The Purse | Page 6

tenants,

as you are, monsieur; and economical! they live on nothing, and as
soon as a letter is brought they pay for it. It is a queer thing, monsieur,
the mother's name is not the same as the daughter's. Ah, but when they
go for a walk in the Tuileries, mademoiselle is very smart, and she
never goes out but she is followed by a lot of young men; but she shuts
the door in their face, and she is quite right. The proprietor would never
allow----"
The coach having come, Hippolyte heard no more, and went home. His
mother, to whom he related his adventure, dressed his wound afresh,
and would not allow him to go to the studio next day. After taking
advice, various treatments were prescribed, and Hippolyte remained at
home three days. During this retirement his idle fancy recalled vividly,
bit by bit, the details of the scene that had ensued on his fainting fit.
The young girl's profile was clearly projected against the darkness of
his inward vision; he saw once more the mother's faded features, or he
felt the touch of Adelaide's hands. He remembered some gesture which
at first had not greatly struck him, but whose exquisite grace was
thrown into relief by memory; then an attitude, or the tones of a
melodious voice, enhanced by the distance of remembrance, suddenly
rose before him, as objects plunging to the bottom of deep waters come
back to the surface.
So, on the day when he could resume work, he went early to his studio;
but the visit he undoubtedly had a right to pay to his neighbors was the
true cause of his haste; he had already forgotten the pictures he had
begun. At the moment when a passion throws off its swaddling clothes,
inexplicable pleasures are felt, known to those who have loved. So
some readers will understand why the painter mounted the stairs to the
fourth floor but slowly, and will be in the secret of the throbs that
followed each other so rapidly in his heart at the moment when he saw
the humble brown door of the rooms inhabited by Mademoiselle
Leseigneur. This girl, whose name was not the same as her mother's,
had aroused the young painter's deepest sympathies; he chose to fancy
some similarity between himself and her as to their position, and
attributed to her misfortunes of birth akin to his own. All the time he
worked Hippolyte gave himself very willingly to thoughts of love, and
made a great deal of noise to compel the two ladies to think of him, as
he was thinking of them. He stayed late at the studio and dined there;

then, at about seven o'clock, he went down to call on his neighbors.
No painter of manners has ventured to initiate us--perhaps out of
modesty--into the really curious privacy of certain Parisian existences,
into the secret of the dwellings whence emerge such fresh and elegant
toilets, such brilliant women, who rich on the surface, allow the signs
of very doubtful comfort to peep out in every part of their home. If,
here, the picture is too boldly drawn, if you find it tedious in places, do
not blame the description, which is, indeed, part and parcel of my story;
for the appearance of the rooms inhabited by his two neighbors had a
great influence on the feelings and hopes of Hippolyte Schinner.
The house belonged to one of those proprietors in whom there is a
foregone and profound horror of repairs and decoration, one of the men
who regard their position as Paris house-owners as a business. In the
vast chain of moral species, these people hold a middle place between
the miser and the usurer. Optimists in their own interests, they are all
faithful to the Austrian status quo. If you speak of moving a cupboard
or a door, of opening the most indispensable air-hole, their eyes flash,
their bile rises, they rear like a frightened horse. When the wind blows
down a few chimney-pots they are quite ill, and deprive themselves of
an evening at the Gymnase or the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, "on
account of repairs." Hippolyte, who had seen the performance gratis of
a comical scene with Monsieur Molineux as concerning certain
decorative repairs in his studio, was not surprised to see the dark greasy
paint, the oily stains, spots, and other disagreeable accessories that
varied the woodwork. And these stigmata of poverty are not altogether
devoid of poetry in an artist's eyes.
Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. On recognizing the
young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian adroitness,
and with the presence of mind that pride can lend, she turned round to
shut the door in a glass partition through which Hippolyte might have