Fromont and Risler -- Volume 4

clerk did that new employe of th

ed for him under the eaves, exactly like the one he had formerly occupied with Frantz, a veritable Trappist's cell, furnished with an ir

ngs of whom he could think without a feeling of sadness. Madame "Chorche" was always at hand, always trying to minister to his comfort, to console him; and Frantz wrote to him often, without mentioning Sidonie, by the way. Risler supposed that some o

shed the orderly conditions that had been temporarily disturbed. In the beginning there had been much gossip, and various explanations of Sidonie's departure had been made. Some said that she had eloped with a lover, others that Risler had turned her out. The one fact that upset a

mind. They could barely detect a severity, an inflexibility in his conduct, which were not habitual with him. Risler awed the workmen now; and those of them upon whom his white hair, blanched in one night, his drawn, prematurely old features did not impose respect, quailed before his strange glance-a glance from eyes of a bluish-

us employe, was this new

om

e left three-fourths of his salary with Planus for the Chebes' allowance, but he never asked any questions about them. Punctually on the last day of the month the little man appeared to collect his little income, stiff and formal in his dea

er? What was she doing? He was almost angry with Planus for never mentioning her. That letter, above all things, that letter which he had

d the drawer, moved the papers, and searched for his letter. It was not there. Sigismond must have put it away even more carefully, perhaps with a foreboding of what actually happened. In his heart Ris

f, but he missed the encouragement of the others' work. He alone was busy in that great, empty factory whose very breath was arrested. The locked doors, the closed blinds, the hoarse voice of Pere Achille playing with his dog in the deserted courtyard, all spoke of solitude. And the whole neighborhood also produced the same effect. In

nt food there, would escape him, would fly back to his past happiness, to his hopeless misfortunes, would suffer martyrdom, and then, o

strength and courage. If he had gone out, the sight of a workingman with his wife and child would have made him weep, but his monastic seclusion gave him other forms of suffering, the despair of recluses, their terrible outbreaks

by experience how contagious is the sweet joyousness of children. The little one, who could now walk alone, would slip from her mother's arms to run to her friend. Risler would hear the little, hurrying steps. He would feel the light breath behind him, and instantly he would be conscio

u must come down into the garden a whil

rary, work is what saves me.

ong pause, she

Risler, you mus

uld shake

le? There are some thin

give, but he

mpressed the little girl. Then she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely between the hedges of box, with her hand in her friend's. After a moment Ris

give, but he

the courtyard, all those dumb witnesses of her husband's sin, assumed on certain days an implacable expression. Even the careful precaution her husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in which he called attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the evening, and took pains to tell her where he had been during the day, served on

of his heart. After parting from her with a tender farewell, he found her indifferent and forgetful the next day, and that continual need of wooing her back to him took the place of genuine passion. Serenity in love bored him as a voyage without storms wearies a sailor. On this occasion he had been very near shipwreck with his wife, and the danger had not passed even yet. He knew that Claire was alienated from him and devoted ent

intrigues between a cocotte and a coxcomb, compounded of vanity and of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor constancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely fatal, and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, had he seen her again, he might have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight had carried Sidonie away so swiftly a

wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and the ominous visi

e wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous "rotary and dodec

?" Fromont Jeune

ged his shoulder

It doesn't concern me.

Fromont's bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity o

Madame "Chorche," Risler advised her

hurry. Later you will

own share was so glorious. She felt that he was

ossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont. The factory had resumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum. Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen wh

the ceaseless roar of his machines. He was no less gloomy, no less silent. One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Ma

ide in his renown, above all, the idea of repairing thus magnificently the wrong done to the family by h

happy! I am

hout enthusiasm, hopelessly, with the satisfa

urn, and Risler went calmly upstairs

him more than he cared to show. He wandered about the garden, prowled a

d cashier wondered. "Wh

time to close the office, Risler sum

ld friend, I

tated a

the-letter, you know, the li

ocence, he had imagined that Risler never though

-you

n think of myself a little now.

ith a bottle of wine; something choice! Then we'll go to the house together. You can get your trinkets, and if it's too late for you to go home, Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, shall make up a bed for you, and you shall pass the night with us. We a

of his medal, but he desired to gain a few hours before openi

ved in a workman's jacket during the past six months. And wha

! Monsieur Risl

owed by sorrow, leaning on Sigismond's arm, aroused in her

n their greetings warmed his heart. He was so much in need of

pinning," he

e, old fellow-d

iend with the artless, unconventional pride of a pe

arrived at th

one of the large salons on the first floor, whence they could see the green trees, the promenaders, and the water spurting from the fountain between the two melancholy flower- gardens. To Sigismond it was the ideal of luxury, that restaurant,

of that banquet at two francs fifty, and

at-it's

re to do honor to the fete, seemed

Sigismond?" he s

mories of long ago, of Risler's firs

ned together at the Palais-Royal was in February, 'forty-s

shook h

was in that room just opposite that

of Cafe Vefour, gleaming in the rays of the set

What an unlucky idea of his to bring his frien

a gloom upon their banquet

your health, m

himself led the conversation back to it again, and a

you se

ife? No

't writte

ever

at has she been doing these six mon

N

turne

he should have the right to speak of her; and in one of those far- off visions of the future, which have the vagueness of a dream, he sometimes fancied himself living in exile with the Chebes in an unknown land, where noth

e asked, after a few

e months ago. No one kn

cuit of the provincial cities together, that her mother was in despair, never saw her, and heard of her only thro

art, dared ask no

ntain. The blaring brass brings out in bold relief the mild warmth of the closing hours of those summer days, so long and enervating in Paris; it seems as if one could hear nothing else. The distant rumbling of wheels, the cries of children playing, the footsteps of the promenaders are wafted away in those resonant, gushing, refreshing waves of melody, as useful to the people of Paris

the tension upon all

glistening eyes. "My heart is heavy, old fel

elbows resting on the window-si

ard to the roofs, cast its last rays upon the highest windowpanes, followed by the birds, the swallows,

o?" said Planus, as th

ver yo

Rue Montpensier, close at hand, was a

ous of banishing his friend's melancho

uggestion; he had not ta

, separated by gilded pillars, the partitions having been removed; the decoration was in

, simply from seeing the crowds of people sitting around the tables, and at the farther end, half-hidden b

d a pillar whence they could see only half of the platform, then occupied by a superb person i

lions aux

s troupeau

-Je fais

ions with g

or the blood

k!-I am o

flocks in full evening dress. And so, despite their bourgeois bearing, their modest costumes and their expressionless shop-girl smiles, all those women, made up their little mouths to be caught by the hook of sentiment, and cast languishing glances upon the singer. It was truly comical to see that g

and's eye se

e's quite a dashing

their beer without paying much attention to the music, when, at the end of the song, am

say-but no, I'm not mistake

grand make-up as leading man: dazzlingly white linen, hair curled with the tongs, black coat with a camellia in the buttonhole, like the ribbon of an order. He glanced at the crowd from time to time with a pat

ally when he discovered in the same row a blue cape and a pair of steely eyes. It was Madame Dobson, the sentimental singing-teacher. The conjunction of those two faces amid the pipe-smoke and the con

The heat here is e

ra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a peculiar refrain. There wa

their seats. Risler, too, wa

e said to himself. "W

an exclamation from Plan

," said the cashier, t

was t

rd to the front of the stage and curtsey to

of the ball; but her whole costume was

ght: the Bohemian life was better suited to her. Her beauty had gained an indefinably reckless expression, which was its most characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who has escaped from all restra

he desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in the hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost that equivocal placidity, h

it Mamz'e

ou, l'amou

ete

Sit down! sit down!" the people shouted. The wret

ou, l'amou

ete

epeated a

eap on the platform and kill her. Red flames sho

ed from the hall, overturning chairs and tables, pursued by t