"You can go," said Monsieur Desmarets to the two men. "What do you want, mademoiselle?" he added, turning to the strange woman.

This "demoiselle" was the type of a woman who is never to be met with except in Paris. She is made in Paris, like the mud, like the pavement, like the water of the Seine, such as it becomes in Paris before human industry filters it ten times ere it enters the cut-gla.s.s decanters and sparkles pure and bright from the filth it has been. She is therefore a being who is truly original. Depicted scores of times by the painter's brush, the pencil of the caricaturist, the charcoal of the etcher, she still escapes a.n.a.lysis, because she cannot be caught and rendered in all her moods, like Nature, like this fantastic Paris itself. She holds to vice by one thread only, and she breaks away from it at a thousand other points of the social circ.u.mference. Besides, she lets only one trait of her character be known, and that the only one which renders her blamable; her n.o.ble virtues are hidden; she prefers to glory in her naive libertinism. Most incompletely rendered in dramas and tales where she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really true but in her garret; elsewhere she is invariably calumniated or over-praised. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. She has too many vices, and too many good qualities; she is too near to pathetic asphyxiation or to a dissolute laugh; too beautiful and too hideous. She personifies Paris, to which, in the long run, she supplies the toothless portresses, washerwomen, street-sweepers, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired actresses, applauded singers; she has even given, in the olden time, two quasi-queens to the monarchy.

Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is all woman, less than woman, more than woman. From this vast portrait the painter of manners and morals can take but a feature here and there; the _ensemble_ is infinite.

She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette in a hackney-coach,--happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a perfect _lionne_ in her way; issuing from the little apartment of which she had dreamed so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks (under gla.s.s cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt,--in short, all the domestic joys of a grisette's life; and in addition, the woman-of-all-work (a former grisette herself, now the owner of a moustache), theatre-parties, unlimited bonbons, silk dresses, bonnets to spoil,--in fact, all the felicities coveted by the grisette heart except a carriage, which only enters her imagination as a marshal's baton into the dreams of a soldier. Yes, this grisette had all these things in return for a true affection, or in spite of a true affection, as some others obtain it for an hour a day,--a sort of tax carelessly paid under the claws of an old man.

The young woman who now entered the presence of Monsieur and Madame Jules had a pair of feet so little covered by her shoes that only a slim black line was visible between the carpet and her white stockings. This peculiar foot-gear, which Parisian caricaturists have well-rendered, is a special attribute of the grisette of Paris; but she is even more distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define.

On this occasion she was trigly dressed in a green gown, with a white chemisette, which allowed the beauty of her bust to be seen; her shawl, of Ternaux cashmere, had fallen from her shoulders, and was held by its two corners, which were twisted round her wrists. She had a delicate face, rosy cheeks, a white skin, sparkling gray eyes, a round, very promising forehead, hair carefully smoothed beneath her little bonnet, and heavy curls upon her neck.

"My name is Ida," she said, "and if that's Madame Jules to whom I have the advantage of speaking, I've come to tell her all I have in my heart against her. It is very wrong, when a woman is set up and in her furniture, as you are here, to come and take from a poor girl a man with whom I'm as good as married, morally, and who did talk of making it right by marrying me before the munic.i.p.ality. There's plenty of handsome young men in the world--ain't there, monsieur?--to take your fancy, without going after a man of middle age, who makes my happiness. Yah! I haven't got a fine hotel like this, but I've got my love, I have. I hate handsome men and money; I'm all heart, and--"

Madame Jules turned to her husband.

"You will allow me, monsieur, to hear no more of all this," she said, retreating to her bedroom.

"If the lady lives with you, I've made a mess of it; but I can't help that," resumed Ida. "Why does she come after Monsieur Ferragus every day?"

"You are mistaken, mademoiselle," said Jules, stupefied; "my wife is incapable--"

"Ha! so you're married, you two," said the grisette showing some surprise. "Then it's very wrong, monsieur,--isn't it?--for a woman who has the happiness of being married in legal marriage to have relations with a man like Henri--"

"Henri! who is Henri?" said Jules, taking Ida by the arm and pulling her into an adjoining room that his wife might hear no more.

"Why, Monsieur Ferragus."

"But he is dead," said Jules.

"Nonsense; I went to Franconi's with him last night, and he brought me home--as he ought. Besides, your wife can tell you about him; didn't she go there this very afternoon at three o'clock? I know she did, for I waited in the street, and saw her,--all because that good-natured fellow, Monsieur Justin, whom you know perhaps,--a little old man with jewelry who wears corsets,--told me that Madame Jules was my rival. That name, monsieur, sounds mighty like a feigned one; but if it is yours, excuse me. But this I say, if Madame Jules was a court d.u.c.h.ess, Henri is rich enough to satisfy all her fancies, and it is my business to protect my property; I've a right to, for I love him, that I do. He is my _first_ inclination; my happiness and all my future fate depends on it. I fear nothing, monsieur; I am honest; I never lied, or stole the property of any living soul, no matter who. If an empress was my rival, I'd go straight to her, empress as she was; because all pretty women are equals, monsieur--"

"Enough! enough!" said Jules. "Where do you live?"

"Rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, number 14, monsieur,--Ida Gruget, corset-maker, at your service,--for we make lots of corsets for men."

"Where does the man whom you call Ferragus live?"

"Monsieur," she said, pursing up her lips, "in the first place, he's not a man; he is a rich monsieur, much richer, perhaps, than you are. But why do you ask me his address when your wife knows it? He told me not to give it. Am I obliged to answer you? I'm not, thank G.o.d, in a confessional or a police-court; I'm responsible only to myself."

"If I were to offer you ten thousand francs to tell me where Monsieur Ferragus lives, how then?"

"Ha! n, o, _no_, my little friend, and that ends the matter," she said, emphasizing this singular reply with a popular gesture. "There's no sum in the world could make me tell you. I have the honor to bid you good-day. How do I get out of here?"

Jules, horror-struck, allowed her to go without further notice. The whole world seemed to crumble beneath his feet, and above him the heavens were falling with a crash.

"Monsieur is served," said his valet.

The valet and the footman waited in the dining-room a quarter of an hour without seeing master or mistress.

"Madame will not dine to-day," said the waiting-maid, coming in.

"What's the matter, Josephine?" asked the valet.

"I don't know," she answered. "Madame is crying, and is going to bed.

Monsieur has no doubt got some love-affair on hand, and it has been discovered at a very bad time. I wouldn't answer for madame's life. Men are so clumsy; they'll make you scenes without any precaution."

"That's not so," said the valet, in a low voice. "On the contrary, madame is the one who--you understand? What times does monsieur have to go after pleasures, he, who hasn't slept out of madame's room for five years, who goes to his study at ten and never leaves it till breakfast, at twelve. His life is all known, it is regular; whereas madame goes out nearly every day at three o'clock, Heaven knows where."

"And monsieur too," said the maid, taking her mistress's part.

"Yes, but he goes straight to the Bourse. I told him three times that dinner was ready," continued the valet, after a pause. "You might as well talk to a post."

Monsieur Jules entered the dining-room.

"Where is madame?" he said.

"Madame is going to bed; her head aches," replied the maid, a.s.suming an air of importance.

Monsieur Jules then said to the footmen composedly: "You can take away; I shall go and sit with madame."

He went to his wife's room and found her weeping, but endeavoring to smother her sobs with her handkerchief.

"Why do you weep?" said Jules; "you need expect no violence and no reproaches from me. Why should I avenge myself? If you have not been faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it."

"Not worthy?" The words were repeated amid her sobs and the accent in which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules.

"To kill you, I must love more than perhaps I do love you," he continued. "But I should never have the courage; I would rather kill myself, leaving you to your--happiness, and with--whom!--"

He did not end his sentence.

"Kill yourself!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and clasping them.

But he, wishing to escape the embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging her in so doing toward the bed.

"Let me alone," he said.

"No, no, Jules!" she cried. "If you love me no longer I shall die. Do you wish to know all?"

"Yes."

He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her between his legs. Then, looking at that beautiful face now red as fire and furrowed with tears,--

"Speak," he said.

Her sobs began again.

"No; it is a secret of life and death. If I tell it, I--No, I cannot.

Have mercy, Jules!"

"You have betrayed me--"