He went to look for a picture-case, which he laid on the platform to represent the step. Then he arranged as accessories, on a stool by way of balustrade, his pea-jacket, a buckler, a sardine-box, a bundle of pens, and a knife; and when he had flung in front of Rosanette a dozen big sous, he made her assume the attitude he required.
“Just try to imagine that these things are riches, magnificent presents. The head a little on one side! Perfect! and don’t stir! This majestic posture exactly suits your style of beauty.”
She wore a plaid dress and carried a big muff, and only kept from laughing outright by an effort of self-control.
“As regards the headdress, we will mingle with it a circle of pearls. It always produces a striking effect with red hair.”
The Maréchale burst out into an exclamation, remarking that she had not red hair.
“Nonsense! The red of painters is not that of ordinary people.”
He began to sketch the position of the masses; and he was so much preoccupied with the great artists of the Renaissance that he kept talking about them persistently. For a whole hour he went on musing aloud on those splendid lives, full of genius, glory, and sumptuous displays, with triumphal entries into the cities, and galas by torchlight among half-naked women, beautiful as goddesses.
“You were made to live in those days. A creature of your calibre would have deserved a monseigneur.”
Rosanette thought the compliments he paid her very pretty. The day was fixed for the next sitting. Frederick took it on himself to bring the accessories.
As the heat of the stove had stupefied her a little, they went home on foot through the Rue du Bac, and reached the Pont Royal.
It was fine weather, piercingly bright and warm. Some windows of houses in the city shone in the distance, like plates of gold, whilst behind them at the right the turrets of Notre Dame showed their outlines in black against the blue sky, softly bathed at the horizon in grey vapours.
The wind began to swell; and Rosanette, having declared that she felt hungry, they entered the Patisserie Anglaise.
Young women with their children stood eating in front of the marble buffet, where plates of little cakes had glass covers pressed down on them. Rosanette swallowed two cream-tarts. The powdered sugar formed moustaches at the sides of her mouth. From time to time, in order to wipe it, she drew out her handkerchief from her muff, and her face, under her green silk hood, resembled a full-blown rose in the midst of its leaves.
They resumed their walk. In the Rue de la Paix she stood before a goldsmith’s shop to look at a bracelet. Frederick wished to make her a present of it.
“No!” said she; “keep your money!”
He was hurt by these words.
“What’s the matter now with the ducky? We are melancholy?”
And, the conversation having been renewed, he began making the same protestations of love to her as usual.
“You know well ’tis impossible!”
“Why?”
“Ah! because—”
They went on side by side, she leaning on his arm, and the flounces of her gown kept flapping against his legs. Then, he recalled to mind one winter twilight when on the same footpath Madame Arnoux walked thus by his side, and he became so much absorbed in this recollection that he no longer saw Rosanette, and did not bestow a thought upon her.
She kept looking straight before her in a careless fashion, lagging a little, like a lazy child. It was the hour when people had just come back from their promenade, and equipages were making their way at a quick trot over the hard pavement.
Pellerin’s flatteries having probably recurred to her mind, she heaved a sigh.
“Ah! there are some lucky women in the world. Decidedly, I was made for a rich man!”
He replied, with a certain brutality in his tone:
“You have one, in the meantime!” for M. Oudry was looked upon as a man that could count a million three times over.
She asked for nothing better than to get free from him.
“What prevents you from doing so?” And he gave utterance to bitter jests about this old bewigged citizen, pointing out to her that such an intrigue was unworthy of her, and that she ought to break it off.
“Yes,” replied the Maréchale, as if talking to herself. “ ’Tis what I shall end by doing, no doubt!”
Frederick was charmed by this disinterestedness. She slackened her pace, and he fancied that she was fatigued. She obstinately refused to let him take a cab, and she parted with him at her door, sending him a kiss with her fingertips.
“Ah! what a pity! and to think that imbeciles take me for a man of wealth!”
He reached home in a gloomy frame of mind.
Hussonnet and Deslauriers were awaiting him. The Bohemian, seated before the table, made sketches of Turks’ heads; and the advocate, in dirty boots, lay asleep on the sofa.
“Ha! at last,” he exclaimed. “But how sullen you look! Will you listen to me?”
His vogue as a tutor had fallen off, for he crammed his pupils with theories unfavourable for their examinations. He had appeared in two or three cases in which he had been unsuccessful, and each new disappointment flung him back with greater force on the dream of his earlier days—a journal in which he could show himself off, avenge himself, and spit forth his bile and his opinions. Fortune and reputation, moreover, would follow as a necessary consequence. It was in this hope that he had got round the Bohemian, Hussonnet happening to be the possessor of a press.
At present, he printed it on pink paper. He invented hoaxes, composed rebuses, tried to engage in polemics, and even intended, in spite of
