m ilifcLJHTjS* 1 ^ 1. I E> R.ARY OF THE U NIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 645Z.74 OpoE 1887 i. HSP A~Ur XvwiWvi ^>^S^ - - A MUMMER'S WIFE, A REALISTIC NOVEL. By the Author of "A MODERN LOVER." %* This book has been placed in the Index Kxpurgatorius of the Select Circulating Libraries of Messra. Mudie and W. H. Smith and Son. PRESS NOTICES. THE ATHEN.EUM. "A Mummer's Wife" is a striking book, clever, unpleasant, realistic. . . . The woman's character is a very powerful study, and the strolling player, if less original, is not less completely presented. In developing the commonplace lower middle- class woman, with whom religion is a strong prejudice and no more, and love a mere passion, into a heroine of comic opera, and ultimately into a drunkard a woman without intellect, education, principle, or any strong emotion he has drawn a bit of human nature to the life. . . . No one who wishes to examine the subject of realism in fiction with regard to English novels can afford to neglect " A Mummer's Wife." THE GRAPHIC. " A Mummer's Wife " holds at present a unique position among English novels. It is the first thoroughgoing attempt, at any rate of importance, to carry out the principles of realism in fiction to their final, and possibly their only logical, result. Regarding Mr. George Moore as intentionally representing a school to which we are opposed, root and branch, we must, nevertheless, bear witness, however unwillingly, to the remarkable fidelity and ability with which his work is done. "A Mummer's Wife" is anything but a piece of ordinary novel manufacture. It comprises the results of close and elaborate observation, of artistic labour, and of a conscientious effort on the author's part to make the very best and utmost of his materials. For theso reasons alone failure was well-nigh impossible. "A Mummer's Wife" is a conspicuous success of its kind. THE PALL MALL GAZETTE. " A Mummer's Wife " is a patient, laborious study of the decline of a woman, who quits middle-class respectability to plunge into theatrical bohemianism, and despite the indolent kindness of her seducer, afterwards her husband sinks into dipsomania and moral and physical ruin. ... It Is interesting and even absorbing. Mr. Moore a observes closely and accurately, describes vividly and unflinchingly. His picture of the life of a travelling opera-bouffe company may be commended to the church and stage sentimentalists, who imagine the lower walks of the drama are, or can possibly be, schools of all the virtues. . . . The novel deserves recognition as a serious attempt at something better than the ordinary fictional frivolities of the day. THE ACADEMY. As a realist Mr. Moore does not spare us. The surroundings of the wretched Kate Lennox are from first to last of the most sordid character. The black moral fog that descends upon her at the beginning of the story never lifts, but becomes even darker and fouler. Mr. Moore shows unquestionable power in telling her story, and the sketch of her second husband big, frankly sensual, yet good-natured is probably as good as anything of the kind could be. THE SPECTATOR. " A Mummer's Wife," In virtue of its vividness of presentation and real literary skill, may be regarded as in some degree a representative example of the work of a literary school that has of late years attracted to itself a good deal of the notoriety which is a very useful substitute for fame. . . . Vice in its pages is loathsome in its bideousness. Mr. Moore has not gone out of his way to invest with adventitious attractiveness the sin with which he deals. Roses and raptures are not without a place in his record, but there are plenty of thorns and torments ; and assuredly if art, literary or pictorial, fulfils its true mission in photographic presentation of the details of sensuality and sottishness, it is well that such presentation should have the photo- graphic veracity which allows no item of foulness or ugliness to escape. SOCIETY. " A Mummer's Wife " contains passages of striking force and cynical humour, and at least one scene intensely pathetic and weirdly sad. It is a description of the death of an infant which wears out its little life in convulsions while its mother is in a drunken sleep by its side. It is not too much to say that if all the book were as power- ful as this, Mr. Moore might fairly claim the title of the English Zola. WHITEHALL REVIEW. We gently hinted to Mr. Moore that his " Modern Lover" was an unpleasant young man, but he was a model of chastity compared to his " Mummer's Wife." Mr. Moore may have written his book with the best of purposes, and with the wish to make his readers detest sin, and shudder at its consequences ; but such books as his ought not to be cast wholesale into circulating libraries with the chance of falling into the hands of those "young unmarried ladies" at whom Mr. Henry James gives a gentle, passing sneer ; or those older married ladies, who devour novels quite as greedily as their younger sisters, and who are supposed to know both halves of life. THE WEEKLY ECHO. Mr. Moore's novel is written with something of Zola's ability. It is in every way remarkable among recent books o| fiction, for plot, for close observation, for intensity of feeling, and power of vivid description. Most of the characters are drawn with such maturity of power that it is startling to here and there come across traces of a raw hand. Mr. Moore is one of the devotees of the realistic theory. NEWCASTLE CHRONICLE. The tale is well told, with deep pathos blending with humour. Purists may possibly object to its morality or lack of morality but no one can say that it is not a truthful picture of the seamy side of life. PIPING HOT! A REALISTIC NOVEL. ZOLA'S POWERFUL BEALISTIC NOVELS. A LOVE EPISODE. FROM THE 52ND FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravingt. THE CONQUEST OF PLASSANS. FROM THE 23RD FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravings. HIS EXCELLENCE EUGENE ROUGON. FROM THE 22ND FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravingt. HOW JOLLY LIFE IS ! FROM THE 44TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravings. THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS. FROM THE 24TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravings. ABBE MOURET'S TRANSGRESSION. FROM THE 34TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Page Engravings. HIS MASTERPIECE? (L'ozuvRE.) With a Portrait of the Author, etched by Bocourt. THE LADIES' PARADISE. Sequel to " PIPING-HOT!" FROM THE 50TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Eight Tinted Page Engravings. THERESE RAQUIN. Illustrated with Sixteen Page Engravings, by CasMU. THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL. (LA CUREE.) FROM THE 35TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Twelve Page Engravings. PIPING HOT ! (PoT-BouiLLE.) FROM THE 63RD FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Sixteen Page Engravings, by French Artists. GERMINAL; OR, MASTER AND MAN. FROM THE 47TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Sixteen Page Engravings, from designs by J. Ferat. N ANA. FROM THE 127TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Twenty-Four Tinted Page Engravings, by French Artists. THE "ASSOMMOIR." (The Prelude to "NANA,") FROM THE 97TH FRENCH EDITION. Illustrated with Sixteen Tinted Page Engravings, by French Artists. ^^ \ *-84'Vi^V ANGELE PINCHES LISA IN A FRIENDLY WAY. p. 24. PIPING HOT! (POT-BOUILLE.) JUBILATION OF THE JOSSERAXUS AT BEllTHE's ENGAGEMENT. p. 102. By ZOLA. PIPING HOT! (POT-BOUILLE.) A REALISTIC NOVEL. EMILE ZOLA. TBANSLATKD FBOM THE 63ED FBBNOH EDITION. toith .Sixteen -page FROM DESIGNS BY GEORGES BELLENGER. NEW EDITION. LONDON : VlZETELLY &> CO., 42 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1887. H6~Z Pf PREFACE. '<, ONE day, in the middle of a long literary conversation, Theodore Duret said to me : "I have known in my life two men of supreme intelligence. I knew of both before the world knew of either. Never did I doubt, nor was it possible to doubt, but that they would one day or other gain the highest distinctions those men were Le'on . Gambetta and ^rnile Zola." Of Zola I am able to speak, and I can thoroughly realise how interesting it must have been to have watched him, at that time, when he was poor and unknown, ob- taining acceptance of his articles with difficulty, and sur- rounded by the feeble and trivial in spirit, who, out of inborn ignorance and acquired idiocy, look with ridicule js on those who believe that there is still a new word to say, 4^ still a new cry to ciy. I did not know mile Zola in those days, but he must have been then as he is now, and I should find it difficult to understand how any man of average discrimination could speak with him for half- an-h our without recognising he was one of those mighty monumental intelligences, statues of a century, that remain and are gazed upon u gh the long pages of the world's history. This, at ^0 least, is the impression ifimile Zola has always produced upon me. I have seen him in company, and company of ^no mean order, and when pitted against his compeers, the -contrast has only made him appear grander, greater, ^nobler. The witty, the clever Alphonse Daudet, ever as , ready for a supper party as a literary discussion, with all his splendid gifts, can do no more when Zola speaks than shelter himself behind an epigram ; Edmond De Goncourt, aristocratic, dignified, seated amid his Japanese water- -colours, bronzes, and Louis XV. furniture, bitterly admits, vi PREFACE. if not that there is a greater naturalistic god than he, at least that there is a colossus whose strength he is unable to oppose. This is the position Emile Zola takes amid his contem- poraries. By some strange power of assimilation, he appropriates and makes his own of all things ; ideas that before were scattered, dislocated, are suddenly united, fitted into their places. In speaking, as in writing, he always appears greater than his subject, and, Titan-like, grasps it as a whole ; in speaking, as in writing, the strength and beauty of his style is an unfailing use of the right word ; each phrase is a solid piece of masonry, and as he talks an edifice of thought rises architecturally per- fect and complete in design. And it is of this side of firnile Zola's genius that I wish particularly to speak a side that has never been taken sufficiently into consideration, but which, nevertheless, is its ever-guiding and determinating quality, fimile Zola is to me a great epic poet, and he may be, I think, not inappropriately termed the Homer of modern life. For he, more than any other writer, it seems, possesses the power of seeing a subject as a \vhole, can divest it at will of all side issues, can seize with a firm, logical com- prehension on the main lines of its construction, and that without losing sight of the remotest causes or the furthest consequences of its existence. It is here that his strength lies, and hh is the strength which has conquered the world. Of his realism a great deal, of course, has been said, but only because it is the most obvious, not the most dominant quality of his work. The mistletoe invariably hides the oak from the eyes of the vulgar. That mile Zola has done well to characterise his creations with the vivid sentiment of modern life rather than the pale dream which reveals to us the past, that he was able to bend, to model, to make serviceable to his purpose the ephemeral habits and customs of our day, few will now deny. But this was only the off-shoot of his genius. That the colour of the nineteenth century with which he clothes the bodies of his heroes and heroines is no* always exact, that none other has PREFACE. vii attempted to spin these garments before, I do not dispute. They will grow threadbare and fall to dust, even as the hide of the megatharium, of which only the colossal bones now remain to us wherewith to construct the fabric of the prim- eval world. And, in like manner, when the dream of the socialist is realized, when the burden of pleasure and work is pi'oportioned out equally to all, and men live on a more strictly regulated plan than do either the ant or the bee, I believe that the gigantic skeleton of the Rougon-Macquart family will stiJl continue to resist the ravages of time, and that western scientists will refer to it when disputing about the idiosyncrasies of a past civilization. In the preceeding paragraph, I have said neither more nor less than my meaning, for I am convinced that the living history of no age has been as well written as the last half of the nineteenth century is in the Rougon-Macquart series. I pass over the question whether, in describing ReneVs dress, a mistake was made in the price of lace, also whether the author was wrong in permitting himself the anachronism of describing a fete in the opera-house a couple of years before the building was completed. Errors of this kind do not appear to me to be worth con- sidering. What I maintain is, that what ]mile Zola has done, and what he alone has done and I do not make an exception even in the case of the mighty Balzac is to have conceived and constructed the frame-work of a com- plex civilization like ours, in all its worse ramifications. Never, it seems to me, was the existence of the epic faculty more amply demonstrated than by the genealogical tree of this now celebrated family. The grandeur, the amplitude of this scheme will be u een at once. Adelaide Fouque, a mad woman confined in a lunatic asylum at Plassans, is the first ancestor ; she is the transmitter of the original neurosis, which, regulated by his or her physical constitution, assumes various forms in each individual member of the family, and is developed according to the surroundings in which he or she lives. By Rougon this woman had two children ; by Macquart, with whom she cohabited on the death of her husband, viii PREFACE. she had three. Ursule Macquart married a man named Mouret,. and their children are therefore cousins of the Rougon-Macquarts. This family has some forty or fifty members, who are distributed through the different grades of our social system. Some have attained the highest positions, as, Son Excellence Eugene Rougon, others have sunk to the lowest depths, as Gervaise in " L'Assom- moir," but all are tainted with the hereditary malady. By it Nana is invincibly driven to prostitution ; by it Etienne Lantier, in "Germinal," will be driven to crime; by it his brother, Claude, will be made a great painter. Pro- tean-like is this disease. Sometimes it skips over a genera- tion, sometimes lies almost latent, and the balance of the intelligence is but slightly disturbed, as in the instance of Octave in " Pot-Bouille," and Lazare in " La Joie de Vivre." But the mind of the latter is more distorted than is Octave's. Lazare lives in a perpetual fear of death, and is prevented from realizing any of his magnificent projects by his vacillating temperament ; in him we have an example how a splendid intel- ligence may be drained away like water through an imperceptible crack in the vase, and how what might have been the fruit of a life withers like the flowers from which the nourishing liquid has been withdrawn. And so in the Rougon-Hacquart series we have instances of all kinds of psychical development and decay; and with an overt and an intuitive reading of character truly -wonderful, Emile Zola makes us feel that as the north and south poles and torrid zones are hemmed about with a girdle of air, so an ever varying but ever recognisable kinship unites, sometimes, indeed, by an almost imper- ceptible thread, the ends the most opposed of this remark- able race, and is diffused through the different variation each individual member successively presents. Can we not trace a mysterious physical resemblance between Octave Mouret in " Le Bonheur des Dames " and Maxime in " La Cure's ? " Is not the moral something by which Claude Lantier in " Le Ventre de Paris " escapes the fate of Lazare made apparent ? Then, again, does not the in- herited neurosis that makes of Octave a millionaire, of PREFACE. ix Lazare a wretched hypochondriac, of Claude Lantier a genius, of Maxime a symbol of ephemeral vice, reappear in a new and more deadly form in Jeanne, the hysterical child, in that most beautiful of beautiful books, " Une Paged'Amour?" As beasts at a fair are urged on by the goads of their drivers, so certain fate pushes this wretched family forward into irrevocable death that is awaiting it. At each generation they grow more nervous, more worn out, more ready to succumb beneath the ravages of the horrible disease that in a hundred different ways is sweeping them into the night of the grave. Even from this imperfect outline, what majesty, what grandeur there is in this dark design ! Does not the great idea of fate receive a new and more terrible signification ? Is not the horror and gloom of the tragedy increased by the fact that the thought was born in the study of the scientist, and not in the cloud-palace of the dreamer ? What poet ever conceived an idea more vast ! 4nd if fur- ther proof of the epic faculty with which I have credited fimile Zola be wanting, I have only to refer to Pascal Rougon. Noah survived the deluge. Pascal Rougon, by some miracle, escapes the inherited stain he, and he alone, is completely free from it. He is a doctor, an advanced scientist, and he, in the twentieth volume, will analyse the terrible neurosis that has devastated his family. In the upbuilding of this enormous edifice, mile Zola shows the same constructive talent as he did in its con- ception. The energy he displays is marvellous. Every year a wing, courtyard, cupola, or tower is added, and each is as varied as the most imaginative could desire. Without looking further back than "L'Assom- moir," let us consider what has been done. In this work, we have a study of the life of the working people in Paris, written, for the sake of preserving the " milieu," for the most part in their own language. It shows how the workers of our great social machine live, and must live, in ignorance and misery; it shows, as never was shown before, what the accident of birth x PREFACE. means ; it shows in a new way, and, to my mind, in as grand a way as did the laments of the chorus in the Greek play, the irrevocability of fate. " L'Assommoir " was followed by " Une Page d'Amour," a beautiful Parisian idyl. Here we see the " bourgeois " at their best. We have seven descriptions of Paris seen from a distance of which Turner might be proud ; we have a picture of a children's costume ball which Meissonier might fall down and worship ; we have the portrait of a beautiful and virtuous woman with -her love story told, as it were, over the dying head of Jeanne (her little girl), the child whose nervous sensibilities are so delicate that she trembles with jealousy when she suspects that behind her back her mother is looking at the doctor. After " Une Page d'Amour " comes " Nana," and with her we are transported to a world of pleasure-seekers ; vicious men and women who have no thought but the killing of time and the gratification of their lusts. Nana is the Messaline of modern days, and, obeying the epic tendency of his genius, mile Zola has instituted a comparison between the death of the "gilded fly," conceived in drunkenness and de- bauchery, and the harlot city of the third Emperor, which, rotten with vice, falls before the victorious arms of the Germans. " Nana " and " Une Page d'Amour " are psychological and philological studies of two radically different types of women; in both works, and likewise in "L'Assommoir," there is much descriptive writing, and, doubtless, Emile Zola had this fact present in his mind when he set himself to write " Pot-Bouille," that terrible satire on the " bour- geoisie." He must have said, as his plan formulated itself in his mind, " this is a novel dealing with the home-life of the middle-classes : if I wish to avoid repeating myself, this book must contain a vast number of characters, and the descriptions must be reduced to a bare sufficiency, no more than will allow my readers to form an exact impres- sion of the surroundings through which the action passes." " Pot-Bouille," or " Piping Hot ! " as the present translation is called, is, therefore, an inquiry into the private lives of a number of individuals, who, while they follow differ- PREFACE. xl ent occupations, belong to the same class and live under the same roof. The house in the Rue de Choiseul is one of those immense "maisons bourgeoises," in which, apparently, an infinite number of people live. On the first floor, we find Monsieur Duveyrier, an " avocat de la cour," with his musical wife, Clotilde, and her father, Monsieur Vabre, a retired notary and proprietor of the house, who is absorbed in the preparation of an important statistical work; on the fourth floor are Madame Josserand, her two daughters, whom she is always trying to marry, her crazy son Saturnin, and her husband who spends his nights addressing advertising circulars at three francs a thousand, in order to eke out an additional something to help his family to ape an appearance of easy circum- stances. On the third floor is an arcnitect, Monsieur Campardon, with his ailing, yet blooming, wife Rose, and her cousin, " 1'autre Madame Campardon." There is also one of Monsieur Vabre's sons, and "a distinguished gentleman who comes one night a week to work." These are the principal "locataires ;" but, in various odd corners, "des petits appartements qui donnent sur la cour," we find all sorts and conditions of people. First on the list is the government clerk Jules and his wife Marie. She is a weak-minded little thing who commits adultery without affection, without dssire, and the frequency of her confinements excites the ire of her mother and father. Then come two young men, Octave and Trublot. The former plays a part similar to that of a tenor in an opera ; he is the accepted lover of the ladies. The latter is equally beloved by the maids. From the frequency of his visits, he may almost be said to live in the house ; he is constantly asked to dine by one or other of the in- mates, and in the morning he is generally found hiding behind the door of one of the servants' rooms, waiting for an opportunity of descending the staircase unperceived by the terrible " concierge," the moral guardian of the house. Other visitors who figure prominently in the story are Madame Josserand's brother, Uncle Bachelard, a dissipated widower, and his nephew Gueulin; the Abbd Mouret, ever xii PREFACE. ready to throw the mantle of religion over the back- slidings of his flock, and Madame He'douin, the frigid directress of "The Ladies' Paradise," where Octave is originally engaged. The remaining " locataires " are Madame Juzeur, a lady who only reads poetry, and who was deserted by her husband after a single week of matrimonial, bliss ; a workwoman who has a garret under the slates ; and last, but not least, an author who lives on the second floor. He is rarely ever seen, he makes no one's acquaintance, and thereby excites the enmity of everyone. All these, the author of course excepted, pass and re- pass before the reader, and each is at once individual and representative; even the maid-servants who only answer "yes" and "no" to their masters and mistresses are adroitly characterised. We see them in their kitchens engaged in their daily occupations : while peeling onions and gutting rabbits and fish they call to and abuse each other from window to window. There is Julie, the belle of the attics, of whose perfume and pomatum Trublot makes liberal use when he honours her with a visit ; there is fat Adele whose dirty habits and slovenly ways make of her a butt whereat is levelled the ridicule and scorn of her fellow -servants; there are the lovers, Hippolyte and Cle'mence, whose carnal intercourse affords to Madame Duveyrier much ground for uneasiness, and in the end necessitates the intervention of the Abbd Never were the manners and morals of servants so thoroughly sifted before, never was the relationship which their lives bear to those of their masters and mistresses so cunningly contrasted. The courtyard of the house echoes with their quarrelling voices, and it is there, in a scene of which Swift might be proud, that is spoken the last and terrible word of scorn which Emile Zola flings against the " bourgeoisie." From her kitchen window a fellow-servant of Julie's is congratulating her on being about to leave, and wishing that she may find a better place. To which Julie replies, " Toutes les baraques se ressemblent. Au jour d'aujourd'hui, qui a fait 1'une a fait 1'autre. C'est cochon et compagnie." PREFACE xiii I do not know to what other work to go to find so much successful sketching of character. I had better, I think, explain the meaning I attach to this phrase, " sketch- ing of character," for it is too common an error to associate the idea of superficiality with the word "sketch." The true artist never allows anything to leave his studio that he deems superficial, or even unfinished. The word unfinished is not found in his vocabulary; to him a sketch is as complete as a finished picture. In the former he has painted broadly and freely, wishing to render the vividness, the vitality of a first impression; in the latter he is anxious to render the subtlety of a more intellectual and consequently a less sensual emotion. The portrait of Madame Josserand is a case in point, it is certainly less minute than that of Helene Mouret, but is not for that less finished. In both, the artist has achieved, and perfectly, the task he set him- self. " Piping Hot ! " cannot be better defined than as a portrait album in which many of our French neighbours may be readily recognized. This merit will not fail to strike any intelligent reader; but the marvellous way the almost insurmountable diffi- culties of binding together the stories of the lives of the different inhabitants of the house in the Rue de Choiseul are overcome, none but a fellow-worker will be able to appreciate at their full value. Up and down the famous staircase we go, from one household to another, interested equally in each, disgusted equally with all. And this sentence leads us right up to the enemies' guns, brings us face to face with the two batteries from which the critics have directed their fire. The first is the truthfulness of the picture, the second is the coarseness with which it is painted. I will attempt to reply to both. M. Albert Wolff in the " Figaro " declared that in a " maison bourgeoise " so far were " locataires " from being all on visiting terms, that it was of constant occurrence that the people on one floor not only did not know by sight but were ignorant of the names of those living above and below them ; that the spectacle of a " maison bourgeoise," with the lodgers running up and down stairs xiv PREFACE. in and out of each other's apartments at all hours of the night and day, was absolutely false ; had never existed in Paris, and was an invention of the writer. Without a word of parley I admit the truth of this indictment. I will admit that no house could be found in Paris where from basement to attic the inhabitants are on such terms of intimacy as they are in the house in the Rue de Choiseul ; but at the same time I deny that the extreme isolation described by M. Wolff could be found or is even possible in any house inhabited over a term of years by the same people, fimile Zola has then done no more than to exaggerate, to draw the strings that attach the different parts a little tighter than they would be in nature. Art, let there be no mistake on this point, be it romantic or naturalistic, is a perpetual concession ; and the char- acter of the artist is determined by the selection he makes amid the mass of conflicting issues that, all clamouring equally to be chosen, present themselves to his mind. In the case of mile Zola, the epic faculty which has been already mentioned as the dominant trait of his genius naturally impelled him to make too perfect a whole of the heterogeneous mass of material that he had determined to construct from. The flaw is more obvious than in his other works, but in " Piping Hot ! " he has only done what he has done since he first put pen to paper, what he will continue to do till he ceases to write. We will admit that to make all the people living in the house in the Rue de Choiseul on visiting terms was a trick of composition et puis ? This was the point from which the critics who pre- tended to be guided by artistic considerations attacked the book ; the others entrenched themselves behind the good old earthworks of morality, and primed their rusty popguns. Now there was a time, and a very good time it must have been, when a book was judged on its literary merits ; but of late years a new school of criticism has come into fashion. Its manners are very summary indeed. " Would you or would you not give that book to your sister of sixteen to read ? " If you hesitate you are lost ; for then the question is dismissed with a smile and you PREFACE. xv are voted out of court. It would be vain to suggest that there are other people in the world besides your sister of sixteen summers. I do not intend putting forward any well known para- dox, that art is morals, and morals are art. That there are great and eternal moral laws which must be acted up to in art as in life I am more than ready to admit ; but these are very different from the wretched conventionalities which have been arbitrarily imposed upon us in England. To begin with, it must be clear to the meanest intelligence that it would never do to judge the dead by the same standard as the living. If that were done, all the dramatists of the sixteenth century would have to go ; those of the Restoration would follow. To burn Swift somebody lower in the social scale than Mr. Binns would have to be found, although he might do to commit Sterne to the flames. Byron, Shelley, yes, even Landor would have to go the same way. What would happen then, it is hard to- say ; but it is not unfair to hint that if the burning were argued to its logical conclusion, some of the extra good people would find it difficult to show reason, if the inten- tion of the author were not taken into account, why their most favourite reading should be saved from the general destruction. Many writers have lately been trying to put their readers in the possession of infallible recipes for the production of good fiction; they would, to my mind, have employed their time and talents to far more purpose had they come boldly to the point and stated that the overflow of bad fiction with which we are inundated is owing to the influence of the circulating library, which, on one side, sustains a quantity of worth- less writers who on their own merits would not sell a dozen copies of their books ; and, on the other, deprives those who have something to say and are eager to say it of the liberty of doing so. It may be a sad fact, but it is nevertheless a fact, that literature and young girls are irre- concilable elements, and the sooner we leave off trying to reconcile them the better. At this vain endeavour the circulating library has been at work for the last xvi PREFACE. twenty years, and what has been the result ? A litera- ture of bandboxes. Were Pope, Addison, Johnson, Fielding, Smollet, suddenly raised from their graves and started on reviewing " three vols.," think you that they would not all cry together, " This is a literature of bandboxes ? " We judge a pudding by the eating, and I judge Messrs. Mudie and Smith by what they have produced ; for they, not the ladies and gentlemen who place their names on the title pages, are the authors of our fiction. And what a terrible brood to admit the parentage of ! Let those who doubt put aside pre-conceived opinions, and forgetting the bolstered up reputation of the authors, read the volumes by the light of a little common sense. Cast a glance at those that lie in Miss Rboda Broughton's lap. What a wheezing, drivelling lot of bairns they are ! They have not a virtue amongst them, and their pinafore pages are sticky with childish sensualities. And here we touch the keynote of the whole system. For. mark you, you can say what you like provided you speak according to rule. Everything is agreed according to precedent. I could give a hundred instances, but one will suffice. On the publication of " Adam Bede " a howl was raised, but the book was alive ; it finished by being accepted, and the libraries were obliged to give way. The employment of seduction in the fabulation of a story was therefore established. This would have been a great point gained, if Mr. Mudie had not succeeded in forcing on all succeeding writers George Eliot's manner of con- ducting her story. In " Adam Bede " we have Hetty described as an extremely fascinating dairymaid and Arthur as a noble-minded young man. After a good deal of flirtation they are shown to us walking through a wood together, and three months after we hear that Hetty is enceinte. Now, ever since the success of this book was assured, we have had numberless novels dealing with seductions, but invariably an interval of three months is allowed wherein the reader's fancy may disport until the truth be told. Not being a select librarian I will not undertake to PKEFACE. xvil say that the cause of morality is advanced by leaving the occurrence of the offence unmarked by a no more precise date than that of three months, but being a writer who loves and believes in his art, I fearlessly declare that such quibblery is not worthy of the consideration of serious men ; and it was to break through this puerile conventionality that I was daring enough in my " Mum- mer's Wife " to write that Dick dragged Kate into the room and that the door was slammed behind her. And it is on this passage that the select circulating libraries base a refusal to take the book. And it is such illiterate censorship that has thrown English fiction into the abyss of nonsense in which it lies ; it is for this reason and no other that the writers. of the present day have ceased even to try to produce good work, and have resigned themselves to the task of turning out their humdrum stories of sentimental misunderstanding. Yet, strange to say, in every other department of art, an unceasing intellectual activity pre- vails. Our poetry, our histories, our biographies, our newspapers are strong and vigorous, pregnant with thought, trenchant in style; it is not until we turn to the novel that we find a wearisome absence of everything but driveL Though much that I would like to have said is still un- said, the exigencies of space compel me to bring this notice to a close. However, this one thing I hope I have made clear : that it is my firm opinion that if fiction is to exist at all, the right to speak as he pleases on politics, morals, and religion must be granted to the writer, and that he on his side must take cognizance of other readers than sentimental young girls, who require to be provided with harmless occupation until something fresh turns up in the matrimonial market. Therefore the great literary battle of' our day is not to be fought for either realism or romanticism, but for freedom of speech ; and until that battle be gained I, for one, will continue fearlessly to hold out a hand of welcome to all comers who dare to attack the sovereignty of the circulating library. The first of these is " Piping Hot ! " and, I think, the pungent odour of life it exhales, as well as its scorching xviii PREFACE. satire on the middle- classes, will be relished by all who prefer the fortifying brutalities of truth to the soft plati- tudes of lies. As a satire " Piping Hot ! " must be read ; and as a satire it will rank with Juvenal, Voltaire, Pope, and Swift. GEORGE MOORE. PIPING HOT! (POT-BOUILLE.) CHAPTER I. IN the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, a block of vehicles arrested the cab which was bringing Octave Mouret and his three trunks from the Lyons railway station. The young man lowered one of the windows, in spite of the already intense cold of that dull November afternoon. He was surprised at the abrupt approach of twilight in this neighbourhood of narrow streets, all swarm- ing with a busy crowd. The oaths of the drivers as they lashed their snorting horses, the endless jostlings on the foot- pavements, the serried line of shops swarming with attendants and customers, bewildered him ; for, though he had dreamed of a cleaner Paris than the one he beheld, he had never hoped to find it so eager for trade, and he felt that it was publicly open to the appetites of energetic young fellows. The driver leant towards him. " It's the Passage Choiseul you want, isn't it 1 " 11 No, the Rue de Choiseul. A new house, I think." And the cab only had to turn the corner. The house was the second one in the street : a big house four storeys high, the stonework of whjch was scarcely discoloured, in the midst of the dirty stucco of the adjoining old frontages. Octave, who had alighted on to the pavement, measured it and studied it with a mechanical glance, from the silk warehouse on the ground floor to the projecting windows on the fourth floor opening on to a narrow terrace. On the first floor, carved female heads supported a highly elaborate cast-iron balcony. The windows were surrounded with complicated frames, roughly chiselled in the soft stcne ; and, lower down, above the tall 10 PIPING HOT ! doorway, two cupids were unrolling a scroll bearing the number, which at night-time was lighted up by a jet of gas from the inside. A stout fair gentleman, who was coming out of the vestibule, stopped short on catching sight of Octave. " What ! you here ! " exclaimed he. " Why, I was not ex- pecting you till to-morrow ! " " The truth is," replied the young man, "I left Flassans a day earlier than I originally intended. Isn't the room ready ? " " Oh, yes. I took it a fortnight ago, and I furnished it at once in the way you desired. Wait a bit, I will take you to it." He re-entered the house, though Octave begged he would not give himself the trouble. The driver had got the three trunks off the cab. Inside the doorkeeper's room, a dignified-looking man with a long face, clean-shaven like a diplomatist, was standing up gravely reading the " Moniteur." He deigned, however, to interest himself about these trunks which were being deposited in his doorway ; and, taking a few steps for- ward, he asked his tenant, the architect of the third floor as he called him : " Is this the person, Monsieur Campardon 1 " " Yes, Monsieur Gourd, this is Monsieur Octave Mouret, for whom I have taken the room on the fourth floor. He will sleep there and take his meals with us. Monsieur Mouret is a friend of my wife's relations, and I beg you will show him every attention." Octave was examining the entrance with its panels of imitation marble and its vaulted ceiling decorated with rosettes. The courtyard at the end was paved and cemented, and had a grand air of cold cleanliness ; the only occupant was a coach- man engaged in polishing a bit with a chamois leather at the entrance to the stables. There were no signs of the sun ever shining there. Meanwhile, Monsieur Gourd was inspecting the trunks. He pushed them with his foot, and, their weight filling him with respect, he talked of fetching a porter to carry them up the servants' staircase. " Madame Gourd, I'm going out," cried he, just putting his head inside his room. tt was like a drawing-room, with bright looking-glasses, a red flowered Wilton carpet and violet ebony furniture ; and, through a partly opened door, one caught a glimpse of the bed-chamber with a bedstead hung with garnet rep. Madame Gourd, a very PIPING HOT ! 11 fat woman with yellow ribbons in her hair, was stretched out in an efisy-chair with her hands clasped, and doing nothing. " Well ! let's go up,'' said the architect. And seeing how impressed the young man seemed to be by Monsieur Gourd's black velvet cap and sky blue slippers, he added, as he pushed open the mahogany door of the vestibule : "You know he was formerly the Duke de Vaugelade's valet." "Ah ! " simply ejaculated Octave. " It's as I tell you, and he married the widow of a little bailiff of Mort-la-Ville. They even own a house there. But they are waiting until they have three thousand francs a year before going there to live. Oh ! they are most respectable doorkeepers ! " The decorations of the vestibule and the staircase were gaudily luxurious. At the foot of the stairs was the figure of a woman, a kind of gilded Neapolitan, supporting on her head an amphora from which issued three gas-jets protected by ground glass globes. The panels of imitation white marble with pink borders succeeded each other at regular intervals up the wall of the staircase, Avhilst the cast-iron balustrade with its mahogany hand- rail was in imitation of old silver with clusters of golden leaves. A red carpet, secured with brass rods, covered the stairs. But what especially struck Octave on entering was a green-house temperature, a warm breath which seemed to be puffed from some mouth into his face. " Hallo ! " said he, " the staircase is warmed." " Of course," replied Campardon. " All landlords who have the least self-respect go to that expense now. The house is a very fine one, very fine." He looked about him as though he were sounding the walls with his architect's eyes. " My dear fellow, you will see, it is a most comfortable place, and inhabited solely by highly respectable people ! " Then, slowly ascending, he mentioned thenarnesof the different tenants. On each floor were two separate suites of apartments, one looking on to the street, the other on to the courtyard, and the polished mahogany doors of which faced each other. He began by saying a few words respecting Monsieur Auguste Vabre ; he was the landlord's eldest son ; since the spring he had rented the silk warehouse on the ground floor, and he also occupied the whole of the " entresol " above. Then, on the first floor the landlord's other son, Monsieur Theophile Vabre and his wife, resided in the apartment overlooking the court- 12 PIPING HOT ! yard ; and in the one overlooking the street lived the landlord himself, formerly a notary at Versailles, but who was now lodging with his son-in-law, Monsieur Duveyrier, a judge at the Court of Appeal. " A fellow who is not yet forty-five," said Campardon, stopping short. " That's something remarkable, is it not ? " He ascended two steps, and then suddenly turning round, he added : " Water and gas on every floor." Beneath the tall window on each landing, the panes of which, bordered with fretwork, lit up the staircase with a white light, was placed a narrow velvet covered bench. The architect ob- served that elderly persons could sit down and rest. Then, as he passed the second floor without naming the tenants : "And there?" asked Octave, pointing to the door of the principal suite. " Oh ! there," said he, " persons whom one never sees, whom no one knows. The house could well do without them. Blemishes, you know, are to be found everywhere." He gave a little snort of contempt. " The gentleman writes books, I believe." But on the third floor his smile of satisfaction reappeared. The apartments looking on to the courtyard were divided into two suites ; they were occupied by Madame Juzeur, a little woman who was most unhappy, and a very distinguished gentle- man who had taken a room to which he came once a week on business matters. Whilst giving these particulars, Campardon opened the door on the other side of the lauding. " And this is where I live," resumed he. " Wait a moment, I must get your key. We will first go up to your room ; you can see my wife afterwards." During the two minutes he was left alone, Octave felt pene- trated by the grave silence of the staircase. He leant over the balustrade, in the warm air which ascended from the vestibule ; he raised his head, listening if any noise came from above. It was the death-like peacefulness of a middle-class drawing-room, carefully shut in and not admitting a breath from outside. Behind the beautiful shining mahogany doors there seemed to be unfathomable depths of respectability. " You will have some excellent neighbours," said Campardon, reappearing with the key ; " on the street side there are the Josserands, quite a family, the father who is cashier at the Saint-Joseph glass works, and also two marriageable daughters ; PIPING HOT ! 13 and next to you the Pichons, the husband is a clerk ; they are not rolling in wealth, but they are educated people. Every- thing has to be let, has it not? even in a house like this." From the third landing, the red carpet ceased and was re- placed by a simple grey Holland. Octave's vanity was slightly ruffled. The staircase had, little by little, filled him with respect ; he was deeply moved at inhabiting such a fine house as the architect termed it. As, following the latter, he turned into the passage leading to his room, he caught sight through a partly open door of a young woman standing up before a cradle. She raised her head at the noise. She was fair, with clear and vacant eyes j and all he carried away was this very distinct look, for the young woman, suddenly blushing, pushed the door to in the shame-faced way of a person taken by surprise. Campardon turned round to repeat : " Water and gas on every floor, my dear fellow." Then he pointed out a door which opened on to the servants' staircase. Their rooms were up above. And stopping at the end of the passage, he added : " Here we are at last." The room, which was square, pretty large, and hung with a grey wall-paper with blue flowers, was furnished very simply. Close to the alcove was a little dressing-closet with just room enough to wash one's hands. Octave went straight to the window, which admitted a greenish light. Below was the court- yard looking sad and clean, with its regular pavement, and the shining brass tap of its cistern. And still not a human being, nor even a noise ; nothing but the uniform windows, withoxit a bird-cage, without a flower-pot, displaying the monotony of their white curtaius. To hide the big bare wall of the house on the left hand side, which shut in the square of the courtyard, the windows had been repeated, imitation windows in paint, with shutters eternally closed, behind which the walled-in life of the neighbouring apartments appeared to continue. "But I shall be very comfortable here !" cried Octave de- lighted. " I thought so," said Campardon. " Well ! I did everything as though it had been for myself; and, moreover, I carried out the instructions contained in your letters. So the furniture pleases you ? It is all that is necessery for a young man. Later on, you can make any changes you like." And, as Octave shook his hand, thanking him, and apolog's- 14 PIPING HOT ! ing for having given him so much trouble, he resumed in a serious tone of voice : " Only, my boy, no rows here, and above all no women ! On my word of honour, if you were to bring a woman here it would revolutionize the whole house ! " " Be easy ! " murmured the young man, feeling rather anxious. "No, let me tell you, for it is I who would be compromised. You have seen the house. All middle-class people, and of ex- treme morality ! between ourselves, they affect it rather too much. Never a word, never more noise than you have heard just now. Ah, well ! Monsieur Gourd would at once fetch Monsieur Vabre, and we should both be in a nice pickle ! My dear fellow, I ask it of you for my own peace of mind : respect the liouse." Octave, overpowered by so much virtue and respectability, swore to do so. Then, Campardon, casting a mistrustful glance around, and lowering his voice as though some one might have heard him, added with sparkling eyes : " Outside it concerns nobody. Paris is big enough, is it not 1 there is plenty of room. As for myself, I am at heart an artist, therefore I think nothing of it ! " A porter carried up the trunks. When everything was straight, the architect assisted paternally at Octave's toilet. Then, rising to his feet he said : " Now we will go and see my wife." Down on the third floor the maid, a slim, dark, and coquet- tish looking girl, said that madame was busy. Campardon, with a view of putting his young friend at ease, showed him over the rooms : first of all, there was the huge white and gold drawing- room, highly decorated with artificial mouldings, and situated between a green parlour which the architect had turned into a workroom and the bedroom, into which they could not enter, but the narrow shape of which, and the mauve wall-paper, he described. As he next ushered him into the dining-room, all in imitation wood, with an extraordinary complication of baguettes and coffers, Octave, enchanted, exclaimed : " It is very handsome ! " On the ceilinsr, two big cracks cut right through the coffers, and, in a corner, the paint had peeled off and displayed the plaster. " Yes, it creates an effect," slowly observed the architect, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. " You see, these kind of houses are built to create effect. Only, the walls will not bear much look- PIPING HOT ! 15 ing into. It is not twelve years old yet, and it is already crack- ing. One builds the frontage of handsome stone, with a lot of sculpture about it ; one gives three coats of varnish to the walls of the staircase ; one paints and gilds the rooms ; and all that flatters people, and inspires respect. Oh ! it is still solid, it will certainly last as long as we shall ! " He led him again across the ante-room, which was lighted by a window of ground glass. To the left, looking on to the court- yard, there was a second bed-chamber where his daughter Angele slept, and which, all in white, looked on this November afternoon as sad as a tomb. Then at the end of the passage, came the kitchen, into which he insisted on conducting Octave, saying that it was necessary to see everything. " Walk in," repeated he, pushing open the door. A terrible uproar issued from it. In spite of the cold, the window was wide open. With their elbows on the rail, the dark maid and a fat cook, a dissolute looking old party, were leaning out into the narrow well of an inner courtyard, which lighted the kitchens of each floor, placed opposite to each other. They were both yelling with their backs bent, whilst, from the depths of this hole, arose the sounds of vulgar voices, mingled with oaths and bursts of laughter. It was like the overflow of some sewer : all the domestics of the house were there, easing their minds. Octave's thoughts reverted to the peaceful majesty of the grand staircase. Just then the two women, warned by some instinct, turned round. They remained thunderstruck on beholding their mas- ter with a gentleman. There was a gentle whistle, windows were shut, and all was once more as silent as death. "What is the'matter, Lisa?" asked Campardon. " Sir," replied the maid, greatly excited, " it's that filthy A dele again. She has thrown a rabbit's guts out of the window. You should speak to Monsieur Josserand, sir." Campardon became very grave, anxious not to make any promise. He returned to his workroom, saying to Octave : " You have seen all. On each floor, the rooms are arranged the same. I pay a rent of two thousand five hundred francs, and on a third floor, too ! Rents are rising every day. Mon- sieur Vabre must make about twenty-two thousand francs a year from his house. And it will increase still more, for there is a question of opening a wide thoroughfare from the Place de la Bourse to the new Opera-house. And he had the ground 16 PITINGHOT! this is built upon almost for nothing, twelve years ago, after that great fire caused by a druggist's servant ! " As they entered, Octave observed, hanging above a drawing- table, and in the full light from the window, a richly framed picture of a Virgin, displaying in her opened breast an enor- mous flaming heart. He could not repress a movement of sur- prise ; he looked at Campardon, whom he had known to be a rather wild fellow at Plassans. "Ah ! I forgot to tell you," resumed the latter slightly colouring, " I have been appointed diocesan architect, yes, at Evreux. Oh ! a mere bagatelle as regards money, in all barely two thousand francs a year. But there is scarcely anything to do, a journey now and again ; for the rest I have an inspector there. And, you see, it is a great deal, when one can print on one's cards : ' government architect.' You can have no idea what an amount of work that procures me in the highest so- ciety." Whilst speaking, he looked at the Virgin with the flaming heart. " After all," continued he in a sudden fit of frankness, " I do not care a button for their paraphernalia ! " But, on Octave bursting out laughing, the architect was seized with fear. Why confide in that young man 1 He gave a side glance, and, putting on an air of compunction, he tried to smooth over what he had said. " I do not care and yet I do care. Well ! yes, I am becoming like that. You will see, you will see, my friend : when you have lived a little longer, you will do as every one else." And he spoke of his forty-two years, of the emptiness of life, posing for being very melancholy, which his robust health belied. In the artist's head which he had fashioned for himself, with flowing hair and beard trimmed in the Henri IV. style, one found the flat skull and square jaw of a middle-class man of limited intelligence and voracious appetites. When younger, he had a fatiguing gaiety. Octave's eyes became fixed on a number of the " Gazette de France," which was lying amongst some plans. Then, Campar- don, more and more ill at ease, rang for the maid to know if madame was at length disengaged. Yes, the doctor was just leaving, madame would be there directly. " Is Madame Campardon unwell ? " asked the young man. " No, she is the same as usual," said the architect in a bored tone of voice. PIPING HOT ! 17 "Ah ! and what is the matter with her?" Again embarrassed, he did not give a straightforward answer. " You know, there is always something going wrong with women. She has been in this state for the last thirteen years, ever since her confinement. Otherwise, she is as well as can be. You will even find her stouter." Octave asked no further questions. Just then, Lisa returned, bringing a card ; and the architect, begging to be excused, hastened to the drawing-room, telling the young man as he dis- appeared to talk to his wife and have patience. Octave had caught sight, on the door being quickly opened and closed, of the black mass of a cassock in the centre of the large white and gold apartment. At the same moment, Madame Campardon entered from the ante-room. He scarcely knew her again. In other days, when a youngster, he had known her at Plassans, at her father's, Monsieur Domergue, government clerk of the works, she was thin and ugly, as puny-looking as a young girl suffering from the crisis of her puberty ; and now he beheld her plump, with the clear and placid complexion of a nun, soft eyes, dimples, and a general appearance of an overfed she-cat. If she had not been able to grow pretty, she had ripened towards thirty, gaining a sweet savour and a nice fresh odour of autumn fruit. He remarked, however, that she walked with difficulty, her whole body wrapped, in a mignonette coloured silk dressing- gown, moving ; which gave her a languid air. "But you are a man, now !" said she gaily, holding out her hands. " How you have grown, since our last journey to the country ! " And she gazed at him : tall, dark, handsome, with his well kept moustache and beard. When he told her his age, twenty- two, she scarcely believed it : he looked twenty-five at least. He, whom the presence of a woman, even though she were the lowest of servants, filled with rapture, laughed melodiously, en- veloping her with his eyes of the colour of old gold, and of the softness of velvet. "Ah! yes," repeated he gently, "I have grown, I have grown. Do you recollect, when your cousin Gasparine used to buy me marbles 1 " Then, he gave her news of her parents. Monsieur and Madame Domergue were living happily, in the house to which they had retired ; they merely complained of being very lonely, bearing Campardon a grudge for having taken their little Rose 18 PIPING HOT ! from them, during a stay lie had made at Plassans ou business. Then, the young man tried to bring the conversation round to cousin Gasparine, having a precocious youngster's old curiosity to satisfy, in the matter of an hitherto unexplained adventure: the architect's mad passion for Gasparine, a tall lovely girl, but poor, and his sudden marriage with skinny Rose who had a dowry of thirty thousand francs, and quite a tearful scene, and a quarrel, and the flight of the abandoned one to Paris, to an aunt who was a dressmaker. But Madame Campardon, whose placid complexion preserved a rosy paleness, did not appear to understand. He was unable to draw a. single particular from her. " And your parents ? " inquired she in her turn. " How are Monsieur and Madame Mouret ? " " Very well, thank you," replied he. " My mother scarcely leaves her garden. You would find the house in the Rue de la Banne, just as you left it." Madame Campardon, who seemed unable to remain standing for long without feeling tired, had seated herself on a high drawing-chair, her legs stretched out in her dressing-gown ; and he, taking a low chair beside her, raised his head when speaking, with his air of habitual adoration. With his large shoulders, he was like a woman, he had a woman's feeling which at once ad- mitted him to their hearts. So that, at the end of ten minutes, they were both talking like two lady friends of long standing. " Now I am your boarder," said he, passing a handsome hand with neatly trimmed nails over his beard. " We shall get on well together, you will see. How charming it was of you to re- member the Plassans youngster and to busy yourself about everything, at the first word ! " But she protested. " No, do not thank me. I am a great deal too lazy, I never move. It was Achille who arranged everything. And, besides, was it not sufficient that my mother mentioned to us your de- sire to board in some family, for us to think at once of opening our doors to you ? You will not be with strangers, and will be company for us." Then, he told her of his own affairs. After having obtained a bachelor's diploma, to please his family, he had just passed three years at Marseilles, in a big calico print warehouse, which had a factory in the neighbourhood of Plassans. He had a passion for trade, the trade in women's luxuries, into which enters a seduction, a slow possession by gilded words and adul- PIPING HOT I 19 atory glances. And he related, laughing victoriously, how he had made the five thousand francs, without which he would never have ventured on coming to Paris, for he had the prudence of a Jew beneath the exterior of an amiable giddy-headed fellow. " Just fancy, they had a Pompadour calico, an old design, something marvellous. No one would bite at it ; it had been stowed away in the cellars for two years past. Then, as I was about to travel through the departments of the Var and the Basses-Alpes, it occurred to me to purchase the whole of the stock and to sell it on my own account. Oh ! such a success ! an amazing success ! The women quarrelled for the remnants ; and to-day, thei'e is not one there who is not wearing some of my calico. I must say that I talked them over so nicely ! They were all with me, I might have done as I pleased with them." And he laughed, whilst Madame Campardon, charmed, and troubled by thought of that Pompadour calico, questioned him : " Little bouquets on an unbleached ground, was it not ? " She had been trying to obtain the same thing everywhere for a summer dressing-gown. " I have travelled for two years, which is enough," resumed he. " Besides, there is Paris to conquer. I must immediately look out for something." " What ! " exclaimed she, " has not Achille told you ? But he has a berth for you, and close by, too ! " Pie uttered his thanks, as surprised as though he were in fairy land, asking, by way of a joke, whether he would not find a wife and a hundred thousand francs a-year in his room that evening, when a young girl of fourteen, tall and ugly, with fair insipid- looking hair, pushed open the door, and gave a slight cry of fright, " Come in and don't be afraid," said Madame Campardon. " It is Monsieur Octave Mouret, whom you have heard us speak of." Then, turning towards the latter, she added : " My daughter, Angele. We did not bring her with us at our last journey. She was so delicate ! But she is getting stouter now." Angele, with the awkwardness of girls in the ungrateful age, went and placed herself behind her mother, and cast glances at the smiling young man. Almost immediately, Campardon re- appeai-ed, looking excited ; and he could not contain himself, but told his wife in a few words of his good fortune : the Abbe 20 HHXG HOT ! Mauduit, Vicar of Saint-Koch, had called about some work, merely some repairs, but which might lead to many other things. Then, annoyed at having spoken before Octave, and still quiver- ing, he rapped one hand in the other, saying : " Well ! well ! what are we going to do 1 " "Why, you were going out," said Octave. " Do not let me disturb you." " Achille," murmured Madame Campardon, " that berth, at the Hedouins'" " Why, of course ! I was forgetting," exclaimed the archi- tect. " My dear fellow, a place of first clerk at a large linen- draper's. I know some one there who has said a word for you. You are expected. It is not yet four o'clock ; shall I introduce you now ? " Octave hesitated, anxious about the bow of his necktie, flurried by his mania for being neatly dressed. However, he decided to go, when Madame Campardon assured him that he looked very well. With a languid movement, she offered her forehead to her husband, who kissed her with a great show of tenderness, repeating : " Good-bye, my darling good-bye, my pet." " Do not forget that we dine at seven," said she, accompany- ing them across the drawing-room, where they had left their hats. Angele followed them without the slightest grace. But her music-master was waiting for her, and she at once commenced to strum on the instrument with her bony fingers. Octave, who was lingering in the ante-room, repeating his thanks, was unable to make himself heard. And, as he went downstairs, the sound of the piano seemed to follow him : in the midst of the warm silence other pianos from Madame Juzeur's, the Vabres', and Duveyriers' were answering, playing on each floor other airs, which issued, distantly and religiously, from the calm solemnity of the doors. Ou reaching the street, Campardon turned into the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. He remained silent, with the absorbed air of a man seeking for an opportunity to broach a subject. " Do you remember Mademoiselle Gasparine ? " asked he, at length. " She is first lady assistant at the Hedouins'. You will see her." Octave thought this a good time for satisfying his curiosity. " Ah ! " said he. " Does she live with you ] " "No ! no ! " exclaimed the architect, hastily, and as though feeling hurt at the bare idea. PIPING HOT ! 21 Then, as the young man appeared surprised at his vehemence, he gently continued, speaking in an embarrassed way : " No ; she and my wife no longer see each other. Ycu know, in families Well, I met her, and I could not refuse to shake hands, could 1 1 more especially as she is not very well off, poor girl. So that, now, they have news of each other through me. In these old quarrels, one must leave the task of healing the wounds to time." Octave was about to question him plainly on the subject of his marriage, when the architect suddenly put an end to the conversation by saying : "Here we are !" It was a large linendrapers, opening on to the narrow triangle of the Place Gaillon, at the corner of the Rue Neuve-Saint- Augustin and the Rue de la Michodiere. Across two windows immediately above the shop was a signboard, with the words, " The Ladies' Paradise, founded in 1822," in faded gilt letters, whilst on the shop windows was inscribed, in red, the name of the firm, " Deleuze, Hedouin, & Co." " It has not the modern style, but it is honest and solid," rapidly explained Campardon. " Monsieur Hedouin, formerly a clerk, married the daughter of the elder Deleuze, who died a couple of years ago ; so that the business is now managed by the young couple the old Deleuze and another partner, I think, both keep out of it. You will see Madame Hedouin. Oh ! a woman with brains ! Let us go in." It so happened that Monsieur Hedouin was at Lille buying some linen ; therefore Madame HeYlouin received them. She was standing up, a penholder behind her ear, giving orders to two shopmen who were putting away some pieces of stuff on the shelves ; and she appeared to him so tall, so admirably lovely, with her regular features and her tidy hair, so gravely smiling, in her black dress, with a turn-down collar and a man's tie, that Octave, not usually timid, could only stammer out a few observa- tions. Everything was settled without any waste of words. " Well ! " said she, in her quiet way, and with her trades- woman's accustomed gracefulness, " you may as well look over the place, as you are not engaged." She called one of her clerks, and put Octave under his guid- ance ; then, after having politely replied to a question of Cam- pardon's that Mademoiselle Gasparine was out on an errand, she turned her back and resumed her work, continuing to give her orders in her gentle and concise voice. 22 PIPING HOT ! " Not there, Alexandre. Put the silks up at the top. Be careful, those are not the same make ! " Campardon, after hesitating, at length said to Octave that he would call again for him to take him back to dinner. Then, during two hours, the young man went over the warehouse. Ho found it badly lighted, small, encumbered with stock, which, overflowing from the basement, became heaped up in the corners, leaving only narrow passages between high walls of bales. On several different occasions he ran against Madame Hedouin, busy, and scuttling along the narrowest passages with- out ever catching her dress in anything. She seemed the very life and soul of the establishment, all the assistants belonging to which obeyed the slightest sign of her white hands. Octave felt hurt that she did not take more notice of him. Towards a quarter to seven, as he was coming up a last time from the base- ment, he was told that Campardon was on the first floor with Mademoiselle Gasparine. Up there was the hosiery department, which that young lady looked after. But, at the top of the winding staircase, the young man stopped abruptly behind a pyramid of pieces of calico systematically arranged, on hearing the architect talking most familiarly to Gasparine. " I swear to you it is not so ! " cried he, forgetting himself so far as to raise his voice. A slight pause ensued. " How is she now ] " at length inquired the young woman. " Well ! always the same. It comes and goes. She feels that it is all over now. She will never get right again." Gasparine resum'ed, in compassionate tones : " My poor friend, it is you who are to be pitied. However, as you have been able to manage in another way, tell her how sorry I am to hear that she is still unwell " Campardon, without letting her finish, seized hold of her by the shoulders and kissed her roughly on the lips, in the gas- heated air already becoming heavy beneath the low ceiling. She returned his kiss, murmuring : " To-morrow morning, if you can, at six o'clock T will remain in bed. Knock three times." Octave, bewildered, and beginning to understand, coughed, and showed himself. Another surprise awaited him. Cousin Gasparine had become dried up, thin and angular, with her jaw projecting, and her hair coarse ; and all she had preserved of her former self were her large superb eyes, in a face that had now become cadaverous. "With her jealous forehead, her ardent PIPING HOT ! 23 and obstinate mouth, she troubled him as much as Rose had charmed him by her tardy expansion of an indolent blonde. Gasparine was polite, without effusiveness. She remembered Plassans she talked to the young man of the old times. When they went off, Campardon and he, she shook their hand.-?. Downstairs, Madame He"douin simply said to Octave : " To-morrow, then, sir." Out in the street the young man, deafened by the cabs, jostled by the passers-by, could not help remarking that this lady was very beautiful, but that she did not seem particularly amiable. On the black and muddy pavement, the bright win- dows of freshly-painted shops, flaring with gas, cast broad rays of vivid light ; whilst the old shops, with their sombre displays, lit up in the interior only by smoking lamps, which burnt like distant stars, saddened the streets with masses of shadow. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, just before turning into the Rue de Choiseul, the architect bowed on passing before one of these establishments. A young woman, slim and elegant, dressed in a silk mantlet, was standing in the doorway, drawing a little boy of three to- wards her, so that he might not get run over. She was talking to an old bareheaded lady, the shopkeeper, no doubt, whom she addressed in a familiar manner. Octave could not distinguish her features in that dim light, beneath the dancing reflections of the neighbouring gas-jets ; she seemed to him to be pretty, he only saw two bright eyes, which were fixed a moment upon him like two flames. Behind her yawned the shop, damp like a cellar, and emitting an odour of saltpetre. " That is Madame Vabre, the wife of Monsieur The"ophile Vabre, the landlord's younger son. You know the people who live on the first floor," resumed Campardon, when he had gone a few steps. " Oh ! a most charming lady ! She was born in that shop, one of the best paying haberdashers of the neigh- bourhood, which her parents, Monsieur and Madame Louhette, still manage, for the sake of having something to occupy them. They have made some money there, I will warrant ! " But Octave did not understand trade of that sort, in those holes of old Paris, where at one time a piece of stuff was sufficient sign. He swore that nothing in the world would ever make him consent to live in such a den. One surely caught some rare aches and pains there ! Whilst talking, they had reached the top of the stairs. They were being waited for. Madame Campardon had put on a grey 24 PIPING HOT ! bilk dress, had arranged her hair coquettishly, and looked very neat and prim. Campardon kissed her on the neck, with the emotion of a good husband. " Good evening, my darling ; good evening, my pet." And they passed into the dining-room. The dinner was delightful. Madame Campardon at first talked of the Deleuzes and the Hedouins families respected throughout the neigh- bourhood, and whose members were well known ; a cousin who was a stationer in the Rue Gaillon, an uncle who had an umbrella shop in the Passage Choiseul, and nephews and nieces in business all round about. Then the conversation turned, and they talked of Angele, who was sitting stiffly on her chair, and eating with inert gestures. Her mother was bringing her up at home, it was preferable ; and, not wishing to say more, she blinked her eyes, to convey that young girls learnt very naughty things at boarding-schools. The child had slyly balanced her plate on her knife. Lisa, who was clearing the cloth, missed breaking it, and exclaimed : " It was your fault, mademoiselle ! " A mad laugh, violently restrained, passed over Angele's face. Madame Campardon contented herself with shaking her head; and, when Lisa had left the room to fetch the dessert, she sang her praises very intelligent, very active, a regular Paris girl, always knowing which way to turn. They might very well do without Victoire, the cook, who was no longer very clean, on account of her great age ; but she had seen her master born at his father's she was a family ruin which they respected. Then as the maid returned with some baked apples : " Conduct irreproachable," continued Madame Campardon in Octave's ear. " I have discovered nothing against her as yet. One holiday a month to go and embrace her old aunt, who lives some distance off." Octave observed Lisa. Seeing her nervous, flat-chested, blear-eyed, the thought came to him that she must go in for a precious fling, when at her old aunt's. However, he greatly approved what the mother said, as she continued to give him her views on education a young girl is such a heavy responsi- bility, it is necessary to keep her clear even of the breaths of the street. And, during this, Angele, each time Lisa leant over near her chair to remove a plate, pinched her in a friendly way, whilst they both maintained their composure, without even moving an eyelid. " One should be virtuous for one's own sake/' said the PIPING HOT ! 25 architect learnedly, as though by way of conclusion to thoughts he had not expressed. " I do not care a button for public opinion ; I am an artist ! " After dinner, they remained in the drawing-room until mid- night. It was a little jollification to celebrate Octave's arrival. Madame Campardon appeared to be very tired ; little by little she abandoned herself, leaning back on the sofa. " Are you suffering, my darling ? " asked her husband. " No," replied she in a low voice. " It is always the same thing." She looked at him, and then gently asked : " Did you see her at the He"douins' ? " " Yes. She asked after you." Tears came to Eose's eyes. " She is in good health, she is ! " " Come, come," said the architect, showering little kisses on her hair, forgetting they were not alone. " You will make yourself worse again. You know very well that I love you all the same, my poor pet ! " Octave, who had discreetly retired to the window, under the pretence of looking into the street, returned to study Madame Campardon's countenance, his curiosity again awakened, and wondering if she knew. But she had resumed her amiable and doleful expression, and was curled up in the depths of the sofa, like a woman who has to find her pleasure in herself, and who is forcibly resigned to receiving the caresses that fall to her share. At length Octave wished them good-night. With his candle- stick in his hand, he was still on the landing, when he heard the sound of silk dresses rustling over the stairs. He politely stood on one side. It was evidently the ladies of the fourth floor, Madame Josserand and her two daughters, returning from some party. As they passed, the mother, a superb and corpulent woman, stared in his face; whilst the elder of the young ladies kept at a distance with a sour air, and the younger, giddily looked at him and laughed, in the full light of the candle. She was charming, this one, with her irregular but agreeable features, her clear complexion, and her auburn hair gilded with light reflections ; and she had a bold grace, the free gait of a young bride returning from a ball in a complicated costume of ribbons and lace, like unmarried girls do not wear. The trains disappeared along the balustrade : a door closed. Octave lingered a moment, greatly amused by the gaiety of her eyes. 26 PIPING HOT ! He slowly ascended in his turn. A single gas-jet was burn- ing, the staircase was slumbering in a heavy warmth. It seemed to him more wrapped up in itself than ever, with its chaste doors, its doors of rich mahogany, closing the entrances to virtuous alcoves. Not a sigh passed along, it was the silence of well-mannered people who hold their breath. Presently a slight noise was heard; Octave leant over and beheld Monsieur Gourd, in his cap and slippers, turning out the last gas-jet. Then all subsided, the house became enveloped by the solemnity of darkness, as though annihilated in the distinction and decency of its slumbers. Octave, nevertheless, had great difficulty in getting to sleep. He kept feverishly turning over, his brain occupied with the new faces he had seen. Why the devil were the Campardons so amiable 1 Were they dreaming of marrying their daughter to him later on ] Perhaps, too, the husband took him to board with them so that he might amuse and enliven the wife 1 And that poor lady, what peculiar complaint could she be suffering from ? Then his ideas got more mixed ; he saw shadows pass little Madame Pichon, his neighbour, with her clear empty glances ; beautiful Madame Hedouin, correct and grave in her black dress ; and Madame Vabre's ardent eyes, and Made- moiselle Josserand's gay laugh. How they swarmed in a few hours in the streets of Paris ! It had always been his dream, ladies who would take him by the hand and help him in his affairs. But these kept returning and mingling with fatiguing obstinacy. He knew not which to choose ; he tried to keep his voice soft, his gestures cajoling. And suddenly, worn-out, exasperated, he yielded to his brutal inner nature, to the ferocious disdain in which he held woman, beneath his air of amorous adoration. "Are they going to let me sleep at all?" said he out loud, turning violently on to his back. " The first who likes, it is the same to me, and all together if it pleases them ! To sleep now, it will be daylight to-morrow." 27 CHAPTER II. WHEN Madame Josscraud, preceded by her young ladies, left the evening party given by Madame Dambreville, who resided on a fourth floor in the Rue de Rivoli, at the corner of the Rue de 1'Oratoive, she roxighly slammed the street door, in the sud- den outburst of a passion she had been keeping under for the past two hours. Berthe, her younger daughter, had again just gone and missed a husband. "Well ! what are you doing there 1" said she angrily to the young girls, who were standing under the arcade and watching the cabs pass by. u Walk on ! don't have any idea we are going to ride ! To waste another two francs, eh ? " And as Hor tense, the elder, murmured : " It will be pleasant, with this mud. My shoes will never recover it." " Walk on ! " resumed the mother, all beside herself. " When you have no more shoes, you can stop in bed, that's all. A deal of good it is, taking you out ! " Berthe and Hortense bowed their heads and turned into the Rue de 1'Oratoire. They held their long skirts up as high as they could over their crinolines, squeezing their shoulders to- gether and shivering under their thin opera-cloaks. Madame Josserand followed behind, wrapped in an old fur cloak made of Calabar skins, looking as shabby as cats'. All three, without bonnets, had their hair enveloped in lace wraps, head-dresses which caused the last passers-by to look back, surprised at see- ing them glide along the houses, one by one, with bent backs, and their eyes fixed on the puddles. And the mother's exas- peration increased still more at the recollection of many similar returns home, for three winters past, hampered by their gay dresses, amidst the black mud of the streets and the jeers of belated blackguards. No, decidedly, she had had enough of dragging her young ladies about to the four comers of Paris, 28 PIPING HOT ! without daring to venture on the luxury of a cab, for fear of having to omit a dish from the morrow's dinner ! " And she makes marriages ! " said she out loud, returning to Madame Dambreville, and talking alone to ease herself, without even addressing her daughters, who had turned down the Rue Saint-Honore. " They are pretty, her marriages ! A lot of impertinent minxes, who come from no one knows where ! Ah ! if one was not obliged ! It's like her last success, that bride whom she brought out, to show us that it did not always fail ; a fine specimen ! a wretched child who had to be sent back to her convent for six months, after a little mistake, to be re-whitewashed ! " The young girls were crossing the Place du Palais-Royal, when a shower came on. It was a regular rout. They stopped, slipping, splashing, looking again at the vehicles passing empty along. " Walk on ! " cried the mother, pitilessly. " We are too near now ; it is not worth two francs. And your brother Le"ou, who refused to leave with us for fear of having to pay for the cab ! So much the better for him if he gets what he wants at that lady's , but we can say that it is not at all decent. A woman who is over fifty and who only receives young men ! An old nothing-much whom a high personage married to that fool Dambreville, appointing him head clerk ! " Hortense and Berthe trotted along in the rain, one before the other, without seeming to hear. When their mother thus eased herself, letting everything out, arid forgetting the whole- some strictness with which she kept them, it was agreed that they should be deaf. Berthe, however, revolted on entering the gloomy and deserted Rue de 1'Echelle. " Oh, dear ! " said she, " the heel of my shoe is coming off. I cannot go a step further ! " Madame Josserand's wrath became terrible. " Just walk on ! Do I complain 1 Is it my place to be out in the street at such a time and in such weather ] It would be different if you had a father like others ! But no, the fine gentleman stays at home taking his ease. It is always my turn to drag you about ; he would never accept the burden. Well 1 I declare to you that I have had enough of it. Your father may take you out in future if he likes ; may the devil have me if ever again I accompany you to houses where I am plagued like that ! A man who deceived me as to his capacities, and who has never yet procured me the least pleasure ! Ah ! good PIPING HOT 1 29 heavens ! there is one I would not marry now, if it were to come over again ! " The young ladies no longer protested. They were already acquainted with this inexhaustible chapter of their mother's blighted hopes. With their lace wraps drawn over their faces, their shoes sopping wet, they rapidly followed the Rue Sainte- Anne. But, in the Rue de Choiseul, at the very door of her house, a last humiliation awaited Madame Josserand : the Duveyriers' carriage splashed her as it passed in. On the stairs, the mother and the young ladies, worn out and enraged, recovered their gracefulness when they had to pass before Octave. Only, as soon as ever their door was closed be- hind them, they rushed through the dark apartment, knocking up against the furniture, and tumbled into the dining-room, where Monsieur Josserand was writing by the feeble light of a little lamp. " Failed ! " cried Madame Josserand, letting herself fall on to a chair. And, with a rough gesture, she tore the lace wrap from her head, threw her fur cloak on to the back of her chair, and ap- peared in a flaring dress trimmed with black satin and cut very low in the neck, looking enormous, her shoulders still beautiful, and resembling a mare's shining flanks. Her square face, with its drooping cheeks and too big nose, ex-pressed the tragic fury of a queen restraining herself from descending to the use of coarse, vulgar expressions. " Ah ! " said Monsieur Josseraud simply, bewildered by this violent entrance. He kept blinking his eyes and was seized with uneasiness. His wife positively crushed him when she displayed that giant throat, the full weight of which he seemed to feel on the nape of his neck. Dressed in an old thread-bare frock-coat which he was finishing to wear out at home, his face looking as though tempered and expunged by thirty-five years spent at an office desk, he watched her for a moment with his big lifeless blue eyes. Then, after thrusting his grey locks behind his ears, feeling very embarrassed and unable to find a word to say, he attempted to resume his work. " But you do not seem to understand ! " resumed Madame Josserand in a shrill voice. " I tell you that there is another marriage knocked on the head, and it is the fourth ! " " Yes, yes, I know, the fourth," murmured he. " It is annoying, very annoying." 30 PIPING HOT ! And, to escape from his wife's terrifying nudity, he turned towards his daughters with a good-natured smile. They also were removing their lace wraps and their opera-cloaks ; the elder one was in blue and the younger in pink ; their dresses, too, free in cut and over- trimmed, were like a provocation, Hortcnse, with her sallow complexion, and her face spoilt by a nose like her mother's, which gave her an air of disdainful ob- stinacy, had just turned twenty-three and looked twenty-eight ; whilst Berthe, two years younger, retained all a child's grace- fulness, having, however, the same features, but more delicate and dazzlingly white, and only menaced with the coarse family mask after she entered the fifties. " It will do no good if you go on looking at us for ever ! " cried Madame Josserand, "And, for God's sake, put your writing away ; it worries my nerves ! " " But, my dear," said he peacefully, " I am addressing wrappers." " Ah ! yes, your wrappers at three francs a thousand ! Is it with those three francs that you "hope to marry your daughters?" Beneath the feeble light of the little lamp, the table was in- deed covered with large sheets of coarse paper, printed wrappers, the blanks of which Monsieur Josserand filled in for a largo publisher who had several periodicals. As his salary as cashier did not suffice, he passed whole nights at this unprofitable labour, working in secret, and seized with shame at the idea that any one might discover their penury. " Three francs are three francs," replied he in his slow, tired voice. " Those three francs will enable you to add ribbons to your dresses, and to offer some pastry to your guests on your Tuesdays at home." He regretted his words as soon as he had uttered them ; for he felt that they struck Madame Josseraud full in the heart, in the most sensitive part of her wounded pride. A rush of blood purpled her shoulders ; she seemed on the point of breaking out into revengeful utterances ; then, by an effort of dignity, she merely stammered, " Ah ! good heavens ! ah ! good heavens ! " And she looked at her daughters ; she magisterially crushed her husband beneath a shrug of her terrible shoulders, as much as to say, " Eh ! you hear him ? what an idiot ! " The daughters nodded their heads. Then, seeing himself beaten, and laying down his pen with regret, the father opened the "Temps" news- paper, which he brought home every evening from his office. PIPING HOT ! 31 " Is Saturnin asleep ? " sharply inquired Madame Josserand, speaking of her younger son. "Yes, long ago," replied he. "I also sent Adele to bed. And Le'on, did you see him at the Dambrevillea' ? " " Of course ! he sleeps there I " she let out in a cry of rancour which she was unable to restrain. The father, surprised, naively added, "Ah ! you think so?" Hortense and Bei the had become deaf again. They faintly smiled, however, affecting to be busy with their shoes, which were in a pitiful state. To create a diversion, Madame Josseraud tried to pick another quarrel with Monsieur Josserand ; she begged him to take his newspaper away every morning, not to leavp it lying about in the room all day, as he had done with the previous number, for instance, a number containing the re- port of an abominable trial, which his daughters might have read. She well recognised there his want of morality. " Well, are we going to bed 1 " asked Hortense. " I am hungry." " Oh ! and I too ! " said Berthe. " I am famishing." " What ! you are hungry ! " cried Madame Josserand beside herself. " Did you not eat any cake there, then ? What a couple of geese ! You should have eaten some ! I did." The young ladies resisted. They were hungry, they were feeling quite ill. So the mother accompanied them to the kitchen, to see if they could discover anything. The father at once returned stealthily to his wrappers. He well knew that, without them, every little luxury in the home would have dis- appeared ; and that was why, in spite of the scorn and unjust quarrels, he obstinately remained till daybreak engaged in this secret work, happy like the worthy man he was whenever he fancied that an extra piece of lace would hook a rich husband. As they were already stinting the food, without managing to save sufficient for the dresses and the Tuesday receptions, he resigned himself to his martyr-like labour, dressed in rags, whilst the mother and daughters wandered from drawing-room to drawing-room with flowers in their hair. " What a stench there is here ! " cried Madame Josserand on entering the kitchen. " To think that I can never get that slut Adele to leave the window slightly open ! She pretends that the room is so very .cold in the morning." She went and opened the window, and from the narrow court- yard separating the kitchens there rose an icy dampness, the 32 PIPIXG HOT ! unsavoury odour of a musty cellar. The caudle which Berthe had lighted caused colossal shadows of naked shoulders to dance upon the wall. " And what a state the place is in ! " continued Madame Josserand, sniffing about, and poking her nose into all the dirty corners. " She has not scrubbed her table for a fortnight. Here are plates which have been waiting to be washed since the day before yesterday. On my word, it is disgusting ! And her sink, just look ! smell it now, smell her sink ! " Her rage was lashing itself. She tumbled the crockery about with her arms white with rice powder and bedecked with gold bangles ; she trailed her flaring dress amidst the grease stains, catching it in cooking utensils thrown under the tables, risking her hardly earned luxury amongst the vegetable parings. At last, the discovery of a notched knife made her auger break all bounds. " I will turn her into the street to-morrow morning ! " " You will be no better off," quietly remarked Hortense. " We are never able to keep anyone. This is the first who has stayed three months. The moment they begin to get a little decent and know how to make melted butter, off they go." Madame Josserand bit her lips. As a matter of fact, Adele alone, stupid and lousy, and only lately arrived from her native Brittany, could put up with the ridiculously vain penury of these middle-class people, who took advantage of her ignorance and her slovenliness to half starve her. Twenty times already, on account of a comb found on the bread or of some abominable stew which gave them all the colic, they had talked of sending her about her business ; then, they had resigned themselves to putting up with her, in the presence of the difficulty of replac- ing her, for the pilferers themselves declined to be engaged, to enter that hole, where even the lumps of sugar were counted. " I can't discover anything ! " murmured Berthe, who was rummaging a cupboard. The shelves had the melancholy emptiness and the false luxury of families where inferior meat is purchased, so as to be able to put flowers on the table. All that was lying about were some white and gold porcelain plates, perfectly empty, a crumb-brush, the silver-plated handle of which was all tarnished, and some cruets without a drain of oil or vinegar in them ; there was not a forgotten crust, not a morsel of dessert, not a fruit, nor a sweet, nor a remnant of cheese. One could feel that Adele's hunger never satisfied, lapped up the rare dribblets PIPING HOT ! S3 of sauce which her betters left at the bottoms of the dishes, to the extent of rubbing the gilt off. " But she has gone and eaten all the rabbit ! " cried Madame Josserand. "True," said Hortense, " there was the tail piece. Ah! no, here it is. It would have surprised me if she had dared. I shall stick to it, you know. It is cold, but it is better than nothing ! " Berthe, on her side, was rummaging about, but without re- sult. At length her hand encountered a bottle, in which her mother had diluted the contents of an old pot of jam, so as to manufacture some red currant syrup for her evening parties. She poured herself out half a glass, saying : " Ah ! an idea ! I will soak some bread in this, as it is all there is ! " But Madame Josserand, all anxiety, looked at her sternly. " Pray, don't restrain yourself, fill your glass whilst you are about it I It will be quite sufficient if I offer water to the ladies and gentlemen to-morrow, will it not ] " Fortunately, the discovery of another of Adele's evil doings interrupted her reprimand. She was still turning about, searching for crimes, when she caught sight of a volume on the table ; and then occurred a supreme explosion. " Oh ! the beast ! she has again brought my Lamartine into the kitchen ! " It was a copy of " Jocelyn." She took it up and rubbed it hard, as though dusting it ; and she kept repeating that she had twenty times forbidden her to leave it lying about in that way, to write her accounts upon. Berthe and Hortense, mean- while, had shared the little piece of bread which remained ; then carrying their suppers away with them, they said that they would undress first. The mother gave the icy cold stove a last glance, and returned to the dining-room, tightly holding her Lamartine beneath the massive flesh of her arm. Monsieur Josserand continued writing. He trusted that hia wife would be satisfied with crushing him with a glance of con- tempt as she crossed the room to go to bed. But she again dropped on to a chair, facing him, and looked at him fixedly without speaking. He felt this look, and was seized with such uneasiness, that his pen kept sputtering on the flimsy wrapper paper. " So it was you who prevented Adele making a cream for to- morrow evening 1 " said she at length. .c 34 PIPING HOT I He raised his head in amazement. " I, my dear ! " " Oh 1 you will again deny it, as you always do. Then, why has she not made the cream I ordered ? You know very well that before our party to-morrow uncle Bachelard is coming to dinner, it is his saint's-day, which is very awkward, happen- ing as it does on my reception day. If there is no cream, we must have an ice, and that will be another five francs squandered ! " He did not attempt to exculpate himself. Not daring to resume his work, he began to play with his penholder. There was a brief pause. " To-morrow morning," resumed Madame Josserand, " you will oblige me by calling on the Campardons and reminding them very politely, if you can, that we are expecting to see them in the evening. Their young man arrived this afternoon. Ask them to bring him with them. Do you understand ? I wish him to come." " What young man ? " " A young man ; it woiild take too long to explain everything to you. I have obtained all necessary information about him. I am obliged to try everything, as you leave your daughters entirely to me, like a bundle of rubbish, without occupying yourself about marrying them any more than about marrying the Grand Turk." The thought revived her anger. " You see, I contain myself, but it is more, oh ! it is more than I can stand I Say nothing, sir, say nothing, or really my anger will get the better of me." He said nothing, but she vented her wrath upon him all the same. " It has become unbearable ! I warn you, that one of these mornings I shall go off, and leave you here with your two idiotic daughters. Was I born to live such a skinflint life as this ? Always cutting farthings into four, never even having a decent pair of boots, and not being able to receive my friends decently ! And all that through your fault ! Ah ! do not shako your head, do not exasperate me more than I am already ! Yes, your fault ! You deceived me, sir, basely deceived me. One should not marry a woman, when one is decided to let her want for everything. You played the boaster, you pretended you had a fine future before you, you were the friend of your employer's sons, of thos brothers Bernheim, who, since, have PIPING HOT I 86 merely made a fool of you. What ! You dare to pretend that they have not made a fool of you ! But you ought to be their partner by now ! It is you who made their business what it is, one of the first glass-houses in Paris, and you have remained their cashier, a subordinate, a hireling. Keally ! you have no spirit ; hold your tongue." " I get eight thousand francs a year," murmured the cashier. " It is a very good berth." "A good berth, after more than thirty years' labour !" re- sumed Madame Josserand. " They grind you down, and you are delighted. Do you know what I would have done, had I been in your place ? well ! I would have put the business into my pocket twenty times over. It was so easy. I saw it when I married you, and since then I have never ceased advising you to do so. But it required some initiative and intelligence ; it was a question of not going to sleep on your leather-covered stool, like a blockhead." " Come," interrupted Monsieur Josserand, " are you going to reproach me now with being honest 1 " She jumped up, and advanced towards him, flourishing her Lamartine. "Honest! in what way do you mean? Begin by being honest towards me. Others do not count till afterwards, I hope ! And I repeat, sir, it is not honest to take a young girl in, pretending to be ambitious to become rich some day, and then to end by losing what little wits you had in looking after somebody else's cashbox. On my word, I was nicely swindled ! Ah ! if it were to happen over again, and if I had only known your family ! " She was walking violently about. He could not restrain a slight sign of impatience, in spite of his great desire for peace. " You would do better to go to bed, Eleonore," said he. " It is past one o'clock, and I assure you this work is pressing. My family has done you no harm, so do not speak of it." "Ah ! and why, pray? Your family is no more sacred than another, I suppose. Every one at Clermont knows that your father, after selling his business of solicitor, let himself bo ruined by a servant. You might have seen your daughters married long ago, had he not taken up with a strumpet when over seventy. There is another who has swindled me ! " Monsieur Josserand turned pale. He replied in a trembling voice, which rose higher as he went on : " Listen, do not let us throw our relations at each other's 36 PIPING HOT ! heads. Your father never paid me your dowry, the thirty thousand francs he promised." "Ehl what] thirty thousand francs !" " Exactly ; don't pretend to be surprised. And if my father met with misfortunes, yours behaved in a most disgraceful way towards us. I was never able to find out clearly what he left. There were all sorts of underhand dealings, so that the school in the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Victor should remain with your sister's husband, that shabby usher who no longer recognises us now. "We were robbed as though in a wood." Madame Josserand, now ghastly white, was choking with rage before her husband's inconceivable revolt. " Do not say a word against papa ! For forty years he was a credit to instruction. Go and talk of the Bachelard Academy in the neighbourhood of the Pantheon ! And as for my sister and my brother-in-law, they are what they are. They have robbed me, I know ; but it is not for you to say so. I will not permit it, understand that ! Do I speak to you of your sister, who eloped with an officer 1 Oh ! you have indeed some nice relations ! " "An officer who married her, madame. There is uncle Bachelard, too, your brother, a man totally destitute of all morality " " But you are becoming cracked, sir ! He is rich, he earns what he pleases as a commission merchant, and he has promised to provide Berthe's dowry. Do you then respect nothing ? " " Ah ! yes, provide Berthe's dowry ! Will you bet that he will give a sou, and that we shall not have had to put up with his nasty habits for nothing 1 He makes me feel ashamed of him every time he comes here. A liar, a rake, a person who takes advantage of the situation, who for fifteen years past, seeing us all on our knees before his fortune, has been taking me eveiy Saturday to spend two hours in his office, to go over his books ! It saves him five francs. We have never yet been favoured with a single present from him." Madame Josserand, catching her breath, was wrapped for a moment in thought. Then she uttered thii last cry : " And you have a nephew in the police, sir ! " A fresh pause ensued. The light from the little lamp was becoming dimmer, wrappers were flying about beneath Monsieur Josserand's feverish gestures ; and he looked his wife full in the face his wife in her low neck dress determined to say everything, and quivering with courage. PIPING HOT ! 87 " With eight thousand francs a year one can do many things," resumed he. "You are always complaining. But you should not have arranged your housekeeping on a footing superior to our means. It is your mania for receiving and for paying visits, of having your at homes, of giving tea and pastry " She did not let him finish. " Now we have come to it ! Shut me up in a box at once. Reproach me for not walking out as naked as my hand. And your daughters, sir, who will marry them if we never see any one? We don't see many people as it is. It does well to sacrifice oneself, to be judged afterwards with such meanness of heart !" " We have all of us, rnadame, sacrificed ourselves. Le"on had to make way for his sisters ; and he left the house to earn his own living without any assistance from us. As for Saturnin, poor child, he does not even know how to read. And I deny myself everything ; I pass my nights " " Why did you have daughters then, sir? You are surely not going to reproach them with their education, I hope ? Any other man in your place would be proud of Hortense's diploma and of Berthe's talents. The dear child again delighted every one this evening with her waltz, the ' Banks of the Oise,' and her last painting will certainly enchant our guests to-morrow. But you, sir, you are not even a father ; you would have sent your children to take cows to grass, instead of sending them to school." " Well ! I took out an assurance for Berthe's benefit. Was it not you, madame, who, when the fourth payment became due, made use of the money to cover the drawing-room furni- ture ? And, since then, you have even negotiated the premiums that had been paid." " Of course ! as } 7 ou leave us to die of hunger. Ah ! you may indeed bite your fingers, if your daughters become old maids." " Bite my fingers ! But, Jove's thunder ! it is you who frighten the likely men away, with your dresses and your ridiculous parties ! " Never before had Monsieur Josserand gone so far. Madame Josserand, suffocating, stammered forth the words : " I I ridiculous ! " when the door opened. Hortense and Berthe were returning, in their petticoats and little calico jackets, their hair let down, and their feet in old slippers. 88 PIPING HOT ! " Ah, well ! it is too cold in our room ! " said Berthe shiver- ing. " The food freezes in your mouth. Here, at least, there has been a fire this evening." And both dragging their chairs along the floor, seated them- selves close to the stove, which still retained a little warmth. Hortense held her rabbit bone in the tips of her fingers, and was. skilfully picking it. Berthe dipped pieces of bread in her glass of syrup. The parents, however, were so excited that they did not even appear to notice their arrival. They con- tinued : " Ridiculous ridiculous, sir ! I shall not be ridiculous again ! Let my head be cut off if I wear out another pair of gloves in trying to get them husbands. It is your turn now ! And try not to be more ridiculous than I have been ! " "I daresay, madame, now that you have exhibited them and compromised them everywhere ! Whether you marry them or whether you don't, I don't care a button ! " " And I care less, Monsieur Josserand ! I care so little that I will bundle them out into the street if you aggravate me much more. And if you have a mind to, you can follow them, the door is open. Ah, heavens ! what a good riddance ! " The young ladies quietly listened, used to these lively re- criminations. They were still eating, their little jackets dropping from their shoulders, and their bare skin gently rub- bing against the lukewarm earthenware of the stove ; and they looked charming in this undress, with their youth and their hearty appetites and their eyes heavy with sleep. " You are very foolish to quarrel," at length observed Hor- tense, with her mouth full. " Mamma only spoils her temper, and papa will be ill ngain to-morrow at his office. It seems to me that we are eld enough to be able to find husbands for our- selves." This created a diversion. The father, thoroughly exhausted, made a feint of returning to his wrappers; and he sat with his nose over the paper, unable to write, his hands trembling violently. The mother, who had been moving about the room like an escaped lioness, went and planted herself in front of Hortense. " If you are speaking for yourself," cried she, " you are a great ninny ! Your -Verdier will never marry you." " That is my business," boldly replied the young girl. After having contemptuously refused five or six suitors, a little clerk, the son of a tailor, and other yotuig fellows whose PIPING HOT ! 80 prospects she did not consider good enough, she had ended by setting her cap at a barrister, whom she had met at the Dam- brevilles', and who was already turned forty. She considered him very clever, and destined to make a name in the world. But the misfortune was that for fifteen years past Verdier had been living with a mistress, who in the neighbourhood even passed for his wife. She knew of this, though, and by no means let it trouble her. " My child," said the father, raising his head once more, " I begged you not to think of this marriage. You know the situation." She stopped sucking her bone, and said with an air of im- patience : " What of it ? Verdier has promised me he will leave her. She is a fool." " You are wrong, Hortense, to speak in that way. And if he should also leave you one day to return to her whom you would have caused him to abandon 1 " " That is my business," sharply retorted the young woman. Berthe listened, fully acquainted with this matter, the con- tingencies of which she discussed daily with her sister. She was, besides, like her father, all in favour of the poor woman, whom it was proposed to turn out into the street, after having performed a wife's duties for fifteen years. But Madame Josserand intervened. "Leave off, do ! those wretched women always end by re- turning to the gutter. Only, it is Verdier who will never bring himself to leave her. He is fooling you, my dear. In your place, I would not wait a second for him ; I would try and find some one else." Hortense's voice became sourer still, whilst two livid spots appeared on her cheeks. "Mamma, you know how I am. I -want him, and I will have him. I will never marry any one else, even, though he kept me waiting a hundred years." The mother shrugged her shoulders. " And you call others fools ! " But the young girl rose up, quivering with rage. " Here ! don't go pitching into me ! " cried she. " T have finished my rabbit. I prefer to go to bed. As you are unable to find us husbands, you must let us fiud them in our own way." And she withdrew, violently slamming the door behind her. 40 PIPING HOT ! Madame Josserand turned majestically towards her husband, and uttered this profound remark : " That, sir, is the result of your bringing up ! " Monsieur Josseraud did not protest ; he was occupied in dotting his thumb nail with ink, whilst waiting till they allowed him to resume his writing. Berthe, who had eaten her bread, dipped a finger in the glass to finish up her syrup. She felt comfortable, with her back nice and warm, and did not hurry herself, being undesirous of encountering her sister's quarrelsome temper in their bedroom. " Ah ! and that is the reward ! " continued Madame Josser- and, resuming her walk to and fro across the dining-room. " For twenty years one wears oneself out for these young ladies, one goes in want of everything in order to make them accom- plished women, and they will not even let one have the satis- faction of seeing them married according to one's own fancy. It would be different if they had ever been refused a single thing ! But I have never kept a sou for myself, and have even gone without clothes to dress them as though we had an income of fifty thousand francs. No, really, it is too absurd ! When those hussies have had a careful education, have got just as much religion as is necessary, and the airs of rich girls, they leave you in the lurch, they talk of marrying barristers, adventurers, who lead lives of debauchery !" She stopped before Berthe, and, menacing her with her finger, said : " As for you, if you follow your sister's example, you will have me to deal with." Then she recommenced stamping round the room, speaking to herself, jumping from one idea to another, contradicting herself with the brazenness of a woman who will always be in the right. " I did what I ought to do, and were it to be done over again I should do the same. In life, it is only the most shamefaced who lose. Money is money ; when one has none, one may as well retire. Whenever I had twenty sous, I always said I had forty ; for that is real wisdom, it is better to be envied than pitied. It is no use having a good education if one has not good clothes to wear, for then people despise you. It is not just, but it is so. I would sooner wear dirty petticoats than a cotton dress. Feed on potatoes, but have a chicken when you have any one to dinner. And only fools would say the con- trary 1 " PIPING HOT ! 41 She looked fixedly at her husband, to whom those last re- flections were addressed. The latter, worn out, and declining another battle, had the cowardice to declare : " It is true ; money is everything in our days." " You hear," resumed Madame Josserand, returning towards her daughter. "Go straight ahead and try to give iis satis- faction. How is it you let this marriage fall through ? " Berthe understood that her turn had come. " I don't know, mamma," murmured she " A second head-clerk in a government office," continued the mother ; " not yet thirty, with a splendid future before him. Eveiy month he would be bringing you his money ; it is some- thing substantial that, there is nothing like it. You have been up to some tomfoolery again, just the same as with the others." " I have not, mamma, I assure you. He must have obtained some information have heard that I had no money." But Madame Josserand cried out at this. " And the dowry that your uncle is going to give you ! Every one knows about that dowry. No, there is something else ; he withdrew too abruptly. When dancing you passed into the parlour." Berthe became confused. " Yes, mamma. And, as we were alone, he even tried to do some naughty things ; he kissed me, seizing hold of me like that. Then I was frightened ; I pushed him up against the furniture " Her mother, again overcome with rage, interrupted her. " Pushed him up against the furniture, ah ! the wretched girl pushed him up against the furniture 1 " " But, mamma, he held me " " What of it 1 He held you, that was nothing ! A fat lot of good it is sending such fools to school ! Whatever did they teach you, eh 1 " A rush of colour rose to the young girl's cheeks and shoulders. Tears filled her eyes, whilst she looked as confused as a violated virgin. " It was not my fault ; he looked so wicked. I did not know what to do." " Did not know what to do ! she did not know what to do ! Have I not told you a hundred times that your fears are ri- diculous? It is your lot to live in society. When a man is rough, it is because he loves you, and there is always a way of keeping him in his place in a nice manner. For a kiss behind a 42 PIPING HOT ! door ! in truth now, ought you to mention such a thing to us, your parents ? And you push people against the furniture, and you drive away your suitors ! " She assumed a doctoral air as she continued : " It is ended ; I despair of doing anything with you, you are too stupid, my girl. One would have to coach you in every- thing, and that would be awkward. As you have no fortune, understand at least that you must hook the men by some other means. One should be amiable, have loving eyes, abandon one's hand occasionally, allow a little playfulness, without seeming to do so ; in short, one should angle for a husband. You make a great mistake, if you think it improves your eyes to cry like a fool ! " Berthe was sobbing. "You aggravate me leave off crying. Monsieur Josserand, just tell your daughter not to spoil her face by crying in that \vay. It will be too much if she becomes ugly ! " " My child," said the father, " be reasonable ; listen to your mother's good advice. You must not spoil your good looks, my darling." " And what irritates me is that she is not so bad when she likes," resumed Madame Josserand. " Come, wipe your eyes, look at me as if I was a gentleman courting you. You smile, you drop your fan, so that the gentleman, in picking it up, slightly touches your fingers. That is not the way. You are holding you head up too stifly, you look like a sick hen. Lean back more, show your neck ; it is too young to be hidden." " Then, like this, mamma 1 '' " Yes, that is better. And never be stiff, be supple. Men do not care for planks. And, above all, if they go too far do not play the simpleton. A man who goes too far is done for, my dear." The drawing-room clock struck two; and, in the excitement of that prolonged vigil, in her desire now become furious for an immediate marriage, the mother forgot herself in thinking out loud, making her daughter turn about like a papier-mache doll. The latter, without spirit or will, abandoned herself ; but she felt very heavy at heart, fear and shame brought a lump to her throat. Suddenly, in the midst of a silvery laugh which her mother was forcing her to attempt, she burst into sobs, her face all upset : " No 1 no ! it pains me ! " stammered she. PIPING HOT I 43 For a second, Madame Josseraud remained incensed and amazed. Ever since she left the Dambrevilles', her hand had been itching, there were slaps in the air. Then, she landed Berthe a clout with all her might. " Take that ! you are too aggravating ! What a fool ! On my word, the men are right ! " In the shock, her Lamartine, which she had kept under her arm, fell to the floor. She picked it up, wiped it, and without adding another word, she retired into the bedroom, royally drawing her ball-dress around her. " It was bound to end thus," murmured Monsieur Josserand, not daring to detain his daughter, who went off also, holding her cheek and crying louder than ever. But, as Berthe felt her way across the ante-room, she found her brother Saturnin up, barefooted and listening. Saturn in was a big, ill-formed fellow of twenty-five, with wild-looking eyes, and who had remained childish after an attack of brain- fever. Without being mad, he terrified the household by at- tacks of blind violence, whenever he was thwarted. Berthe, alone, was able to subdue him with a look. He had nursed her when she was still quite a child, through a long illness, obedient as a dog to her little invalid girl's caprices ; and, ever since he had saved her, he was seized with an adoration for her, into which entered every kind of love. " Has she been beating you again ? " asked he in a low and ardent voice. Berthe, uneasy at finding him there, tried to send him away. "Go to bed, it is nothing to do with you." "Yes, it is. I will not have her beat you! She woke me up, she was shouting so. She had better not try it on again, or I will strike her ! " Then, she seized him by the wrists, and spoke to him as to a disobedient animal. He submitted at once, and stuttered, cry- ing like a little boy : " It hurts you very much, does it not ? Where is the sore place, that I may kiss it 1 " And, having found her cheek in the dark, he kissed it, wetting it with his tears, as he repeated : " It is well, now, it is well, now." Meanwhile, Monsieur Josserand, left alone, had laid down his pen, his heart was so full of grief. At the end of a few minutes, he got up gently to go and listen at the doors. Madame Josserand was snoring. No sounds of crying issued from his 44 PIPING HOT ! daughters' room. All was dark and peaceful. Then he re- turned, feeling slightly relieved. He saw to the lamp which was smoking, and mechanically resumed his writing. Two big tears, unfelt by him, dropped on to the wrappers, in the solemn silence of the slumbering house. CHAPTER III. So soon as the fish was served, skate of doubtful freshness with black butter, which that bungler Adele had drowned in a flood of vinegar, Hortense and Berthe, seated on the right and left of uncle Bachelard, incited him to drink, filling his glass one after the other, and repeating : "It's your saint's-day, drink now, drink! Here's your health, uncle ! " They had plotted together to make him give them twenty francs. Every year, their provident mother placed them thus on either side of her brother, abandoning him to them. But it was a difficult task, and required all the greediness of two girls prompted by dreams of Louis XV. shoes and five button gloves. To get him to give the twenty francs, it was necessary to make the uncle completely drunk. He was ferociously miserly when- ever he found himself amongst his relations, though out of doors he squandered in crapulous boozes the eighty thousand francs he made each year out of his commission business. For- tunately, that evening, he was already half fuddled when he arrived, having passed the afternoon with the wife of a dyer of the Faubourg Montmartre, who kept a stock of Marseilles ver- mouth expressly for him. " Your health, my little ducks ! " replied he each time, with his thick husky voice, as he emptied his glass. Covered with jewellery, a rose in his button-hole, enormous in build, he filled the middle of the table, with his broad shoulders of a boozing and brawling tradesman, who has wal- lowed in every vice. His false teeth lit up with too harsh a whiteness his ravaged face, the big red nose of which blazed be- neath the snowy crest of his short cropped hair ; and, now and again, his eyelids dropped of themselves over his pale and misty eyes. Gueulin, the son of one of his wife's sisters, affirmed that his uncle had not been sober during the ten years he had been a widower. 48 PIPING HOT ! " Narcisse, a little skate, I can recommend it," said Madame Josserand, smiling at her brother's tipsy condition, though at heart it made her feel rather disgusted. She was sitting opposite to him, having little Gueulin on her left, and another young man on her right, Hector Trublot, to whom she was desirous of showing some politeness. She usually took advantage of family gatherings like the present to get rid of certain invitations she had to return ; and it was thus that a lady living in the house, Madame Juzeur, was also present, seated next to Monsieur Josserand. As the uncle behaved very badly at table, and it was the expectation of his fortune aloue which enabled them to put up with him without absolute dis- gust, she only had intimate acquaintances to meet him or else persons whom she thought it was no longer worth while trying to dazzle. For instance, she had at one time thought of find- ing a son-in-law in young Trublot, who was employed at a stock- broker's, whilst waiting till his father, a wealthy man, pur- chased him a share in the business ; but, Trublot having pro- fessed a determined objection to matrimony, she no longer stood upon ceremony with him, even placing him next to Saturnin, who had never known how to eat decently. Berthe, who always had a seat beside her brother, was commissioned to subdue him with a look, whenever he put his fingers too much into the gravy. After the fish came a meat pie, and the young ladies thought the moment arrived to commence their attack. " Take another glass, uncle ! " said Hortense. " It is your saint's day. Don't you give anything when it's your saint's- day?" "Dear me ! why of course," added Berthe naively. "People always give something on their saint's-day. You must give us twenty francs." On hearing them speak of money, Bachelard at once exag- gerated his tipsy condition. It was his usual dodge ; his eye- lids dropped, and he became quite idiotic. " Eh? what ? " stuttered he. " Twenty francs. You know very well what twenty francs are, it is no use your pretending you don't," resumed Berthe. " Give iis twenty francs, and we will love you, oh ! we will love you so much ! " They threw their arms round his neck, called him the most endearing names, and kissed his inflamed face without the least repugnance for the horrid odour of debatichery which he ex- PIPING HOT ! 47 haled. Monsieur Josserand, whom these continual fumes of absinthe, tobacco and musk upset, had a feeling of disgust on seeing his daughters' virgin charms rubbing up against those infamies gathered in the vilest places. " Leave him alone ! " cried he. " Why ? " asked Madame Josserand, giving her husband a terrible look. " They are amusing themselves. If Narcissc wishes to give them twenty francs, he is quite at liberty to do so." " Monsieur Bachelard is so good to them ! " complacently murmured little Madame Juzeur. But the uncle struggled, becoming more idiotic than ever, and repeating, with his mouth full of saliva : " It's funny. I don't know, word of honour! I don't know." Then, Hortense and Berthe, exchanging a glance, released him. No doubt he had not had enough to drink. And they again resorted to filling his glass, laughing like courtesans who intend robbing a man. Their bare arms, of an adorable youthful plumpness, kept passing every minute under the uncle's big flaming nose. Meanwhile, Trublot, like a quiet fellow who takes his plea- sures alone, was watching Adele as she turned heavily round the table. Being very short-sighted he thought her pretty, with her pronounced Breton features and her hair the colotir of dirty hemp. When she brought in the roast, a piece of veal, she leant right over his shoulder, to reach the centre of the table ; and he, pretending to pick up his napkin, gave her a good pinch on the calf of her leg. The servant, not understanding, looked at him, as though he had asked her for some bread. " What is it ] " said Madame Josserand. " Did she knock ngainst you, sir? Oh! that girl! she is so awkward! But, you know, she is quite new to the work ; she will be better when she has had a little training." "No doubt, there is no harm clone," replied Trublot, strok- ing his bushy black beard with the serenity of a young Indian god. The conversation was becoming more animated in the dining- room, at first icy cold, and now gradually warming with the fumes of the dishes. Madame Juzeur was once more confiding to Monsieur Josserand the dreariness of her thirty } - ears of soli- tary existence. She raised her eyes to heaven, and contented herself with this discreet allusion to the drama of her life : her husband had left her after ten days of married bliss, and no 48 PIPING HOT ! one knew why ; she said nothing more. Now, she lived by her- self in a lodging that was as soft as down and always closed, and which was frequented by priests. " It is so sad, at my age ! " murmured she languishingly, cutting up her veal with delicate gestures. "A very unfortunate little woman," whispered Madame Josserand in Trublot's ear, with an air of profound sympathy. But Trublot glanced indifferently at this clear-eyed devotee, so full of reserve and hidden meanings. She was not his style. Then there was a regular panic. Saturnin, whom Berthe was not watching so closely, being too busy with her uncle, had amused himself by cutting up his meat into various designs on his plate. This poor creature exasperated his mother, who was both afraid and ashamed of him ; she did not know how to get rid of him, not daring through pride to make a workman of him, after having sacrificed him to his sisters by having re- moved him from the school where his slumbering intelligence was too long awakening ; and, during the years he had been hanging about the house, useless and stinted, she was in a con- stant state of fright whenever she had to let him appear before company. Her pride suffered cruelly. " Saturnin ! " cried she. But Saturnin began to chuckle, delighted with the mess he had made in his plate. He did not respect his mother, but called her roundly a great liar and a horrid nuisance, with the perspicacity of madmen who think out loud. Things certainly seemed to be going wrong. He would have thrown his plate at her head, if Berthe, reminded of her duties, had not looked him straight in the face. He tried to resist ; then the fire in his eyes died out ; he remained gloomy and depressed on his chair, as though in a dream, until the end of the meal. "I hope, Gueulin, that you have brought your flute ?" asked Madame Josserand, trying to dispel her guests' uneasiness. Gueulin was an amateur flute-player, but solely in the houses where he was treated without ceremony. " My flute ! Of course I have," replied he. He was absent-minded, his carroty hair and whiskers were more bristly than usual, as he watched with deep interest the young ladies' manoeuvres around their \incle. Employed at an assurance office, he would go straight to Bachelard on leaving off work, and stick to him, visiting the same cafes and the same disreputable places. Behind the big, ill-shaped body of the one, the little pale face of the other was sure always to be seen. PIPING HOT ! 40 " Cheerily, there ! stick to him ! " said he, suddenly, like a true sportsman. The uncle was indeed losing ground. When, after the vegetables, French beans swimming in water, Adele placed a vanilla and currant ice on the table, it caused unexpected delight amongst the guests; and the young ladies took advantage of the situation to make the uncle drink half of the bottla of champagne, which Madame Josserand had bought for three francs of a neighbouring grocer. He was becoming quite affec-- tionate, and forgetting his pretended idiocy. " Eh, twenty francs ! Why twenty francs 1 Ah ! you want twenty francs ! But I have not got them, really now. Ask Gueulin. Is it not true, Gueulin, that I forgot my purse, and that you had to pay at the cafe ? If I had them, my little ducks, I would give them to you, you are so nice." Gueulin was laughing in his cool way, making a noise like a pulley that required greasing. And he murmured : " The old swindler ! " Then, suddenly, unable to restrain himself, he cried : "Search him!" So Hortense and Berthe again threw themselves on the uncle, this time without the least restraint. The desire for the twenty francs, which their good education had hitherto kept within bounds, bereft them of their senses in the end, and they forgot everything else. The one, with both hands, examined his waist- coat pockets, whilst the other buried her fingers inside the pockets of his frock-coat. The uncle, however, pressed back on his chair, still struggled ; but he gradually burst out into a laugh a laugh broken by drunken hiccoughs. " On my word of honour, I haven't a sou ! Leave off, do ; you're tickling me." " In the trousers ! " energetically exclaimed Gueulin, excited by the spectacle. And Berthe resohitely searched one of the trouser pockets. Their hands trembled ; they were both becoming exceedingly rough, and could have smacked the uncle. But Berthe littered a cry of victory : from the depths of the pocket she brought forth a handful of money, which she spread out in a plate ; and there, amongst a heap of coppers and pieces of silver, was a twenty-franc piece. " I have it ! " said she, her face all red, her hair undone, as she tossed the coin in the air and caught it again. There was a general clapping of hands, every one thought it D 50 PIPING HOT ! very funny. It created quite a hubbub, and was the success of the dinner. Madame Josserand looked at her daughters with a mother's tender smile. The uncle, who was gathering up his money, sententiously observed that, when one wanted twenty francs, one should earn them. And the young ladies, worn out and satisfied, were panting on his right and left, their lips still trembling in the enervation of their desire. A bell was heard to ring. They had been eating slowly, and the other guests were already arriving. Monsieur Josserand, who had decided to laugh like his wife, enjoyed singing some of Beranger's songs at table ; but as this outraged his better half s poetic tastes, she compelled him to keep quiet She got the dessert over as quickly as possible, more especially as, since the forced present of the twenty francs, the uncle had been trying to pick a quarrel, complaining that his nephew, Le"on, had not deigned to put himself out to come and wish him many happy returns of the day. Le'on was only coming to the even- ing party. At length, as they were rising from table, Adele said that the architect from the floor below and a young man were in the drawing-room. "Ah ! yes, that young man," murmured Madame Juzeur, accepting Monsieur Josserand's arm. u So you have invited him ? I saw him to-day talking to the doorkeeper. He is very good-looking." Madame Josserand was taking Trublot's arm, when Saturnin, who had been left by himself at the table, and who had not been roused from slumbering with his eyes open by all the uproar about the twenty francs, kicked back his chair, in a sudden outburst of fury, shouting : " I won't have it, damnation ! I won't have it ! " It was the very thing his mother always dreaded. She sig- nalled to Monsieur Josserand to take Madame Juzeur away. Then she freed herself from Trublot, who understood, and dis- appeared ; but he probably made a mistake, for he went off in the direction of the kitchen, close upon Adele's heels. Bache- lard and Gueulin, without troubling themselves about the maniac, as they called him, chuckled in a corner, whilst play- fully slapping one another. " He was so peculiar, I felt there would be something this evening," murmured Madame Josserand, uneasily. " Berthe, come quick ! " But Bertbe was showing the twenty -franc piece to Hortense. Saturnin had caught up a knife. He repeated : HORTENSE AND BERTHE SEARCHING UNCLE BACHELARD'S POCKETS. p. 50. PIPING HOT! 61 " Damnation ! I won't have it ! I'll rip their stomachs open ! " " Berthe ! " called her mother in despair. And, when the young girl hastened to the spot, she only just had time to seize him by the hand and prevent him from entering the drawing-room. She shook him angrily, whilst he tried to explain, with his madman's logic. " Let me be, I must settle them. I tell you it's best. I've had enough of their dirty ways. They'll sell the whole lot of us." " Oh ! this is too much ! " cried Berthe. " What is the mat- ter with you 1 what are you talking about ? " He looked at her in a bewildered way, trembling with a gloomy rage, and stuttered : " They're going to marry you again. Never, you hear ! I won't have you hurt." The young girl could not help laughing. Where had he got the idea from that they were going to marry her ? But he nodded his head : he knew it, he felt it. And as his mother intervened to try and calm him, he grasped his knife so tightly that she drew back. However, she trembled for fear he should be overheard, and hastily told Berthe to take him away and lock him in his room ; whilst he, becoming crazier than ever, raised his voice : " I won't have you married, I won't have you hurt. If they marry you, I'll rip their stomachs open." Then Berthe put her hands on his shoulders, and looked him straight in the face. " Listen," said she, " keep quiet, or I will not love you any more." He staggered, despair softened the expression of his face, his eyes filled with tears. " You won't love me any more, you won't love me any more. Don't say that. Oh ! I implore you, say that yo\i will love me still, say that you will love me always, and that you will never love any one else." She had seized him by the wrist, and she led him away as gentle as a child. In the drawing-room Madame Josserand, exaggerating her intimacy, called Campardon her dear neighbour. Why had Madame Campardon not done her the great pleasure of coming also ? and on the architect replying that his wife still continued poorly, she exclaimed that they would have been delighted to have received her in her dressing-gown and her slippers. But her smile never left Octave, who was conversing with Mon- LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 62 PIPING HOT ! sieur Josserand ; all her amiability was directed towards him, over Campardon's shoulder. When her husband introduced the young man to her, her cordiality was so great that the latter felt quite uncomfortable. Other guests were arriving ; stout mothers with skinny daughters, fathers and uncles scarcely roused from their office drowsiness, pushing before them flocks of marriageable young ladies. Two lamps, with pink paper shades, lit up the drawing- room with a pale light, which only faintly displayed the old, worn, yellow velvet covered furniture, the scratched piano, and the three smoky Swiss views, which looked like black stains on the cold, bare, white and gold panels. And, in this miserly light, the guests poor, and, so to say, worn-out figures, without resignation, and whose attire was the cause of much pinching and saving seemed to become obliterated. Madame Josserand wore her fiery costume of the day before ; only, with a view of throwing dust in people's eyes, she had passed the day hi sewing sleeves on to the body, and in making herself a lace tippet to cover her shoulders ; whilst her two daughters, seated beside her in their dirty cotton jackets, vigorously plied their needles, rearranging with new trimmings their only presentable dresses, which they had been thus altering bit by bit ever since the pre- vious winter. After each ring at the bell, the sound of whispering issued from, the ante-chamber. They conversed in low tones in the gloomy drawing-room, where the forced laugh of some young lady jarred at times like a false note. Behind little Madame Juzeur, Bachelard and Gueulin were nudging each other, and making smutty remarks ; and Madame Josserand watched them with an alarmed look, for she dreaded her brother's vulgar be- haviour. But Madame Juzeur might hear anything; her lips quivered, and she smiled with angelic sweetness as she listened to the naughty stories. Uncle Bachelard had the reputation of being a dangerous man. His nephew, on the contrary, was chaste. No matter how splendid the opportunities were, Gueulin declined to have anything to do with women upon principle, not that he disdained them, but because he dreaded the morrows of bliss : always very unpleasant, he said. Berthe at length appeared, and went hurriedly up to her mother. "Ah, well ! I have had a deal of trouble !" whispered she in her ear. " He would not go to bed, so I double-locked the door. But I am afraid he will break everything in the room." PIPING HOT ! 53 Madame Josserand violently tugged at her dress. Octave, who was close to them, had turned his head. " My daughter, Berthe, Monsieur Mouret," said she, in her most gracious manner, as she introduced them. " Monsieur Octave Mouret, my darling." And she looked at her daughter. The latter was well acquainted with this look, which was like an order to clear for action, and which recalled to her the lessons of the night before. She at once obeyed, with the complaisance and the indifference of a girl who no longer stops to examine the person she is to marry. She prettily recited her little part with the easy grace of a Parisian already weary of the world, and acquainted with every subject, and she talked enthusiastically of the South, where she had never been. Octave, used to the stiffness of pro- vincial virgins, was delighted with this little woman's cackle and her sociable manner. Presently, Trublot, who had not been seen since dinner was over, entered stealthily from the dining-room ; and Berthe, catching sight of him, asked thoughtlessly where he had been. He remained silent, at which she felt very confused ; then, to put an end to the awkward pause which ensued, she introduced the two young men to each other. Her mother had not taken her eyes off her ; she had assumed the attitude of a commander- in-chief, and directed the campaign from the easy-chair in which she had settled herself. When she judged that the first engage- ment had given all the result that could have been expected from it, she recalled her daughter with a sign, and said to her, in a low voice : "Wait till the Vabre's are here before commencing your music. And play loud." Octave, left alone with Trublot, began to engage him in conversation. " A charming person." " Yes, not bad." " The young lady in blue is her elder sister, is she not ? She is not so good-looking." " Of course not ; she is thinner ! " Trublot, who looked without seeing with his near-sighted eyes, had the broad shoulders of a solid male, obstinate in his tastes. He had come back from the kitchen perfectly satisfied, crunching little black things which Octave recognised with surprise to be coffee berries. " I say," asked he abruptly, " the women are plump in the South, are they not 1 " 64 PIPING HOT! Octave smiled, and at once became on an excellent footing with Trublot. They had many ideas in common which brought them closer together. They exchanged confidences on an out- of-the-way sofa ; the one talked of his employer at " The Ladies' Paradise," Madame He"douin, a confoundedly fine woman, but too cold ; the other said that he had been put on to the corres- pondence, from nine to five, at his stockbroker's, Monsieur Desmarquay, where there was a stunning maid servant. Just then the drawing-room door opened, and three persons entered. " They are the Vabres," murmured Trublot, bending over towards his new friend. " Auguste, the tall one, he who has a face like a sick sheep, is the landlord's eldest son thirty-three years old, ever suffering from headaches which make his eyes start from his head, and which, some years ago, prevented him from continuing to learn Latin ; a sullen fellow who has gone in for trade. The other, Theophile, that abortion with carroty hair and thin beard, that little old-looking man of twenty-eight, ever shaking with fits of coughing and of rage, tried a dozen different trades, and then married the young woman who leads the way, Madame Valerie " " I have already seen her," interrupted Octave. " She is the daughter of a haberdasher of the neighbourhood, is she not? But how those veils deceive one ! I thought her pretty. She is only peculiar, with her shrivelled face and her leaden com- plexion." " She is another who is not my ideal," sententiously resumed Trublot. " She has superb eyes, and that is enough for some men. But she's a thin piece of goods." Madame Josserand had risen to shake Valerie's hand. " How is it," cried she, " that Monsieur Vabre is not with you 1 and that neither Monsieur nor Madame Duveyrier have done us the honour of coming 1 They promised us though. Ah ! it is very wrong of them ! " The young woman made excuses for her father-in-law, whose age kept him at home, and who, moreover, preferred to work of an evening. As for her brother and sister-in-law, they had asked her to apologise for them, they having received an invita- tion to an official party, which they "were obliged to attend. Madame Josserand bit her lips. She never missed one of the Saturdays at home of those stuck-up people on the first floor, who would have thought themselves dishonoured had they ascended, one Tuesday, to the fourth. No doubt her modest tea was not equal to their grand orchestral concerts. But, PIPING HOT ! 55 patience ! when her two daughters were married, and she had two sons-in-law and their relations to fill her drawing-room, sho also would go in for choruses. " Get yourself ready," whispered she in Berthe's ear. They were about thirty, and rather tightly packed, for the parlour, having been turned into a bedroom for the young ladies, was not thrown open. The new arrivals distributed handshakes round. Valerie seated herself beside Madame Juzeur, whilst Bachelard and Gueulin made unpleasant remarks out loud about Theophile Vabre, whom they thought it funny to call " good for nothing." Monsieur Josserand who in his own home kept himself so much in the background that one would have taken him for a guest, and whom one would fail to find when wanted, even though he were standing close by was in a corner listening in a bewildered way to a story related by one of his old friends, Bonnaud. He knew Bonnaud, who was for- merly the general accountant of the Northern railway, and whose daughter had married in the previous spring 1 Well ! Bonnaud had just discovered that his son-in-law, a very respect- able-looking man, was an ex-clown, who had lived for ten years at the expense of a female circus-rider. "Silence ! silence ! " murmured some good-natured voices. Berthe had opened the piano. " Really ! " explained Madame Josserand, " it is merely an unpretentious piece, a simple reverie. Monsieur Mouret, you like music, I think. Come nearer then. My daughter plays pretty fairly oh ! purely as an amateur, but with expression ; yes, with a great deal of expression." "Caught ! " said Trublot in a low voice. " The sonata stroke." Octave was obliged to leave his seat and stand up beside the piano. To see the caressing attentions which Madame Josserand showered upon him, it seemed as though she were making Berthe play solely for him. " ' The Banks of the Oise,' " resumed she. " It is really very pretty. Come begin, my love, and do not be confused. Monsieur Mouret will be indulgent." The young girl commenced the piece without being in the least confused. Besides, her mother kept her eyes upon her like a sergeant ready to punish with a blow the least theoretical mistake. Her great regret was that the instrument, worn-out by fifteen years of daily scales, did not possess the sonorous tones of the Duveyriers' grand piano ; and her daughter never played loud enough in her opinion. 56 PIPING HOT ! After the sixth bar, Octave, looking thoughtful and nodding his head at each spirited passage, no longer listened. He looked at the audience, the politely absent-minded attention of the men, and the affected delight of the women, all that relaxation of persons for a moment at rest, but soon again to be harassed by the cares of every hour, the shadows of which, before long, would be once more reflected on their weary faces. Mothers were visibly dreaming that they were marrying their daughters, whilst a smile hovered about their mouths, revealing their fierce-loooking teeth in their unconscious abandonment ; it was the mania of this drawing-room, a furious appetite for sons-in- law, which consumed these worthy middle-class mothers to the asthmatic sounds of the piano. The daughters, who were very weary, were falling asleep, with their heads dropping on to their shoulders, forgetting to sit up erect. Octave, who had a certain contempt for young ladies, was more interested in Valerie she looked decidedly ugly in her peculiar yellow silk dress, trimmed with black satin and feeling ill at ease, yet attracted all the same, his gaze kept returning to her ; whilst she, with a vague look in her eyes, and unnerved by the discordant music, was smiling like a crazy person. At this moment quite a catastrophe occurred. A ring at the bell was heard, and a gentleman entered the room without the least regard for what was taking place. " Oh ! doctor ! " said Madame Josserand angrily. Doctor Juillerat made a gesture of apology, and stood stock- still. Berthe, at this moment, was executing a little passage with a slow and dreamy fingering, which the guests greeted with flattering murmurs. Ah ! delightful ! delicious ! Madame Juzeur was almost swooning away, as though being tickled. Hortense, who was standing beside her sister, turning the pages, was sulkily listening for a ring at the bell amidst the avalanche of notes ; and, when the doctor entered, she made such a gesture of disappointment that she tore one of the pages on the stand. But, suddenly, the piano trembled beneath Berthe's weak fingers, thrumming away like hammers ; it was the end of the reverie, amidst a deafening uproar of clangorous chords. There was a moment of hesitation. The audience was waking up again. Was it finished? Then the compliments burst out on all sides. Adorable ! a superior talent ! "Mademoiselle is really a first-rate musician," said Octave, interrupted in his observations. " No one has ever given ni3 such pleasure." PIPING HOT ! 57 " Do you really mean it, sir ?" exclaimed Madame Josserand delighted. " She does not play badly, I must admit. Well ! we have never refused the child anything ; she is our treasure ! She possesses every talent she wished for. Ah ! sir, if you only knew her." A confused murmur of voices again filled the drawing-room. Berthe very calmly received the praise showered upon her, and did not leave the piano, but sat waiting till her mother relieved her from fatigue-duty. The latter was already speaking to Octave of the surprising manner in which her daughter dashed off " The Harvesters," a brilliant gallop, when some dull and distant thuds created a stir amongst the guests. For several moments past there had been violent shocks, as though some one was trying to burst a door open. Everybody left off talk- ing, and looked about inquiringly. " What is it ? " Valerie ventured to ask. " I heard it before, during the finish of the piece." Madame Josserand had turned .quite pale. She had recog- nised Saturnin's blows. Ah ! the wretched lunatic ! and in her mind's eye she beheld him tumbling in amongst the guests. If he continued hammering like that, it would be another marriage done for ! " It is the kitchen door slamming," said she with a constrained smile. " Adele never will shut it. Go and see, Berthe." The young girl had also understood. She rose and dis- appeared. The noise ceased at once, but she did not return immediately. Uncle Bachelard, who had scandalously dis- turbed " The Banks of the Oise " with reflections uttered out loud, finished putting his sister out of countenance by calling to Gueulin that he felt awfully bored and was going to have a grog. They both returned to the dining-room, banging the door behind them. " That dear old Narcisse, he is always original ! " said Madame Josserand to Madame Juzeur and Valerie, between whom sho had gone and seated herself. " His business occupies him so much ! You know, he has made almost a hundred thousand francs this year ! " Octave, at length free, had hastened to rejoin Trublot, who was half asleep on the sofa. Near them, a group surrounded Doctor Juillerat, the old medical man of the neighbourhood, not over brilliant, but who had become in course of time a good practitioner, and who had delivered all the mothers in their confinements and had attended all the daughters. He made a 58 PIPING HOT ! speciality of women's ailments, which caused him to be in great demand of an evening, the husbands all trying to obtain a gratuitous consultation in some corner ot the drawing-room. Just then, Theophile was telling him that Valerie had had another attack the day before; she was for ever having a choking fit and complaining of a lump rising in her throat ; and he, too, was not very well, but his complaint was not the same. Then he did nothing but speak of himself, and relate his vexa- tions : he had commenced to read for the law, had engaged iu manufactures at a foundry, and had tried omce management at the Mont-de-Pie"te ; then he had busied himself with photo- graphy, and thought he had found a means of making vehicles supply their own motive power; meanwhile, out of kindness, he was travelling some piano-flutes, an invention of one of his friends. And he complained of his wife : it was her fault if nothing went right at home ; she was killing him with her per- petual nervous attacks. " Do pray give her something, doctor ! " implored he, cough- ing and moaning, his eyes lit up with hatred, in the querulous rage of his impotency. Trublot watched him, full of contempt; and he laughed silently as he glanced at Octave. Doctor Juillerat uttered vague and calming words : no doubt, they would relieve her, the dear lady. At fourteen, she was already stifling, in the shop of the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin ; he had attended her for vertigo which always ended by bleeding at the nose ; and, as Theophile recalled with despair her languid gentleness when a young girl, whilst now, fantastic and her temper changing twenty times in a day, she absolutely tortured him, the doctor merely shook his head. Marriage did not succeed with all women. " Of course ! " murmured Trublot, " a father who has gone off his chump by passing thirty years of his life in selling needles and thread, a mother who has always had her face covered with pimples, and that in an airless hole of old Paris, no one can expect such people to have daughters like other folks ! " Octave was surprised. He was losing some of his respect for that drawing-room which he had entered with a provincial's emotion. Curiosity was awakened within him, when he ob- served Campardon consulting the doctor in his turn, but in whispers, like a sedate person desirous of letting no one be- come acquainted with his family mishaps. PIPING HOT ! B9 " By the way, as you appear to know everything," said Octave to Trublot, " tell me what it is that Madame Campar- don is suffering from. Every one puts on a very sad face when- ever it is mentioned." "Why, my dear fellow," replied the young man, "she has " And he whispered in Octave's ear. Whilst he listened, the latter's face first assumed a smile, and then became very long with a look of profound astonishment. "It is not possible ! " said he. Then, Trublot gave his word of honour. He knew another lady in the same state. " Besides," resumed he, " it sometimes happens after a con- finement that " And he began to whisper again. Octave, convinced, became quite sad. He who had fancied all sorts of things, who had imagined quite a romance, the architect occupied elsewhere and drawing him towards his wife to amuse her ! In any case he now knew that she was well guarded. The young men pressed up against each other, in the excitement caused by these feminine secrets which they were stirring up, forgetting that they might be overheard. Madame Juzeuv was just then confiding to Madame Josser- and her impressions of Octave. She thought him very be- coming, no doubt, but she preferred Monsieur Auguste Vabre The latter, standing up in a corner of the drawing-room, re- mained silent, in his insignificance and with his usual evening headache. "What surprises me, dear madame, is that you have not thought of him for your Berthe. A young man set up in business, who is prudence itself. And he is in want of a wife, I kuow that he is desirous of getting married." Madame Josserand listened, surprised. She would never herself have thought of the linendraper. Madame Juzeur, however, insisted, for in her misfortune, she had the mania of working for the happiness of other women, which caused her to busy herself with everything relating to the tender passions of the house. She affirmed that Auguste never took his eyes oft* Berthe. In short, she invoked her experience of men : Mon- sieur Mouret would never let himself be caught, whilst that good Monsieur Vabre would be very easy and very advan- tageous. But Madame Josserand, weighing the latter with a glance, came decidedly to the conclusion that such a son-in-law would not be of much use in filling her drawing-room. 60 PIPING HOT ! " My daughter detests him," said she, " and I would never oppose the dictates of her heart." A tall thin young lady had just played a fantasia on the " Dame Blanche." As uncle Bachelard had fallen asleep in the dining-room, Gueulin reappeared and imitated the nightingale on his flute. No one listened, however, for the story about Bonnaud had spread. Monsieur Josserand was quite upset, the fathers held up their arms, the mothers were stifling. What ! Bonnaud's son-in-law was a clown ! Then who could one believe in now ? and the parents, in their appe- tites for marriages, suffered regular nightmares, like so many distinguished convicts in evening dress. The fact was, that Bonnaud had been so delighted at the opportunity of getting rid of his daughter that he had not troubled much about re- ferences, in spite of his rigid prudence of an over-scrupulous general accountant. " Mamma, the tea is served," said Berthe, as she and Adele opened the folding doors. And, whilst the company passed slowly into the dining-room, she went up to her mother and murmured : " I have had enough of it ! He wants me to stay and tell him stories, or he threatens to smash everything ! " On a grey cloth which was too narrow, was served one of those teas laboriously got together, a cake bought at a neigh- bouring baker's, with some mixed sweet biscuits, and some sandwiches on either side. At either end of the table quite a luxury of flowers, superb and costly roses, withdrew attention from the ancient dust on the biscuits, and the poor quality of the butter. The sight caused a commotion, and jealousies were kindled : really those Josserands were ruining themselves in trying to marry off their daughters. And the guests, having but poorly dined, and only thinking of going to bed with their bellies full, casting side glances at the bouquets, gorged themselves with weak tea and imprudently devoured the hard stale biscuits and the heavy cake. For those persons who did not like tea, Adele handed round some glasses of red currant syrup. It was pronounced excellent. Meanwhile, the uncle was asleep in a corner. They did not wake him, they even politely pretended not to see him. A lady talked of the fatigues of business. Berthe went from one to another, offering sandwiches, handing cups of tea, and asking the men if they would like any more sugar. But she was un- able to attend to every one, and Madame Josserand was looking TRUBLOT PINCHING ADELE AT THE JOSSERANDS' PARTY. p. 61- PIPING HOT ! 61 for her daughter Hortense, when she caught sight of her standing in the middle of the deserted drawing-room, talking to a gentleman, of whom one could only see the back. " Ah ! yes ! he has come at last," she permitted, in her anger, to escape her. There was some whispering. It was that Verdier, who had been living with a woman for fifteen years past, whilst waiting to marry Hortense. Every one knew the story, the young ladies exchanged glances ; but they bit their lips, and avoided speaking of it, out of propriety. Octave, being made ac- quainted with it, examined the gentleman's back with interest. Trublot knew the mistress, a good girl, a reformed street- walker, who was better now, said he, than the best of wives, taking care of her man, and looking after his clothes ; and he was full of a fraternal sympathy for her. Whilst they were being watched from the dining-room, Hortense was scolding Verdier with all the sulkiness of a badly brought up virgin for having come so late. " Hallo ! red currant syrup ! " said Trublot, seeing Adele standing before him, a tray in her hand. He sniffed it and declined. But, as the servant turned round, a stout lady's elbow pushed her against him, and he pinched her back. She smiled, and returned to him with the tray. " No, thanks," said he. " By-and-by." Women were seated round the table, whilst the men were eating, standing up behind them. Exclamations were, heard, an enthusiasm, which died away as the mouths were filled with food. The gentlemen were appealed to. Madame Josserand cried: " Ah ! yes, I was forgetting. Come and look, Monsieur Mouret, you who love the arts." " Take care, the water-colour stroke ! " murmured Trublot, who knew the house. It was better than a water-colonr. As though by chance, a porcelain bowl was standing on the table ; right at the very bottom of it, surrounded by the brand new varnished bronze mounting, Greuze's " Young girl with the broken Pitcher" was painted in light colours, passing from pale lilac to faint blue. Berthe smiled in the midst of the praise. " Mademoiselle possesses every talent," said Octave with his good-natured grace. " Oh ! the colours are so well blended, and it is very accurate, very .accurate ! " " I can guarantee that the design is ! " resumed Madame Josserand, triumphantly. " There is not a hair too many or 62 PIPING HOT ! few. Berthe copied it here, from an engraving. There are really such a number of nude subjects at the Louvre, and the people there are at times so mixed ! " She had lowered her voice when giving this last piece of in- formation, desirous of letting the young man know that, though her daughter was an artist, she did not let that carry her be- yond the limits of propriety. She probably, however, thought Octave rather cold, she felt that the bowl had not met with the success she had anticipated, and she watched him with an anxious look, whilst Valerie and Madame Juzeur, who were drinking their fourth cup of tea, examined the painting and gave vent to little cries of admiration. " You are looking at her again," said Trublot to Octave, on seeing him with his eyes fixed on Valerie. " Why, yes," replied he, slightly confused. " It is funny, she looks pretty just at this moment. A warm woman, evidently. I say, do you think one might venture 1 " " Warm, one never knows. It is a peculiar fancy ! Any- how, it would be better than marrying the girl." " What girl 1 " exclaimed Octave, forgetting himself. " What ! you think I am going to let myself be hooked ' Never ! My dear fellow, we don't marry at Marseilles ! " Madame Josserand had drawn near. The words came upon her like a stab in the heart. Another fruitless campaign, another evening party wasted ! The blow was such, that she was obliged to lean against a chair, as she looked with despair at the now despoiled table, where all that remained was a burnt piece of the cake. She had given up counting her defeats, but this one should be the last ; she took a frightful oath, swearing that she would no longer feed persons who came to see her solely to gorge. And, upset and exasperated, she glanced round the dining-room, seeking into what man's arms she could throw her daughter, when she caught sight of Auguste resignedly standing against the wall and not having partaken of anything. Just then, Berthe, with a smile on her face, was moving to- wards Octave, with a cup of tea in her hand. She was con- tinuing the campaign, obedient to her mother's wishes. But the latter caught her by the arm and called her a silly fool under her breath. " Take that cup to Monsieur Vabre, who has been waiting for an hour past," said she, graciously and very loud. Then, whispering again in her daughter's ear, and giving her another of her warlike looks, she added : PIPING HOT ! 68 " Be amiable, or you will have me to deal with ! " Berthe, for a moment put out of countenance, soon recovered herself. It often changed thus three times in an evening. She carried the cup to Auguste, with the smile which she had commenced for Octave ; she was amiable, talked of Lyons silks, and did the engaging young person who would look very well behind a counter. Auguste's hands trembled a little, and he was very red, as he was suffering a good deal from his head that evening. Out of politeness, a few persons returned and sat down for some moments in the drawing-room. Having fed, they were all going off. When they looked for Verdier, he had already taken his departure; and some young ladies, greatly put out, only carried away an indistinct view of his back. Campardon, without waiting for Octave, retired with the doctor, whom he detained on the landing, to ask him if there was really no more hope. During the tea, one of the lamps had gone out, emitting a stench of rancid oil, and the other lamp, the wick of which was all charred, lit up the room with so poor a light, that the Vabres themselves rose to leave in spite of the atten- tions with which Madame Josserand overwhelmed them. Octave had preceded them into the ante-room, where he had a surprise : Trublot, who was looking for his hat, suddenly dis- appeared. He could only have gone off by the passage leading to the kitchen. " Well ! wherever has he got to ? does he leave by the servants' staircase ? " murmured the young man. But he did not seek to clear up the mystery. Vale'rie was there, looking for a lace neckerchief. The two brothers, Thdo- phile and Auguste, were going downstairs, without troubling themselves about her. Octave, having found the neckerchief, handed it to her, with the air of admiration he put on when serving the pretty lady customers of " The Ladies' Paradise." She looked at him, and he felt certain that her eyes, on fixing themselves on his, had flashed forth flames. " You are too kind, sir," said she, simply. Madame Juzeur, who was the last to leave, enveloped them both in a tender and discreet smile. And when Octave, highly excited, had reached his cold chamber, he looked at himself for an instant in the glass, and he thought it worth while to make the attempt ! Meanwhile, Madame Josserand was wandering about the deserted room, without saying a word, and as though carried W PIPING HOT ! away by some gale of wind. She had violently closed the piano and turned out the last lamp ; then, passing into the dining- room, she began to blow out the candles so vigorously that the chandelier quite shook. The sight of the despoiled table covered with dirty plates and empty cups, increased her rage ; and she turned round it, casting terrible glances at her daughter Hortense, who, quietly sitting down, was devouring the piece of burnt cake. " You are putting yourself in a fine state again, mamma," said the latter. " Is it not going on all right, then ? For myself, I am satisfied. He is purchasing some chemises for her to enable her to leave." The mother shrugged her shoulders. "Eh 1 ? you say that this proves nothing. Very good, only steer your ship as well as I steer mine. Here now is a cake which may flatter itself it is a precious bad one ! They must be a wretched lot to swallow such stuff." Monsieur Josserand, who was always worn out by his wife's parties, was reposing on a chair ; but he was in dread of an encounter, he feared that Madame Josserand might drive him before her in her furious promenade ; and he drew close to Bachelard and Gueulin, who were seated at the table in front of Hortense. The \incle, on awaking, had discovered a decanter of rum. He was emptying it, and bitterly alluding to the twenty francs. " It is not for the money," he kept repeating to his nephew, " it is the way the thing was done. You know how I behave to women : I would give them the shirt off my back, but I do not like them to ask me for anything. The moment they begin to ask, it annoys me, and I don't even chuck them a radish." And, as his sister was about to remind him of his promises : "Be quiet, Eleonore ! I know what I have to do for the child. But, you see, when a woman asks, it is more than I can stand. I have never been able to keep friends with one, have I now, Gueulin 1 And besides, there is really such little respect shown me ! Leon has not even deigned to wish me many happy returns of the day." Madame Josserand resumed her walk, clinching her fists. It was true, there was Leon too, who promised and then disap- pointed her like the others. There was one who would not sacrifice an evening to help to marry off his sisters ! She had just discovered a sweet biscuit, fallen behind one of the flower PIPING HOT ! 65 vases, and was locking it up in a drawer when Berthe, who had gone to release Saturnin, brought him back with her. She was quieting him, whilst he, haggard and with a mistrustful look in his eyes, was searching the corners, with the feverish excite- ment of a dog that has been long shut up. " How stupid he is ! " said Berthe, " he thinks that I have just been married. And he is seeking for the husband ! Ah ! my poor Saturnin, you may seek. I tell you that it has come to nothing ! You know very well that it never comes to any- thing." Then, Madame Josserand's rage burst all bounds. " Ah ! I swear to you that it sha'n't come to nothing next time, even if I have to tie him to you myself! There is one who shall pay for all the others. Yes, yes, Monsieur Josserand, you may stare at me, as though you did not understand : the wedding shall take place, and without you, if it does not please you. You hear, Berthe ? you have only to pick that one up ! " Saturnin appeared not to hear. He was looking under the table. The young girl pointed to him ; but Madame Josserand made a gesture which seemed to imply that he would be got out of /he way. And Berthe murmured : " So then it is decidedly to be Monsieur Vabre ? Oh ! it is all the same to me. To think though that not a single sand- wich has been saved for mo I " CHAPTER IV. 4.S early as the morrow, Octave commenced to occupy himself about Valerie. He studied her habits, and ascertained the hour when he would have a chance of meeting her on the stairs ; and he arranged matters so that he could frequently go up to his room, taking advantage of his coming home to lunch at the Campardons', and leaving "The Ladies' Paradise" for a few minutes under some pretext or other. He soon noticed that, every day towards two o'clock, the young woman, who took her child to the Tuileries gardens, passed along the Rue Gaillon. Then he would stand at the door, wait till she came, and greet her with one of his handsome shopman's smiles. At each of their meetings, Valerie politely inclined her head and passed on ; but he perceived her dark glance to be full of passionate fire ; he found encouragement in her ravaged complexion and in the supple swing of her gait. His plan was already formed, the bold plan of a seducer used to cavalierly overcoming the virtue of shop-girls. It was simply a question of luring Valerie inside his room on the fourth floor ; the staircase was always silent and deserted, no one would dis- cover them up there ; and he laughed at the thought of the architect's moral admonitions ; for taking a woman belonging to the house was not the same as bringing one into it. One thing, however, made Octave uneasy. The passage separated the Pichons' kitchen from their dining-room, and this obliged them to constantly have their door open. At nine o'clock in the morning, the husband started off for his office, and did not return home until about five in the evening ; and, en alternate days of the week, he went out again after his dinner to do some bookkeeping, from eight to midnight. Be- sides this, though, the young woman, who was very reserved almost wildly timid would push her door to, directly she heard Octave's footsteps. He never caught sight of more than her back, which always seemed to be flying away, with her light hair d one up into a scanty chignon. Through that door kept PIPING HOT ! fi? discreetly ajar, he had, up till then, only beheld a small portion of the room : sad and clean looking furniture, linen of a dull whiteness in the grey light admitted through a window which he could not see, and the corner of a child's crib inside an inner room; all the monotonous solitude of a wife occupied from morning to night with the recurring cares of a clerk's home. Moreover, there was never a sound ; the child seemed dumb and worn-out like the mother ; one scarcely distinguished at times the soft murmur of some ballad which the latter would hum for hours together in an expiring voice. But Octave was none the less furious with the disdainful creature as he called her. She was playing the spy upon him perhaps. In any case, Vale'rie could never come up to him if the Pichons' door was thus being continually opened. He was just beginning to think that things were taking the right course. One Sunday when the husband was absent, he had manoeuvred in such a way as to be on the first-floor land- ing at the moment the young woman, wrapped in her dressing- gown, was leaving her sister-in-law's to return to her own apartments ; and she being obliged to speak to him, they had stood some minutes exchanging polite remarks. So he was hoping that next time she would ask him in. With a woman with such a temperament the rest would follow as a matter of course. That evening during dinner, there was some talk about Valerie at the Campardons'. Octave tried to draw the others out. But as Angele was listening and casting sly glances at Lisa, who was handing round some leg of mutton and looking very serious, the parents .at first did nothing but sing the young woman's praises. Moreover, the architect al- ways stood up for the respectability of the house, with the vain conviction of a tenant who seemed to obtain from it a regular certificate of his own gentility. "Oh ! my dear fellow, most respectable people. You saw them at the Josserands'. The husband is no fool ; he is full of ideas, he will end by discovering something very grand. As for the wife, she has some style about her, as we artists say." Madame Campardon, who had been rather worse since the day before, and who was half reclining, though her :llness did not prevent her eating thick underdone slices of meat, lan- guidly murmured in her turn : " That poor Monsieur Theophile, he is like me, he dr\igs along. Ah ! great praise is due to Valerie, for it is not lively always 68 ttfING fiOf! having by one a man trembling with fever, and whose infirmity usually makes him quarrelsome and unjust." During dessert, Octave, seated between the architect and his wife, learnt more than he asked. They forgot Angele, they spoke in hints, with glances which underlined the double meanings of the words ; and, when they were at a loss for an expression, they bent towards him one after the other, and coarsely whispered the rest of the disclosure in his ear. In short, that Theophile was a stupid and impotent person, who deserved to be what his wife made him. As for Valerie, she was not worth much, she would have behaved just as badly even if her husband had been different, for with her, nature had so much the mastery. Moreover, no one was ignorant of the fact that, two months after her marriage, in despair at re- cognising that she would never have a child by her husband, and fearing she would lose her share of old Vabre's fortune if Thdophile happened to die, she had her little Camille got for her by a butcher's man of the Hue Saiute-Anne. Campardon bent down and whispered a last time in Octave's ear : " Well ! you know, my dear fellow, a hysterical woman ! " And he put into the word all the middle-class wantonness of an indelicacy combined with the blobber-lipped smile of a father of a family whose imagination, abruptly let loose, revels in licentiousness. The conversation then took a different turn, they were speaking of the Pichons, and words of praise were not stinted. " Oh ! they are indeed worthy people ! " repeated Madame Campardon. " Sometimes, when Marie takes her little Lilitte out, I also let her take Angele. And I assure you, Monsieur Mouret, I do not trust my daughter to everyone ; I must be absolutely certain of the person's morality. You love Marie very much, do you not, Angele 1 " " Yes, mamma," answered the child. The details continued. It was impossible to find a woman better brought up, or according to severer principles. And it was a pleasure to see how happy the husband was ! Such a nice little home, and so clean, and a couple that adored each other, who never said one word louder than another ! " Besides, they would not be allowed to remain in the house, if they did not behave themselves properly," said the architect gravely, forgetting his disclosures about Valerie. "We will only havt respectable people here. On my word of honour ! I PIPING HOT ! 69 would give notice, the day that my daughter ran the risk of meeting disreputable women on the stairs." That evening, he had secretly arranged to take cousin Gasparine to the Opera-Comique. He therefore went and fetched his hat at once, talking of a business matter which would keep him out till very late. Rose though probably knew of the arrangement, for Octave heard her murmur, in her resigned and maternal voice, when her husband came to kiss her with his habitual effusive tenderness : " Amuse yourself well, and do not catch cold on coming out." On the morrow, Octave had an idea : it was to become ac- quainted with Madame Pichon, by rendering her a few neighbourly services ; in this way, if she ever caught Valerie, she would keep her eyes shut. And an opportunity occurred that very day. Madame Pichon was in the habit of taking Lilitte, then eighteen months old, out in a little basket-work perambulator, which raised Monsieur Gourd's ire ; the door- keeper would never permit it to be carried up the principal staircase, so that she had to take it up the servants' ; and as the door of her apartment was too narrow, she had to remove the wheels every time, which was quite a job. It so happened that that day Octave was returning home, just as his neigh- bour, incommoded by her gloves, was giving herself a great deal of trouble to get the nuts off. When she felt him stand- ing up behind her, waiting till the passage was cleat*, she quite lost her head, and her hands trembled. " But, madame, why do you take all that trouble ? " asked he at length. " It would be far simpler to put the perambul- ator at the end of the passage, behind my door." She did not reply, her excessive timidity kept her squatting there, without strength to rise ; and, beneath the curtain of her bonnet, he beheld a hot blush invade the nape of her neck and her ears. Then he insisted : " I assure you, madame, it will not inconvenience me in the least." Without waiting, he lifted up the perambulator and carried it in his easy way. She was obliged to follow him ; but she remained so confused, so frightened by this important adventure in her uneventful every-day life, that she looked on, only able to stutter fragments of sentences. " Dear me ! sir, it is too much trouble I feel quite ashamed you will find it very awkward. My husband will be very pleased " 70 PIPING HOT ! And she entered her room and locked herself in, this time hermetically, with a sort of shame. Octave thought that she was stupid. The perambulator was a great deal in his way for /t prevented him opening his door wide, and he had to slip into his room sideways. But his neighbour seemed to be won over, more especially as Monsieur Gourd consented to authorize the obstruction at that end of the passage, thanks to Campardon's influence. Every Sunday, Marie's parents, Monsieur and Madame Vuil- laume, came to spend the day. On the Sunday following, as Octave was going out, he beheld all the family seated taking their coffee, and he was discreetly hastening by, when the young woman, whispering quickly in her husband's ear, the latter jumped up, saying : " Excuse me, sir, I am always out, I have not yet had an opportunity of thanking you. But I wish to tell you how pleased I was " Octave protested. At length he was obliged to give in. Though he had already had his coffee, they made him accept another cup. They gave him the place of honour, between Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume. Opposite to him, on the other side of the round table, Marie was again thrown into one of those confused conditions which at any mimite, without ap pareut cause, brought all the blood from her heart to her face. He watched her, never having seen her at his ease. But, as Trublot said, she was not his fancy : she seemed to him wretched and washed out, with her flat face and her thin hair, though her features were refined and pretty. When she recovered her- self a little, she laughed lightly as she again talked of the perambulator, about which she found a great deal to say. " Jules, if you had only seen Monsieur Mouret carry it in his arms. Ah well ! it did not take long ! " Pichon again uttered his thanks. He was tall and thin, with a doleful look about him, already subdued to the routine of office life, his dull eyes full of the apathetic resignation dis- played by circus horses. " Pray say no more about it ! " Octave ended by observing, " it is really not worth while. Madame, your coffee is exquisite. I have never drunk any like it." She blushed again, and so much that her hands even became quite rosy. " Do not spoil her, sir," said Monsieur Vuillaume gravely PIPING HOT ! 71 " Her coffee is good, but there is bettor. And you see how proud she has become at once ! " "Pride is worth nothing," declared Maiame Vuillaume. " We have always taught her to be modest." They were both of them little and dried up, very old, and with dark-looking countenances ; the wife wore a tight black dress, and the husband a thin frock-coat, on which only the mark of a big red ribbon was to be seen. " Sir," resumed the latter, "I was decorated at the age of sixty, on the day I was pensioned off, after having been for thirty-nine years employed at the Ministry of Public Instruction. Well ! sir, on that day I dined the same as on other days, and did not let pride interfere with any of my habits. The Cross was due to me, I knew it. I was simply filled with gratitude." His life was perfectly clear, he wished every one to know it. After twenty-five years' service, he had been promoted to four thousand francs. His pension, therefore, was two thousand. But he had had to re-engage himself in a subordinate position at fifteen hundred francs, as they had had their little Marie late in life when Madame Vuillaume was no longer expecting either son or daughter. Now that the child was established in life, they were living on the pension, by pinching themselves, in the Rue Durantin at Moutmartre, where things were cheaper. " I am sixty-three," said he, in conclusion, " and that is all about it, and that is all about it, son-in-law ! " Pichon looked at him in a silent and weary way, his eyes fixed on his red ribbon. Yes, it would be his own story if luck favoured him. He was the last born of a greengrocer who had spent the entire worth of her shop in her anxiety to make her son take a degree, just because all the neighbourhood said he was very intelligent ; and she had died bankrupt eight days before his triumph at the Sorbonne. After three years of hardships at his uncle's, he had had the unexpected luck of getting a berth at the Ministry, which was to lead him to everything, and on the strength of which he had already married. " When one does one's duty, the government does the same," murmured he, mechanically reckoning that he still had thirty- six years to wait before obtaining the right to wear a piece of red ribbon and to enjoy a pension of two thousand francs. Then he turned towards Octave. " You see, sir, it is the children who are such a heavy weight." " No doubt," said Madame Vuillaume. " If we had had another we should never have made both ends meet. There- 72 PIPING HOT ! fore, remember, Jules, what I insisted upon when I gave you Marie : one child and no more, or else we shall quarrel ! It is only workpeople who have children like fowls lay eggs, without troubling themselves as to what it will cost them. It is true that they turn the youngsters out on to the streets, like flocks of animals, which make me feel sick when I pass by." Octave had looked at Marie, thinking that this delicate sub- ject would make her cheeks crimson ; but she remained pale, approving her mother's words with ingenuous serenity. He was feeling awfully bored, and did not know how to retire. In the little cold dining-room these people thus spent their afternoon, slowly muttering a few words every five minutes, and always about their own affairs. Even dominoes disturbed them too much. Madame Vuillaume now explained her notions. At the end of a long silence, which left all four of them in no way embarrassed as though they had felt the necessity of rearranging their ideas, she resumed : "You have no child, sir? It will come in time. Ah ! it is a responsibility, especially for a mother ! When my little one was born I was forty-nine, sir, an age when luckily one knows how to behave. A boy will get on anyhow, but a girl ! And I have the consolation of knowing that I have done my duty, oh, yes ! " Then, she explained her plan of education, in short sentences. Honesty first. No playing on the stairs, the little one always kept at home and watched closely, for childron think of nothing but evil. The doors and windows shut, never any draughts, which bring the wicked things of the street with them. Out of doors, never leave go of the child's hand, teach it to keep its eyes lowered to avoid seeing anything wrong. With regard to religion, it should not be overdone, just sufficient as a moral restraint. Then, when she has grown up, engage teachers instead of sending her to school, where the innocent ones are corrupted ; and assist also at the lessons, see that she does not learn what she should not know, hide all newspapers of course, and keep the bookcase locked. " A young person always knows too much," declared the old lady coming to an end. Whilst her mother spoke, Marie kept her eyes vaguely fixed on space. She once more beheld the little convent-like lodging, those narrow rooms in the Rue Durantin, where she was not even allowed to lean out of a window. It was one prolonged PIPING HOT ! 78 childhood, all sorts of prohibitions which she did not under- stand, lines which her mother inked out on their fashion paper, the black marks of which made her blush, lessons purified to such an extent that even her teachers were embarrassed when she questioned them. A very gentle childhood, however, the soft warm growth of a greenhouse, a waking dream in which the words uttered by the tongue, and the facts of every day life acquired ridiculous meanings. And, even at that hour as she gazed vacantly, and was filled with these recollections, a childish smile hovered about her lips, as though she had remained in ignorance spite even of her marriage. "You will believe me if you like, sir," said Monsieur Vuillaumc, "but my daughter had not read a single novel when she was past eighteen. Is it not true, Marie 1 " " Yes, papa." "I have George Sand's works very handsomely bound," he continued, " and in spite of her mother's fears I decided, a few months before her marriage, to permit her to read ' Andre",' a perfectly innocent work, full of imagination, and which elevates the soul. I am for a liberal education. Literature has certainly its rights. The book produced an extraordinary effect upon her, sir. She cried all night in her sleep : which proves that there is nothing like a pure imagination to understand genius." " It is so beautiful ! " murmured the young woman, her eyes sparkling. But Pichon having enunciated this theory : no novels before marriage, and as many as one likes afterwards Madame Vuillaume shook her head. She never read, and was none the worse for it. Then, Marie gently spoke of her loneliness. " Well ! I sometimes take up a book. Jules chooses them for me at the library in the Passage Choiseul. If I only played the piano ! " For some time past, Octave had felt the necessity of saying something. " What ! madame," exclaimed he, " you do not plsy ! " A slight awkwardness ensued. The parents talked of a suc- cession of unfortunate circumstances, not wishing to admit that they had not been willing to incur the expense. Madame Vuillaume, moreover, affirmed, that Marie sang in tune from her birth ; when she was a child she knew all sorts of very pretty ballads, she had only to hear the tunes once to remember them ; and the mother spoke of a song about Spain, the story of a captive weeping for her lover, which the child gave out 74 PIPING HOT ! with an expression that would draw tears from the hardest hearts. But Marie remained disconsolate. She let this cry escape her, as she extended her hand in the direction of the inner room, where her little one was sleeping : " Ah ! I swear that Lilitte shall learn to play the piano, even though I have to make the greatest sacrifices ! " " Think first of bringing her up as we brought you up," said Madame Vuillaurne, severely. "I certainly do not condemn music, it develops one's feelings. But, above all, watch over your daughter, keep every foul breath from her, strive that she may preserve her innocence." She started off again, giving even more weight to religion, settling the number of times to go to confess each month, naming the masses that it was absolutely necessary to attend, all from the point of view of propriety. Then Octave, unable to bear any more of it, talked of an appointment which obliged him to go out. He had a singing in his ears, he felt that this conversation would continue in a like manner until the evening. And he hastened away, leaving the Vuillauraes and the Pichons telling one another, around the same cups of coffee slowly emptied, what they told each other every Sunday. As he was bowing a last time, Marie, suddenly and without any reason, became scarlet. Ever since that afternoon, Octave hastened past the Pichons' door whenever he heard the slow tones of Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume on a Sunday. Moreover, he was entirely absorbed in his conquest of Valerie. In spite of the fiery glances of which he thought himself the object, she maintained an in- explicable reserve ; and in that he fancied he saw the play of a coquette. He even met her one day, as though by chance, in the Tuileries gardens, when she quietly began to talk of a storm of the day before ; which finally convinced him that she was devilish smart. And he was constantly on the staircase, watching for an opportunity of entering her apartments, decided if necessary upon being positively rude. Now, every time that he passed her, Marie smiled and blushed. They exchanged the greetings of good neighbours. One morning, at lunch-tune, as he brought her up a letter, which Monsieur Gourd had given him, to avoid having to go up the four flights of stairs himself, he found her in a sad way : she had seated Lilitte in her chemise on the round- table, and was trying to dress her again. " What is the matter 1 " asked the young man. PIPING HOT ! 75 " Why, this child ! " replied she. " I foolishly took her things off, because she was complaining. And now I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do ! " He looked at her in surprise. She was turning a skirt over and over, looking for the hooks. Then, she added : "You see, her father always helps me to dress her in the morning before he goes out. I can never manage it by myself. It bothers me, it annoys me." The child, meanwhile, tired of being in her chemise and frightened by the sight of Octave, was struggling and tumbling about on the table. " Take care ! " cried he, " she will fall." It was quite a catastrophe. Marie looked as though she dare not touch her child's naked limbs. She continued contemplating her, with the surprise of a virgin, amazed at having been able to produce such a thing. However, assisted by Octave, who quieted the little one, she succeeded in dressing her again. " How will you manage when you have a dozen 1 " asked he, aughing. " But we shall never have any more ! " answered she in a fright. Then, he joked : she was wrong to be so sure, a child comes so easily ! " No ! no ! " repeated she obstinately. " You heard what mamma said, the other day. She forbade Jules to have any more. You do not know her ; it would lead to endless quarrels, if another came." Octave was amused by the quiet way in which she discussed this question. He drew her out, without, however, succeeding in embarrassing her. She, moreover, did as her husband wished. No doubt, she loved children ; had she been allowed to desire others, she would not have said no. And, beneath this com- placency, which was restricted to her mother's commands, the indifference of a woman whose maternity was still slumbering could be recognized. Lilitte occupied her like her home, which she looked after through duty. When she had washed up the breakfast things and taken the child for her walk, she continued her former young girl's existence, of a somnolent emptiness, lulled by the vague expectation of a joy which never came. Octave having remarked that she must feel very dull, being always alone, she seemed surprised : no, she was never dull, the days passed somehow or other, without her knowing, when she went to bed, how she had employed her time. Then, on Suu- 76 PIPING HOT ! days, she sometimes went out with her husband; or her parents called, or else she read. If reading did not give her headaches, she would have read from morning till night, now that she was allowed to read everything. " What is really annoying," resumed she, " is that they have scarcely anything at the library in the Passage Choiseul. For instance, I wanted ' Andre",' to read it again, because it made me cry so much the other time. Well ! their copy has been stolen. Besides that, my father refuses to lend me his, because Lilitte might tear the pictures." " But," said Octave, " my friend Campardon has all George Sand's works. I will ask him to lend me ' Andr6 ' for you." She blushed, and her eyes sparkled. He was really too kind ! And, when he left her, she stood before Lilitte, her arms hang- ing down by her sides, without an idea in her head, in the atti- tude which she maintained for whole afternoons together. She detested sewing, she did crochet work, always the same piece, which she left lying about the room. Octave brought her the book on the morrow, a Sunday. Pichou had had to go out, to leave his card on one of his super- iors. And, as the young man found her dressed for walking, she having just been on some errand in the neighbourhood, he asked her out of curiosity whether she had been to church, having the idea that she was religious. She answered no. Before marrying her off, her mother used to take her regularly to mass. During the six first months of her married life, she continued going through force of habit, with the constant fear of being too late. Then, she scarcely knew why, after missing a few times, she left off going altogether. Her husband de- tested priests, and her mother never even mentioned them now. Octave's question, * however, disturbed her, as though it had awakened within her things that had been long buried beneath the idleness of her existence. " I must go to Saint-Boob one of these mornings," said she. " An occupation gone always leaves a void behind it." And, on the pale face of this late child, born of parents too old, there appeared the unhealthy regret of another existence, dreamed of once upon a time, in the land of chimeras. She could conceal nothing, everything was reflected in her face, beneath her skin, which had the softness and the transparency accom- panying an attack of chlorosis. Then, she gave way to her feel- ings, and caught hold of Octave's hands with a familiar gesture. " Ah ! let me thank you for having brought me this book ! PITIKG HOT ! 77 Come to-morrow after lunch. I will return it to you and tell you the effect that it produced on me. It will be amusing, will it not ? " On leaving her, Octave thought that she was funny all the same. She was beginning to interest him, he contemplated speaking to Pichon so as to make him rouse her up a bit ; for the little woman, most decidedly, only wanted a shaking. It so happened that on the morrow he came across the clerk just as he was going off", and he accompanied him part of the way, at the risk of being late himself at " The Ladies' Paradise." But Pichon seemed to him to be even more benumbed than his wife, full of manias in their early stage, and entirely occupied with the dread of getting mud on his shoes in wet weather. He walked on his toes, and continually talked of the second head-clerk of his office. Octave, who was only animated by fraternal intentions in the matter, ended by leaving him in the Rue Saint-Honor^, after advising him to take Marie to the theatre frequently. " Whatever for ? " asked Pichon in amazement. " Because it is good for women. It makes them nicer." " Ah ! you really think so 1 " He promised to give the matter his attention, and crossed the street, eyeing the cabs with terror, the only thing in life which worried him being the fear of getting splashed. At lunch-time, Octave knocked at the Pichons' door for the book. Marie was reading, her elbows on the table, her hands buried in her dishevelled hair. She had just eaten an egg cooked in a tin pan which was lying in the centre of the hastily laid table without any cloth. Lilitte, forgotten on the floor, was sleeping with her nose on the pieces of a plate which she had no doubt broken. "Well?" Marie did not answer at once. She was still wrapped in her morning dressing-gown, which, from the buttons being torn off, displayed her throat, in all the disorder of a woman just risen from her bed. "I have scarcely read a hundred pages," she ended by saying. " My parents came yesterday." And she spoke in a painful tone of voice, with a sourness about her mouth. When she was younger, she longed to live in the midst of the woods. She was for ever dreaming that she met a huntsman who was sounding his horn. He approached her and knelt down. This took place in a copse, very far away, 78 PIPING HOT ! where roses were blooming like in a park. Then, suddenly, they had been married, and afterwards lived there, wandering about till eternity. She, very happy, wished for nothing more ; he, as tender and submissive as a slave, was continually at her feet. " I had a talk with your husband this morning," said Octave. " You do not go out enough, and I have persuaded him to take you to the theatre." But she shook her head, turning pale and shivering. A silence ensued. She again beheld the narrow dining-room with its cold light. Jules's image, sullen and correct, had suddenly cast a shadow over the huntsman of the romance whom she had been imagining, and the sound of whose horn in the distance again rang in her ears. Every now and then she listened : perhaps he was coming. Her husband had never taken her feet in his hands to kiss them ; he had never either knelt be- side her to tell her he adored her. Yet, she loved him well ; but she was surprised that love did not contain more sweetness. " What stifles me, you know," resumed she, returning to the book, " is when there are passages in novels about the characters telling one another of their love." Octave then sat down. He wished to laugh, not caring for such sentimental trifling. " I detest a lot of phrases/' said he. " When two persons adore each other, the best thing is to prove it at once." But she did not seem to understand, her eyes remained un- dimmed. He stretched out his hand, slightly touching hers, and leant over so close to her to observe a passage in the book that his breath warmed her shoulder through the open dressing- gown ; yet she remained insensible. Then, he rose up, full of a contempt mingled with pity. As he was leaving, she said : " I read very slowly, I shall not have finished it before to- morrow. It will be amusing to-morrow ! Look in during the evening." He certainly had no designs upon her, and yet he felt indig- nant He conceived a singular friendship for this young couple who exasperated him, they seemed to take life so stupidly. And the idea came to him of rendering them a service in spite of them ; he would take them out to dinner, make them tipsy, and then amuse himself by pushing them into each other's arms. When such fits of kindness got hold of him, he, who would not have lent ten francs, delighted in flinging his money out of the window, to bring two lovers together and give them joy. PIPING HOT ! 7D Little Madame Pichon's coldness, however, brought Octave back to the ardent Valerie. This one, certainly, would not require to be breathed upon twice on the back of her neck. He was advancing in her favour : one day that she was going up- stairs before him, he had ventured to compliment her on her ankle, without her appearing displeased. At length the opportunity so long watched for presented it- self. It was the evening that Marie had made him promise to look in ; they would be alone to talk about the novel, as her husband was not to be home till very late. But the young man had preferred to go out, seized wi.h fright at the thought of this literary treat. However, he had decided to venture upon it, towards ten o'clock, when he met Valerie's maid on the first- floor landing with a scared look on her face, and who said to him : "Madame has gone iuto hysterics, my master is out, and every one opposite has gone to the theatre. Pray come in. I am all alone, I don't know what to do." Valerie was stretched out in an easy-chair in her bedroom, her limbs rigid. The maid had unlaced her stays, and her bosom was heaving. The attack subsided almost immediately. She opened her eyes, was surprised to see Octave there, and acted moreover as she might have done in the pi'esence of a doctor. " I nmst ask you to excuse me, sir," murmured she, her voice still choking. " I have only had this girl since yesterday, and she lost her head." Her perfect coolness in adjusting her stays and fastening up her dress again, embarrassed the young man. He remained standing, swearing not to depart thus, yet not daring to sit down. She had sent away the maid, the sight of whom seemed to irritate her ; then she went to the window to breathe the cool outdoor air in long nervous inspirations, her mouth wide open. After a short silence, they commenced talking. She had first suffered from these attacks when fourteen years old ; Doctor Juillerat was tired of prescribing for her ; sometimes they seized her in the arms, sometimes in the loins. However, she was getting used to them ; she might as well have them as anything else, as no one was really perfectly well. And, whilst she talked, with scarcely any life in her limbs, he excited him- self with looking at her, he thought her provoking in the midst of her disorder, with her leaden complexion, her face upset by the attack as though by a whole night of love. Behind the black mass of her loose hair, which hung over her shoulders, he 80 PIPING HOT ! fancied he beheld the husband's poor and beardless head. Then, stretching out his hands, with the tmrestrained gesture with which he would have seized some harlot, he tried to take hold of her. "Well! what now?" asked she, in a voice full of sur- prise. In her turn she looked at him, whilst her eyes were so cold, her flesh so calm, that he felt frozen and let his hands fall with an awkward slowness, fully aware of the ridiculousness of his gesture. Then, in a last nervous gape which she stifled, she slowly added : " Ah ! my dear sir, if you only knew ! " And she shrugged her shoulders, without getting angry, as though crushed beneath her contempt for man and her weariness of him. Octave thought she was about to have him turned out when he saw her move towards a bell-pull, dragging her loosely fastened skirts along with her. But she merely required some tea ; and she ordered it to be very weak and very hot. Alto- gether nonplussed, he muttered some excuses and made for the door, whilst she again reclined in the depths of her easy-chair, with the air of a chilly woman greatly in want of sleep. On the stairs, Octave stopped at each landing. She did not like that then? He had just seen how indifferent she was, without desire as without indignation, as difficult to deal with as his employer, Madame Hedouin. Why did Campardon say she was hysterical 1 it was absurd to take him in by telling him such humbug ; for had it not been for the architect's lie, he would never have risked such an adventure. And he remained quite bewildered by the result, his ideas of hysteria altogether upset, and thinking of the different stories that were going about. He recalled Trublot's words : one never knows what to expect, with those crazy sort of people whose eyes shine like balls of fire. Up on his landing Octave, annoyed with all women, walked as softly as he could. But the Pichons' door opened, and he had to resign himself. Marie awaited him, standing in the narrow room, which the charred wick of the lamp but imper- fectly lighted. She had drawn the crib close to the table, and Lilitte was sleeping there in the circle of the yellow light. The lunch things had probably also served for the dinner, for the closed book was lying beside a dirty plate full of radish ends. "Have you finished it?" asked Octave, surprised at the young woman's silence PIPING HOT ! 81 She seemed intoxicated, her face was swollen as though she had just awakened from a too heavy sleep. "Yes, yes," said she, with an effort. " Oh ! I have passed the day, my head in my hands, buried '4n it. When the fit takes one, one no longer knows where orfo is. I have such a stiff neck." And, feeling pains all over her, she did not speak any more of the book, but was so full of her emotion and of confused dreams engendered by her reading, that she was choking. Her ears rang with the distant calls of the horn, blown by the huntsman of her romances, in the blue background of ideal loves. Then, without the least reason, she said that she had been to Saint- Roch that morning to hear the nine o'clock mass. She had wept a great deal, religion replaced everything. " Ah ! I feel better," resumed she, heaving a deep sigh and standing still in front of Octave. A pause ensued. She smiled at him with her candid eyes. He had never thought her so useless, with her scanty hair and her washed-out features. But as she continued looking at him, she became very pale and almost stumbled ; and he was obliged to put out his hands to support her. " Good heavens ! good heavens ! " stuttered she, sobbing. He continued to hold her, feeling considerably embarrassed. " You should take a little infusion. You have been reading too much." " Yes, it upset me, when on closing the book I found myself alone. How kind you are, Monsieur Mouret ! I might have hurt myself, had it not been for you." He looked for a chair on which to seat her. "Shall I light a fire?" f< No, thank you, it would dirty your hands. I have noticed that you always wear gloves." And choking again at the idea, and suddenly feeling faint, she launched an awkward kiss into space as though in a dream, a kiss which slightly touched the young man's ear. Octave received this kiss with amazement. The young woman's lips were as cold as ice. Then, when she had sank upon his breast in an abandonment of her whole frame, he was seized with a sudden desire, and sought to bear her into the inner room. But this brusque wooing roused Marie ; her womanly instinct revolted ; she struggled and called upon her mother, forgetting her husband, who was shortly to return, and her daughter who was sleeping near her. F 82 PIPING HOT! " No, oh ! no, no. It is wrong." But he kept ardently repeating : " No one will ever know I shall never tell." " No, Monsieur Octave. Do not spoil the happiness I have in knowing you. It will do no good I assure you, and I had dreamed things " Then he left off speaking, having a revenge to take on woman-kind, and saying coarsely to himself: "You, at any rate, shall succumb ! " The door had not even been shut, the solemnity of the staircase seemed to ascend in the midst of tho silence. Lilitte was peacefully sleeping on the pillow of her crib. When Marie and Octave rose up, they could find nothing to say to each other. She, mechanically, went and looked at her daughter, took up the plate, and then laid it down again. He remained silent, a prey to similar uneasiness, the adventure had been so unexpected ; and he recalled to mind how he had fraternally planned to restore the young woman to her husband's arms. Feeling the necessity of breaking that intolerable silence he ended by murmuring : " You did not shut the door, then?" She glanced out on to the lauding, and stammered : " That is true, it was open," Her face wore an expression of disgust. The young man too was now thinking that after all there was nothing the least funny in this adventure with a helpless woman, in the midst of that solitude. " Dear me ! the book has fallen on the floor ! " she continued, picking the volume up. A corner of the cover was broken. That drew them together, and afforded some relief. Speech returned to them. Marie appeared quite distressed. " It was not my fault. You see, I had covered it with paper for fear of soiling it. We must have knocked it over, without doing so on purpose." " Was it there then ? " asked Octave. " I did not notice it. Oh ! for myself, I don't care a bit ! But Campardon thinks so much of his books ! " They kept passing it from one to the other, trying to put the corner straight again. Their fingers touched without a quiver. As they reflected on the consequences, they were quite dismayed >at the accident which had happened to that handsome volume of George Sand. PIPING HOT ! 83 " It was bound to end badly," concluded Marie, with tears in her eyes. Octave was obliged to console her. He would invent some story, Campardon would not eat him. And their uneasiness returned, at the moment of separation. They would have liked at least to have said something amiable to each other ; but the words choked them. Fortunately, a step was heard, it was the husband coming upstairs. Octave silently took her in his arms again and kissed her in his turn on the mouth. She once more complaisantly submitted, her lips icy cold as before. When he had noiselessly regained his room, he asked himself, as he took oft' his overcoat, whatever was it that she wanted ? Women, he said, were decidedly very peculiar. On the morrow, at the Campardons', just as lunch was finished, Octave was once more explaining that he had clumsily knocked the book over, when Marie entered the room. She was going to take Lilitte to the Tuileries gardens, and she had called to ask if they would allow Angele to accompany her. And she smiled at Octave, without the least confusion, and glanced in her innocent way at the book lying on a chair. " Why, I shall be only too pleased ! " said Madame Campar- don. " Angele, go and put your hat on. I have no fear in trusting her with you." Marie, looking very modest, in a simple dress of dark woollen stuff, talked of her husband, who had caught a cold the night before, and of the price of meat, which would soon prevent people buying it at all. Then, when she had left with Angele, they all leant out of the windows to see them depart. Marie gently pushed Lilitte's perambulator along the pavement with her gloved hands ; whilst Angele, knowing that they were look- ing at her, walked beside her friend, with her eyes fixed on the ground. " How respectable she looks ! " exclaimed Madame Campar- don. " And so gentle ! so decorous ! " Then, slapping Octave on the shoulder, the architect said : " Education is everything in a family, my dear fellow ; there is nothing like it I " 84 CHAPTER V. THAT evening, there was a reception and concert at the Duvey- riers'. Towards nine o'clock, Octave, who had been invited for the first time, was just finishing dressing. He was grave, and felt irritated with himself. Why had he missed fire with Valerie, a woman so well connected ? And Berthe Josserand, ought he not to have reflected before refusing her ? At the moment he was tying his white tie, the thought of Marie Pichon had become unbearable to him : five months in Paris, and nothing but that wretched adventure ! It was as painful to him as a disgrace, for he well saw the emptiness and the uselessness of such a connection. And he vowed to himself, as he took up his gloves, that he would no longer waste his time in such a manner. He was decided to act, as he had at length got into society, where opportunities were certainly not wanting. But, at the end of the passage, Marie was watching for him, Pichon not being there, he was obliged to go in for a moment. " How smart you are ! " murmured she. They had never been invited to the Duveyriers', and that filled her with respect for the first floor drawing-room. Besides, she was jealous of no one, she had neither the strength nor the will to be so. "I shall wait for you," resumed she holding up her forehead. " Do not come up too late ; you can tell me how you amused yourself." Octave had to deposit a kiss on her hair. Though relations were established between them, according to his fancy, when- ever a desire or want of something to do drew him to her, they did not as yet address each other very familiarly. He at length went downstairs; and she, leaning over the balustrade, follovved him with her eyes. At the same minute, quite a drama was enacting at the Josserands'. In the mind of the mother, the Duveyriers' party to which they were going, was to decide the question of a marriage between Berthe and Auguste Vabre. The latter, who PIPING HOT ! 86 had been vigorously attacked for a fortnight past, still hesitated, evidently entertaining donbts with respect to the dowry. So Madame Josserand, for the purpose of striking a decisive blow, had written to her brother, informing him of the contemplated marriage and reminding him of his promises, with the hope that, in his answer, he might say something that she could turn to account. And all the family were awaiting nine o'clock be- fore the dining-room stove, dressed ready to go down, when Monsieur Gourd brought up a letter from uncle Bachelard which had been forgotten \mder Madame Gourd's snuS-box since the last delivery. " Ah ! at last ! " said Madame Josserand, tearing open the envelope. The father and the two daughters watched her anxiously as she read. Adele, who had had to dress the ladies, was moving heavily about, clearing the table still covered with the dirty crockery from the dinner. But Madame Josserand turned ghastly pale. " Nothing ! nothing ! " stuttered she, "not a clear sentence ! He will see later on, at the time of the marriage. And he adds that he loves us very much all the same. What a confounded scoundrel ! " Monsieur Josserand in his evening dress sank into a chair. Hortense and Berthe also sat down, their legs feeling worn out \ and they remained there, the one in blue, the other in pink, in their eternal costumes, altered once again. "I have always said," murmured the father, " that Bachelard is imposing upon us. He will never give a sou." Standing up in her flaring dress, Madame Josserand was reading the letter over again. Then, her anger burst out. " Ah ! men ! men ! That one, one would think him an idiot, he leads such a life. Well ! not a bit of it ! Though he never seems to be in his right mind, he opens his eye the moment any one speaks to him of money. Ah ! men ! men ! " She turned towards her daughters, to whom this lesson was addressed. " It has come to the point, you see, that I ask myself why it is you have such a mania for getting married. Ah ! if you had been worried out of your lives by it as I have ! Not a fellow who loves you for yourselves and who would' bring you a for- tune without haggling ! Millionaire uncles who, after having beeu fed for twenty years, will not even give their nieces a 86 PIPING HOT ! dowry ! Husbands who are quite incompetent, oh ! yes, sir, incompetent ! " Monsieur Josserand bowed his head. Adele, who was not even listening, was quietly finishing clearing the table. But Madame Josserand suddenly turned angrily upon her. " What are you doing there, spying upon us ? Go into your kitchen and see if I am there ! " And she wound up by saying : " In short, everything for those wretched beings, the men ; and for us, not even enough to satisfy our hunger. Listen ! they are only fit for being taken in ! Remember my words ! " Hortense and Berthe nodded their heads, as though deeply penetrated by what their mother had been saying. For a long time past she had completely convinced them of man's utter in- feriority, his unique part in life being to marry and to pay. A long silence ensued in the smoky dining-room, where the remainder of the things left on the table by Adele emitted a stuffy smell of food. The Josserands, gorgeously arrayed, scattered on differ- ent chairs and overwhelmed, were forgetting the Duveyriers' concert as they reflected on the continual deceptions of life From the depths of the adjoining chamber, one could hear the snoring of Saturnin, whom they had sent to bed early. At length, Berthe spoke : " So it is all up. Shall we take our things off? " But, at this, Madame Josserand's energy at once returned to her. Eh ? what ? take their things off ! and why pray ! were they not respectable people, was not an alliance with their family as good as with any other ? The marriage should take place all the same, she would die rather. And she rapidly dis- tributed their parts to each : the two young ladies were in- structed to be very amiable to Auguste, and not to leave him until he had taken the leap ; the father received the mission of overcoming old Vabre and Duveyrier, by agreeing with every- thing they said, if his intelligence was sufficient to enable him to do such a thing; as for herself, desirous of neglecting nothing, she undertook the women, she would know how to get them all on her side. Then, collecting her thoughts and casting a last glance round the dining-room, as though to make sure that no weapon had been forgotten, she put on the terrible look of a man of war about to lead his daughters to massacre, and uttered these words in a powerful voice : " Let us go down ! " And down they went. In the solemnity of the staircase, PIPING HOT ! 87 Monsieur Josserand was full of uneasiness, for he foresaw many disagreeable things for the too narrow conscience of a worthy man like himself. When they entered, there was already a crush at the Du- veyriers'. The enormous grand piano occupied one entire end of the drawing-room, the ladies being seated in front of it on rows of chairs, like at the theatre ; and two dense masses of black coats filled up the doorways leading to the dining-room and the parlour. The chandelier and the candelabra, and the six lamps standing on side-tables, lit up with a blinding light the white and gold room in which the red silk of the furniture and of the hangings showed up vividly. It was very warm, the fans produced a breeze at regular intervals, impregnated with the penetrating odours of bodices and bare shoulders. Just at that moment, Madame Duveyrier was taking her seat at the piano. With a gesture, Madame Josserand smil- ingly begged she would not disturb herself; and she left her daughters in the midst of the men, as she accepted a chair for herself between Valerie [and Madame Juzeur. Monsieur Josse- rand had made for the parlour, where the landlord, Monsieur Vabre, was dozing at his usual place, in the corner of a sofa. There were also Campardon, Th6ophile and Auguste Vabre, Doctor Juillerat and the Abbe Mauduit, forming a group; whilst Trublot and Octave, who had rejoined each other, had flown from the music to the end of the dining-room. Near them, and behind the stream of black coats, Duveyrier, thin and tall of stature, was looking fixedly at his wife seated at the piano waiting for silence. In the button-hole of his coat he wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in a neat little rosette. " Hush ! hush ! silence ! " murmured some friendly voices. Then, Clotilde Duveyrier commenced one of Chopin's most difficult serenades. Tall and handsome, with magnificent red hair, she had a long face, as pale and cold as snow ; and, in her grey eyes, music alone kindled a flame, an exaggerated passion on which she existed without any other desire either of the flesh or the spirit. Duveyrier continued watching her ; then, after the first bars, a nervous exasperation contracted his lips, he drew aside and kept himself at the farthest end of the dining-room. On his clean-shaven face, with its pointed chin and "eyes all askew, large red blotches indicated a bad blood, quite a pollution festering just beneath the skin. Trublot, who was examining him, quietly observed : " He does pot like music." 88 PIPING HOT! " Nor I either," replied Octave. " Oh ! the unpleasantness is not the same for you. A man, my dear fellow, who was always lucky. Not a whit more intelligent than another, but who was helped along by every one. Belonging to an old middle-class family, the father an ex-presiding judge, called to the bar the moment he had completed his studies, then appointed, deputy judge at Reims, from whence he was removed to Paris and made judge of the Court of First Instance, decorated, and now a counsellor before he is forty-five years of age. It's stiff, isn't it ? But he does not like music, that piano has been the bane of nis life. One cannot have everything." Meanwhile, Clotilde was knocking off the difficult passages with extraordinary composure. She handled her piano like a circus-rider her horse. Octave's attention was solely occupied with the furious working of her hands. " Just look at her fingers," said he, " it is astonishing ! A quarter of an hour of that must hurt her immensely." And they both fell to talking of women without troubling themselves any further with what she was playing. Octave felt rather embarrassed on catching sight of Valerie : what line of conduct should he pursue 1 ought he to speak to her or pre- tend not to see her? Trublot affected a great disdain : there was still not one to take his fancy ; and, as his companion pro- tested, looking about, and saying that there was surely one amongst the number who would suit him, he learnedly declared : " Well ! take your choice, and you will see afterwards, when the gloss is off. Eh 1 not the one with the feathers over there ; nor the blonde in the mauve dress ; nor that old party, though she at least has the merit of being fat. I tell you, my dear fellow, it is absurd to seek for anything of the kind in society. Plenty of airs, but not a particle of pleasure ! " Octave smiled. He had to make his position in the world ; he could not afford merely to consider his taste, like Trublot, whose father was so rich. The sight of those rows of women set him musing, he asked himself which among them he would have chosen for his fortune and his pleasure, if he had been allowed to take one of them away. As he was weighing them with a glance, one after the other, he suddenly exclaimed : " Hallo ! my employer's wife ! She visits here then 1 " " Did you not know it 1 ?" asked Trublot. " In spite of the difference in their ages, Madame Hedouin and Madame TKUBLOT CKlTICI^ftfG THE FEMALE GUESTS AT THE DUVEYBIEES' RECEPTION. p. 88. PIPING HOT ! 89 Duveyrier are two school friends. They used to be insepar- able, and were called the polar bears, because they were always fully twenty degrees below freezing point. They are some more of the ornamental class ! Duveyrier would be in a sad plight if he had not some other hot water-bottle for his feet in winter time ! " But Octave had now become serious. For the first time, he beheld Madame Hedouin in a low neck dress, her shoulders and arms bare, with her black hair plaited in front ; and she appeared in the ardent light as the realisation of his desires : a superb woman, extremely healthy and calmly beautiful, who would be a benefit in every way to a man. Complicated plans were already absorbing him, when an awful din awoke him from his dream. " What a relief ! it is finished ! " said Trublot. Compliments were being showered upon Clotilde. Madame Josserand, who had hastened to her, was pressing her hands ; whilst the men resumed their conversation, and the ladies fanned themselves more vigorously. Duveyrier then ventured back into the parlour, where Trublot and Octave followed him. Whilst in the midst of the skirts, the former whispered into the latter's ear : " Look on your right. The angling has commenced." It was Madame Josserand who was setting Berthe on to Auguste. He had imprudently gone up to the ladies to wish them good evening. His head was not bothering him so much just then ; he merely felt a touch of neuralgia in his left eye ; but he dreaded the end of the party, for there was going to be singing, and nothing was worse for him than this. " Berthe," said the mother, " tell Monsieur Vabre of the remedy you copied for him out of that book. Oh ! it is a sovereign cure for headaches ! " And, having started the affair, she left them standing beside a window. " By Jove ! they are going in for chemistry ! " murmured Trublot. In the parlour, Monsieur Josserand, desirous of pleasing his wife, had remained seated before Monsieur Vabre, feeling very embarrassed, for the old gentleman was asleep, and he did not dare awake him to do the amiable. But, when the music ceased, Monsieur Vabre raised his eye-lids. Short and stout, and completely bald, save for two tufts of white hair over his ears, he had a ruddy face, with thick lips, and round eyes 90 FIFING HOTI almost at the top of his head. Monsieur Josserand having politely inquired after his health, the conversation began. The retired notary, whose four or five ideas always followed the same order, commenced by making an observation about Ver- sailles, where he had practiced during forty years ; then, he talked of his sons, once more regretting that neither the one nor the other had shown himself capable of carrying on the practice, so that he had decided to sell it and inhabit Paris ; after which, he came to the history of his house, the buildino- of which was the romance of his life. " I have buried three hundred thousand francs in it, sir. A superb speculation, my architect said. But to-day I have great difficulty in getting the value of my money ; more especially as all my children have come to live here, with the idea of not paying me, and I should never have a quarter's rent, if I did not apply for it myself on the fifteenth. Fortunately, I have work to console me." " Do you still work much ? " asked Monsieur Josserand. " Always, always, sir ! " replied the old gentleman with the energy of despair. " Work is life to me." And he explained his great task. For ten years past, he had every year waded through the official catalogue of the exhibi- tion of paintings, writing on tickets each painter's name, and the paintings exhibited. He spoke of it with an air of weari- ness and anguish ; the whole year scarcely gave him sufficient time, the task was often so arduous, that it sometimes proved too much for him ; for instance, when a lady artist married, and then exhibited under her husband's name, how was he to see his way clearly ? " My work will never be complete, it is that which is killing me," murmured he. " You take a great interest in art, do you not 1 " resumed Monsieur Josserand, to flatter him. Monsieur Vabre looked at him, full of surprise. " No, I do not require to see the paintings. It is merely a matter of statistics. There now ! I had better go to bed, my head will be all the clearer to-morrow. Good-night, sir." He leant on a walking-stick, which he used even in the house, and withdrew, walking painfully, the lower part of his back already succumbing to paralysis. Monsieur Josserand felt per- plexed : he had not uderstood very clearly, he feared he had not spoken of the tickets with sufficient enthusiasm. But a slight hubbub coming from the drawing room, attracted PIPING HOT ! 91 Trublot aud Octave again to the door. They saw a lady of about fifty enter, very stout, and still handsome, followed by a young man, correctly attired, and with a serious air about him. "What! they arrive together!" murmured Trublot. "Well! I never ! " The new-comers were Madame Dambreville and L6on Josse- rand. She had undertaken to find him a wife ; then, whilst waiting, she had kept him for her own personal use ; and they were now in their full honeymoon, attracting general attention in the middle-class drawing-rooms. There were whisperings amongst the mothers who had daughters to marry. But Madame Duveyrier was advancing to meet Madame Dambre- ville, who supplied her with young men for her choruses. Madame Josserand at once supplanted her, and overwhelmed her son's friend with all sorts of attentions, reflecting that she might have need of her. Le"on coldly exchanged a few words with his mother ; yet, she was now beginning to think that he would after all be able to do something for himself. " Berthe does not see you," said she to Madame Dambreville. " Excuse her, she is telling Monsieur Auguste of some remedy." " But they are very well together, we must leave them alone," replied the lady, understanding at a glance. They both watched Berthe maternally. She had ended by pushing Auguste into the recess caused by the window, and was keeping him there with her pretty gestures. He was be- coming animated, and running the risk of a bad headache. Meanwhile, a group of grave men were talking politics in the parlour. There had been a stormy sitting of the Senate the day before, where they were discussing the address respecting the Roman question ; and Doctor Juillerat, whose opinions were atheistical and revolutionary, was maintaining that Rome ought to be given to the king of Italy ; whilst the Abbe" Mau- duit, one of the heads of the Ultramontane party prophesied the most awful catastrophes, if Frenchmen did not shed the last drop of their blood in supporting the tempo al power of the pope. "Perhaps some modus vivendi may be found which will prove acceptable to both parties," observed Leon Josserand arriving. He was just then the secretary of a celebrated ba -rister, one of the deputies of the left. During two years, having nothing tc expect from his parents, whose mediocrity moreover )xasperated him, he had frequented the students' quarter in the guise of a 92 PIPING HOT ! ferocious demagogue. But, since his acquaintance with the Dambrevilles, at whose expense he was satisfying his first appetites, he was calming down, and drifting into the learned Republican. " No, no agreement is possible," said the priest " The Church could not make terms." " Then, it shall vanish ! " exclaimed the doctor. And, though great friends, having met at the bedsides of all the departing souls of the Saint-lloch district, they seemed irre- concilable, the doctor thin and nervous, the priest fat and affable. The latter preserved a polite smile, even when making his most absolute statements, like a man of the world, tolerant for the short- com ings of existence, but also like a Catholic who did not intend to abandon any of his religious belief. " The Church vanish, pooh ! " said Campardon with a furious air, just to be well with the priest, from whom he was expecting a large order. Besides, it was the opinion of almost all the gentlemen : it could not vanish. Theophile Vabre, who, coughing and spitting, and shaking with fever, dreamed of universal happiness through the organization of a humanitarian republic, alone maintained that, perhaps, it would be transformed. The priest resumed in his gentle voice : " The Empire is committing suicide. You will see it is so, next year, when the elections come on." " Oh ! as for the Empire, we permit you to rid us of it," said the doctor boldly. " You will be rendering us a precious ser- vice." Then, Duveyrier, who seemed listening profoundly, shook his head. He belonged to an Orleanist family ; but he owed every- thing to the Empire and considered he ought to defend it. " Believe me," he at length declared severely, "do not shake the foundations of society, or everything will collapse. It is we, as sure as fate, who suffer from every catastrophe." " Very true ! " observed Monsieur Josserand, who entertained no opinion, but remembered his wife's instructions. All spoke at once. None of them liked the Empire. Doctor Juillerat condemned the Mexican expedition, the Abbe Mauduit blamed the recognition of the kingdom of Italy. Yet, Theophile Vabre and even L6on felt anxious when Duveyrier threatened them with another '93. What was the use of those continual revolutions 1 had not liberty been obtained 1 and the hatred of new iuoas, the fear of the people wishing their share, calmed the PIPING HOT ! 93 liberalism of those satisfied middle-class men. They all de- clared, however, that they would vote against the Emperor, for he was in need of a lesson. " Ah ! how they bore me ! " said Trublot, who had been trying to understand for some minutes past. Octave persuaded him to return to the ladies. In the recess of the window, Berthe was deafening Auguste with her laughter. This big follow, with his pale blood, was forgetting his fear of women, and was becoming quite red, beneath the attacks of the lovely girl, whose breath warmed his face. Madame Josseraud, however, probably considered that the affair was dragging, for she looked fixedly at Hortense ; and the latter obediently went and gave her sister her assistance. "Are you quite recovered, madame?" Octave dared to ask Valerie. " Quite, sir, thank you," replied she coolly, as though she re- membered nothing. Madame Juzeur spoke to the young man about some old lace which she wished to show him, to have his opinion of it ; and he had to promise to look in on her for a moment on the morrow. Then, as the Abbe Mauduit re-entered the drawing-room, she called him and made him sit beside her with an air of rapture. The conversation had again resumed. The ladies were dis- cussing their servants. " Well ! yes," continued Madame Duveyrier, " I am satisfied with Clemence, she is a very clean and very active girl." " And your Hippolyte," asked Madame Josserand, " had you not the intention of discharging him ? " Just then, Hippolyte, the footman, was handing round some ices. When he had withdrawn, tall, strong, and with a florid complexion, Clotilde answered in an embarrassed way : " We have decided to keep him. It is so unpleasant chang- ing 1 You know, servants get used to one another, and I should not like to part with Clemence." Madame Josserand hastened to agree with her, feeling that they were on delicate ground. There was some hope of marry- ing the two together, some day ; and the Abbe Mauduit, whom the Duveyriers' had consulted in the matter, slowly wagged his head, as though to dissemble a state of affairs known to all the house, but of which no one ever spoke. All the ladies now opened their hearts : Valerie had sent another servant about her business that very morning, and that made three in a week ; Madame Juzeur had decided to take a young girl of fifteen from the foundling hospital so as to teach her herself; as 94 PIPING HOT ! for Madame Josserand, her complaints of Adele seemed nover likely to cease, a slut, a good-for-nothing, whose goings-on were most extraordinary. And they all, feeling languid in the blaze of the candles and the perfume of the flowers, sank deeper into these ante-room stories, wading through greasy account- books, and taking a delight in relating the insolence of a coach- man or of a scullery-maid. " Have you seen Julie ? " abruptly asked Trublot of Octave, in a mysterious tone of voice. And, as the other looked at him in amazement, he added : " My dear fellow, she is stunning. Go and see her. Just pretend you want to go somewhere, and then slip into the kitchen. She is stunning ! " He was speaking of the Duveyriers' cook. The ladies' con- versation was taking a turn : Madame Josserand was describing, with overflowing admiration, a very modest estate which the Duveyriers had near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, and which she had merely caught a glimpse of from the train, one day when she was going to Fontaiuebleaxi. But Clotilde did not like the country, she lived there as little as possible, merely during the holidays of her son, Gustave, who was then studying rhetoric at the Lycee Bonaparte. " Caroline is right in not wishing to have any children," de- clared she, turning towards Madame H^douin, seated two chairs away from her. "The little things interfere with all your habits !" Madame Hedouin said that she liked them a good deal. But she was much too busy; her husband was constantly away, and she had everything to look after. Octave, standing up behind her chair, searched with a side glance the little curly hairs, as black as ink, on the nape of her neck, and the snowy whiteness of her bosom, which her dress being open very low disappeared in a mass of lace. She ended by completely confusing him, as she sat there so calm, speaking but rarely and with a continuous smile on her hand- some face ; he had never before seen so superb a creature, even at Marseilles. Decidedly, it was worth trying, though it would be a long task. " Having children robs women of their good looks so quickly ! " said he in her ear, leaning over, feeling an absolute necessity to speak to her, and yet finding nothing else to say. She slowly raised her large eyes, and then replied with the simple air with which she would give him an order at the warehouse. PIPING HOT ! 98 " Oh ! no, Monsieur Octave ; with me it is not for that. One must have the time, that is all." But Madame Duveyrier intervened. She had merely greeted the young man with a slight bow, when Campardon had intro- duced him to her; and now she was examining him, and listening to him, without seeking to hide a sudden interest. When she heard him conversing with her friend, she could not help asking : " Pray, excuse me, sir. What voice have you ? " He did not understand immediately ; but he ended by saying that his was a tenor voice. Then, Clotilde became quite en- thusiastic : a tenor voice, really ! what a piece of luck, tenor voices were becoming so rare ! For instance, for the " Blessing of the Daggers," which they were going to sing by-and-by, she had never been able to find more than three tenors among her acquaintances, when at least five were required. And, suddenly excited, her eyes sparkling, she had to restrain herself from going at once to the piano to try his voice. He was obliged to promise to come one evening for the purpose. Trublot, who was behind him, kept nudging him with his elbow, ferociously enjoying himself in his impassibility. " Ah ! so you are in for it too ! " murmured he, when she had moved away. "For myself, my dear fellow, she first of all thought I had a barytone voice ; then, seeing that 1 did not get on " all right, she tried me as a tenor ; but as I went no better, she has decided to use me to-night as bass. I am one of the monks." But he had to leave Octave as Madame Duveyrier was just then calling him ; they were about to sing the chorus, the great piece of the evening. There was quite a commotion. Some fifteen men, all amateurs, and all recruited among the guests of the house, painfully opened a passage for themselves through the groups of ladies, to form in front of the piano. They were constantly brought to a standstill, and asked to be excused, in voices drowned by the hum of conversations ; whilst the fans were moved more rapidly in the increasing heat. At length, Madame Duveyrier counted them ; they were all there, and she distributed them their parts, which she had copied out herself. Campardon took the part of Saint-Bris ; a young auditor at- tached to the Council of State was intrusted with De Nevers's few bars ; then came eight nobles, four aldermen, and three monks, represented by barristers, clerks, and simple house- holders. She, who accompanied, had also reserved herself the part of Valentine, passionate cries which she uttered whilst 96 PIPING HOT ! striking chords ; for she would have no lady amongst the gentlemen, the resigned troop of whom she directed with all the severity of a conductor of an orchestra. The conversations continued, an intolerable noise issued from the parlour especially, where the political discussions were evi- dently entering on a disagreeable phase. Then Clotilde, taking a key from her pocket, tapped gently with it on the piano. A murmur ran through the room, the voices dropped, two streams of black coats again flowed to the doors ; and, looking over the heads, one beheld for a moment Duveyrier's red spotted face wearing an agonised expression. Octave had remained standing behind Madame Hedouin, the glances from his lowered eyes losing themselves in the shadows of her bosom, in the depths of the lace. But when the silence was almost complete, there was a burst of laughter, and he raised his head. It was Berthe, who was amused at some joke of Auguste's ; she had heated his poor blood to such a point that he was becoming quite jovial. Every person in the drawing-room looked at them, mothers be- came grave, members of the family exchanged a glance. " She has such spirits ! " murmured Madame Josserand ten- derly, in such a way as to be heard. Hortense, close to her sister, was assisting her with com- plaisant abnegation, joining in her laughter, and pushing her up against the young man ; whilst the breeze which entered through the partly open window behind them gently swelled the big crimson silk curtains. But a sepulchral voice resounded, all the heads turned to- wards the piano. Campardon, his mouth wide open, his beard spread out in a lyrical blast, was giving the first line : "Yes, we are here assembled by the queen's command." Clotilde at once ran up a scale and down again ; then, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, a look of fright on her face, she uttered the cry : "I tremble!" And the whole thing followed, the eight barristers, clerks and householders, their noses on their parts, in the postures of school- boys humming and hawing over a page of Greek, swore that they were ready to deliver France. This opening was a surprise, for the voices were stifled beneath the low ceiling, one was unable to catch more than a sort of lmm,like a noise of passing carts full of paving stones causing the windows to rattle. But when Saint- Bris's melodious line : " For this holy cause " unrolled the PIPING HOT ! 97 principal theme, some of the ladies recognised it and nodded their heads knowingly. All were warming to the work, the nobles shouted out at random : " We swear it ! We will follow you ! " and, each time, it was like an explosion which caught the guests full in the chest. "They sing too loud," murmured Octave in Madame Hedouiu's ear. She did not move. Then, as De Nevers's and Valentine's ex- planations bored him, more especially as the auditor attached to the Council of State was a false barytone, he corresponded by signs with Trublot who, whilst awaiting the entrance of the monks, drew his attention with a wink to the window where Berthe was continuing to keep Auguste imprisoned. Now, they were alone, in the fresh breeze from outside ; whilst, with her ear pricked up, Hortense stood before them, leaning against the curtain and mechanically twisting the loop. No one was watch- ing them now, even Madame Josserand and Madame Dambrevillo were looking away, after an instinctive exchange of glances. Meanwhile, Clotilde, her fingers on the keys, carried away and unable to risk a gesture, stretched her neck and addressed to the music stand this oath intended for De Nevers : " Ah ! from to-day all my blood is yours ! " The aldermen had made their entrance, a substitute, two attorneys, and a notary. The quartette was well delivered, the line : " For this holy cause " returned, spread out, supported by half the chorus, in a continuous expansion. Campardon, his mouth opened wider and wider, gave the orders for the com- bat, with a terrible roll of syllables, And, suddenly, the chant of the monks burst forth : Trublot sang from his stomach, so as to reach the low notes. Octave, having had the curiosity to watch him singing, was struck with surprise, when he again cast his eyes in the direction of the window. As though carried away by the chorus, Hortense had unfastened the loop, by a move- ment which . might have been unintentional ; and, in fall- ing, the big crimson silk curtain had completely hidden Auguste and Berthe. They were there behind it, leaning against the window bar, without a movement betraying their presence. Octavo no longer troubled himself about Trublot, who was just then blessing the daggers : " Holy daggers, by us be blessed." Whatever could they be doing behind that curtain? The fugue was commencing ; to the deep tones of the monks, the chorus re- G 98 PIPING HOT ! plied : "Death ! death ! death !" And still they did not move ; perhaps, feeling the heat too much, they were simply watching the cabs pass. But Saint-Bris's melodious line had again re- turned, by degrees all the voices uttered it with the whole strength of their lungs, progressively and in a final outburst of extraordinary force. It was like a gust of wind burying itself in the farthest corners of the too narrow room, scaring the candles, making the guests turn pale and their ears bleed. Clotilde furiously strummed away on the piano, carrying the gentlemen along with her with a glance; then the voices quieted down, almost whispering : " At midnight, let there be not a sound ! " and she continued on alone, using the soft pedal, and imitating the cadenced and distant footsteps of some departing patrol. Then, suddenly, in the midst of this expiring music, of this relief after so much uproar, one heard a voice exclaim : " You are hurting me ! " All the heads again turned towards the window. Madame Dambreville kindly made herself useful, by going and pulling the curtain aside. And the whole drawing-room beheld Augusta looking very confused and Berthe very red, still leaning against the bar of the window. " What is the matter, my treasure 1 " asked Madame Josse- rand earnestly. "Nothing, mamma. Monsieur Auguste knocked my arm with the window. I was so warm ! " She turned redder still. There were affected smiles and scandalized pouts. Madame Duveyrier, who, for a month past, had been trying to keep her brother out of Berthe's way, turned quite pale, more especially as the incident had spoilt the effect of her chorus. However, after the first moment of surprise, the applause burst forth, she was congratulated, and some amiable things were said about the gentlemen. How delightfully they had sung ! what pains she must have taken to get them to sing so well in time ! Really, it could not have been rendered better at a theatre. But, beneath all this praise, she could not fail to hear the whispering which went round the drawing-room : the young girl was too much compromised, a marriage had be- come inevitable. " Well ! he is hooked ! " observed Trublot as he rejoined Octave. " What a ninny ! as though he could not have pinched her whilst we were all bellowing! I thought all the while that he was taking advantage of it. You know, in drawing-rooms CONFUSION OF BEHTHE AND AUGL'STE AT THE DUVEYRIERS' RECEPTION. p. 98. PIPING HOT! 99 where they go in for singing, one pinches a lady, and if she cries out it does not matter, no one hears ! " Berthe, now very calm, was again laughing, whilst Hortense looked at Auguste with her crabbed air of a girl who had taken a diploma ; and, in their triumph, the mother's lessons re- appeared, the undisguised contempt for man. All the gentle- men had now invaded the drawing-room, mingling with the ladies, and raising their voices. Monsieur Josserand, feeling sick at heart through Berthe's adventure, had drawn near his wife. He listened uneasily as she thanked Madame Dambreville for all her kindness to their son Le"on, whom she had most decidedly changed to his advantage. But his uneasiness increased when he heard her again refer to her daughters. She pretended to converse in low tones with Madame Juzeur, though speaking all the while for Valerie and Clotilde, who were standing up close beside her. " Well, yes ! her uncle mentioned it in a letter again to-day ; Berthe will have fifty thousand francs. It is not much, no doubt, but when the money is there, and as safe as the bank too !" This lie roused his indignation. He could not help stealthily touching her shoulder. She looked at him, forcing him to lower his eyes before the resolute expression of her face. Then, as Madame Duveyrier turned round quite amiably, she asked her with great concern for news of her father. " Oh ! papa has probably gone to bed," replied the young woman, quite won over. " He works so hard ! " Monsieur Josserand said that Monsieur Vabre had indeed retired, so as to have his ideas clear on the morrow. And he mumbled a few words : a most remarkable mind, extraordinary faculties ; asking himself at the same time where he would get that dowry from, and thinking what a figure he would cut, the day the marriage contract had to be signed. A great noise of chairs being moved now filled the drawing- room. The ladies passed into the dining-room, where the tea was ready served. Madame Josserand sailed victoriously in, surrounded by her daughters and the Vabre family. Soon only the group of serious men remained amidst the vacant chairs. Campardou had button-holed the Abbe Mauduit : there was a question of some repairs to the calvary at Saint-Roch. The architect said he was quite free, for the diocese of Evreux gave him very little to do. All he had in hand there were a pulpit and a heating apparatus, and also some new ranges to be placed in the bishop's kitchen, which work his inspector was quite 100 PIPING HOT! competent to see after. Then, the priest promised to have the matter definitely settled at the next meeting of the vestry. And they both joined the group where Duveyrier was being complimented on a judgment, of which he admitted himself to be the author ; the presiding judge, who was his friend, re- served certain easy and brilliant tasks for him, so as to bring him to the fore. " Have you read this last novel 1 ?" asked Leon, looking through a number of the " Revue des Deux Moudes," lying on a table. " It is well written ; but there is another adultery, it is really becoming wearisome ! " And the conversation turned upon morality. Campardou said that there were some very virtuous women. All the others agreed with him. Moreover, according to the architect, one could- always live peacefully at home, if one only went the right way about it. Theophile Vabre observed that it depended on the woman, without explaining himself farther. They wished to have Doctor Juillerat's opinion, but he smiled and begged to be excused : he considered virtue was a question of health. During this, Duveyrier had remained wrapped in thought " Dear me ! " murmured he at length, " these authors ex- aggerate ; adultery is very rare amongst educated people. A woman who comes from a good family, has in her soul a flower" He was for grand sentiments, he uttered the word "ideal" with an emotion which brought a mist to his eyes. And he said that the Abbe Mauduit was right when the latter spoke of the necessity for the wife and mother having some religious be- lief. The conversation was thus brought back to religion and politics, at the point where these gentlemen had previously left it. The Church would never disappear, because it was the foundation of all families, the same as it was the natural support of governments. "As a sort of police, perhaps it is," murmured the doctor. Duveyrier, however, did not like politics being discussed in his house, and he contented himself with severely declaring, as he glanced into the dining-room where Berthe and Hortense were stuffing Auguste with sandwiches : "There is one fact, gentlemen, which settles everything: religion moralizes marriage." At the same moment, Trublot, seated on a sofa beside Octave, was bending towards the latter. PIPING HOT ! 101 " By the way," asked he, " would you like me to get you invited to a lady's where there is plenty of amusement 1 " And as his companion desired to know what kind of a lady, he added, indicating the counsellor by a sign : " His mistress." " Impossible ! " said Octave in amazement. Trublot slowly opened and closed his eyes. It was so. When one married a woman who was disobliging and disgusted with one's little ailments, and who strummed on her piano to the point of making all the dogs of the neighbourhood ill, one had to go elsewhere and be made a fool of ! "Let us moralize marriage, gentlemen, let us moralize marriage," repeated Duvevrier in his rigid way, with his in- flamed face, where Octave now distinguished the foul blood of secret vices. The gentlemen were being called into the dining-room. The Abbe" Mauduit, left for a moment alone in the middle of the empty drawing-room, looked from a distance at the crush of guests. His fat shrewd face bore an expression of sadness. He who heard all those ladies, both old and young, at confession, knew them all in the flesh, the same as Doctor Juillerat, and he had had to end by merely watching over appearances, like a master of the ceremonies throwing the mantle of religion over the corruption of the middle classes, trembling at the certainty of a final downfall, the day when the canker would appear in all its hideousuess. At times, in his ardent and sincere faith of a priest, his indignation would overcome him. But his smile re- turned ; he took the cup of tea which Berthe came and offered him, and conversed a minute with her so as to cover, as it were, the scandal of the window, with his sacred character ; and he again became the man of the world, resigned to merely insisting upon a decent behaviour from those sinners, who were escaping him, and who would have compromised providence. " Well, these are fine goings-on ! " murmured Octave, whose respect for the house had received another shock. And seeing Madame Hedouin move towards the ante-room, he wished to reach there before her, and followed Trublot, who was also leaving. His intention was to see her home. She re- fused ; it was scarcely midnight, and she lived so near. Then, a rose having fallen from the bouquet at her breast, he picked it up in spite and made a pretence of keeping it. The young woman s beautiful eyebrows contracted ; then, she said in her quiet way : 102 PIPING HOT ! " Tray open the door for me, Monsieur Octave. Thank you." When she had departed, the young man, who was rather con- fused, looked for Trublot. But Trublot had disappeared, the same as he had done at the Josserands'. This time also he must have slipped along the passage leading to the kitchen. Octave, greatly put out, went off to his room, his rose in his hand. Upstairs, he beheld Marie leaning over the balustrade, at the place where he had left her ; she had been listening for his footstep, and had hastened to see him come up. And when she had made him enter her room, she said: " Jules has not yet come home. Did you enjoy yourself ? "Were there any pretty dresses ? " But she did not give him time to answer. She had caught sight of the rose, and was seized with a childish delight " Is that flower for me? You have thought of me? Ah! how nice of you ! how nice of you ! " And her eyes filled with tears, she became quite confused and very red. Then Octave, suddenly moved, kissed her tenderly. Towards one o'clock, the Josserands withdrew in their turn. Adele always left a candle and some matches on a chair. When the members of the family, who had not exchanged a word coming upstairs, had entered the dining-room, from whence they had gone down in despair, they suddenly yielded to a mad delirious joy, holding each others' hands, and dancing like sa- vages round the table ; the father himself gave way to the con- tagion, the mother cut capers, and the daughters uttered little inarticulate cries; whilst the candle in the middle of them showed up their huge shadows careering along the walls. " At last, it is settled ! " said Madame Josserand, out of breath, dropping on to a chair. But she jumped up again at once, in a fit of maternal affec- tion, and ran and imprinted two big kisses on Berthe's cheeks, " I am very pleased, very pleased indeed with you, my dar- ling. You have just rewarded me for all my efforts. My poor girl, my poor girl it is true then, this time ! " Her voice was choking, her heart was in her mouth. She succumbed in her flaring dress, beneath the weight of a deep and sincere emotion, suddenly overwhelmed in the hour of her triumph by the fatigues of her terrible campaign which had lasted three winters. Berthe had to swear that she was not ill; for her mother thought she looked ill, and was full of little at- tentions, almost insisting on making her a cup of infusion. When the young girl was in bed, she went barefooted and care- PIPING HOT ! 103 fully tucked her in, like in the already distant days of her child- hood. Meanwhile, Monsieur Josserand, his head on his pillow, awaited her. She blew out the light, and stepped over him, to reach the side of the bed nearest the wall. He was wrapped in thought, his uneasiness having returned, his conscience all up- set by that promise of a dowry of fifty thousand francs. And he ventured to mention his scruples aloud. Why make a promise, when one has a doubt of being able to keep it ? It was not honest. " Not honest ! " exclaimed Madame Josserand in the dark, her voice resuming its ferocious tone. " It is no thonest to let your daughters become old maids, sir ; yes, old maids, such was perhaps your dream ! We have plenty of time to turn about, we can talk the matter over, we will end by persuading her uncle. And understand, sir, that in my family, we have always been honest ! " 104 CHAPTER VL ON the morrow, which was a Sunday, Octave with his eyes open lay thinking for an hour in the warmth of the sheets. He awoke happy, full of the lucidity of the morning laziness. What need was there to hurry ? He was very comfortable at "The Ladies' Paradise," he was there losing all his provincial ways, and he had an absolute and profound conviction of one day possessing Madame Hedouin, who would make his fortune ; but it was an affair that required prudence, a long series of gallant tactics, which his voluptuous passion for women was already enjoying by anticipation. As he was dozing off again, forming his plans, allowing himself six months to succeed in, Marie Pichon's image resulted in calming his impatience. A woman like that was a real boon ; he h