The Purse | Page 4

school, but had also the poetic sentiment which
Girodet gave to the inventions of his phantasy. The freshness of the
temples, the regular arch of the eyebrows, the purity of outline, the
virginal innocence so plainly stamped on every feature of her
countenance, made the girl a perfect creature. Her figure was slight and
graceful, and frail in form. Her dress, though simple and neat, revealed
neither wealth nor penury.
As he recovered his senses, the painter gave expression to his
admiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused thanks.
He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and above the smell
peculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong odor of ether, applied no
doubt to revive him from his fainting fit. Finally he saw an old woman,
looking like a marquise of the old school, who held the lamp and was
advising the young girl.
"Monsieur," said the younger woman in reply to one of the questions
put by the painter during the few minutes when he was still under the
influence of the vagueness that the shock had produced in his ideas,
"my mother and I heard the noise of your fall on the floor, and we
fancied we heard a groan. The silence following on the crash alarmed
us, and we hurried up. Finding the key in the latch, we happily took the
liberty of entering, and we found you lying motionless on the ground.
My mother went to fetch what was needed to bathe your head and
revive you. You have cut your forehead--there. Do you feel it?"
"Yes, I do now," he replied.
"Oh, it will be nothing," said the old mother. "Happily your head rested
against this lay-figure."
"I feel infinitely better," replied the painter. "I need nothing further but

a hackney cab to take me home. The porter's wife will go for one."
He tried to repeat his thanks to the two strangers; but at each sentence
the elder lady interrupted him, saying, "Tomorrow, monsieur, pray be
careful to put on leeches, or to be bled, and drink a few cups of
something healing. A fall may be dangerous."
The young girl stole a look at the painter and at the pictures in the
studio. Her expression and her glances revealed perfect propriety; her
curiosity seemed rather absence of mind, and her eyes seemed to speak
the interest which women feel, with the most engaging spontaneity, in
everything which causes us suffering. The two strangers seemed to
forget the painter's works in the painter's mishap. When he had
reassured them as to his condition they left, looking at him with an
anxiety that was equally free from insistence and from familiarity,
without asking any indiscreet questions, or trying to incite him to any
wish to visit them. Their proceedings all bore the hall-mark of natural
refinement and good taste. Their noble and simple manners at first
made no great impression on the painter, but subsequently, as he
recalled all the details of the incident, he was greatly struck by them.
When they reached the floor beneath that occupied by the painter's
studio, the old lady gently observed, "Adelaide, you left the door open."
"That was to come to my assistance," said the painter, with a grateful
smile.
"You came down just now, mother," replied the young girl, with a
blush.
"Would you like us to accompany you all the way downstairs?" asked
the mother. "The stairs are dark."
"No, thank you, indeed, madame; I am much better."
"Hold tightly by the rail."
The two women remained on the landing to light the young man,
listening to the sound of his steps.

In order to set forth clearly all the exciting and unexpected interest this
scene might have for the young painter, it must be told that he had only
a few days since established his studio in the attics of this house,
situated in the darkest and, therefore, the most muddy part of the Rue
de Suresnes, almost opposite the Church of the Madeleine, and quite
close to his rooms in the Rue des Champs-Elysees. The fame his talent

had won him having made him one of the artists most dear to his
country, he was beginning to feel free from want, and to use his own
expression, was enjoying his last privations. Instead of going to his
work in one of the studios near the city gates, where the moderate rents
had hitherto been in proportion to his humble earnings, he had gratified
a wish that was new every morning, by sparing himself a long walk,
and the loss of much time, now more valuable than ever.
No man in the world would have inspired feelings of greater interest
than Hippolyte Schinner if he would ever have consented to make