The Europeans | Page 5

his sister. "That is quite as vulgar
as to boast about it."
"My poverty! I have just finished a drawing that will bring me fifty
francs!"
"Voyons," said the lady, putting out her hand.
He added a touch or two, and then gave her his sketch. She looked at it,
but she went on with her idea of a moment before. "If a woman were to
ask you to marry her you would say, 'Certainly, my dear, with
pleasure!' And you would marry her and be ridiculously happy. Then at
the end of three months you would say to her, 'You know that blissful
day when I begged you to be mine!' "
The young man had risen from the table, stretching his arms a little; he

walked to the window. "That is a description of a charming nature," he
said.
"Oh, yes, you have a charming nature; I regard that as our capital. If I
had not been convinced of that I should never have taken the risk of
bringing you to this dreadful country."
"This comical country, this delightful country!" exclaimed the young
man, and he broke into the most animated laughter.
"Is it those women scrambling into the omnibus?" asked his companion.
"What do you suppose is the attraction?"
"I suppose there is a very good-looking man inside," said the young
man.
"In each of them? They come along in hundreds, and the men in this
country don't seem at all handsome. As for the women-- I have never
seen so many at once since I left the convent."
"The women are very pretty," her brother declared, "and the whole
affair is very amusing. I must make a sketch of it." And he came back
to the table quickly, and picked up his utensils-- a small
sketching-board, a sheet of paper, and three or four crayons. He took
his place at the window with these things, and stood there glancing out,
plying his pencil with an air of easy skill. While he worked he wore a
brilliant smile. Brilliant is indeed the word at this moment for his
strongly-lighted face. He was eight and twenty years old; he had a short,
slight, well-made figure. Though he bore a noticeable resemblance to
his sister, he was a better favored person: fair-haired, clear-faced,
witty-looking, with a delicate finish of feature and an expression at
once urbane and not at all serious, a warm blue eye, an eyebrow finely
drawn and excessively arched--an eyebrow which, if ladies wrote
sonnets to those of their lovers, might have been made the subject of
such a piece of verse--and a light moustache that flourished upwards as
if blown that way by the breath of a constant smile. There was
something in his physiognomy at once benevolent and picturesque. But,
as I have hinted, it was not at all serious. The young man's face was, in

this respect, singular; it was not at all serious, and yet it inspired the
liveliest confidence.
"Be sure you put in plenty of snow," said his sister. "Bonte divine, what
a climate!"
"I shall leave the sketch all white, and I shall put in the little figures in
black," the young man answered, laughing. "And I shall call it-- what is
that line in Keats?--Mid-May's Eldest Child!"
"I don't remember," said the lady, "that mamma ever told me it was like
this."
"Mamma never told you anything disagreeable. And it 's not like this--
every day. You will see that to-morrow we shall have a splendid day."
"Qu'en savez-vous? To-morrow I shall go away."
"Where shall you go?"
"Anywhere away from here. Back to Silberstadt. I shall write to the
Reigning Prince."
The young man turned a little and looked at her, with his crayon poised.
"My dear Eugenia," he murmured, "were you so happy at sea?"
Eugenia got up; she still held in her hand the drawing her brother had
given her. It was a bold, expressive sketch of a group of miserable
people on the deck of a steamer, clinging together and clutching at each
other, while the vessel lurched downward, at a terrific angle, into the
hollow of a wave. It was extremely clever, and full of a sort of
tragi-comical power. Eugenia dropped her eyes upon it and made a sad
grimace. "How can you draw such odious scenes?" she asked. "I should
like to throw it into the fire!" And she tossed the paper away. Her
brother watched, quietly, to see where it went. It fluttered down to the
floor, where he let it lie. She came toward the window, pinching in her
waist. "Why don't you reproach me--abuse me?" she asked. "I think I
should feel better then. Why don't you tell me that you hate me for

bringing you here?"
"Because you would not