These little industries, perching in out-of-the-way corners, and seeming to have no communication with the outer world, are one of the surprises of Paris. We wonder how people live who take to them for a living. What scrupulous providence, for instance, could send customers to a photographer on a fifth floor among waste lands, at the far end of Rue Ferdinand, or documents for examination to the expert on the floor below. Jenkins, as he made that reflection, smiled a pitying smile, then entered without ceremony as he was invited to do by this inscription: "Walk in without knocking." Alas! the permission was not abused.—A tall youth in spectacles, who was writing at a small table, his legs wrapped in a traveling shawl, rose hurriedly to greet the visitor, whom his short-sightedness prevented him from recognizing.
"Good-morning, André," said the doctor, extending his hand cordially.
"Monsieur Jenkins!"
"I am a good fellow as always, you see. Your conduct to us, your persistence in living apart from your relatives, commended to my dignity the utmost reserve in dealing with you; but your mother wept. And here I am."
As he was speaking, he glanced about the poor little studio, where the bare walls, the scanty furniture the brand-new photographic apparatus, the little fireplace à la prussienne, also new, which had never seen a fire, were disastrously apparent in the bright light that fell from the glass roof. The drawn features and straggling beard of the young man, whose very light eyes, high, narrow forehead, and long fair hair thrown back in disorder gave him the appearance of a visionary, all were accentuated in the uncompromising light; and so was the dogged will expressed in that limpid glance which met Jenkins' eye coldly, and offered in anticipation an unconquerable opposition to all his arguments, all his protestations.
But the excellent Jenkins pretended not to notice it.
"You know how it is, my dear André. From the day that I married your mother, I have looked upon you as my son. I expected to leave you my office, my practice, to place your foot in a golden stirrup, and I was overjoyed to see you follow a career devoted to the welfare of mankind. Suddenly, without a word of explanation, without a thought for the effect such a rupture might produce in the eyes of the world, you cut loose from us, you dropped your studies and renounced your future prospects, to embark in some degrading mode of life, to adopt an absurd trade, the refuge and the pretext of all those who are shut out from the society to which they belong."
"I am working at this trade for a living. It's a means of earning my bread while I wait."
"Wait for what?—literary renown?"
He glanced contemptuously at the papers scattered over the table.