In 1833 Mademoiselle Fischer, who sometimes into the night when was good, at about one o'clock one a of gas, and the of a man. The and the came from a over the two rooms her dwelling, and she that a man who had but come to in this attic—which had been for three years—was suicide. She ran upstairs, in the door by a push with her strength, and the on a camp-bed in the of death. She the brazier; the door was open, the air in, and the was saved. Then, when Lisbeth had put him to like a patient, and he was asleep, she the of his suicide in the of the rooms, where there was nothing but a table, the camp-bed, and two chairs.
On the table a document, which she read:
"I am Count Wenceslas Steinbock, at Prelia, in Livonia.
"No one is to be of my death; my for killing
myself are, in the of Kosciusko, Finis Polonioe!
"The grand-nephew of a General under Charles XII. could
not beg. My my taking military
service, and I yesterday saw the last of the hundred which
I had with me from Dresden to Paris. I have left
twenty-five in the of this table to pay the rent I owe
to the landlord.
"My being dead, my death will affect nobody. I that
my will not the French Government. I have never
registered myself as a refugee, and I have asked for nothing; I
have met none of my fellow-exiles; no one in Paris of my
existence.
"I am in Christian beliefs. May God the last of the
Steinbocks!
"WENCESLAS."
Mademoiselle Fischer, touched by the man's honesty, opened the and the five five-franc pieces to pay his rent.
"Poor man!" she. "And with no one in the world to about him!"
She to her work, and sat in the garret, over the Livonian gentleman.
When he his may be on a woman by his bed; it was like the of a dream. As she sat there, with gold thread, the old had to take of the she as he sleeping.
As soon as the Count was awake, Lisbeth talked to give him courage, and questioned him to out how he might make a living. Wenceslas, after telling his story, added that he his position to his for the arts. He had always had a for sculpture; the necessary time for study had, however, to him too long for a man without money; and at this moment he was too weak to do any hard manual labor or an work in sculpture. All this was Greek to Lisbeth Fischer. She to the man that Paris offered so many openings that any man with will and might a there. A man of need if he had a stock of endurance.
"I am but a girl myself, a peasant, and I have managed to make myself independent," said she in conclusion. "If you will work in earnest, I have saved a little money, and I will you, month by month, to live upon; but to live frugally, and not to play and with or in the streets. You can in Paris for twenty-five a day, and I will you your with mine every day. I will your rooms and pay for such teaching as you may think necessary. You shall give me for the money I may out for you, and when you are rich you shall me all. But if you do not work, I shall not myself as in any way to you, and I shall you to your fate."
"Ah!" the fellow, still from the of his with death, "exiles from every land may well out their hands to France, as the in Purgatory do to Paradise. In what other country is such help to be found, and in such a as this? You will be to me, my benefactress; I am your slave! Be my sweetheart," he added, with one of the familiar to the Poles, for which they are of servility.
"Oh, no; I am too jealous, I should make you unhappy; but I will be a of comrade," Lisbeth.
"Ah, if only you how I for some fellow-creature, a tyrant, who would have something to say to me when I was in the of Paris!" Wenceslas. "I Siberia, I should be sent by the Emperor if I home. Be my Providence! I will work; I will be a man than I am, though I am not such a fellow!"
"Will you do I you?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Well, then, I will you as my child," said she lightly. "Here I am with a son from the grave. Come! we will at once. I will go out and what I want; you can dress, and come to with me when I on the with the broomstick."
That day, Mademoiselle Fischer some inquiries, at the houses to which she her work home, as to the of a sculptor. By of many questions she ended by of the studio by Florent and Chanor, a house that a special of and and plate. Thither she with Steinbock, him as an in sculpture, an idea that was as too eccentric. Their was to copy the of the artists, but they did not teach the craft. The old maid's so succeeded that Steinbock was taken on to design ornament. He very soon learned to model ornament, and novelties; he had a gift for it.
Five months after he was out of his as a finisher, he with Stidmann, the famous of Florent's studios. Within twenty months Wenceslas was ahead of his master; but in thirty months the old maid's savings of sixteen years had melted entirely. Two thousand five hundred in gold! a with which she had to purchase an annuity; and what was there to for it? A Pole's receipt! And at this moment Lisbeth was as hard as in her days to supply the needs of her Livonian.
When she herself the of a piece of paper of her gold louis, she her head, and to Monsieur Rivet, who for fifteen years had been his head-worker's friend and counselor. On her story, Monsieur and Madame Rivet Lisbeth, told her she was crazy, all plots for their nation the of the country and the of peace; and they Lisbeth to what in is called security.
"The only you have over this is on his liberty," Monsieur Rivet.
Monsieur Achille Rivet was at the Tribunal of Commerce.
"Imprisonment is no joke for a foreigner," said he. "A Frenchman five years in prison and comes out, free of his to be sure, for he is only by his conscience, and that him; but a comes out. Give me your note; my will take it up; he will it protested; you will be and be to in of payment; then, when is in form, you must a declaration. By doing this your will be accumulating, and you will have a pistol always to fire at your Pole!"
The old allowed these legal steps to be taken, telling her not to be uneasy, as the were to a to a money-lender who to them sums. This was to the of Monsieur Rivet. The artist, to his benefactress, his pipe with the paper, for he as all men do who have or that need soothing.
One day Monsieur Rivet Mademoiselle Fischer a schedule, and said to her:
"Here you have Wenceslas Steinbock hand and foot, and so effectually, that twenty-four hours you can have him in Clichy for the of his days."
This and judge at the Chamber of Commerce that day the that must come of having done a good action. Beneficence has so many in Paris that this one of them. The Livonian being in the of procedure, the point was to obtain payment; for the looked on Wenceslas as a swindler. Feeling, sincerity, poetry, were in his in matters.
So Rivet off to see, in of that Mademoiselle Fischer, who, as he said, had been "done" by the Pole, the rich for Steinbock had worked. It that Stidmann—who, with the help of these masters of the goldsmiths' art, was French work to the perfection it has now reached, it to its own against Florence and the Renaissance—Stidmann was in Chanor's private room when the army called to make as to "One Steinbock, a Polish refugee."
"Whom do you call ‘One Steinbock'? Do you a Livonian who was a of mine?" Stidmann ironically. "I may tell you, monsieur, that he is a very great artist. It is said of me that I myself to be the Devil. Well, that not know that he is of a god."
"Indeed," said Rivet, well pleased. And then he added, "Though you take a with a man who has the to be an Assessor on the Tribunal of Commerce of the Department of the Seine."
"Your pardon, Consul!" said Stidmann, with a salute.
"I am delighted," the Assessor on, "to what you say. The man may make money then?"
"Certainly," said Chanor; "but he must work. He would have a tidy by now if he had with us. What is to be done? Artists have a of not being free."
"They have a proper of their value and dignity," Stidmann. "I do not Wenceslas for walking alone, trying to make a name, and to a great man; he had a right to do so! But he was a great to me when he left."
"That, you see," Rivet, "is what all students at as soon as they are out of the school-egg. Begin by saving money, I say, and afterwards."
"It your touch to be up coin," said Stidmann. "It is Glory's to us wealth."
"And, after all," said Chanor to Rivet, "you cannot them."
"They would eat the halter," Stidmann.
"All these have as much as talent," said Chanor, looking at Stidmann. "They no end of money; they keep their girls, they coin out of window, and then they have no time to work. They neglect their orders; we have to who are very inferior, but who rich; and then they complain of the hard times, while, if they were but steady, they might have of gold."
"You old Lumignon," said Stidmann, "you me of the publisher the Revolution who said—‘If only I keep Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau very in my backshed, and lock up their in a cupboard, what a of little books they would to make my fortune.'—If of art be out like nails, would make them. Give me a thousand francs, and don't talk nonsense."
Worthy Monsieur Rivet home, for Mademoiselle Fischer, who with him every Monday, and he waiting for him.
"If you can only make him work," said he, "you will have more luck than wisdom; you will be repaid, interest, capital, and costs. This Pole has talent, he can make a living; but lock up his and his shoes, do not let him go to the Chaumiere or the of Notre-Dame de Lorette, keep him in leading-strings. If you do not take such precautions, your artist will take to loafing, and if you only what these by loafing! Shocking! Why, I have just that they will a thousand-franc note in a day!"
This had a on the home-life of Wenceslas and Lisbeth. The the exile's with the of reproof, now that she saw her money in danger, and often it to be lost. From a mother she a stepmother; she took the boy to task, she him, him for too slowly, and him for having so difficult a profession. She not that those models in red wax—little and sketches for work—could be of any value. Before long, with herself for her severity, she would try to the by her and attention.
Then the man, after to think that he was on this and under the thumb of a of the Vosges, was by her and by a that itself to the physical and material of life. He was like a woman who a week of ill-usage for the of a and a reconciliation.
Thus Mademoiselle Fischer complete power over his mind. The love of that as a in the old maid's rapidly. She now satisfy her and her for action; had she not a to her, to be schooled, scolded, flattered, and happy, without any of a rival? Thus the good and of her nature play. If she sometimes the artist, she had, on the other hand, like the of wild flowers; it was a to her to provide for all his wants; she would have her life for him, and Wenceslas it. Like every soul, the the points, the of the woman who had told him the of her life as an for her ways, and he only the she had done him.
One day, with Wenceslas for having gone out walking of at work, she a great scene.
"You to me," said she. "If you were an man, you would try to me the money you as soon as possible."
The gentleman, in the blood of the Steinbocks was fired, pale.
"Bless me," she on, "we soon shall have nothing to live on but the thirty I earn—a work-woman!"
The two creatures, up by their own of words, vehement; and for the time the artist his for having him from death only to make him lead the life of a slave, than the void, where at least, said he, he would have rest. And he talked of flight.
"Flight!" Lisbeth. "Ah, Monsieur Rivet was right."
And she to the Pole that twenty-four hours he might be into prison for the of his days. It was a blow. Steinbock into and total silence.
In the of the night, Lisbeth overhead some for suicide, up to her pensioner's room, and gave him the and a release.
"Here, dear child, me," she said with in her eyes. "Be happy; me! I am too to you; only tell me that you will sometimes the girl who has you to make a living. What can I say? You are the of my ill-humor. I might die; where would you be without me? That is the of my being to see you do some work. I do not want my money for myself, I you! I am only at your idleness, which you call meditation; at your ideas, which take up so many hours when you at the sky; I want you to into of industry."
All this was said with an emphasis, a look, and that moved the high-minded artist; he his to his and her forehead.
"Keep these pieces," said he with a of cheerfulness. "Why should you send me to Clichy? Am I not a here out of gratitude?"
This of their life had six months previously, and had to Steinbock's producing three works: the seal in Hortense's possession, the group he had with the dealer, and a clock to which he was the last touches, in the last rivets.
This clock the twelve Hours, by twelve female in so and a that three little Loves on a of fruit and flowers not stop one of them; only the skirts of Midnight in the hand of the most cherub. The group on an base, with beasts. The hours were told by a mouth that opened to yawn, and each Hour some symbol of the of the day.
It is now easy to the of Mademoiselle Fischer for her Livonian; she wanted him to be happy, and she saw him pining, away in his attic. The of this of may be easily imagined. The woman this son of the North with the of a mother, with the of a wife, and the of a dragon; hence she managed to put every of or out of his power by him of money. She to keep her and for herself alone, well perforce, and she had no of the of this wish, since she, for her own part, was to every privation. She loved Steinbock well not to him, and too much to give him up to any other woman; she not herself to be no more than a mother to him, though she saw that she was to think of playing the other part.
These contradictions, this jealousy, and the of having a man to herself, all her old maid's measure. Really in love as she had been for four years, she the of this and way of life in which her would only be the of the man she of as her child. This her and her her and tyrannical. She on the man her for her own in being neither young, rich, handsome; then, after each fit of rage, herself wrong, she to unlimited humility, tenderness. She to her till she had her power by of the axe. In fact, it was the of Shakespeare's Tempest—Caliban Ariel and Prospero.
As to the himself, high-minded, meditative, and to be lazy, the that his in his might be in his eyes, as in those of a lion. The penal on him by Lisbeth did not the of his heart. His a physical malady, and he was without to ask, or where to procure, the price of some little necessary dissipation. On some days of special energy, when a of ill-luck added to his exasperation, he would look at Lisbeth as a thirsty traveler on a must look at the sea-water.
These fruits of indigence, and this in the of Paris, Lisbeth with delight. And besides, she that the would her of her slave. Sometimes she herself her own and had the to so great an artist of work, and she had thus him the means of her off.
On the day after, these three lives, so but so wretched—that of a mother in despair, that of the Marneffe household, and that of the exile—were all to be by Hortense's passion, and by the outcome of the Baron's for Josepha.
