"It's the same with me," said André. "Grandmamma knows all my secrets; but we have not dared say anything to her father yet. My position is too uncertain. Ah! when Révolte has been brought out!"
Thereupon they talked about Révolte! the famous drama on which he had been at work day and night for six months, which had kept him warm all through the winter, a very hard winter, whose rigor was tempered, however, by the magic power of composition in the little garret, which it completely transformed. There, in that confined space, all the heroes of his play had appeared to the poet, like familiar sprites falling through the roof or riding on the moonbeams, and with them the high-warp tapestries, the gleaming chandeliers, the vast parks with gateways flooded with light, all the usual magnificence of stage-setting, as well as the glorious uproar of the first performance, the applause being represented by the rain beating on the windows and the signs flapping against the door, while the wind, whistling through the melancholy lumber-yard below with a vague murmur of voices brought from afar and carried far, resembled the murmur from the boxes opening into the lobby, allowing his triumph to circulate amid the chattering and confusion of the audience. It was not simply the renown and the money that that blessed play were to bring to him, but something far more precious. How carefully, therefore, did he turn the pages of the manuscript contained in five great books in blue covers, such books as the Levantine spread out upon the divan on which she took her siestas, and marked with her managerial pencil.
Paul having drawn near the table in his turn, in order to examine the masterpiece, his eyes were attracted by a portrait of a woman in a handsome frame, which seemed, being so near the artist's work, to have been stationed there to stand guard over it. Élise, of course? Oh! no, André had no right as yet to take his young friend's photograph away from its protecting environment. It was a woman of about forty, fair, with a sweet expression, and dressed in the height of fashion. When he saw the face, de Géry could not restrain an exclamation.
"Do you know her?" said André Maranne.
"Why, yes—Madame Jenkins, the Irish doctor's wife. I took supper with them last winter."
"She is my mother." And the young man added in a lower tone:
"Madame Maranne married Dr. Jenkins for her second husband. You are surprised, are you not, to find me in such destitution when my parents are living in luxury? But, as you know, chance sometimes brings very antipathetic natures together in the same family. My father-in-law and I could not agree. He wanted to make a doctor of me, whereas I had no taste for anything but writing. At last, in order to avoid the constant disputes, which were a source of pain to my mother, I preferred to leave the house and dig my furrow all alone, without assistance from any one. It was a hard task! money was lacking. All the property is in the hands of that—of M. Jenkins. It was a question of earning my living, and you know what a difficult matter that is for persons like ourselves, well brought up as it is termed. To think that, with all the knowledge included in what it is fashionable to call a thorough education, I could find nothing but this child's play which gave me any hope of being able to earn my bread! Some little savings from my allowance as a young man sufficed to buy my first outfit, and I opened a studio far away, at the very end of Paris, in order not to annoy my parents. Between ourselves, I fancy that I shall never make my fortune in photography. The first weeks especially were very hard. No one came, or if by any chance some poor devil did toil up the stairs, I missed him, I spread him out on my plate in a faint, blurred mixture like a ghost. One day, very early in my experience, there came a wedding party, the bride all in white, the husband with a waistcoat—oh! such a waistcoat! And all the guests in white gloves which they insisted upon having included in the photograph, because of the rarity of the sensation. Really, I thought I should go mad. Those black faces, the great white daubs for the dress, the gloves and the orange flowers, the unfortunate bride in the guise of a Zulu queen, under her wreath which melted into her hair! And all so overflowing with good-nature, with encouragement for the artist. I tried them at least twenty times, kept them until five o'clock at night. They left me only when it was dark, to go and dine! Fancy that wedding-day passed in a photograph gallery!"
While André thus jocosely narrated the melancholy incidents of his life, Paul recalled Felicia's outburst on the subject of Bohemians, and all that she said to Jenkins concerning their exalted courage, their thirst for privations and trials. He thought also of Aline's passionate fondness for her dear Paris, of which he knew nothing but the unhealthy eccentricities, whereas the great city concealed so much unknown heroism, so many noble illusions in its folds. The sensation he had previously felt in the circle of the Joyeuses' great lamp, he was even more keenly conscious of in that less warm, less peaceful spot, whither art brought its desperate or glorious uncertainty; and it was with a melting heart that he listened while André Maranne talked to him of Élise, of the examination she was so long in passing, of the difficult trade of photography, of all the unforeseen hardships of his life, which would surely come to an end "when Révolte should have been brought out," a fascinating smile playing about the poet's lips as they gave utterance to that hope, so often expressed, which he made haste to ridicule himself, as if to deprive others of the right to ridicule it.