"Ah, pardon, monsieur! it is not of my fault; orders you see must be obeyed, and the landlord ..."
Then he told me the story. It seemed that a month or two before he had been a witness to the turning out from a miserable hole of a poor family; the father called himself an artist, poor devil! his wife had a baby in her arms, and there was a little girl. Seeing their utter distress, and remembering a couple of miserable rooms dignified by the name of "Appartements de garçon," but which did not let easily as they were dark and uncomfortable, he had asked the landlord to allow them to occupy them temporarily. Shortly afterward the poor wife, a delicate, consumptive creature, died; the baby did not survive her many hours, and the two were buried at the expense of the parish, "But now it is impossible that they stay longer, the rooms are let, and they must leave. What will you? monsieur perceives that it is not of my fault." Monsieur feels a pang cut to his very heart. In that same house, where such a short time since he was feasting and laughing, a weary heart, perhaps, was breaking, and a young child struggling with sorrow that made it old.
I asked the man if I might be allowed to see this unfortunate artist, and I saw the child's face brighten as she slipped from his side to mine. I took her hand and we went up, not the broad, handsome staircase which led to my friends' apartments, but a dingy flight of stairs at the back of the court. I was quite out of breath when we at last reached the door of this "appartement de garçon." The child ran in, crying out: "Papa, papa I voici an monsieur qui vient te voir."
A man dressed in miserable, ragged clothes, with a pitiful remnant of gentility about him, was sitting at a rickety white wood table, his face buried in his poor, thin hands, which I noticed were white and finely shaped. At the sound of his child's voice be hastily got up, and seeing me, bowed and offered me the only chair in the room, with a grace worthy of a drawing room. I felt the tears well up to my eyes as I looked at this poor wreck, and thought to myself how many dead hopes and dead aspirations lay buried on that heart. I did not accept the chair, but held out my hand. Something in the simple action, or in my face, perhaps, expressed the sympathy I felt; it was too much for the poor man; be threw himself on the bed sobbing convulsively; you see he was weakened by hunger and cold and sickness. I put some money in the concierge's hand, and he left us, bowing respectfully.
When I turned I saw that the child had thrown herself by the side of her father; he was moaning, but the sobs had already ceased. I felt his forehead and hands, and found that he was in a raging fever. I looked around, the place was miserable enough, and utterly unfit to be a sick room. The concierge shall be gratified, thought I, they shall leave to-night; and sending the little girl out for a carriage, I was left alone with my patient.
His face was much flushed, his eyes wild, and all my efforts to keep him quiet were vain; I was obliged to let him talk. I soon gathered his whole history from his incoherent words. There was nothing very new in it, it was the old story of a respectable father, with a prejudice against the fine arts; of a weary struggle first for fame, and then, forsooth, for bread; of a foolish marriage with a girl as poor as himself, of children born to want and misery, of unappreciated talent, etc. There was an unfinished picture on the easel, and several others about the room; the poor man's eager eye followed my movement as I looked at them, and he sank back comforted as I praised his works. Heaven forgive, the charitable falsehoods! for that glance sufficed to show me that I was comforting one of those wretched beings who had just talent enough to conceive great things, without the power of executing them, which is about the saddest of sad states.
The child soon returned, and I caused my poor invalid to be transported to the Hotel Dieu, until I could make some other arrangement for him; his little girl I put under the care of an honest woman who lived hard by, where she slept; the days she spent by her poor father's bed. That bed he never left, the hard struggle had been too much for him; the death of his wife and child had been too severe a blow to the weak, loving, unfortunate man. Brain fever soon declared itself and one dark, sad December day, his little daughter and I followed his poor coffin to the nearest cemetery. The child was very quiet, but her tearless eyes were unutterably sad.
I interested my friends in the sad story, and no happy mother, as she drew her own dear ones to her heart, refused to help this bereaved one. So, we made up a purse for her, and the other day I took her to a good school where she is to remain until she is old enough to support herself, poor little orphan! As I was about to leave her, she turned and said in her quiet, undemonstrative way, a few words which I shall not put down here, but which caused me to turn toward the door rather quickly, and to pretend that I had a bad cold in my head.
This is no mere fancy sketch; I only wish it were a solitary instance. Alas! for the poor in this great, rich, bustling, worldly city! But we must bid adieu to it, with its delights, its wonderful sights, its wild merriment, and its dumb misery. Adieu to it, and to you, my readers, a happy, happy New-Year!