Agathe and Joseph arrived at the coach-office of the Messageries–Royales in the place Misere at three o’clock. Though tired with the journey, Madame Bridau felt her youth revive at sight of her native land, where at every step she came upon memories and impressions of her girlish days. In the then condition of public opinion in Issoudun, the arrival of the Parisians was known all over the town in ten minutes. Madame Hochon came out upon her doorstep to welcome her godchild, and kissed her as though she were really a daughter. After seventy-two years of a barren and monotonous existence, exhibiting in their retrospect the graves of her three children, all unhappy in their lives, and all dead, she had come to feel a sort of fictitious motherhood for the young girl whom she had, as she expressed it, carried in her pouch for sixteen years. Through the gloom of provincial life the old woman had cherished this early friendship, this girlish memory, as closely as if Agathe had remained near her, and she had also taken the deepest interest in Bridau. Agathe was led in triumph to the salon where Monsieur Hochon was stationed, chilling as a tepid oven.

“Here is Monsieur Hochon; how does he seem to you?” asked his wife.

“Precisely the same as when I last saw him,” said the Parisian woman.

“Ah! it is easy to see you come from Paris; you are so complimentary,” remarked the old man.

The presentations took place: first, young Baruch Borniche, a tall youth of twenty-two; then Francois Hochon, twenty-four; and lastly little Adolphine, who blushed and did not know what to do with her arms; she was anxious not to seem to be looking at Joseph Bridau, who in his turn was narrowly observed, though from different points of view, by the two young men and by old Hochon. The miser was saying to himself, “He is just out of the hospital; he will be as hungry as a convalescent.” The young men were saying, “What a head! what a brigand! we shall have our hands full!”

“This is my son, the painter; my good Joseph,” said Agathe at last, presenting the artist.

There was an effort in the accent that she put upon the word “good,” which revealed the mother’s heart, whose thoughts were really in the prison of the Luxembourg.

“He looks ill,” said Madame Hochon; “he is not at all like you.”

“No, madame,” said Joseph, with the brusque candor of an artist; “I am like my father, and very ugly at that.”

Madame Hochon pressed Agathe’s hand which she was holding, and glanced at her as much as to say, “Ah! my child; I understand now why you prefer your good-for-nothing Philippe.”

“I never saw your father, my dear boy,” she said aloud; “it is enough to make me love you that you are your mother’s son. Besides, you have talent, so the late Madame Descoings used to write to me; she was the only one of late years who told me much about you.”

“Talent!” exclaimed the artist, “not as yet; but with time and patience I may win fame and fortune.”

“By painting?” said Monsieur Hochon ironically.

“Come, Adolphine,” said Madame Hochon, “go and see about dinner.”

“Mother,” said Joseph, “I will attend to the trunks which they are bringing in.”

“Hochon,” said the grandmother to Francois, “show the rooms to Monsieur Bridau.”

As the dinner was to be served at four o’clock and it was now only half past three, Baruch rushed into the town to tell the news of the Bridau arrival, describe Agathe’s dress, and more particularly to picture Joseph, whose haggard, unhealthy, and determined face was not unlike the ideal of a brigand. That evening Joseph was the topic of conversation in all the households of Issoudun.

“That sister of Rouget must have seen a monkey before her son was born,” said one; “he is the image of a baboon.”

“He has the face of a brigand and the eyes of a basilisk.”

“All artists are like that.”

“They are as wicked as the red ass, and as spiteful as monkeys.”

“It is part of their business.”

“I have just seen Monsieur Beaussier, and he says he would not like to meet him in a dark wood; he saw him in the diligence.”

“He has got hollows over the eyes like a horse, and he laughs like a maniac.”

“The fellow looks as though he were capable of anything; perhaps it’s his fault that his brother, a fine handsome man they tell me, has gone to the bad. Poor Madame Bridau doesn’t seem as if she were very happy with him.”

“Suppose we take advantage of his being here, and have our portraits painted?”

The result of all these observations, scattered through the town was, naturally, to excite curiosity. All those who had the right to visit the Hochons resolved to call that very night and examine the Parisians. The arrival of these two persons in the stagnant town was like the falling of a beam into a community of frogs.

After stowing his mother’s things and his own into the two attic chambers, which he examined as he did so, Joseph took note of the silent house, where the walls, the stair-case, the wood-work, were devoid of decoration and humid with frost, and where there was literally nothing beyond the merest necessaries. He felt the brusque transition from his poetic Paris to the dumb and arid province; and when, coming downstairs, he chanced to see Monsieur Hochon cutting slices of bread for each person, he understood, for the first time in his life, Moliere’s Harpagon.

“We should have done better to go to an inn,” he said to himself.

The aspect of the dinner confirmed his apprehensions. After a soup whose watery clearness showed that quantity was more considered than quality, the bouilli was served, ceremoniously garnished with parsley; the vegetables, in a dish by themselves, being counted into the items of the repast. The bouilli held the place of honor in the middle of the table, accompanied with three other dishes: hard-boiled eggs on sorrel opposite to the vegetables; then a salad dressed with nut-oil to face little cups of custard, whose flavoring of burnt oats did service as vanilla, which it resembles much as coffee made of chiccory resembles mocha. Butter and radishes, in two plates, were at each end of the table; pickled gherkins and horse-radish completed the spread, which won Madam Hochon’s approbation. The good old woman gave a contented little nod when she saw that her husband had done things properly, for the first day at least. The old man answered with a glance and a shrug of his shoulders, which it was easy to translate into —

“See the extravagances you force me to commit!”

As soon as Monsieur Hochon had, as it were, slivered the bouilli into slices, about as thick as the sole of a dancing-shoe, that dish was replaced by another, containing three pigeons. The wine was of the country, vintage 1811. On a hint from her grandmother, Adolphine had decorated each end of the table with a bunch of flowers.

“At Rome as the Romans do,” thought the artist, looking at the table, and beginning to eat — like a man who had breakfasted at Vierzon, at six o’clock in the morning, on an execrable cup of coffee. When Joseph had eaten up all his bread and asked for more, Monsieur Hochon rose, slowly searched in the pocket of his surtout for a key, unlocked a cupboard behind him, broke off a section of a twelve-pound loaf, carefully cut a round of it, then divided the round in two, laid the pieces on a plate, and passed the plate across the table to the young painter, with the silence and coolness of an old soldier who says to himself on the eve of battle, “Well, I can meet death.” Joseph took the half-slice, and fully understood that he was not to ask for any more. No member of the family was the least surprised at this extraordinary performance. The conversation went on. Agathe learned that the house in which she was born, her father’s house before he inherited that of the old Descoings, had been bought by the Borniches; she expressed a wish to see it once more.

“No doubt,” said her godmother, “the Borniches will be here this evening; we shall have half the town — who want to examine you,” she added, turning to Joseph, “and they will all invite you to their houses.”

Gritte, who in spite of her sixty years, was the only servant of the house, brought in for dessert the famous ripe cheese of Touraine and Berry, made of goat’s milk, whose mouldy discolorations so distinctly reproduce the pattern of the vine-leaves on which it is served, that Touraine ought to have invented the art of engraving. On either side of these little cheeses Gritte, with a company air, placed nuts and some time-honored biscuits.

“Well, Gritte, the fruit?” said Madame Hochon.

“But, madame, there is none rotten,” answered Gritte.

Joseph went off into roars of laughter, as though he were among his comrades in the atelier; for he suddenly perceived that the parsimony of eating only the fruits which were beginning to rot had degenerated into a settled habit.

“Bah! we can eat them all the same,” he exclaimed, with the heedless gayety of a man who will have his say.

“Monsieur Hochon, pray get some,” said the old lady.

Monsieur Hochon, much incensed at the artist’s speech, fetched some peaches, pears, and Saint Catherine plums.

“Adolphine, go and gather some grapes,” said Madame Hochon to her granddaughter.

Joseph looked at the two young men as much as to say: “Is it to such high living as this that you owe your healthy faces?”

Baruch understood the keen glance and smiled; for he and his cousin Hochon were behaving with much discretion. The home-life was of less importance to youths who supped three times the week at Mere Cognette’s. Moreover, just before dinner, Baruch had received notice that the grand master convoked the whole Order at midnight for a magnificent supper, in the course of which a great enterprise would be arranged. The feast of welcome given by old Hochon to his guests explains how necessary were the nocturnal repasts at the Cognette’s to two young fellows blessed with good appetites, who, we may add, never missed any of them.

“We will take the liqueur in the salon,” said Madame Hochon, rising and motioning to Joseph to give her his arm. As they went out before the others, she whispered to the painter:—

“Eh! my poor boy; this dinner won’t give you an indigestion; but I had hard work to get it for you. It is always Lent here; you will get enough just to keep life in you, and no more. So you must bear it patiently.”

The kind-heartedness of the old woman, who thus drew her own predicament, pleased the artist.

“I have lived fifty years with that man, without ever hearing half-a-dozen gold pieces chink in my purse,” she went on. “Oh! if I did not hope that you might save your property, I would never have brought you and your mother into my prison.”

“But how can you survive it?” cried Joseph naively, with the gayety which a French artist never loses.

“Ah, you may well ask!” she said. “I pray.”

Joseph quivered as he heard the words, which raised the old woman so much in his estimation that he stepped back a little way to look into her face; it was radiant with so tender a serenity that he said to her —

“Let me paint your portrait.”

“No, no,” she answered, “I am too weary of life to wish to remain here on canvas.”

Gayly uttering the sad words, she opened a closet, and brought out a flask containing ratafia, a domestic manufacture of her own, the receipt for which she obtained from the far-famed nuns to whom is also due the celebrated cake of Issoudun — one of the great creations of French confectionery; which no chef, cook, pastry-cook, or confectioner has ever been able to reproduce. Monsieur de Riviere, ambassador at Constantinople, ordered enormous quantities every year for the Seraglio.

Adolphine held a lacquer tray on which were a number of little old glasses with engraved sides and gilt edges; and as her mother filled each of them, she carried it to the company.

“It seems as though my father’s turn were coming round!” exclaimed Agathe, to whom this immutable provincial custom recalled the scenes of her youth.

“Hochon will go to his club presently to read the papers, and we shall have a little time to ourselves,” said the old lady in a low voice.

In fact, ten minutes later, the three women and Joseph were alone in the salon, where the floor was never waxed, only swept, and the worsted-work designs in oaken frames with grooved mouldings, and all the other plain and rather dismal furniture seemed to Madame Bridau to be in exactly the same state as when she had left Issoudun. Monarchy, Revolution, Empire, and Restoration, which respected little, had certainly respected this room where their glories and their disasters had left not the slightest trace.

“Ah! my godmother, in comparison with your life, mine has been cruelly tried,” exclaimed Madame Bridau, surprised to find even a canary which she had known when alive, stuffed, and standing on the mantleshelf between the old clock, the old brass brackets, and the silver candlesticks.

“My child,” said the old lady, “trials are in the heart. The greater and more necessary the resignation, the harder the struggle with our own selves. But don’t speak of me, let us talk of your affairs. You are directly in front of the enemy,” she added, pointing to the windows of the Rouget house.

“They are sitting down to dinner,” said Adolphine.

The young girl, destined for a cloister, was constantly looking out of the window, in hopes of getting some light upon the enormities imputed to Maxence Gilet, the Rabouilleuse, and Jean–Jacques, of which a few words reached her ears whenever she was sent out of the room that others might talk about them. The old lady now told her granddaughter to leave her alone with Madame Bridau and Joseph until the arrival of visitors.

“For,” she said, turning to the Parisians, “I know my Issoudun by heart; we shall have ten or twelve batches of inquisitive folk here to-night.”

In fact Madame Hochon had hardly related the events and the details concerning the astounding influence obtained by Maxence Gilet and the Rabouilleuse over Jean–Jacques Rouget (without, of course, following the synthetical method with which they have been presented here), adding the many comments, descriptions, and hypotheses with which the good and evil tongues of the town embroidered them, before Adolphine announced the approach of the Borniche, Beaussier, Lousteau–Prangin, Fichet, Goddet–Herau families; in all, fourteen persons looming in the distance.

“You now see, my dear child,” said the old lady, concluding her tale, “that it will not be an easy matter to get this property out of the jaws of the wolf —”

“It seems to me so difficult — with a scoundrel such as you represent him, and a daring woman like that crab-girl — as to be actually impossible,” remarked Joseph. “We should have to stay a year in Issoudun to counteract their influence and overthrow their dominion over my uncle. Money isn’t worth such a struggle — not to speak of the meannesses to which we should have to condescend. My mother has only two weeks’ leave of absence; her place is a permanent one, and she must not risk it. As for me, in the month of October I have an important work, which Schinner has just obtained for me from a peer of France; so you see, madame, my future fortune is in my brushes.”

This speech was received by Madame Hochon with much amazement. Though relatively superior to the town she lived in, the old lady did not believe in painting. She glanced at her goddaughter, and again pressed her hand.

“This Maxence is the second volume of Philippe,” whispered Joseph in his mother’s ear, “— only cleverer and better behaved. Well, madame,” he said, aloud, we won’t trouble Monsieur Hochon by staying very long.”

“Ah! you are young; you know nothing of the world,” said the old lady. “A couple of weeks, if you are judicious, may produce great results; listen to my advice, and act accordingly.”

“Oh! willingly,” said Joseph, “I know I have a perfectly amazing incapacity for domestic statesmanship: for example, I am sure I don’t know what Desroches himself would tell us to do if my uncle declines to see us.”

Mesdames Borniche, Goddet–Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau–Prangin and Fichet, decorated with their husbands, here entered the room.

When the fourteen persons were seated, and the usual compliments were over, Madame Hochon presented her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph. Joseph sat in his armchair all the evening, engaged in slyly studying the sixty faces which, from five o’clock until half past nine, posed for him gratis, as he afterwards told his mother. Such behavior before the aristocracy of Issoudun did not tend to change the opinion of the little town concerning him: every one went home ruffled by his sarcastic glances, uneasy under his smiles, and even frightened at his face, which seemed sinister to a class of people unable to recognize the singularities of genius.

After ten o’clock, when the household was in bed, Madame Hochon kept her goddaughter in her chamber until midnight. Secure from interruption, the two women told each other the sorrows of their lives, and exchanged their sufferings. As Agathe listened to the last echoes of a soul that had missed its destiny, and felt the sufferings of a heart, essentially generous and charitable, whose charity and generosity could never be exercised, she realized the immensity of the desert in which the powers of this noble, unrecognized soul had been wasted, and knew that she herself, with the little joys and interests............