Shod in boots, over stockings, in a of silk, her in under a very black bonnet, with yellow satin, Lisbeth her way to the Rue Saint-Dominique by the Boulevard Invalides, would at last Hortense's spirit, and Sarmatian instability, taken at a moment when, with such a character, is possible, would be too much for Steinbock's constancy.
Hortense and Wenceslas had the ground of a house at the of the Rue Saint-Dominique and the Esplanade Invalides. These rooms, once in with the honeymoon, now had that half-new, half-faded look that may be called the of furniture. Newly married are as and wasteful, without it or it, of about them as they are of their affection. Thinking only of themselves, they little of the future, which, at a later time, on the mother of a family.
Lisbeth Hortense just as she had a Wenceslas, who had been into the garden.
"Good-morning, Betty," said Hortense, opening the door herself to her cousin. The cook was gone out, and the house-servant, who was also the nurse, was doing some washing.
"Good-morning, dear child," Lisbeth, her. "Is Wenceslas in the studio?" she added in a whisper.
"No; he is in the drawing-room talking to Stidmann and Chanor."
"Can we be alone?" asked Lisbeth.
"Come into my room."
In this room, the of pink-flowered with green on a white ground, to the sun, were much faded, as was the carpet. The had not been for many a day. The of tobacco about the room; for Wenceslas, now an artist of repute, and a gentleman, left his cigar-ash on the arms of the chairs and the pieces of furniture, as a man to love everything—a man rich to carefulness.
"Now, then, let us talk over your affairs," said Lisbeth, her in the into which she had dropped. "But what you? You look pale, my dear."
"Two articles have just come out in which my Wenceslas is to pieces; I have read them, but I have them from him, for they would him. The marble of Marshal Montcornet is bad. The bas-reliefs are allowed to pass muster, to allow of the most of his as a artist, and to give the to the that art is out of his reach! Stidmann, I to tell me the truth, my by that his own opinion with that of every other artist, of the critics, and the public. He said to me in the garden breakfast, ‘If Wenceslas cannot a next season, he must give up and be to subjects, small figures, pieces of jewelry, and high-class goldsmiths' work!' This is to me, for Wenceslas, I know, will accept it; he he has so many ideas."
"Ideas will not pay the tradesman's bills," Lisbeth. "I was always telling him so—nothing but money. Money is only to be had for work done—things that ordinary like well to them. When an artist has to live and keep a family, he had have a design for a on his counter, or for a or a table, than for groups or statues. Everybody must have such things, while he may wait months for the of the group—and for his money—-"
"You are right, my good Lisbeth. Tell him all that; I have not the courage. Besides, as he was saying to Stidmann, if he goes to work and small sculpture, he must give up all of the Institute and of art, and we should not the three hundred thousand francs' of work promised at Versailles and by the City of Paris and the Ministers. That is what we are of by those articles, by who want to step into our shoes."
"And that is not what you of, little puss!" said Lisbeth, Hortense on the brow. "You to a gentleman, a leader of Art, the of all sculptors. But that is poetry, you see, a fifty thousand a year, and you have only two thousand four hundred—so long as I live. After my death three thousand."
A rose to Hortense's eyes, and Lisbeth them with her as a cat milk.
This is the of their honeymoon—the will not be on some artists.
Intellectual work, labor in the upper regions of effort, is one of the of man. That which in Art—for by Art we must every of the mind—is above all things—a of of which the have no conception, and which has been till now.
Driven by the of poverty, by Lisbeth, and by her in blinders, as a is, to it from to the right and left of its road, on by that hard woman, the of Necessity, a of Fate, Wenceslas, a and dreamer, had gone on from to execution, and overleaped, without it, the that these two of Art. To muse, to dream, to of works, is a occupation. It is like a magic cigar or leading the life of a who her own fancy. The work then in all the of infancy, in the of conception, with the of a flower, and the of a fruit in anticipation.
The man who can sketch his purpose in is as a wonder, and every artist and that faculty. But gestation, fruition, the of the offspring, it to every night full with milk, it every with the of a mother's heart, it clean, it a hundred times in the only to be destroyed; then to be at the of this life till the is perfected which in speaks to every eye, in to every intellect, in painting to every memory, in music to every heart! This is the of execution. The hand must be at every to come and the brain. But the brain has no more a power at than love has a spring.
The of creativeness, the love of which makes a mother—that of nature which Raphael so perfectly understood—the of the brain, in short, which is so difficult to develop, is with ease. Inspiration is the opportunity of genius. She not on the razor's edge, she is in the air and away with the of a crow; she no by which the can her; her is a flame; she like the rose and white flamingo, the sportsman's despair. And work, again, is a struggle, and in by these and powerful natures who are often by it. A great of our day has said in speaking of this labor, "I to it in despair, but I it with regret." Be it to all who are ignorant! If the artist not himself into his work as Curtius into the gulf, as a soldier leads a without a moment's thought, and if when he is in the he not on as a when the earth has in on him; if he the him of them one by one, like the lovers in tales, who to win their overcome new enchantments, the work incomplete; it in the studio where impossible, and the artist looks on at the suicide of his own talent.
Rossini, a to Raphael, is a in his poverty-stricken youth, with his years of opulence. This is the why the same prize, the same triumph, the same are to great and to great generals.
Wenceslas, by nature a dreamer, had so much energy in production, in study, and in work under Lisbeth's rule, that love and resulted in reaction. His reappeared, the weakness, recklessness, and of the Sarmatian returned to in the of his soul, the schoolmaster's had them.
For the months the artist his wife. Hortense and Wenceslas themselves to the happy of a and passion. Hortense was the to her husband from his labors, proud to over her rival, his Art. And, indeed, a woman's away the Muse, and the sturdy, of the worker.
Six or seven months by, and the artist's had the use of the modeling tool. When the need for work to be felt, when the Prince de Wissembourg, president of the of subscribers, asked to see the statue, Wenceslas spoke the of the idler, "I am just going to work on it," and he his dear Hortense with promises and the of the artist as he smokes. Hortense loved her more than ever; she of a of Marshal Montcornet. Montcornet would be the of bravery, the type of the officer, of a la Murat. Yes, yes; at the of that all the Emperor's victories were to a conclusion. And then such workmanship! The pencil was and answered to the word.
By way of a the result was a little Wenceslas.
When the progress of that he should go to the studio at le Gros-Caillou to the and set up the life-size model, Steinbock one day that the Prince's clock his presence in the of Florent and Chanor, where the were being finished; or, again, the light was and dull; to-day he had to do, tomorrow they had a family dinner, to say nothing of of mind and body, and the days when he at home to toy with his wife.
Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg was to be angry to the model finished; he that he must put the work into other hands. It was only by of and much language that the of succeeded in the plaster-cast. Day after day Steinbock came home, tired, of this "hodman's work" and his own physical weakness. During that year the no pinch; the Countess Steinbock, in love with her husband the War Minister. She to see him; she told him that great of art were not to be like cannon; and that the State—like Louis XIV., Francis I., and Leo X. ought to be at the and call of genius. Poor Hortense, she a Phidias in her embrace, had the of for her Wenceslas that is in every wife who her love to the of idolatry.
"Do not be hurried," said she to her husband, "our whole life is up with that statue. Take your time and produce a masterpiece."
She would go to the studio, and then the Steinbock five hours out of seven in the of at it. He thus eighteen months in the design, which to him was all-important.
When the plaster was and the model complete, Hortense, who had looked on at her husband's toil, his health from the which a sculptor's and arms and hands—Hortense the result admirable. Her father, who nothing of sculpture, and her mother, no less ignorant, it as a triumph; the War Minister came with them to see it, and, by them, of the figure, as it did alone, in a light, up against a green background.
Alas! at the of 1841, the of the public soon took the of and in the mouths of those who were with the too set up for worship. Stidmann to his friend, but was of jealousy. Every article in a newspaper was to Hortense an of envy. Stidmann, the best of good fellows, got articles written, in which was contravened, and it was pointed out that their in the plaster into marble, and that the marble would be the test.
"In the plaster sketch in marble," Claude Vignon, "a may be ruined, or a design beautiful. The plaster is the manuscript, the marble is the book."
So in two years and a Wenceslas had produced a and a son. The child was a picture of beauty; the was execrable.
The clock for the Prince and the price of the paid off the couple's debts. Steinbock had habits; he to the play, to the opera; he talked about art; and in the of the world he his as a great artist by his powers of and criticism. There are many men in Paris who their in talking themselves out, and are with a of drawing-room celebrity. Steinbock, these but men, every day more to hard work. As soon as he a thing, he was of all its difficulties, and the that came over him his will. Inspiration, the of procreation, away at the of this lover.
Sculpture—like art—is at once the most difficult and the of all arts. You have but to copy a model, and the is done; but to give it a soul, to make it by a man or a woman—this is the of Prometheus. Such in the of may be counted, as we may count the among men. Michael Angelo, Michel Columb, Jean Goujon, Phidias, Praxiteles, Polycletes, Puget, Canova, Albert Durer, are the of Milton, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Tasso, Homer, and Moliere. And such an is so that a single is to make a man immortal, as Figaro, Lovelace, and Manon Lescaut have Beaumarchais, Richardson, and the Abbe Prevost.
Superficial thinkers—and there are many in the artist world—have that only by the nude, that it died with the Greeks, and that modern makes it impossible. But, in the place, the Ancients have left clothed—the Polyhymnia, the Julia, and others, and we have not one-tenth of all their works; and then, let any lover of art go to Florence and see Michael Angelo's Penseroso, or to the Cathedral of Mainz, and the Virgin by Albert Durer, who has a woman out of ebony, under her threefold drapery, with the most flowing, the that a waiting-maid through; let all the thither, and they will that can give mind to drapery, to armor, to a robe, and it with a body, just as a man the of his and of life on the he wears.
Sculpture is the of the which once, and again, was, in painting called Raphael!
The of this hard problem is to be only in toil; for, to overcome the material to such an extent, the hand must be so practised, so and obedient, that the may be free to to with the that he has to as he it. If Paganini, who his through the of his violin, three days without practising, he what he called the stops of his instrument, meaning the the frame, the strings, the bow, and himself; if he had this alliance, he would have been no more than an ordinary player.
Perpetual work is the law of art, as it is the law of life, for art is creation. Hence great and perfect wait neither for for purchasers. They are creating—to-day, tomorrow, always. The result is the of work, the of the which keep them in close with the Muse and her forces. Canova in his studio, as Voltaire in his study; and so must Homer and Phidias have lived.
While Lisbeth Wenceslas Steinbock in in his garret, he was on the road by all these great men, which leads to the Alpine of glory. Then happiness, in the person of Hortense, had the to idleness—the normal condition of all artists, since to them is occupied. Their is such as that of the of a seraglio; they with ideas, they at the of intellect. Great artists, such as Steinbock, in reverie, are spoken of as dreamers. They, like opium-eaters, all into poverty, if they had been up to the mark by the of life, they might have been great men.
At the same time, these half-artists are delightful; men like them and them with praise; they to the true artists, who are taxed with conceit, unsociableness, of the laws of society. This is why: Great men are the of their work. Their to things, their to their work, make them as egotists, and they are to wear the same as the who the called social duties. These men want the lions of the Atlas to be and like a lady's poodle.
These artists, who are too matched to meet their fellows, into of exclusiveness; they are to the majority, which, as we know, mostly of fools—of the envious, the ignorant, and the superficial.
Now you may what part a wife should play in the life of these and beings. She ought to be what, for five years, Lisbeth had been, but with the added of love, and patient love, always and always smiling.
Hortense, by her as a mother, and by necessity, had too late the mistakes she had been into by her love. Still, the of her mother, her at the of Wenceslas; she loved her dear too much to his torturer; and she the hour when her, her child, and her husband.
"Come, come, my child," said Lisbeth, the in her cousin's eyes, "you must not despair. A of will not a plate of soup. How much do you want?"
"Well, five or six thousand francs."
"I have but three thousand at the most," said Lisbeth. "And what is Wenceslas doing now?"
"He has had an offer to work in partnership with Stidmann at a table service for the Duc d'Herouville for six thousand francs. Then Monsieur Chanor will four thousand to Monsieur de Lora and Bridau—a of honor."
"What, you have had the money for the and the bas-reliefs for Marshal Montcornet's monument, and you have not paid them yet?"
"For the last three years," said Hortense, "we have twelve thousand a year, and I have but a hundred a year of my own. The Marshal's monument, when all the were paid, us no more than sixteen thousand francs. Really and truly, if Wenceslas no work, I do not know what is to of us. Oh, if only I learn to make statues, I would the clay!" she cried, up her arms.
The woman, it was plain, the promise of the girl; there was a in her eye; blood, with iron, in her veins; she that she was her energy in her infant.
"Ah, my little thing! a girl should not an artist till his is made—not while it is still to make."
At this moment they voices; Stidmann and Wenceslas were Chanor to the door; then Wenceslas and Stidmann came in again.
Stidmann, an artist in in the world of journalists, famous actresses, and of the class, was a man of fashion Valerie much to see in her rooms; indeed, he had already been to her by Claude Vignon. Stidmann had off an with Madame Schontz, who had married some months since and gone to live in the country. Valerie and Lisbeth, of this from Claude Vignon, it well to Steinbock's friend to visit in the Rue Vanneau.
Stidmann, out of good feeling, to the Steinbocks'; and as it that Lisbeth was not present when he was by Claude Vignon, she now saw him for the time. As she this noted artist, she from his at Hortense, which to her the possibility of him to the Countess Steinbock as a if Wenceslas should be false to her. In point of fact, Stidmann was that if Steinbock were not his friend, Hortense, the and countess, would be an mistress; it was this very notion, by honor, that him away from the house. Lisbeth was quick to mark the that a man in the presence of a woman with he will not allow himself to flirt.
"Very good-looking—that man," said she in a to Hortense.
"Oh, do you think so?" she replied. "I noticed him."
"Stidmann, my good fellow," said Wenceslas, in an to his friend, "we are on no ceremony, you and I—we have some to settle with this old girl."
Stidmann to the ladies and away.
"It is settled," said Wenceslas, when he came in from taking of Stidmann. "But there are six months' work to be done, and we must live meanwhile."
"There are my diamonds," the Countess, with the of a woman.
A tear rose in Wenceslas' eye.
"Oh, I am going to work," said he, by his wife and her on to his knee. "I will do odd jobs—a wedding chest, groups "
"But, my children," said Lisbeth; "for, as you know, you will be my heirs, and I shall you a very sum, me, if you help me to the Marshal; nay, if we succeed in that quickly, I will take you all to with me—you and Adeline. We should live very together. But for the moment, to the voice of my long experience. Do not to the Mont-de-Piete; it is the of the borrower. I have always that when the was due, those who had their had nothing to pay up, and then all is lost. I can you a at five on your note of hand."
"Oh, we are saved!" said Hortense.
"Well, then, child, Wenceslas had come with me to see the lender, who will him at my request. It is Madame Marneffe. If you her a little—for she is as as a parvenue—she will you out of the in the most way. Come and see her, my dear Hortense."
Hortense looked at her husband with the a man to death must wear on his way to the scaffold.
"Claude Vignon took Stidmann there," said Wenceslas. "He says it is a very house."
Hortense's fell. What she can only be in one word; it was not pain; it was illness.
"But, my dear Hortense, you must learn something of life!" Lisbeth, the of her cousin's looks. "Otherwise, like your mother, you will in a room, where you will like Calypso on the of Ulysses, and at an age when there is no of Telemachus " she added, a of Madame Marneffe's. "We have to the people in the world as which we can make use of or let alone, according as they can our turn. Make use of Madame Marneffe now, my dears, and let her alone by and by. Are you Wenceslas, who you, should in love with a woman four or five years older than himself, as yellow as a of peas, and ?"
"I would my diamonds," said Hortense. "Oh, go there, Wenceslas! It is hell!"
"Hortense is right," said Steinbock, his wife.
"Thank you, my dearest," said Hortense, delighted. "My husband is an angel, you see, Lisbeth. He not gamble, he goes without me; if he only to work—oh, I should be too happy. Why take us on to my father's mistress, a woman who is him and is the of that are killing my mother?"
"My child, that is not where the of your father's lies. It was his singer who him, and then your marriage!" her cousin. "Bless me! why, Madame Marneffe is of the use to him. However, I must tell no tales."
"You have a good word for everybody, dear Betty "
Hortense was called into the garden by the child cry; Lisbeth was left alone with Wenceslas.
"You have an for your wife, Wenceslas!" said she. "Love her as you ought; give her for grief."
"Yes, indeed, I love her so well that I do not tell her all," Wenceslas; "but to you, Lisbeth, I may the truth. If I took my wife's diamonds to the Monte-de-Piete, we should be no forward."
"Then borrow of Madame Marneffe," said Lisbeth. "Persuade Hortense, Wenceslas, to let you go there, or else, me! go there without telling her."
"That is what I was of," Wenceslas, "when I for of Hortense."
"Listen to me; I too much for you not to you of your danger. If you go there, your tight in hands, for the woman is a witch. All who see her her; she is so wicked, so inviting! She men like a masterpiece. Borrow her money, but do not your in pledge. I should be happy again if you were false to Hortense—here she is! not another word! I will settle the matter."
"Kiss Lisbeth, my darling," said Wenceslas to his wife. "She will help us out of our by us her savings."
And he gave Lisbeth a look which she understood.
"Then, I you to work, my dear treasure," said Hortense.
"Yes, indeed," said the artist. "I will tomorrow."
"tomorrow is our ruin!" said his wife, with a smile.
"Now, my dear child! say some has not come in the way every day; some or business?"
"Yes, very true, my love."
"Here!" Steinbock, his brow, "here I have of ideas! I to all my enemies. I am going to design a service in the German of the sixteenth century; the style: with insects, sleeping children, newly monsters, chimeras—real chimeras, such as we of! I see it all! It will be undercut, light, and yet crowded. Chanor was amazed. And I wanted some encouragement, for the last article on Montcornet's had been crushing."
At a moment in the of the day when Lisbeth and Wenceslas were left together, the artist to go on the to see Madame Marneffe—he either would win his wife's consent, or he would go without telling her.
