are stealing from me ‘She who loves me.’”
I crossed the road and took the other path.
Three boys advanced towards us, holding one another by the arm and singing at the pitch of their voices. I recognised the schoolboys. The unfortunate little fellows no longer needed to feign intoxication. They stopped, bursting with laughter, then followed me for a few paces, each of them shouting after me in an unsteady voice:
“Hi! sir, the lady is deceiving you; the lady is ‘She who loves me!’”
I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hurried along, being anxious to fly, thinking no more of this woman whom I was bearing away in my arms. At the end of the avenue, just as I was stepping from the pavement, at last about to quit this inauspicious neighbourhood, I stumbled over a man lying comfortably in the gutter. With his head resting on the curbstone and his face turned towards heaven, he was engaged in a very complicated calculation on his fingers.
He moved his eyes, and, without quitting his pillow, spluttered out:
“Ah! It is you, sir. You ought to help me count the stars. I have already found several millions, but I’m afraid of forgetting one of them. The happiness of humanity, sir, depends solely on statistics.”
He was interrupted by a hiccup. Tearfully he continued:
“Do you know what a star costs? Providence must assuredly have made a great outlay up there, and the people are in want of bread, sir! What is the use of those lights? Are they eatable? To what practical purpose are they adaptable, if you please? What need had we of this eternal festival? Ah! Providence never had the least shadow of an idea of social economy.”
He had succeeded in sitting up; and cast a troubled glance around him, shaking his head indignantly. He then caught sight of my companion. He started, and with his countenance all purple, eagerly stretched out his arms towards her.
“Eh! Eh!” he continued, “it’s ‘She who loves me!’”
X
“This is how it is,” she said to me. “I am poor, I do what I can for a living. Last winter, I passed fifteen hours a day bent over an embroidery frame, and I hadn’t always bread. In the spring I threw my needle out of the window. I had found employment which caused me less fatigue and was more lucrative.
“I dress myself up every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of shed, leaning against the back of an armchair, all the work I have to do consists in smiling from six o’clock till midnight. From time to time I make a bow, I kiss my hand into space. For that I am paid three francs a sitting.
“Opposite me, behind a small glazed aperture in the partition, I see an eye staring at me ceaselessly. It’s sometimes black, sometimes blue. Without that eye I should be perfectly happy; but that spoils the whole thing. At times, seeing it always there, alone and fixed, I am seized with such frightful terror that I am tempted to scream and fly.
“But one must work to live. I smile, bow, kiss my hand. At midnight I wipe off my paint, and put on my calico gown again. Bah! how many women do the amiable before a wall without being compelled to!”
THE LOVE-FAIRY
Do you hear the December rain beating against our windows, Ninon? The wind moans in the long corridor. It is a nasty evening, one of those on which the poor shiver at the doors of the rich, whom the ball bears away in its dances beneath the gilded chandeliers. Leave your satin shoes where they are, and come and sit on my knee, beside the warm grate. Leave your costly jewels alone; I want to tell you a tale tonight, a beautiful fairy tale.
You must know, Ninon, that once upon a time there was a dark and dismal castle on the summit of a mountain. It was naught but towers, ramparts, and drawbridges loaded with chains. Men encased in steel mounted guard night and day on the battlements, and soldiers alone met with courteous welcome from Count Enguerrand, the lord of the manor.
If you had seen the old warrior walking down the long galleries, if you had heard his brief and threatening explosions of voice, you would have trembled with fright, just as his niece Odette, the pious and handsome young lady, trembled. Have you never, of a morning, noticed a daisy opening at the first kisses of the sun among the stinging-nettles and brambles? In a like manner this young girl was blooming among bluff knights. She was a child when, in the midst of play, she perceived her uncle; she stopped, and her eyes filled with tears. Now, she was grown up and handsome; her bosom was always heaving with gentle sighs; and each time Lord Enguerrand appeared her fright became more acute.
She resided in a distant turret, passing her time in embroidering beautiful banners, and resting from her work by praying to the Almighty, whilst contemplating the emerald green country and azure blue sky from her window. How often of a night, rising from her couch, had she gone to gaze at the stars, and, when there, how often had her heart of sixteen summers bounded towards celestial space, inquiring of those radiant sisters what it was that affected it so. After these sleepless nights, after these transports of love, she felt inclined to hang round the old knight’s neck; but a harsh word, a cold look stopped her, and she tremblingly resumed her needlework. You pity the poor girl, Ninon; she was like the fresh, balmy flower, whose brilliancy and perfume are disdained.
One day Odette, the disconsolate, was dreamily following with her eye the flight of two doves, when she heard a tender voice at the foot of the castle. She leant out of the window, and saw a handsome youth, who, with a song on his lips, was asking for hospitality. She listened, and could not understand the words; but the tender voice weighed upon her heart, and tears coursed down her cheeks, wetting a sprig of sweet majoram that she held in her hand.
The castle gate remained closed, and a warrior, armed cap-à-pie, shouted from the walls:
“Withdraw: there are none but warriors within.”
Odette continued looking. She let the sprig of sweet majoram, wet with tears, which she held in her hand, fall at the singer’s feet. The latter raising his eyes, and seeing that lovely fair head, kissed the sprig and departed, turning round at each step.
When he had disappeared, Odette went to her prayer-desk and said a long prayer. She thanked Heaven without knowing why; she felt happy, without understanding the cause of her joy.
That night she had a beautiful dream. She fancied she saw the sprig of sweet majoram that she had thrown down. Slowly, from amidst the rustling leaves, rose a fairy, but such a charming fairy, with shining wings, a wreath of myosotis and a long green gown, the colour of hope.
“Odette,” she said melodiously, “I am the Love-Fairy. It was I who sent you Lois this morning, the young man with the tender voice; it was I who, seeing your tears, wished to dry them. I wander about the world gleaning hearts and bringing those who sigh together. I visit both the cottage and the manor-house, I have often found pleasure in uniting the shepherd’s crook to the king’s sceptre.
I scatter flowers beneath the footsteps of my favourites, I enchain them with such brilliant and precious thread that their hearts leap with joy. I live among the plants in the lanes, among the bright embers on the hearths in winter, amidst the drapery of the nuptial bed; and wherever my foot alights, come kisses and tender words. Weep no more, Odette: I am the Loving-One, the good fairy, and I have come to dry your tears.”
And she returned into her
