting for him, " Delobelle replied, gathering up his papers. He pressed his lips together, as he added with a dignified, mysterious, but always theatrical air: "It is a matter of very great importance. " "So is mine, " declared M. Chebe, his three hairs standing erect like aporcupine's quills. As he spoke, he took his seat on the bench beside Delobelle, ordered apitcher and two glasses as the former had done, then sat erect with hishands in his pockets and his back against the wall, waiting in his turn. The two empty glasses in front of them, intended for the same absentee, seemed to be hurling defiance at each other. But Risler did not come. The two men, drinking in silence, lost their patience and fidgeted abouton the bench, each hoping that the other would tire of waiting. At last their ill-humor overflowed, and naturally poor Risler receivedthe whole flood. "What an outrage to keep a man of my years waiting so long!" began M. Chebe, who never mentioned his great age except upon such occasions. "I believe, on my word, that he is making sport of us, " replied M. Delobelle. And the other: "No doubt Monsieur had company to dinner. " "And such company!" scornfully exclaimed the illustrious actor, in whosemind bitter memories were awakened. "The fact is--" continued M. Chebe. They drew closer to each other and talked. The hearts of both were fullin respect to Sidonie and Risler. They opened the flood-gates. ThatRisler, with all his good-nature, was an egotist pure and simple, aparvenu. They laughed at his accent and his bearing, they mimickedcertain of his peculiarities. Then they talked about his household, and, lowering their voices, they became confidential, laughed familiarlytogether, were friends once more. M. Chebe went very far: "Let him beware! he has been foolish enough tosend the father and mother away from their daughter; if anything happensto her, he can't blame us. A girl who hasn't her parents' example beforeher eyes, you understand--" "Certainly--certainly, " said Delobelle; "especially as Sidonie has becomea great flirt. However, what can you expect? He will get no more thanhe deserves. No man of his age ought to--Hush! here he is!" Risler had entered the room, and was walking toward them, distributinghand-shakes all along the benches. There was a moment of embarrassment between the three friends. Rislerexcused himself as well as he could. He had been detained at home;Sidonie had company--Delobelle touched M. Chebe's foot under the table--and, as he spoke, the poor man, decidedly perplexed by the two emptyglasses that awaited him, wondered in front of which of the two he oughtto take his seat. Delobelle was generous. "You have business together, Messieurs; do not let me disturb you. " He added in a low tone, winking at Risler: "I have the papers. " "The papers?" echoed Risler, in a bewildered tone. "The estimates, " whispered the actor. Thereupon, with a great show of discretion, he withdrew within himself, and resumed the reading of his documents, his head in his hands and hisfingers in his ears. The two others conversed by his side, first in undertones, then louder, for M. Chebe's shrill, piercing voice could not long be subdued. --Hewasn't old enough to be buried, deuce take it!--He should have died ofennui at Montrouge. --What he must have was the bustle and life of the Ruede Mail or the Rue du Sentier--of the business districts. "Yes, but a shop? Why a shop?" Risler timidly ventured to ask. "Why a shop?--why a shop?" repeated M. Chebe, red as an Easter egg, andraising his voice to its highest pitch. "Why, because I'm a merchant, Monsieur Risler, a merchant and son of a merchant. Oh! I see whatyou're coming at. I have no business. But whose fault is it? If thepeople who shut me up at Montrouge, at the gates of Bicetre, like aparalytic, had had the good sense to furnish me with the money to startin business--" At that point Risler succeeded in silencing him, and thereafter onlysnatches of the conversation could be heard: "a more convenient shop--high ceilings--better air--future plans--enormous business--I will speakwhen the time comes--many people will be astonished. " As he caught these fragments of sentences, Delobelle became more and moreabsorbed in his estimates, presenting the eloquent back of the man who isnot listening. Risler, sorely perplexed, slowly sipped his beer fromtime to time to keep himself, in countenance. At last, when M. Chebe had grown calm, and with good reason, his son-in-law turned with a smile to the illustrious Delobelle, and met the stern, impassive glance which seemed to say, "Well! what of me?" "Ah! Mon Dieu!--that is true, " thought the poor fellow. Changing at once his chair and his glass, he took his seat opposite theactor. But M. Chebe had not Delobelle's courtesy. Instead of discreetlymoving away, he took his glass and joined the others, so that the greatman, unwilling to speak before him, solemnly replaced his documents inhis pocket a second time, saying to Risler: "We will talk this over later. " Very much later, in truth, for M. Chebe had reflected: "My son-in-law is so good-natured! If I leave him with this swindler, who knows what he may get out of him?" And he remained on guard. The actor was furious. It was impossible topostpone the matter to some other day, for Risler told them that he wasgoing the next day to spend the next month at Savigny. "A month at Savigny!" exclaimed M. Chebe, incensed at the thought of hisson-in-law escaping him. "How about business?" "Oh! I shall come to Paris every day with Georges. Monsieur Gardinoisis very anxious to see his little Sidonie. " M. Chebe shook his head. He considered it very imprudent. Business isbusiness. A man ought to be on the spot, always on the spot, in thebreach. Who could say?--the factory might take fire in the night. Andhe repeated sententiously: "The eye of the master, my dear fellow, theeye of the master, " while the actor--who was little better pleased bythis intended departure--opened his great eyes; giving them an expressionat once cunning and authoritative, the veritable expression of the eye ofthe master. At last, about midnight, the last Montrouge omnibus bore away thetyrannical father-in-law, and Delobelle was able to speak. "Let us first look at the prospectus, " he said, preferring not to attackthe question of figures at once; and with his eyeglasses on his nose, hebegan, in a declamatory tone, always upon the stage: "When one considerscoolly the decrepitude which dramatic art has reached in France, when onemeasures the distance that separates the stage of Moliere--" There were several pages like that. Risler listened, puffing at hispipe, afraid to stir, for the reader looked at him every moment over hiseyeglasses, to watch the effect of his phrases. Unfortunately, right inthe middle of the prospectus, the cafe closed. The lights wereextinguished; they must go. --And the estimates?--It was agreed that theyshould read them as they walked along. They stopped at every gaslight. The actor displayed his figures. So much for the hall, so much for thelighting, so much for poor-rates, so much for the actors. On thatquestion of the actors he was firm. "The best point about the affair, " he said, "is that we shall have noleading man to pay. Our leading man will be Bibi. " (When Delobellementioned himself, he commonly called himself Bibi. ) "A leading man ispaid twenty thousand francs, and as we have none to pay, it's just as ifyou put twenty thousand francs in your pocket. Tell me, isn't thattrue?" Risler did not reply. He had the constrained manner, the wandering eyesof the man whose thoughts are elsewhere. The reading of the estimatesbeing concluded, Delobelle, dismayed to find that they were drawing nearthe corner of the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, put the questionsquarely. Would Risler advance the money, yes or no? "Well!--no, " said Risler, inspired by heroic courage, which he owedprincipally to the proximity of the factory and to the thought that thewelfare of his family was at stake. Delobelle was astounded. He had believed that the business was as goodas done, and he stared at his companion, intensely agitated, his eyes asbig as saucers, and rolling his papers in his hand. "No, " Risler continued, "I can't do what you ask, for this reason. " Thereupon the worthy man, slowly, with his usual heaviness of speech, explained that he was not rich. Although a partner in a wealthy house, he had no available funds. Georges and he drew a certain sum from theconcern each month; then, when they struck a balance at the end of theyear they divided the profits. It had cost him a good deal to beginhousekeeping: all his savings. It was still four months before theinventory. Where was he to obtain the 30, 000 francs to be paid down atonce for the theatre? And then, beyond all that, the affair could not besuccessful. "Why, it must succeed. Bibi will be there!" As he spoke, poor Bibi drewhimself up to his full height; but Risler was determined, and all Bibi'sarguments met the same refusal--"Later, in two or three years, I don'tsay something may not be done. " The actor fought for a long time, yielding his ground inch by inch. He proposed revising his estimates. The thing might be done cheaper. "It would still be too dear for me, " Risler interrupted. "My namedoesn't belong to me. It is a part of the firm. I have no right topledge it. Imagine my going into bankruptcy!" His voice trembled as heuttered the word. "But if everything is in my name, " said Delobelle, who had nosuperstition. He tried everything, invoked the sacred interests of art, went so far as to mention the fascinating actresses whose alluringglances--Risler laughed aloud. "Come, come, you rascal! What's that you're saying? You forget thatwe're both married men, and that it is very late and our wives areexpecting us. No ill-will, eh?--This is not a refusal, you understand. --By the way, come and see me after the inventory. We will talk it overagain. Ah! there's Pere Achille putting out his gas. --I must go in. Good-night. " It was after one o'clock when the actor returned home. The two womenwere waiting for him, working as usual, but with a sort of feverishactivity which was strange to them. Every moment the great scissors thatMamma Delobelle used to cut the brass wire were seized with strange fitsof trembling, and Desiree's little fingers, as she mounted an insect, moved so fast that it made one dizzy to watch them. Even the longfeathers of the little birds scattered about on the table before herseemed more brilliant, more richly colored, than on other days. It wasbecause a lovely visitor named Hope had called upon them that evening. She had made the tremendous effort required to climb five dark flights ofstairs, and had opened the door of the little room to cast a luminousglance therein. However much you may have been deceived in life, thosemagic gleams always dazzle you. "Oh! if your father could only succeed!" said Mamma Delobelle from timeto time, as if to sum up a whole world of happy thoughts to which herreverie abandoned itself. "He will succeed, mamma, never fear. Monsieur Risler is so kind, I willanswer for him. And Sidonie is very fond of us, too, although since shewas married she does seem to neglect her old friends a little. But wemust make allowance for the difference in our positions. Besides, I never shall forget what she did for me. " And, at the thought of what Sidonie had done for her, the little crippleapplied herself with even more feverish energy to her work. Herelectrified fingers moved with redoubled swiftness. You would have saidthat they were running after some fleeing, elusive thing, like happiness, for example, or the love of some one who loves you not. "What was it that she did for you?" her mother would naturally haveasked her; but at that moment she was only slightly interested in whather daughter said. She was thinking exclusively of her great man. "No! do you think so, my dear? Just suppose your father should have atheatre of his own and act again as in former days. You don't remember;you were too small then. But he had tremendous success, no end ofrecalls. One night, at Alencon, the subscribers to the theatre gave hima gold wreath. Ah! he was a brilliant man in those days, solighthearted, so glad to be alive. Those who see him now don't know him, poor man, misfortune has changed him so. Oh, well! I feel sure that allthat's necessary is a little success to make him young and happy again. And then there's money to be made managing theatres. The manager atNantes had a carriage. Can you imagine us with a carriage? Can youimagine it, I say? That's what would be good for you. You could go out, leave your armchair once in a while. Your father would take us into thecountry. You would see the water and the trees you have had such alonging to see. " "Oh! the trees, " murmured the pale little recluse, trembling from headto foot. At that moment the street door of the house was closed violently, and M. Delobelle's measured step echoed in the vestibule. There was a moment ofspeechless, breathless anguish. The women dared not look at each other, and mamma's great scissors trembled so that they cut the wire crooked. The poor devil had unquestionably received a terrible blow. Hisillusions crushed, the humiliation of a refusal, the jests of hiscomrades, the bill at the cafe where he had breakfasted on credit duringthe whole period of his managership, a bill which must be paid--all thesethings occurred to him in the silence and gloom of the five flights hehad to climb. His heart was torn. Even so, the actor's nature was sostrong in him that he deemed it his duty to envelop his distress, genuineas it was, in a conventional tragic mask. As he entered, he paused, cast an ominous glance around the work-room, at the table covered with work, his little supper waiting for him in acorner, and the two dear, anxious faces looking up at him with glisteningeyes. He stood a full minute without speaking--and you know how long aminute's silence seems on the stage; then he took three steps forward, sank upon a low chair beside the table, and exclaimed in a hissing voice: "Ah! I am accursed!" At the same time he dealt the table such a terrible blow with his fistthat the "birds and insects for ornament" flew to the four corners of theroom. His terrified wife rose and timidly approached him, while Desireehalf rose in her armchair with an expression of nervous agony thatdistorted all her features. Lolling in his chair, his arms hanging despondently by his sides, hishead on his chest, the actor soliloquized--a fragmentary soliloquy, interrupted by sighs and dramatic hiccoughs, overflowing withimprecations against the pitiless, selfish bourgeois, those monsters towhom the artist gives his flesh and blood for food and drink. Then he reviewed his whole theatrical life, his early triumphs, thegolden wreath from the subscribers at Alencon, his marriage to this"sainted woman, " and he pointed to the poor creature who stood by hisside, with tears streaming from her eyes, and trembling lips, nodding herhead dotingly at every word her husband said. In very truth, a person who never had heard of the illustrious Delobellecould have told his history in detail after that long monologue. Herecalled his arrival in Paris, his humiliations, his privations. Alas!he was not the one who had known privation. One had but to look at hisfull, rotund face beside the thin, drawn faces of the two women. But theactor did not look so closely. "Oh!" he said, continuing to intoxicate himself with declamatoryphrases, "oh! to have struggled so long. For ten years, fifteen years, have I struggled on, supported by these devoted creatures, fed by them. " "Papa, papa, hush, " cried Desiree, clasping her hands. "Yes, fed by them, I say--and I do not blush for it. For I accept allthis devotion in the name of sacred art. But this is too much. Too muchhas been put upon me. I renounce the stage!" "Oh! my dear, what is that you say?" cried Mamma Delobelle, rushing tohis side. "No, leave me. I have reached the end of my strength. They have slainthe artist in me. It is all over. I renounce the stage. " If you had seen the two women throw their arms about him then, implorehim to struggle on, prove to him that he had no right to give up, youcould not have restrained your tears. But Delobelle resisted. He yielded at last, however, and promised to continue the fight a littlewhile, since it was their wish; but it required many an entreaty andcaress to carry the point. CHAPTER IX AT SAVIGNY It was a great misfortune, that sojourn of the two families at Savignyfor a month. After an interval of two years Georges and Sidonie found themselves sideby side once more on the old estate, too old not to be always likeitself, where the stones, the ponds, the trees, always the same, seemedto cast derision upon all that changes and passes away. A renewal ofintercourse under such circumstances must have been disastrous to twonatures that were not of a very different stamp, and far more virtuousthan those two. As for Claire, she never had been so happy; Savigny never had seemed solovely to her. What joy to walk with her child over the greensward whereshe herself had walked as a child; to sit, a young mother, upon theshaded seats from which her own mother had looked on at her childishgames years before; to go, leaning on Georges's arm, to seek out thenooks where they had played together. She felt a tranquil contentment, the overflowing happiness of placid lives which enjoy their bliss insilence; and all day long her skirts swept along the paths, guided by thetiny footsteps of the child, her cries and her demands upon her mother'scare. Sidonie seldom took part in these maternal promenades. She said that thechatter of children tired her, and therein she agreed with old Gardinois, who seized upon any pretext to annoy his granddaughter. He believed thathe accomplished that object by devoting himself exclusively to Sidonie, and arranging even more entertainments for her than on her former visit. The carriages that had been shut up in the carriage-house for two years, and were dusted once a week because the spiders spun their webs on thesilk cushions, were placed at her disposal. The horses were harnessedthree times a day, and the gate was continually turning on its hinges. Everybody in the house followed this impulse of worldliness. Thegardener paid more attention to his flowers because Madame Rislerselected the finest ones to wear in her hair at dinner. And then therewere calls to be made. Luncheon parties were given, gatherings at whichMadame Fromont Jeune presided, but at which Sidonie, with her livelymanners, shone supreme. Indeed, Claire often left her a clear field. The child had its hours for sleeping and riding out, with which noamusements could interfere. The mother was compelled to remain away, andit often happened that she was unable to go with Sidonie to meet thepartners when they came from Paris at night. "You will make my excuses, " she would say, as the went up to her room. Madame Risler was triumphant. A picture of elegant indolence, she woulddrive away behind the galloping horses, unconscious of the swiftness oftheir pace, without a thought in her mind. Other carriages were always waiting at the station. Two or three timesshe heard some one near her whisper, "That is Madame Fromont Jeune, " and, indeed, it was a simple matter for people to make the mistake, seeing thethree return together from the station, Sidonie sitting beside Georges onthe back seat, laughing and talking with him, and Risler facing them, smiling contentedly with his broad hands spread flat upon his knees, but evidently feeling a little out of place in that fine carriage. The thought that she was taken for Madame Fromont made her very proud, and she became a little more accustomed to it every day. On theirarrival at the chateau, the two families separated until dinner; but, in the presence of his wife sitting tranquilly beside the sleeping child, Georges Fromont, too young to be absorbed by the joys of domesticity, wascontinually thinking of the brilliant Sidonie, whose voice he could hearpouring forth triumphant roulades under the trees in the garden. While the whole chateau was thus transformed in obedience to the whims ofa young woman, old Gardinois continued to lead the narrow life of adiscontented, idle, impotent 'parvenu'. The most successful means ofdistraction he had discovered was espionage. The goings and comings ofhis servants, the remarks that were made about him in the kitchen, thebasket of fruit and vegetables brought every morning from the kitchen-garden to the pantry, were objects of continual investigation. For the purposes of this constant spying upon his household, he made useof a stone bench set in the gravel behind an enormous Paulownia. Hewould sit there whole days at a time, neither reading nor thinking, simply watching to see who went in or out. For the night he had inventedsomething different. In the great vestibule at the main entrance, whichopened upon the front steps with their array of bright flowers, he hadcaused an opening to be made leading to his bedroom on the floor above. An acoustic tube of an improved type was supposed to convey to his earsevery sound on the ground floor, even to the conversation of the servantstaking the air on the steps. Unluckily, the instrument was so powerful that it exaggerated all thenoises, confused them and prolonged them, and the powerful, regularticking of a great clock, the cries of a paroquet kept in one of thelower rooms, the clucking of a hen in search of a lost kernel of corn, were all Monsieur Gardinois could hear when he applied his ear to thetube. As for voices, they reached him in the form of a confused buzzing, like the muttering of a crowd, in which it was impossible to distinguishanything. He had nothing to show for the expense of the apparatus, andhe concealed his wonderful tube in a fold of his bed-curtains. One night Gardinois, who had fallen asleep, was awakened suddenly by thecreaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. Thewhole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footstepsof the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a treein which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use hislistening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assuredthat he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door was thrown back with an effort. But neither Pyramus nor Thisbe, not even Kiss, the formidableNewfoundland, had made a sign. He rose softly to see who those strangeburglars could be, who were leaving the house instead of entering it;and this is what he saw through the slats of his blind: A tall, slender young man, with Georges's figure and carriage, arm-in-armwith a woman in a lace mantilla. They stopped first at the bench by thePaulownia, which was in full bloom. It was a superb moonlight night. The moon, silvering the treetops, madenumberless flakes of light amid the dense foliage. The terraces, whitewith moonbeams, where the Newfoundlands in their curly coats went to andfro, watching the night butterflies, the smooth, deep waters of theponds, all shone with a mute, calm brilliance, as if reflected in asilver mirror. Here and there glow-worms twinkled on the edges of thegreensward. The two promenaders remained for a moment beneath the shade of thePaulownia, sitting silent on the bench, lost in the dense darkness whichthe moon makes where its rays do not reach. Suddenly they appeared inthe bright light, wrapped in a languishing embrace; then walked slowlyacross the main avenue, and disappeared among the trees. "I was sure of it!" said old Gardinois, recognizing them. Indeed, whatneed had he to recognize them? Did not the silence of the dogs, theaspect of the sleeping house, tell him more clearly than anything elsecould, what species of impudent crime, unknown and unpunished, hauntedthe avenues in his park by night? Be that as it may, the old peasant wasoverjoyed by his discovery. He returned to bed without a light, chuckling to himself, and in the little cabinet filled with hunting-implements, whence he had watched them, thinking at first that he had todo with burglars, the moon's rays shone upon naught save the fowling-pieces hanging on the wall and the boxes of cartridges of all sizes. Sidonie and Georges had taken up the thread of their love at the cornerof the same avenue. The year that had passed, marked by hesitation, byvague struggles, by fruitless resistance, seemed to have been only apreparation for their meeting. And it must be said that, when once thefatal step was taken, they were surprised at nothing so much as the factthat they had postponed it so long. Georges Fromont especially wasseized by a mad passion. He was false to his wife, his best friend; hewas false to Risler, his partner, the faithful companion of his everyhour. He felt a constant renewal, a sort of overflow of remorse, wherein hispassion was intensified by the magnitude of his sin. Sidonie became hisone engrossing thought, and he discovered that until then he had notlived. As for her, her love was made up of vanity and spite. The thingthat she relished above all else was Claire's degradation in her eyes. Ah! if she could only have said to her, "Your husband loves me--he isfalse to you with me, " her pleasure would have been even greater. As forRisler, in her view he richly deserved what had happened to him. In herold apprentice's jargon, in which she still thought, even if she did notspeak it, the poor man was only "an old fool, " whom she had taken as astepping-stone to fortune. "An old fool" is made to be deceived! During the day Savigny belonged to Claire, to the child who ran aboutupon the gravel, laughing at the birds and the clouds, and who grewapace. The mother and child had for their own the daylight, the pathsfilled with sunbeams. But the blue nights were given over to sin, tothat sin firmly installed in the chateau, which spoke in undertones, crept noiselessly behind the closed blinds, and in face of which thesleeping house became dumb and blind, and resumed its stonyimpassibility, as if it were ashamed to see and hear. CHAPTER X SIGISMOND PLANUS TREMBLES FOR HIS CASH-BOX "Carriage, my dear Chorche?--I--have a carriage? What for?" "I assure you, my dear Risler, that it is quite essential for you. Ourbusiness, our relations, are extending every day; the coupe is no longerenough for us. Besides, it doesn't look well to see one of the partnersalways in his carriage and the other on foot. Believe me, it is anecessary outlay, and of course it will go into the general expenses ofthe firm. Come, resign yourself to the inevitable. " It was genuine resignation. It seemed to Risler as if he were stealingsomething in taking the money for such an unheard-of luxury as acarriage; however, he ended by yielding to Georges's persistentrepresentations, thinking as he did so: "This will make Sidonie very happy!" The poor fellow had no suspicion that Sidonie herself, a month before, had selected at Binder's the coupe which Georges insisted upon givingher, and which was to be charged to expense account in order not to alarmthe husband. Honest Risler was so plainly created to be deceived. His inbornuprightness, the implicit confidence in men and things, which was thefoundation of his transparent nature, had been intensified of late bypreoccupation resulting from his pursuit of the Risler Press, aninvention destined to revolutionize the wall-paper industry andrepresenting in his eyes his contribution to the partnership assets. When he laid aside his drawings and left his little work-room on thefirst floor, his face invariably wore the absorbed look of the man whohas his life on one side, his anxieties on another. What a delight itwas to him, therefore, to find his home always tranquil, his wife alwaysin good humor, becomingly dressed and smiling. Without undertaking to explain the change to himself, he recognized thatfor some time past the "little one" had not been as before in hertreatment of him. She allowed him to resume his old habits: the pipe atdessert, the little nap after dinner, the appointments at the brewerywith Chebe and Delobelle. Their apartments also were transformed, embellished. A grand piano by a famous maker made its appearance in the salon in placeof the old one, and Madame Dobson, the singing-teacher, came no longertwice a week, but every day, music-roll in hand. Of a curious type was that young woman of American extraction, with hairof an acid blond, like lemon-pulp, over a bold forehead and metallic blueeyes. As her husband would not allow her to go on the stage, she gavelessons, and sang in some bourgeois salons. As a result of living in theartificial world of compositions for voice and piano, she had contracteda species of sentimental frenzy. She was romance itself. In her mouth the words "love" and "passion"seemed to have eighty syllables, she uttered them with so muchexpression. Oh, expression! That was what Mistress Dobson placed beforeeverything, and what she tried, and tried in vain, to impart to herpupil. 'Ay Chiquita, ' upon which Paris fed for several seasons, was then at theheight of its popularity. Sidonie studied it conscientiously, and allthe morning she could be heard singing: "On dit que tu te maries, Tu sais que j'en puis mourir. " [They say that thou'rt to marry Thou know'st that I may die. ] "Mouri-i-i-i-i-r!" the expressive Madame Dobson would interpose, whileher hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys; and die she would, raisingher light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head. Sidonie never could accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harpsentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed withunexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, toa motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but shedared not admit it to her sentimental instructress. By the way, althoughshe had been made to sing a great deal at Mademoiselle Le Mire's, hervoice was still fresh and not unpleasing. Having no social connections, she came gradually to make a friend of hersinging-mistress. She would keep her to breakfast, take her to drive inthe new coupe and to assist in her purchases of gowns and jewels. MadameDobson's sentimental and sympathetic tone led one to repose confidence inher. Her continual repinings seemed too long to attract other repinings. Sidonie told her of Georges, of their relations, attempting to palliateher offence by blaming the cruelty of her parents in marrying her byforce to a man much older than herself. Madame Dobson at once showed adisposition to assist them; not that the little woman was venal, but shehad a passion for passion, a taste for romantic intrigue. As she wasunhappy in her own home, married to a dentist who beat her, all husbandswere monsters in her eyes, and poor Risler especially seemed to her ahorrible tyrant whom his wife was quite justified in hating anddeceiving. She was an active confidant and a very useful one. Two or three times aweek she would bring tickets for a box at the Opera or the Italiens, orsome one of the little theatres which enjoy a temporary vogue, and causeall Paris to go from one end of Paris to the other for a season. InRisler's eyes the tickets came from Madame Dobson; she had as many as shechose to the theatres where operas were given. The poor wretch had nosuspicion that one of those boxes for an important "first night" hadoften cost his partner ten or fifteen Louis. In the evening, when his wife went away, always splendidly attired, hewould gaze admiringly at her, having no suspicion of the cost of hercostumes, certainly none of the man who paid for them, and would awaither return at his table by the fire, busy with his drawings, free fromcare, and happy to be able to say to himself, "What a good time she ishaving!" On the floor below, at the Fromonts', the same comedy was being played, but with a transposition of parts. There it was the young wife who satby the fire. Every evening, half an hour after Sidonie's departure, thegreat gate swung open to give passage to the Fromont coupe conveyingMonsieur to his club. What would you have? Business has its demands. All the great deals are arranged at the club, around the bouillottetable, and a man must go there or suffer the penalty of seeing hisbusiness fall off. Claire innocently believed it all. When her husbandhad gone, she felt sad for a moment. She would have liked so much tokeep him with her or to go out leaning on his arm, to seek enjoyment withhim. But the sight of the child, cooing in front of the fire and kickingher little pink feet while she was being undressed, speedily soothed themother. Then the eloquent word "business, " the merchant's reason ofstate, was always at hand to help her to resign herself. Georges and Sidonie met at the theatre. Their feeling at first when theywere together was one of satisfied vanity. People stared at them a greatdeal. She was really pretty now, and her irregular but attractivefeatures, which required the aid of all the eccentricities of theprevailing style in order to produce their full effect, adaptedthemselves to them so perfectly that you would have said they wereinvented expressly for her. In a few moments they went away, and MadameDobson was left alone in the box. They had hired a small suite on theAvenue Gabriel, near the 'rond-point' of the Champs Elysees--the dream ofthe young women at the Le Mire establishment--two luxuriously furnished, quiet rooms, where the silence of the wealthy quarter, disturbed only bypassing carriages, formed a blissful surrounding for their love. Little by little, when she had become accustomed to her sin, sheconceived the most audacious whims. From her old working-days she hadretained in the depths of her memory the names of public balls, of famousrestaurants, where she was eager to go now, just as she took pleasure incausing the doors to be thrown open for her at the establishments of thegreat dressmakers, whose signs only she had known in her earlier days. For what she sought above all else in this liaison was revenge for thesorrows and humiliations of her youth. Nothing delighted her so much, for example, when returning from an evening drive in the Bois, as asupper at the Cafe Anglais with the sounds of luxurious vice around her. From these repeated excursions she brought back peculiarities of speechand behavior, equivocal songs, and a style of dress that imported intothe bourgeois atmosphere of the old commercial house an accuratereproduction of the most advanced type of the Paris cocotte of thatperiod. At the factory they began to suspect something. The women of the people, even the poorest, are so quick at picking a costume to pieces! WhenMadame Risler went out, about three o'clock, fifty pairs of sharp, envious eyes, lying in ambush at the windows of the polishing-shop, watched her pass, penetrating to the lowest depths of her guiltyconscience through her black velvet dolman and her cuirass of sparklingjet. Although she did not suspect it, all the secrets of that mad brain wereflying about her like the ribbons that played upon her bare neck; and herdaintily-shod feet, in their bronzed boots with ten buttons, told thestory of all sorts of clandestine expeditions, of the carpeted stairwaysthey ascended at night on their way to supper, and the warm fur robes inwhich they were wrapped when the coupe made the circuit of the lake inthe darkness dotted with lanterns. The work-women laughed sneeringly and whispered: "Just look at that Tata Bebelle! A fine way to dress to go out. Shedon't rig herself up like that to go to mass, that's sure! To think thatit ain't three years since she used to start for the shop every morningin an old waterproof, and two sous' worth of roasted chestnuts in herpockets to keep her fingers warm. Now she rides in her carriage. " And amid the talc dust and the roaring of the stoves, red-hot in winterand summer alike, more than one poor girl reflected on the caprice ofchance in absolutely transforming a woman's existence, and began to dreamvaguely of a magnificent future which might perhaps be in store forherself without her suspecting it. In everybody's opinion Risler was a dishonored husband. Two assistantsin the printing-room--faithful patrons of the Folies Dramatiques--declared that they had seen Madame Risler several times at their theatre, accompanied by some escort who kept out of sight at the rear of the box. Pere Achille, too, told of amazing things. That Sidonie had a lover, that she had several lovers, in fact, no one entertained a doubt. But noone had as yet thought of Fromont jeune. And yet she showed no prudence whatever in her relations with him. Onthe contrary, she seemed to make a parade of them; it may be that thatwas what saved them. How many times she accosted him boldly on the stepsto agree upon a rendezvous for the evening! How many times she hadamused herself in making him shudder by looking into his eyes beforeevery one! When the first confusion had passed, Georges was grateful toher for these exhibitions of audacity, which he attributed to theintensity of her passion. He was mistaken. What she would have liked, although she did not admit it to herself, would have been to have Claire see them, to have her draw aside thecurtain at her window, to have her conceive a suspicion of what waspassing. She needed that in order to be perfectly happy: that her rivalshould be unhappy. But her wish was ungratified; Claire Fromont noticednothing and lived, as did Risler, in imperturbable serenity. Only Sigismond, the old cashier, was really ill at ease. And yet he wasnot thinking of Sidonie when, with his pen behind his ear, he paused amoment in his work and gazed fixedly through his grating at the drenchedsoil of the little garden. He was thinking solely of his master, ofMonsieur "Chorche, " who was drawing a great deal of money now for hiscurrent expenses and sowing confusion in all his books. Every time itwas some new excuse. He would come to the little wicket with anunconcerned air: "Have you a little money, my good Planus? I was worsted again atbouillotte last night, and I don't want to send to the bank for such atrifle. " Sigismond Planus would open his cash-box, with an air of regret, to getthe sum requested, and he would remember with terror a certain day whenMonsieur Georges, then only twenty years old, had confessed to his unclethat he owed several thousand francs in gambling debts. The elder manthereupon conceived a violent antipathy for the club and contempt for allits members. A rich tradesman who was a member happened to come to thefactory one day, and Sigismond said to him with brutal frankness: "The devil take your 'Cercle du Chateau d'Eau!' Monsieur Georges hasleft more than thirty thousand francs there in two months. " The other began to laugh. "Why, you're greatly mistaken, Pere Planus--it's at least three monthssince we have seen your master. " The cashier did not pursue the conversation; but a terrible thought tookup its abode in his mind, and he turned it over and over all day long. If Georges did not go to the club, where did he pass his evenings? Wheredid he spend so much money? There was evidently a woman at the bottom of the affair. As soon as that idea occurred to him, Sigismond Planus began to trembleseriously for his cash-box. That old bear from the canton of Berne, aconfirmed bachelor, had a terrible dread of women in general and Parisianwomen in particular. He deemed it his duty, first of all, in order toset his conscience at rest, to warn Risler. He did it at first in rathera vague way. "Monsieur Georges is spending a great deal of money, " he said to him oneday. Risler exhibited no surprise. "What do you expect me to do, my old Sigismond? It is his right. " And the honest fellow meant what he said. In his eyes Fromont jeune wasthe absolute master of the establishment. It would have been a finething, and no mistake, for him, an ex-draughtsman, to venture to make anycomments. The cashier dared say no more until the day when a messengercame from a great shawl-house with a bill for six thousand francs for acashmere shawl. He went to Georges in his office. "Shall I pay it, Monsieur?" Georges Fromont was a little annoyed. Sidonie had forgotten to tell himof this latest purchase; she used no ceremony with him now. "Pay it, pay it, Pere Planus, " he said, with a shade of embarrassment, and added: "Charge it to the account of Fromont jeune. It is acommission intrusted to me by a friend. " That evening, as Sigismond was lighting his little lamp, he saw Rislercrossing the garden, and tapped on the window to call him. "It's a woman, " he said, under his breath. "I have the proof of it now. " As he uttered the awful words "a woman" his voice shook with alarm andwas drowned in the great uproar of the factory. The sounds of the workin progress had a sinister meaning to the unhappy cashier at that moment. It seemed to him as if all the whirring machinery, the great chimneypouring forth its clouds of smoke, the noise of the workmen at theirdifferent tasks--as if all this tumult and bustle and fatigue were forthe benefit of a mysterious little being, dressed in velvet and adornedwith jewels. Risler laughed at him and refused to believe him. He had long beenacquainted with his compatriot's mania for detecting in everything thepernicious influence of woman. And yet Planus's words sometimes recurredto his thoughts, especially in the evening when Sidonie, after all thecommotion attendant upon the completion of her toilette, went away to thetheatre with Madame Dobson, leaving the apartment empty as soon as herlong train had swept across the threshold. Candles burning in front ofthe mirrors, divers little toilette articles scattered about and thrownaside, told of extravagant caprices and a reckless expenditure of money. Risler thought nothing of all that; but, when he heard Georges's carriagerolling through the courtyard, he had a feeling of discomfort at thethought of Madame Fromont passing her evenings entirely alone. Poorwoman! Suppose what Planus said were true! Suppose Georges really had a second establishment! Oh, it would befrightful! Thereupon, instead of beginning to work, he would go softly downstairsand ask if Madame were visible, deeming it his duty to keep her company. The little girl was always in bed, but the little cap, the blue shoes, were still lying in front of the fire. Claire was either reading orworking, with her silent mother beside her, always rubbing or dustingwith feverish energy, exhausting herself by blowing on the case of herwatch, and nervously taking the same thing up and putting it down againten times in succession, with the obstinate persistence of mania. Norwas honest Risler a very entertaining companion; but that did not preventthe young woman from welcoming him kindly. She knew all that was saidabout Sidonie in the factory; and although she did not believe half ofit, the sight of the poor man, whom his wife left alone so often, movedher heart to pity. Mutual compassion formed the basis of that placidfriendship, and nothing could be more touching than these two desertedones, one pitying the other and each trying to divert the other'sthoughts. Seated at the small, brightly lighted table in the centre of the salon, Risler would gradually yield to the influence of the warmth of the fireand the harmony of his surroundings. He found there articles offurniture with which he had been familiar for twenty years, the portraitof his former employer; and his dear Madame Chorche, bending over somelittle piece of needle work at his side, seemed to him even younger andmore lovable among all those old souvenirs. From time to time she wouldrise to go and look at the child sleeping in the adjoining room, whosesoft breathing they could hear in the intervals of silence. Withoutfully realizing it, Risler felt more comfortable and warmer there than inhis own apartment; for on certain days those attractive rooms, where thedoors were forever being thrown open for hurried exits or returns, gavehim the impression of a hall without doors or windows, open to the fourwinds. His rooms were a camping-ground; this was a home. A care-takinghand caused order and refinement to reign everywhere. The chairs seemedto be talking together in undertones, the fire burned with a delightfulsound, and Mademoiselle Fromont's little cap retained in every bow of itsblue ribbons suggestions of sweet smiles and baby glances. And while Claire was thinking that such an excellent man deserved abetter companion in life, Risler, watching the calm and lovely faceturned toward him, the intelligent, kindly eyes, asked himself who thehussy could be for whom Georges Fromont neglected such an adorable woman. CHAPTER XI THE INVENTORY The house in which old Planus lived at Montrouge adjoined the one whichthe Chebes had occupied for some time. There was the same ground floorwith three windows, and a single floor above, the same garden with itslatticework fence, the same borders of green box. There the old cashierlived with his sister. He took the first omnibus that left the office inthe morning, returned at dinner-time, and on Sundays remained at home, tending his flowers and his poultry. The old maid was his housekeeperand did all the cooking and sewing. A happier couple never lived. Celibates both, they were bound together by an equal hatred of marriage. The sister abhorred all men, the brother looked upon all women withsuspicion; but they adored each other, each considering the other anexception to the general perversity of the sex. In speaking of him she always said: "Monsieur Planus, my brother!"--andhe, with the same affectionate solemnity, interspersed all his sentenceswith "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister!" To those two retiring andinnocent creatures, Paris, of which they knew nothing, although theyvisited it every day, was a den of monsters of two varieties, bent upondoing one another the utmost possible injury; and whenever, amid thegossip of the quarter, a conjugal drama came to their ears, each of them, beset by his or her own idea, blamed a different culprit. "It is the husband's fault, " would be the verdict of "MademoisellePlanus, my sister. " "It is the wife's fault, " "Monsieur Planus, my brother, " would reply. "Oh! the men--" "Oh! the women--" That was their one never-failing subject of discussion in those rarehours of idleness which old Sigismond set aside in his busy day, whichwas as carefully ruled off as his account-books. For some time past thediscussions between the brother and sister had been marked byextraordinary animation. They were deeply interested in what was takingplace at the factory. The sister was full of pity for Madame Fromont andconsidered her husband's conduct altogether outrageous; as for Sigismond, he could find no words bitter enough for the unknown trollop who sentbills for six-thousand-franc shawls to be paid from his cashbox. In hiseyes, the honor and fair fame of the old house he had served since hisyouth were at stake. "What will become of us?" he repeated again and again. "Oh! thesewomen--" One day Mademoiselle Planus sat by the fire with her knitting, waitingfor her brother. The table had been laid for half an hour, and the old lady was beginningto be worried by such unheard-of tardiness, when Sigismond entered with amost distressed face, and without a word, which was contrary to all hishabits. He waited until the door was shut tight, then said in a low voice, inresponse to his sister's disturbed and questioning expression: "I have some news. I know who the woman is who is doing her best to ruinus. " Lowering his voice still more, after glancing about at the silent wallsof their little dining-room, he uttered a name so unexpected thatMademoiselle Planus made him repeat it. "Is it possible?" "It is the truth. " And, despite his grief, he had almost a triumphant air. His old sister could not believe it. Such a refined, polite person, whohad received her with so much cordiality!--How could any one imagine sucha thing? "I have proofs, " said Sigismond Planus. Thereupon he told her how Pere Achille had met Sidonie and Georges onenight at eleven o'clock, just as they entered a small furnished lodging-house in the Montmartre quarter; and he was a man who never lied. Theyhad known him for a long while. Besides, others had met them. Nothingelse was talked about at the factory. Risler alone suspected nothing. "But it is your duty to tell him, " declared Mademoiselle Planus. The cashier's face assumed a grave expression. "It is a very delicate matter. In the first place, who knows whether hewould believe me? There are blind men so blind that--And then, by interfering between the two partners, I risk the loss of my place. Oh! the women--the women! When I think how happy Risler might have been. When I sent for him to come to Paris with his brother, he hadn't a sou;and to-day he is at the head of one of the first houses in Paris. Do yousuppose that he would be content with that? Oh! no, of course not!Monsieur must marry. As if any one needed to marry! And, worse yet, hemarries a Parisian woman, one of those frowsy-haired chits that are theruin of an honest house, when he had at his hand a fine girl, of almosthis own age, a countrywoman, used to work, and well put together, as youmight say!" "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, " to whose physical structure he alluded, had a magnificent opportunity to exclaim, "Oh! the men, the men!" butshe was silent. It was a very delicate question, and perhaps, if Rislerhad chosen in time, he might have been the only one. Old Sigismond continued: "And this is what we have come to. For three months the leading wall-paper factory in Paris has been tied to the petticoats of that good-for-nothing. You should see how the money flies. All day long I do nothingbut open my wicket to meet Monsieur Georges's calls. He always appliesto me, because at his banker's too much notice would be taken of it, whereas in our office money comes and goes, comes in and goes out. Butlook out for the inventory! We shall have some pretty figures to show atthe end of the year. The worst part of the whole business is that Rislerwon't listen to anything. I have warned him several times: 'Look out, Monsieur Georges is making a fool of himself for some woman. ' He eitherturns away with a shrug, or else he tells me that it is none of hisbusiness and that Fromont Jeune is the master. Upon my word, one wouldalmost think--one would almost think--" The cashier did not finish his sentence; but his silence was pregnantwith unspoken thoughts. The old maid was appalled; but, like most women under such circumstances, instead of seeking a remedy for the evil, she wandered off into a maze ofregrets, conjectures, and retrospective lamentations. What a misfortunethat they had not known it sooner when they had the Chebes for neighbors. Madame Chebe was such an honorable woman. They might have put the matterbefore her so that she would keep an eye on Sidonie and talk seriously toher. "Indeed, that's a good idea, " Sigismond interrupted. "You must go to theRue du Mail and tell her parents. I thought at first of writing tolittle Frantz. He always had a great deal of influence over his brother, and he's the only person on earth who could say certain things to him. But Frantz is so far away. And then it would be such a terrible thing todo. I can't help pitying that unlucky Risler, though. No! the best wayis to tell Madame Chebe. Will you undertake to do it, sister?" It was a dangerous commission. Mademoiselle Planus made some objections, but she never had been able to resist her brother's wishes, and thedesire to be of service to their old friend Risler assisted materially inpersuading her. Thanks to his son-in-law's kindness, M. Chebe had succeeded in gratifyinghis latest whim. For three months past he had been living at his famouswarehouse on the Rue du Mail, and a great sensation was created in thequarter by that shop without merchandise, the shutters of which weretaken down in the morning and put up again at night, as in wholesalehouses. Shelves had been placed all around the walls, there was a newcounter, a safe, a huge pair of scales. In a word, M. Chebe possessedall the requisites of a business of some sort, but did not know as yetjust what business he would choose. He pondered the subject all day as he walked to and fro across the shop, encumbered with several large pieces of bedroom furniture which they hadbeen unable to get into the back room; he pondered it, too, as he stoodon his doorstep, with his pen behind his ear, and feasted his eyesdelightedly on the hurly-burly of Parisian commerce. The clerks whopassed with their packages of samples under their arms, the vans of theexpress companies, the omnibuses, the porters, the wheelbarrows, thegreat bales of merchandise at the neighboring doors, the packages of richstuffs and trimmings which were dragged in the mud before being consignedto those underground regions, those dark holes stuffed with treasures, where the fortune of business lies in embryo--all these things delightedM. Chebe. He amused himself guessing at the contents of the bales and was firstat the fray when some passer-by received a heavy package upon his feet, or the horses attached to a dray, spirited and restive, made the longvehicle standing across the street an obstacle to circulation. He had, moreover, the thousand-and-one distractions of the petty tradesmanwithout customers, the heavy showers, the accidents, the thefts, thedisputes. At the end of the day M. Chebe, dazed, bewildered, worn out by the laborof other people, would stretch himself out in his easy-chair and say tohis wife, as he wiped his forehead: "That's the kind of life I need--an active life. " Madame Chebe would smile softly without replying. Accustomed as she wasto all her husband's whims, she had made herself as comfortable aspossible in a back room with an outlook upon a dark yard, consolingherself with reflections on the former prosperity of her parents and herdaughter's wealth; and, being always neatly dressed, she had succeededalready in acquiring the respect of neighbors and tradesmen. She asked nothing more than not to be confounded with the wives ofworkingmen, often less poor than herself, and to be allowed to retain, inspite of everything, a petty bourgeois superiority. That was herconstant thought; and so the back room in which she lived, and where itwas dark at three in the afternoon, was resplendent with order andcleanliness. During the day the bed became a couch, an old shawl didduty as a tablecloth, the fireplace, hidden by a screen, served as apantry, and the meals were cooked in modest retirement on a stove nolarger than a foot-warmer. A tranquil life--that was the dream of thepoor woman, who was continually tormented by the whims of an uncongenialcompanion. In the early days of his tenancy, M. Chebe had caused these words to beinscribed in letters a foot long on the fresh paint of his shop-front: COMMISSION--EXPORTATION No specifications. His neighbors sold tulle, broadcloth, linen; he wasinclined to sell everything, but could not make up his mind just what. With what arguments did his indecision lead him to favor Madame Chebe asthey sat together in the evening! "I don't know anything about linen; but when you come to broadcloth, Iunderstand that. Only, if I go into broadcloths I must have a man totravel; for the best kinds come from Sedan and Elbeuf. I say nothingabout calicoes; summer is the time for them. As for tulle, that's out ofthe question; the season is too far advanced. " He usually brought his discourse to a close with the words: "The night will bring counsel--let us go to bed. " And to bed he would go, to his wife's great relief. After three or four months of this life, M. Chebe began to tire of it. The pains in the head, the dizzy fits gradually returned. The quarterwas noisy and unhealthy: besides, business was at a standstill. Nothingwas to be done in any line, broadcloths, tissues, or anything else. It was just at the period of this new crisis that "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, " called to speak about Sidonie. The old maid had said to herself on the way, "I must break it gently. "But, like all shy people, she relieved herself of her burden in the firstwords she spoke after entering the house. It was a stunning blow. When she heard the accusation made against herdaughter, Madame Chebe rose in indignation. No one could ever make herbelieve such a thing. Her poor Sidonie was the victim of an infamousslander. M. Chebe, for his part, adopted a very lofty tone, with significantphrases and motions of the head, taking everything to himself as was hiscustom. How could any one suppose that his child, a Chebe, the daughterof an honorable business man known for thirty years on the street, wascapable of Nonsense! Mademoiselle Planus insisted. It was a painful thing to her to beconsidered a gossip, a hawker of unsavory stories. But they hadincontestable proofs. It was no longer a secret to anybody. "And even suppose it were true, " cried M. Chebe, furious at herpersistence. "Is it for us to worry about it? Our daughter is married. She lives a long way from her parents. It is for her husband, who ismuch older than she, to advise and guide her. Does he so much as thinkof doing it?" Upon that the little man began to inveigh against his son-in-law, thatcold-blooded Swiss, who passed his life in his office devising machines, refused to accompany his wife into society, and preferred his old-bachelor habits, his pipe and his brewery, to everything else. You should have seen the air of aristocratic disdain with which M. Chebepronounced the word "brewery!" And yet almost every evening he wentthere to meet Risler, and overwhelmed him with reproaches if he oncefailed to appear at the rendezvous. Behind all this verbiage the merchant of the Rue du Mail--"Commission-Exportation"--had a very definite idea. He wished to give up his shop, to retire from business, and for some time he had been thinking of goingto see Sidonie, in order to interest her in his new schemes. That wasnot the time, therefore, to make disagreeable scenes, to prate aboutpaternal authority and conjugal honor. As for Madame Chebe, beingsomewhat less confident than before of her daughter's virtue, she tookrefuge in the most profound silence. The poor woman wished that she weredeaf and blind--that she never had known Mademoiselle Planus. Like all persons who have been very unhappy, she loved a benumbedexistence with a semblance of tranquillity, and ignorance seemed to herpreferable to everything. As if life were not sad enough, good heavens!And then, after all, Sidonie had always been a good girl; why should shenot be a good woman? Night was falling. M. Chebe rose gravely to close the shutters of theshop and light a gas-jet which illumined the bare walls, the empty, polished shelves, and the whole extraordinary place, which reminded onestrongly of the day following a failure. With his lips closeddisdainfully, in his determination to remain silent, he seemed to say tothe old lady, "Night has come--it is time for you to go home. " And allthe while they could hear Madame Chebe sobbing in the back room, as shewent to and fro preparing supper. Mademoiselle Planus got no further satisfaction from her visit. "Well?" queried old Sigismond, who was impatiently awaiting her return. "They wouldn't believe me, and politely showed me the door. " She had tears in her eyes at the thought of her humiliation. The old man's face flushed, and he said in a grave voice, taking hissister's hand: "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, I ask your pardon for having made youtake this step; but the honor of the house of Fromont was at stake. " From that moment Sigismond became more and more depressed. His cash-boxno longer seemed to him safe or secure. Even when Fromont Jeune did notask him for money, he was afraid, and he summed up all his apprehensionsin four words which came continually to his lips when talking with hissister: "I ha no gonfidence, " he would say, in his hoarse Swiss patois. Thinking always of his cash-box, he dreamed sometimes that it had brokenapart at all the joints, and insisted on remaining open, no matter howmuch he turned the key; or else that a high wind had scattered all thepapers, notes, cheques, and bills, and that he ran after them all overthe factory, tiring himself out in the attempt to pick them up. In the daytime, as he sat behind his grating in the silence of hisoffice, he imagined that a little white mouse had eaten its way throughthe bottom of the box and was gnawing and destroying all its contents, growing plumper and prettier as the work of destruction went on. So that, when Sidonie appeared on the steps about the middle of theafternoon, in her pretty Parisian plumage, old Sigismond shuddered withrage. In his eyes it was the ruin of the house that stood there, ruin ina magnificent costume, with its little coupe at the door, and the placidbearing of a happy coquette. Madame Risler had no suspicion that, at that window on the ground floor, sat an untiring foe who watched her slightest movements, the most trivialdetails of her life, the going and coming of her music-teacher, thearrival of the fashionable dressmaker in the morning, all the boxes thatwere brought to the house, and the laced cap of the employe of theMagasin du Louvre, whose heavy wagon stopped at the gate with a jinglingof bells, like a diligence drawn by stout horses which were dragging thehouse of Fromont to bankruptcy at break-neck speed. Sigismond counted the packages, weighed them with his eye as they passed, and gazed inquisitively into Risler's apartments through the openwindows. The carpets that were shaken with a great noise, thejardinieres that were brought into the sunlight filled with fragile, unseasonable flowers, rare and expensive, the gorgeous hangings--none ofthese things escaped his notice. The new acquisitions of the household stared him in the face, remindinghim of some request for a large amount. But the one thing that he studied more carefully than all else wasRisler's countenance. In his view that woman was in a fair way to change his friend, the best, the most upright of men, into a shameless villain. There was nopossibility of doubt that Risler knew of his dishonor, and submitted toit. He was paid to keep quiet. Certainly there was something monstrous in such a supposition. But it isthe tendency of innocent natures, when they are made acquainted with evilfor the first time, to go at once too far, beyond reason. When he wasonce convinced of the treachery of Georges and Sidonie, Risler'sdegradation seemed to the cashier less impossible of comprehension. Onwhat other theory could his indifference, in the face of his partner'sheavy expenditures, be explained? The excellent Sigismond, in his narrow, stereotyped honesty, could notunderstand the delicacy of Risler's heart. At the same time, themethodical bookkeeper's habit of thought and his clear-sightedness inbusiness were a thousand leagues from that absent-minded, flightycharacter, half-artist, half-inventor. He judged him by himself, havingno conception of the condition of a man with the disease of invention, absorbed by a fixed idea. Such men are somnambulists. They look, but donot see, their eyes being turned within. It was Sigismond's belief that Risler did see. That belief made the oldcashier very unhappy. He began by staring at his friend whenever heentered the counting-room; then, discouraged by his immovableindifference, which he believed to be wilful and premeditated, coveringhis face like a mask, he adopted the plan of turning away and fumblingamong his papers to avoid those false glances, and keeping his eyes fixedon the garden paths or the interlaced wires of the grating when he spoketo him. Even his words were confused and distorted, like his glances. No one could say positively to whom he was talking. No more friendly smiles, no more reminiscences as they turned over theleaves of the cash-book together. "This was the year you came to the factory. Your first increase of pay. Do you remember? We dined at Douix's that day. And then the Cafe desAveugles in the evening, eh? What a debauch!" At last Risler noticed the strange coolness that had sprung up betweenSigismond and himself. He mentioned it to his wife. For some time past she had felt that antipathy prowling about her. Sometimes, as she crossed the courtyard, she was oppressed, as it were, by malevolent glances which caused her to turn nervously toward the oldcashier's corner. This estrangement between the friends alarmed her, and she very quickly determined to put her husband on his guard againstPlanus's unpleasant remarks. "Don't you see that he is jealous of you, of your position? A man whowas once his equal, now his superior, he can't stand that. But whybother one's head about all these spiteful creatures? Why, I amsurrounded by them here. " Risler looked at her with wide-open eyes:--"You?" "Why, yes, it is easy enough to see that all these people detest me. They bear little Chebe a grudge because she has become Madame RislerAine. Heaven only knows all the outrageous things that are said aboutme! And your cashier doesn't keep his tongue in his pocket, I assureyou. What a spiteful fellow he is!" These few words had their effect. Risler, indignant, but too proud tocomplain, met coldness with coldness. Those two honest men, eachintensely distrustful of the other, could no longer meet without apainful sensation, so that, after a while, Risler ceased to go to thecounting-room at all. It was not difficult for him, as Fromont Jeune hadcharge of all financial matters. His month's allowance was carried tohim on the thirtieth of each month. This arrangement afforded Sidonieand Georges additional facilities, and opportunity for all sorts ofunderhand dealing. She thereupon turned her attention to the completion of her programme ofa life of luxury. She lacked a country house. In her heart she detestedthe trees, the fields, the country roads that cover you with dust. "Themost dismal things on earth, " she used to say. But Claire Fromont passedthe summer at Savigny. As soon as the first fine days arrived, thetrunks were packed and the curtains taken down on the floor below; and agreat furniture van, with the little girl's blue bassinet rocking on top, set off for the grandfather's chateau. Then, one morning, the mother, grandmother, child, and nurse, a medley of white gowns and light veils, would drive away behind two fast horses toward the sunny lawns and thepleasant shade of the avenues. At that season Paris was ugly, depopulated; and although Sidonie loved iteven in the summer, which heats it like a furnace, it troubled her tothink that all the fashion and wealth of Paris were driving by theseashore under their light umbrellas, and would make their outing anexcuse for a thousand new inventions, for original styles of the mostrisque sort, which would permit one to show that one has a pretty ankleand long, curly chestnut hair of one's own. The seashore bathing resorts! She could not think of them; Risler couldnot leave Paris. How about buying a country house? They had not the means. To be sure, there was the lover, who would have asked nothing better than to gratifythis latest whim; but a country house cannot be concealed like a braceletor a shawl. The husband must be induced to accept it. That was not aneasy matter; however, they might venture to try it with Risler. To pave the way, she talked to him incessantly about a little nook in thecountry, not too expensive, very near Paris. Risler listened with asmile. He thought of the high grass, of the orchard filled with finefruit-trees, being already tormented by the longing to possess whichcomes with wealth; but, as he was prudent, he said: "We will see, we will see. Let us wait till the end of the year. " The end of the year, that is to say, the striking of the balance-sheet. The balance-sheet! That is the magic word. All through the year we goon and on in the eddying whirl of business. Money comes and goes, circulates, attracts other money, vanishes; and the fortune of the firm, like a slippery, gleaming snake, always in motion, expands, contracts, diminishes, or increases, and it is impossible to know our conditionuntil there comes a moment of rest. Not until the inventory shall weknow the truth, and whether the year, which seems to have beenprosperous, has really been so. The account of stock is usually taken late in December, between Christmasand New Year's Day. As it requires much extra labor to prepare it, everybody works far into the night. The whole establishment is alert. The lamps remain lighted in the offices long after the doors are closed, and seem to share in the festal atmosphere peculiar to that last week ofthe year, when so many windows are illuminated for family gatherings. Every one, even to the least important 'employe' of the firm, isinterested in the results of the inventory. The increases of salary, theNew Year's presents, depend upon those blessed figures. And so, whilethe vast interests of a wealthy house are trembling in the balance, thewives and children and aged parents of the clerks, in their fifth-floortenements or poor apartments in the suburbs, talk of nothing but theinventory, the results of which will make themselves felt either by agreatly increased need of economy or by some purchase, long postponed, which the New Year's gift will make possible at last. On the premises of Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, Sigismond Planus is thegod of the establishment at that season, and his little office asanctuary where all the clerks perform their devotions. In the silenceof the sleeping factory, the heavy pages of the great books rustle asthey are turned, and names called aloud cause search to be made in otherbooks. Pens scratch. The old cashier, surrounded by his lieutenants, has a businesslike, awe-inspiring air. From time to time Fromont Jeune, on the point of going out in his carriage, looks in for a moment, with acigar in his mouth, neatly gloved and ready for the street. He walksslowly, on tiptoe, puts his face to the grating: "Well!--are you getting on all right?" Sigismond gives a grunt, and the young master takes his leave, afraid toask any further questions. He knows from the cashier's expression thatthe showing will be a bad one. In truth, since the days of the Revolution, when there was fighting inthe very courtyard of the factory, so pitiable an inventory never hadbeen seen in the Fromont establishment. Receipts and expendituresbalanced each other. The general expense account had eaten upeverything, and, furthermore, Fromont Jeune was indebted to the firm in alarge sum. You should have seen old Planus's air of consternation when, on the 31st of December, he went up to Georges's office to make report ofhis labors. Georges took a very cheerful view of the matter. Everything would gobetter next year. And to restore the cashier's good humor he gave him anextraordinary bonus of a thousand francs, instead of the five hundred hisuncle used always to give. Everybody felt the effects of that generousimpulse, and, in the universal satisfaction, the deplorable results ofthe yearly accounting were very soon forgotten. As for Risler, Georgeschose to take it upon himself to inform him as to the situation. When he entered his partner's little closet, which was lighted from aboveby a window in the ceiling, so that the light fell directly upon thesubject of the inventor's meditations, Fromont hesitated a moment, filledwith shame and remorse for what he was about to do. The other, when he heard the door, turned joyfully toward his partner. "Chorche, Chorche, my dear fellow--I have got it, our press. There arestill a few little things to think out. But no matter! I am sure now ofmy invention: you will see--you will see! Ah! the Prochassons canexperiment all they choose. With the Risler Press we will crush allrivalry. " "Bravo, my comrade!" replied Fromont Jeune. "So much for the future;but you don't seem to think about the present. What about thisinventory?" "Ah, yes! to be sure. I had forgotten all about it. It isn't verysatisfactory, is it?" He said that because of the somewhat disturbed and embarrassed expressionon Georges's face. "Why, yes, on the contrary, it is very satisfactory indeed, " was thereply. "We have every reason to be satisfied, especially as this is ourfirst year together. We have forty thousand francs each for our share ofthe profits; and as I thought you might need a little money to give yourwife a New Year's present--" Ashamed to meet the eyes of the honest man whose confidence he wasbetraying, Fromont jeune placed a bundle of cheques and notes on thetable. Risler was deeply moved for a moment. So much money at one time for him!His mind dwelt upon the generosity of these Fromonts, who had made himwhat he was; then he thought of his little Sidonie, of the longing whichshe had so often expressed and which he would now be able to gratify. With tears in his eyes and a happy smile on his lips, he held out bothhands to his partner. "I am very happy! I am very happy!" That was his favorite phrase on great occasions. Then he pointed to thebundles of bank notes spread out before him in the narrow bands which areused to confine those fugitive documents, always ready to fly away. "Do you know what that is?" he said to Georges, with an air of triumph. "That is Sidonie's house in the country!" CHAPTER XII A LETTER "TO M. FRANTZ RISLER, "Engineer of the Compagnie Francaise, "Ismailia, Egypt. Frantz, my boy, it is old Sigismond who is writing to you. If I knew better how to put my ideas on paper, I should have a very long story to tell you. But this infernal French is too hard, and Sigismond Planus is good for nothing away from his figures. So I will come to the point at once. "Affairs in your brother's house are not as they should be. That woman is false to him with his partner. She has made her husband a laughing-stock, and if this goes on she will cause him to be looked upon as a rascal. Frantz, my boy, you must come home at once. You are the only one who can speak to Risler and open his eyes about that little Sidonie. He would not believe any of us. Ask leave of absence at once, and come. "I know that you have your bread to earn out there, and your future to assure; but a man of honor should think more of the name his parents gave him than of anything else. And I tell you that if you do not come at once, a time will come when the name of Risler will be so overwhelmed with shame that you will not dare to bear it. SIGISMOND PLANUS, "Cashier. " CHAPTER XIII THE JUDGE Those persons who live always in doors, confined by work or infirmity toa chair by the window, take a deep interest in the people who pass, justas they make for themselves a horizon of the neighboring walls, roofs, and windows. Nailed to their place, they live in the life of the streets; and the busymen and women who pass within their range of vision, sometimes every dayat the same hour, do not suspect that they serve as the mainspring ofother lives, that interested eyes watch for their coming and miss them ifthey happen to go to their destination by another road. The Delobelles, left to themselves all day, indulged in this sort ofsilent observation. Their window was narrow, and the mother, whose eyeswere beginning to weaken as the result of hard usage, sat near the lightagainst the drawn muslin curtain; her daughter's large armchair was alittle farther away. She announced the approach of their daily passers-by. It was a diversion, a subject of conversation; and the long hours oftoil seemed shorter, marked off by the regular appearance of people whowere as busy as they. There were two little sisters, a gentleman in agray overcoat, a child who was taken to school and taken home again, andan old government clerk with a wooden leg, whose step on the sidewalk hada sinister sound. They hardly ever saw him; he passed after dark, but they heard him, andthe sound always struck the little cripple's ears like a harsh echo ofher own mournful thoughts. All these street friends unconsciouslyoccupied a large place in the lives of the two women. If it rained, theywould say: "They will get wet. I wonder whether the child got home before theshower. " And when the season changed, when the March sun inundated thesidewalks or the December snow covered them with its white mantle and itspatches of black mud, the appearance of a new garment on one of theirfriends caused the two recluses to say to themselves, "It is summer, " or, "winter has come. " Now, on a certain evening in May, one of those soft, luminous eveningswhen life flows forth from the houses into the street through the openwindows, Desiree and her mother were busily at work with needles andfingers, exhausting the daylight to its last ray, before lighting thelamp. They could hear the shouts of children playing in the yards, themuffled notes of pianos, and the voice of a street peddler, drawing hishalf-empty wagon. One could smell the springtime in the air, a vagueodor of hyacinth and lilac. Mamma Delobelle had laid aside her work, and, before closing the window, leaned upon the sill listening to all these noises of a great toilingcity, taking delight in walking through the streets when its day's workwas ended. From time to time she spoke to her daughter, without turningher head. "Ah! there's Monsieur Sigismond. How early he leaves the factory to-night! It may be because the days are lengthening so fast, but I don'tthink it can be seven o'clock. Who can that man be with the oldcashier?--What a funny thing!--One would say--Why, yes!--One would say itwas Monsieur Frantz. But that isn't possible. Monsieur Frantz is a longway from here at this moment; and then he had no beard. That man lookslike him all the same! Just look, my dear. " But "my dear" does not leave her chair; she does not even stir. With hereyes staring into vacancy, her needle in the air, arrested in its pretty, industrious movement, she has gone away to the blue country, thatwonderful country whither one may go at will, without thought of anyinfirmity. The name "Frantz, " uttered mechanically by her mother, because of a chance resemblance, represented to her a whole lifetime ofillusions, of fervent hopes, ephemeral as the flush that rose to hercheeks when, on returning home at night, he used to come and chat withher a moment. How far away that was already! To think that he used tolive in the little room near hers, that they used to hear his step on thestairs and the noise made by his table when he dragged it to the windowto draw! What sorrow and what happiness she used to feel when he talkedto her of Sidonie, sitting on the low chair at her knees, while shemounted her birds and her insects. As she worked, she used to cheer and comfort him, for Sidonie had causedpoor Frantz many little griefs before the last great one. His tone whenhe spoke of Sidonie, the sparkle in his eyes when he thought of her, fascinated Desiree in spite of everything, so that when he went away indespair, he left behind him a love even greater than that he carried withhim--a love which the unchanging room, the sedentary, stagnant life, keptintact with all its bitter perfume, whereas his would gradually fade awayand vanish in the fresh air of the outer world. It grows darker and darker. A great wave of melancholy envelops the poorgirl with the falling darkness of that balmy evening. The blissful gleamfrom the past dies away as the last glimmer of daylight vanishes in thenarrow recess of the window, where her mother still stands leaning on thesill. Suddenly the door opens. Some one is there whose features can not bedistinguished. Who can it be? The Delobelles never receive calls. Themother, who has turned her head, thinks at first that some one has comefrom the shop to get the week's work. "My husband has just gone to your place, Monsieur. We have nothing here. Monsieur Delobelle has taken everything. " The man comes forward without speaking, and as he approaches the windowhis features can be distinguished. He is a tall, solidly built fellowwith a bronzed face, a thick, red beard, and a deep voice, and is alittle slow of speech. "Ah! so you don't know me, Mamma Delobelle?" "Oh! I knew you at once, Monsieur Frantz, " said Desiree, very calmly, ina cold, sedate tone. "Merciful heavens! it's Monsieur Frantz. " Quickly Mamma Delobelle runs to the lamp, lights it, and closes thewindow. "What! it is you, is it, my dear Frantz?" How coolly she says it, thelittle rascal! "I knew you at once. " Ah, the little iceberg! She willalways be the same. A veritable little iceberg, in very truth. She is very pale, and herhand as it lies in Frantz's is white and cold. She seems to him improved, even more refined than before. He seems toher superb, as always, with a melancholy, weary expression in the depthsof his eyes, which makes him more of a man than when he went away. His weariness is due to his hurried journey, undertaken immediately onhis receipt of Sigismond's letter. Spurred on by the word dishonor, hehad started instantly, without awaiting his leave of absence, risking hisplace and his future prospects; and, hurrying from steamships torailways, he had not stopped until he reached Paris. Reason enough forbeing weary, especially when one has travelled in eager haste to reachone's destination, and when one's mind has been continually beset byimpatient thoughts, making the journey ten times over in incessant doubtand fear and perplexity. His melancholy began further back. It began on the day when the woman heloved refused to marry him, to become, six months later, the wife of hisbrother; two terrible blows in close succession, the second even morepainful than the first. It is true that, before entering into thatmarriage, Risler had written to him to ask his permission to be happy, and had written in such touching, affectionate terms that the violence ofthe blow was somewhat diminished; and then, in due time, life in astrange country, hard work, and long journeys had softened his grief. Now only a vast background of melancholy remains; unless, indeed, thehatred and wrath by which he is animated at this moment against the womanwho is dishonoring his brother may be a remnant of his former love. But no! Frantz Risler thinks only of avenging the honor of the Rislers. He comes not as a lover, but as a judge; and Sidonie may well look toherself. The judge had gone straight to the factory on leaving the train, relyingupon the surprise, the unexpectedness, of his arrival to disclose to himat a glance what was taking place. Unluckily he had found no one. The blinds of the little house at thefoot of the garden had been closed for two weeks. Pere Achille informedhim that the ladies were at their respective country seats where thepartners joined them every evening. Fromont Jeune had left the factory very early; Risler Aine had just gone. Frantz decided to speak to old Sigismond. But it was Saturday, theregular pay-day, and he must needs wait until the long line of workmen, extending from Achille's lodge to the cashier's grated window, hadgradually dispersed. Although very impatient and very depressed, the excellent youth, who hadlived the life of a Paris workingman from his childhood, felt a thrill ofpleasure at finding himself once more in the midst of the animated scenespeculiar to that time and place. Upon all those faces, honest orvicious, was an expression of satisfaction that the week was at an end. You felt that, so far as they were concerned, Sunday began at seveno'clock Saturday evening, in front of the cashier's little lamp. One must have lived among workingmen to realize the full charm of thatone day's rest and its solemnity. Many of these poor creatures, boundfast to unhealthful trades, await the coming of the blessed Sunday like apuff of refreshing air, essential to their health and their life. Whatan overflow of spirits, therefore, what a pressing need of noisy mirth!It seems as if the oppression of the week's labor vanishes with the steamfrom the machinery, as it escapes in a hissing cloud of vapor over thegutters. One by one the workmen moved away from the grating, counting the moneythat glistened in their black hands. There were disappointments, mutterings, remonstrances, hours missed, money drawn in advance; andabove the tinkling of coins, Sigismond's voice could be heard, calm andrelentless, defending the interests of his employers with a zealamounting to ferocity. Frantz was familiar with all the dramas of pay-day, the false accents andthe true. He knew that one man's wages were expended for his family, topay the baker and the druggist, or for his children's schooling. Another wanted his money for the wine-shop or for something even worse. And the melancholy, downcast shadows passing to and fro in front of thefactory gateway--he knew what they were waiting for--that they were allon the watch for a father or a husband, to hurry him home withcomplaining or coaxing words. Oh! the barefooted children, the tiny creatures wrapped in old shawls, the shabby women, whose tear-stained faces were as white as the linencaps that surmounted them. Oh! the lurking vice that prowls about on pay-day, the candles that arelighted in the depths of dark alleys, the dirty windows of the wine-shopswhere the thousand-and-one poisonous concoctions of alcohol display theiralluring colors. Frantz was familiar with all these forms of misery; but never had theyseemed to him so depressing, so harrowing as on that evening. When the last man was paid, Sigismond came out of his office. The twofriends recognized each other and embraced; and in the silence of thefactory, at rest for twenty-four hours and deathly still in all its emptybuildings, the cashier explained to Frantz the state of affairs. Hedescribed Sidonie's conduct, her mad extravagance, the total wreck of thefamily honor. The Rislers had bought a country house at Asnieres, formerly the property of an actress, and had set up a sumptuousestablishment there. They had horses and carriages, and led a luxurious, gay life. The thing that especially disturbed honest Sigismond was theself restraint of Fromont jeune. For some time he had drawn almost nomoney from the strong-box, and yet Sidonie was spending more than ever. "I haf no gonfidence!" said the unhappy cashier, shaking his head, "I hafno gonfidence!" Lowering his voice he added: "But your brother, my little Frantz, your brother? Who can explain hisactions? He goes about through it all with his eyes in the air, hishands in his pockets, his mind on his famous invention, whichunfortunately doesn't move fast. Look here! do you want me to give youmy opinion?--He's either a knave or a fool. " They were walking up and down the little garden as they talked, stoppingfor a moment, then resuming their walk. Frantz felt as if he were livingin a horrible dream. The rapid journey, the sudden change of scene andclimate, the ceaseless flow of Sigismond's words, the new idea that hehad to form of Risler and Sidonie--the same Sidonie he had loved sodearly--all these things bewildered him and almost drove him mad. It was late. Night was falling. Sigismond proposed to him to go toMontrouge for the night; he declined on the plea of fatigue, and when hewas left alone in the Marais, at that dismal and uncertain hour when thedaylight has faded and the gas is still unlighted, he walkedinstinctively toward his old quarters on the Rue de Braque. At the hall door hung a placard: Bachelor's Chamber to let. It was the same room in which he had lived so long with his brother. Herecognized the map fastened to the wall by four pins, the window on thelanding, and the Delobelles' little sign: 'Birds and Insects forOrnament. ' Their door was ajar; he had only to push it a little in order to enterthe room. Certainly there was not in all Paris a surer refuge for him, a spotbetter fitted to welcome and console his perturbed spirit, than thathard-working familiar fireside. In his present agitation and perplexityit was like the harbor with its smooth, deep water, the sunny, peacefulquay, where the women work while awaiting their husbands and fathers, though the wind howls and the sea rages. More than all else, although hedid not realize that it was so, it was a network of steadfast affection, that miraculous love-kindness which makes another's love precious to useven when we do not love that other. That dear little iceberg of a Desiree loved him so dearly. Her eyessparkled so even when talking of the most indifferent things with him. As objects dipped in phosphorus shine with equal splendor, so the mosttrivial words she said illuminated her pretty, radiant face. What ablissful rest it was for him after Sigismond's brutal disclosures! They talked together with great animation while Mamma Delobelle wassetting the table. "You will dine with us, won't you, Monsieur Frantz? Father has gone totake back the work; but he will surely come home to dinner. " He will surely come home to dinner! The good woman said it with a certain pride. In fact, since the failure of his managerial scheme, the illustriousDelobelle no longer took his meals abroad, even on the evenings when hewent to collect the weekly earnings. The unlucky manager had eaten somany meals on credit at his restaurant that he dared not go there again. By way of compensation, he never failed, on Saturday, to bring home withhim two or three unexpected, famished guests--"old comrades"--"unluckydevils. " So it happened that, on the evening in question, he appearedupon the stage escorting a financier from the Metz theatre and a comiquefrom the theatre at Angers, both waiting for an engagement. The comique, closely shaven, wrinkled, shrivelled by the heat from thefootlights, looked like an old street-arab; the financier wore clothshoes, and no linen, so far as could be seen. "Frantz!--my Frantz!" cried the old strolling player in a melodramaticvoice, clutching the air convulsively with his hands. After a long andenergetic embrace he presented his guests to one another. "Monsieur Robricart, of the theatre at Metz. "Monsieur Chaudezon, of the theatre at Angers. "Frantz Risler, engineer. " In Delobelle's mouth that word "engineer" assumed vast proportions! Desiree pouted prettily when she saw her father's friends. It would havebeen so nice to be by themselves on a day like to-day. But the great mansnapped his fingers at the thought. He had enough to do to unload hispockets. First of all, he produced a superb pie "for the ladies, " hesaid, forgetting that he adored pie. A lobster next made its appearance, then an Arles sausage, marrons glaces and cherries, the first of theseason! While the financier enthusiastically pulled up the collar of hisinvisible shirt, while the comique exclaimed "gnouf! gnouf!" with agesture forgotten by Parisians for ten years, Desiree thought with dismayof the enormous hole that impromptu banquet would make in the paltryearnings of the week, and Mamma Delobelle, full of business, upset thewhole buffet in order to find a sufficient number of plates. It was a very lively meal. The two actors ate voraciously, to the greatdelight of Delobelle, who talked over with them old memories of theirdays of strolling. Fancy a collection of odds and ends of scenery, extinct lanterns, and mouldy, crumbling stage properties. In a sort of vulgar, meaningless, familiar slang, they recalled theirinnumerable triumphs; for all three of them, according to their ownstories, had been applauded, laden with laurel-wreaths, and carried intriumph by whole cities. While they talked they ate as actors usually eat, sitting with theirfaces turned three-fourths toward the audience, with the unnatural hasteof stage guests at a pasteboard supper, alternating words and mouthfuls, seeking to produce an effect by their manner of putting down a glass ormoving a chair, and expressing interest, amazement, joy, terror, surprise, with the aid of a skilfully handled knife and fork. MadameDelobelle listened to them with a smiling face. One can not be an actor's wife for thirty years without becoming somewhataccustomed to these peculiar mannerisms. But one little corner of the table was separated from the rest of theparty as by a cloud which intercepted the absurd remarks, the hoarselaughter, the boasting. Frantz and Desiree talked together inundertones, hearing naught of what was said around them. Things thathappened in their childhood, anecdotes of the neighborhood, a whole ill-defined past which derived its only value from the mutual memoriesevoked, from the spark that glowed in the eyes of both-those were thethemes of their pleasant chat. Suddenly the cloud was torn aside, and Delobelle's terrible voiceinterrupted the dialogue. "Have you not seen your brother?" he asked, in order to avoid theappearance of neglecting him too much. "And you have not seen his wife, either? Ah! you will find her a Madame. Such toilettes, my dear fellow, and such chic! I assure you. They have a genuine chateau at Asnieres. The Chebes are there also. Ah! my old friend, they have all left usbehind. They are rich, they look down on old friends. Never a word, never a call. For my part, you understand, I snap my fingers at them, but it really wounds these ladies. " "Oh, papa!" said Desiree hastily, "you know very well that we are toofond of Sidonie to be offended with her. " The actor smote the table a violent blow with his fist. "Why, then, you do wrong. You ought to be offended with people who seekalways to wound and humiliate you. " He still had upon his mind the refusal to furnish funds for histheatrical project, and he made no secret of his wrath. "If you knew, " he said to Frantz, "if you knew how money is beingsquandered over yonder! It is a great pity. And nothing substantial, nothing sensible. I who speak to you, asked your brother for a paltrysum to assure my future and himself a handsome profit. He flatlyrefused. Parbleu! Madame requires too much. She rides, goes to theraces in her carriage, and drives her husband at the same rate as herlittle phaeton on the quay at Asnieres. Between you and me, I don'tthink that our good friend Risler is very happy. That woman makes himbelieve black is white. " The ex-actor concluded his harangue with a wink at the comique and thefinancier, and for a moment the three exchanged glances, conventionalgrimaces, 'ha-has!' and 'hum-hums!' and all the usual pantomimeexpressive of thoughts too deep for words. Frantz was struck dumb. Do what he would, the horrible certaintyassailed him on all sides. Sigismond had spoken in accordance with hisnature, Delobelle with his. The result was the same. Fortunately the dinner was drawing near its close. The three actors leftthe table and betook themselves to the brewery on the Rue Blondel. Frantz remained with the two women. As he sat beside her, gentle and affectionate in manner, Desiree wassuddenly conscious of a great outflow of gratitude to Sidonie. She saidto herself that, after all, it was to her generosity that she owed thissemblance of happiness, and that thought gave her courage to defend herformer friend. "You see, Monsieur Frantz, you mustn't believe all my father told youabout your sister-in-law. Dear papa! he always exaggerates a little. For my own part, I am very sure that Sidonie is incapable of all the evilshe is accused of. I am sure that her heart has remained the same; andthat she is still fond of her friends, although she does neglect them alittle. Such is life, you know. Friends drift apart without meaning to. Isn't that true, Monsieur Frantz?" Oh! how pretty she was in his eyes, while she talked in that strain. Henever had taken so much notice of the refined features, the aristocraticpallor of her complexion; and when he left her that evening, deeplytouched by the warmth she had displayed in defending Sidonie, by all thecharming feminine excuses she put forward for her friend's silence andneglect, Frantz Risler reflected, with a feeling of selfish and ingenuouspleasure, that the child had loved him once, and that perhaps she lovedhim still, and kept for him in the bottom of her heart that warm, sheltered spot to which we turn as to the sanctuary when life has woundedus. All night long in his old room, lulled by the imaginary movement of thevessel, by the murmur of the waves and the howling of the wind whichfollow long sea voyages, he dreamed of his youthful days, of little Chebeand Desiree Delobelle, of their games, their labors, and of the EcoleCentrale, whose great, gloomy buildings were sleeping near at hand, inthe dark streets of the Marais. And when daylight came, and the sun shining in at his bare window vexedhis eyes and brought him back to a realization of the duty that laybefore him and to the anxieties of the day, he dreamed that it was timeto go to the School, and that his brother, before going down to thefactory, opened the door and called to him: "Come, lazybones! Come!" That dear, loving voice, too natural, too real for a dream, made him openhis eyes without more ado. Risler was standing by his bed, watching his awakening with a charmingsmile, not untinged by emotion; that it was Risler himself was evidentfrom the fact that, in his joy at seeing his brother Frantz once more, hecould find nothing better to say than, "I am very happy, I am veryhappy!" Although it was Sunday, Risler, as was his custom, had come to thefactory to avail himself of the silence and solitude to work at hispress. Immediately on his arrival, Pere Achille had informed him thathis brother was in Paris and had gone to the old house on the Rue deBraque, and he had hastened thither in joyful surprise, a little vexedthat he had not been forewarned, and especially that Frantz had defraudedhim of the first evening. His regret on that account came to the surfaceevery moment in his spasmodic attempts at conversation, in whicheverything that he wanted to say was left unfinished, interrupted byinnumerable questions on all sorts of subjects and explosions ofaffection and joy. Frantz excused himself on the plea of fatigue, andthe pleasure it had given him to be in their old room once more. "All right, all right, " said Risler, "but I sha'n't let you alone now--you are coming to Asnieres at once. I give myself leave of absencetoday. All thought of work is out of the question now that you havecome, you understand. Ah! won't the little one be surprised and glad!We talk about you so often! What joy! what joy!" The poor fellow fairly beamed with happiness; he, the silent man, chattered like a magpie, gazed admiringly at his Frantz and remarkedupon his growth. The pupil of the Ecole Centrale had had a fine physiquewhen he went away, but his features had acquired greater firmness, his shoulders were broader, and it was a far cry from the tall, studious-looking boy who had left Paris two years before, for Ismailia, to thishandsome, bronzed corsair, with his serious yet winning face. While Risler was gazing at him, Frantz, on his side, was closelyscrutinizing his brother, and, finding him the same as always, asingenuous, as loving, and as absent-minded as times, he said to himself: "No! it is not possible--he has not ceased to be an honest man. " Thereupon, as he reflected upon what people had dared to imagine, all hiswrath turned against that hypocritical, vicious woman, who deceived herhusband so impudently and with such absolute impunity that she succeededin causing him to be considered her confederate. Oh! what a terriblereckoning he proposed to have with her; how pitilessly he would talk toher! "I forbid you, Madame--understand what I say--I forbid you to dishonor mybrother!" He was thinking of that all the way, as he watched the still leaflesstrees glide along the embankment of the Saint-Germain railway. Sittingopposite him, Risler chattered, chattered without pause. He talked aboutthe factory, about their business. They had gained forty thousand francseach the last year; but it would be a different matter when the Press wasat work. "A rotary press, my little Frantz, rotary and dodecagonal, capable of printing a pattern in twelve to fifteen colors at a singleturn of the wheel--red on pink, dark green on light green, without theleast running together or absorption, without a line lapping over itsneighbor, without any danger of one shade destroying or overshadowinganother. Do you understand that, little brother? A machine that is anartist like a man. It means a revolution in the wallpaper trade. " "But, " queried Frantz with some anxiety, "have you invented this Press ofyours yet, or are you still hunting for it?" "Invented!--perfected! To-morrow I will show you all my plans. I havealso invented an automatic crane for hanging the paper on the rods in thedrying-room. Next week I intend to take up my quarters in the factory, up in the garret, and have my first machine made there secretly, under myown eyes. In three months the patents must be taken out and the Pressmust be at work. You'll see, my little Frantz, it will make us all rich-you can imagine how glad I shall be to be able to make up to theseFromonts for a little of what they have done for me. Ah! upon my word, the Lord has been too good to me. " Thereupon he began to enumerate all his blessings. Sidonie was the bestof women, a little love of a wife, who conferred much honor upon him. They had a charming home. They went into society, very select society. The little one sang like a nightingale, thanks to Madame Dobson'sexpressive method. By the way, this Madame Dobson was another mostexcellent creature. There was just one thing that disturbed poor Risler, that was his incomprehensible misunderstanding with Sigismond. PerhapsFrantz could help him to clear up that mystery. "Oh! yes, I will help you, brother, " replied Frantz through his clenchedteeth; and an angry flush rose to his brow at the idea that any one couldhave suspected the open-heartedness, the loyalty, that were displayedbefore him in all their artless spontaneity. Luckily he, the judge, hadarrived; and he proposed to restore everything to its proper place. Meanwhile, they were drawing near the house at Asnieres. Frantz hadnoticed at a distance a fanciful little turreted affair, glistening witha new blue slate roof. It seemed to him to have been built expressly forSidonie, a fitting cage for that capricious, gaudy-plumaged bird. It was a chalet with two stories, whose bright mirrors and pink-linedcurtains could be seen from the railway, shining resplendent at the farend of a green lawn, where an enormous pewter ball was suspended. The river was near at hand, still wearing its Parisian aspect, filledwith chains, bathing establishments, great barges, and multitudes oflittle, skiffs, with a layer of coaldust on their pretentious, freshly-painted names, tied to the pier and rocking to the slightest motion ofthe water. From her windows Sidonie could see the restaurants on thebeach, silent through the week, but filled to overflowing on Sunday witha motley, noisy crowd, whose shouts of laughter, mingled with the dullsplash of oars, came from both banks to meet in midstream in that currentof vague murmurs, shouts, calls, laughter, and singing that floatswithout ceasing up and down the Seine on holidays for a distance of tenmiles. During the week she saw shabbily-dressed idlers sauntering along theshore, men in broad-brimmed straw hats and flannel shirts, women who saton the worn grass of the sloping bank, doing nothing, with the dreamyeyes of a cow at pasture. All the peddlers, handorgans, harpists;travelling jugglers, stopped there as at a quarantine station. The quaywas crowded with them, and as they approached, the windows in the littlehouses near by were always thrown open, disclosing white dressing-jackets, half-buttoned, heads of dishevelled hair, and an occasionalpipe, all watching these paltry strolling shows, as if with a sigh ofregret for Paris, so near at hand. It was a hideous and depressingsight. The grass, which had hardly begun to grow, was already turning yellowbeneath the feet of the crowd. The dust was black; and yet, everyThursday, the cocotte aristocracy passed through on the way to theCasino, with a great show of rickety carriages and borrowed postilions. All these things gave pleasure to that fanatical Parisian, Sidonie; andthen, too, in her childhood, she had heard a great deal about Asnieresfrom the illustrious Delobelle, who would have liked to have, like somany of his profession, a little villa in those latitudes, a cozy nook inthe country to which to return by the midnight train, after the play isdone. All these dreams of little Chebe, Sidonie Risler had realized. The brothers went to the gate opening on the quay, in which the key wasusually left. They entered, making their way among trees and shrubs ofrecent growth. Here and there the billiard-room, the gardener's lodge, alittle greenhouse, made their appearance, like the pieces of one of theSwiss chalets we give to children to play with; all very light andfragile, hardly more than resting on the ground, as if ready to fly awayat the slightest breath of bankruptcy or caprice: the villa of a cocotteor a pawnbroker. Frantz looked about in some bewilderment. In the distance, opening on aporch surrounded by vases of flowers, was the salon with its long blindsraised. An American easy-chair, folding-chairs, a small table from whichthe coffee had not been removed, could be seen near the door. Withinthey heard a succession of loud chords on the piano and the murmur of lowvoices. "I tell you Sidonie will be surprised, " said honest Risler, walkingsoftly on the gravel; "she doesn't expect me until tonight. She andMadame Dobson are practising together at this moment. " Pushing the door open suddenly, he cried from the threshold in his loud, good-natured voice: "Guess whom I've brought. " Madame Dobson, who was sitting alone at the piano, jumped up from herstool, and at the farther end of the grand salon Georges and Sidonie rosehastily behind the exotic plants that reared their heads above a table, of whose delicate, slender lines they seemed a prolongation. "Ah! how you frightened me!" said Sidonie, running to meet Risler. The flounces of her white peignoir, through which blue ribbons weredrawn, like little patches of blue sky among the clouds, rolled inbillows over the carpet, and, having already recovered from herembarrassment, she stood very straight, with an affable expression andher everlasting little smile, as she kissed her husband and offered herforehead to Frantz, saying: "Good morning, brother. " Risler left them confronting each other, and went up to Fromont Jeune, whom he was greatly surprised to find there. "What, Chorche, you here? I supposed you were at Savigny. " "Yes, to be sure, but--I came--I thought you stayed at Asnieres Sundays. I wanted to speak to you on a matter of business. " Thereupon, entangling himself in his words, he began to talk hurriedly ofan important order. Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a fewunmeaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued hertremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany criticalsituations at the theatre. In very truth, the situation at that moment was decidedly strained. But Risler's good-humor banished all constraint. He apologized to hispartner for not being at home, and insisted upon showing Frantz thehouse. They went from the salon to the stable, from the stable to thecarriage-house, the servants' quarters, and the conservatory. Everythingwas new, brilliant, gleaming, too small, and inconvenient. "But, " said Risler, with a certain pride, "it cost a heap of money!" He persisted in compelling admiration of Sidonie's purchase even to itssmallest details, exhibited the gas and water fixtures on every floor, the improved system of bells, the garden seats, the English billiard-table, the hydropathic arrangements, and accompanied his exposition withoutbursts of gratitude to Fromont Jeune, who, by taking him intopartnership, had literally placed a fortune in his hands. At each new effusion on Risler's part, Georges Fromont shrank visibly, ashamed and embarrassed by the strange expression on Frantz's face. The breakfast was lacking in gayety. Madame Dobson talked almost without interruption, overjoyed to beswimming in the shallows of a romantic love-affair. Knowing, or ratherbelieving that she knew her friend's story from beginning to end, sheunderstood the lowering wrath of Frantz, a former lover furious atfinding his place filled, and the anxiety of Georges, due to theappearance of a rival; and she encouraged one with a glance, consoled theother with a smile, admired Sidonie's tranquil demeanor, and reserved allher contempt for that abominable Risler, the vulgar, uncivilized tyrant. She made an effort to prevent any of those horrible periods of silence, when the clashing knives and forks mark time in such an absurd andembarrassing way. As soon as breakfast was at an end Fromont Jeune announced that he mustreturn to Savigny. Risler did not venture to detain him, thinking thathis dear Madame Chorche would pass her Sunday all alone; and so, withoutan opportunity to say a word to his mistress, the lover went away in thebright sunlight to take an afternoon train, still attended by thehusband, who insisted upon escorting him to the station. Madame Dobson sat for a moment with Frantz and Sidonie under a littlearbor which a climbing vine studded with pink buds; then, realizing thatshe was in the way, she returned to the salon, and as before, whileGeorges was there, began to play and sing softly and with expression. In the silent garden, that muffled music, gliding between the branches, seemed like the cooing of birds before the storm. At last they were alone. Under the lattice of the arbor, still bare andleafless, the May sun shone too bright. Sidonie shaded her eyes with herhand as she watched the people passing on the quay. Frantz likewiselooked out, but in another direction; and both of them, affecting to beentirely independent of each other, turned at the same instant with thesame gesture and moved by the same thought. "I have something to say to you, " he said, just as she opened her mouth. "And I to you, " she replied gravely; "but come in here; we shall be morecomfortable. " And they entered together a little summer-house at the foot of thegarden. ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: Charm of that one day's rest and its solemnityClashing knives and forks mark timeFaces taken by surprise allow their real thoughts to be seenMake for themselves a horizon of the neighboring walls and roofsWiping his forehead ostentatiously