The Fleece of Gold..............................................................................................................................................1

Theophile Gautier....................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I TIBURCE ...........................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II CHESTNUT HAIR ...........................................................................................................5

CHAPTER III RESEMBLANCE ..........................................................................................................10

CHAPTER IV A CERTIFICATE OF BEAUTY..................................................................................14

CHAPTER V TO PARIS!.....................................................................................................................17

CHAPTER VI FROM THE CANVAS.................................................................................................21

TIBURCE was really a most extraordinary young man; his oddity had the peculiar merit of being unaffected;

he did not lay it aside on returning home, as he did his hat and gloves; he was original between four walls,

Do not conclude, I beg, that Tiburce was ridiculous, that he had one of those aggressive manias which are

intolerable to all the world; he did .not eat spiders, he played on no instrument, nor did he read poetry to

anybody. He was a staid, placid youth, talking little, listening less; and his halfopened eyes seemed to be

He passed his life reclining in the corner of a divan, supported on either side by a pile of cushions, worrying

as little about the affairs of the time as about what was taking place in the moon. There were very few

substantives which hadany effect on him, and no one was ever less susceptible to long words. He cared

absolutely nothing for his political rights, and thought that the people were still free at the wineshop.

His ideas on all subjects were very simple; he preferred to do nothing rather than to work; he preferred good

wine to cheap wine and a beautiful woman to an ugly one; in natural history he made a classification than

which nothing could be more succinct; things that eat, and things that do not eat. In brief, he was absolutely

He had not the slightest selfesteem; he did not deem himself the pivot of creation, and realized fully that the

world could turn without his assistance; he thought little more of himself than of the rind of a cheese, or of

the eels in vinegar. In face of eternity and the infinite, he had not the courage to be vain; having looked

sometimes through the microscope and the telescope, he had not an exaggerated idea of the importance of the

human race. His height was five feet, four inches; but he said to himself that the people in the sun might well

It would be a mistake to think from all this that Tiburce was devoid of passions. Beneath the ashes of that

placid exterior smouldered more than one burning brand. However, no one knew of any regular mistress of

his, and he displayed little gallantry toward women. Like almost all the young men of today, without being

precisely a poet or a painter, he had read many novels and seen many pictures; lazy as he was, he preferred to

live on the faith of other people; he loved with the poet's love, he looked with the eyes of the artist, and he

was familiar with more poets than faces; reality was repugnant to him, and by dint of living in books and

The Madonnas of Raphael, the courtesans of Titian, caused the most celebrated beauties to seem ugly to him;

Petrarch's Laura, Dante's Beatrice, Byron's Haides, Andre Chenier's Camille, threw completely into the shade

the women in hats, gowns, and shouldercapes whose lover he might have been. And yet he did not demand

an ideal with white wings and a halo about her head; but his studies in antique statuary, the Italian schools,

his familiarity with the masterpieces of art, and "his reading of the poets had given him an exquisitely refined

taste in the matter of form, and it would have been impossible for him to love the noblest mind on earth,

unless it had the shoulders of the Venus of Milo. So it was that Tiburce was in love with no one.

His devotion to abstract beauty was manifested by the great number of statuettes, plaster casts, drawings and

engravings with which his room and its walls were crowded, so that the ordinary bourgeois would have

considered it rather an impossible abode; for he had no furniture save the divan mentioned above, and several

cushions of different colors scattered over the carpet. Having no secrets, he could easily do without a

Tiburce rarely went into society, not from shyness, but from indifference; he welcomed his friends cordially,

and never returned their visits. Was Tiburce happy? No; but he was not unhappy; he would have liked,

however, to dress in red. Superficial persons accused him of insensibility, and kept women said that he had

no heart; but in reality his was a heart of gold, and his search for physical beauty betrayed to observant eyes a

painful disillusionment in the world of moral beauty. In default of sweetness of perfume, he sought grace in

the vessel containing it; he did not complain, he indulged in no elegies, he did not wear ruffles en pleureuse;

but one could see that he had suffered, that he had been deceived, and that he proposed not to love again

except with his eyes open. As dissimulation of the body is much more difficult than dissimulation of the

mind, he set much store by material perfection; but alas! a lovely body is as rare as a lovely soul. Moreover,

Tiburce, depraved by the reflections of novelwriters, living in the charming, imaginary society created by

poets, with his eyes full of the masterpieces of statuary and painting, had a lordly and scornful taste; and that

which he took for love was simply the adoration of an artist. He found faults of drawing in his mistress;

One day, having smoked his hookah, having gazed at Correggio's threefold eda in its filleted frame, having

turned Radine's latest statuette about in every direction, having taken his left foot in his right hand, and his

right foot in his left hand, and having placed his sels on the edge of the mantel, Tiburce was forced to admit

to himself that he had come to the end of his means of diversion, that he knew not which way to turn, and that

the gray spiders of ennui were crawling down the walls of his room, all dusty with drowsiness.

He asked the time, and was told that it was a quarter to one, which seemed to him decisive and unanswerable.

He bade his servant dress him and went out to walk the streets; as he walked he reflected that his heart was

empty, and he felt the need of "making a passion," as they say in Parisian slang.

This laudable resolution formed, he propounded the following questions to himself: Shall I love a Spaniard

with an amber complexion, frowning eyebrows, and jetblack hair? or an Italian with classic features, and

orangetinted eyelids encircling a glance of flame? or a slimwaisted Frenchwoman, with a nose a la

Roxelane and a doll's foot? or a red Jewess with a skyblue skin and green eyes? or a negress black as night,

and gleaming like new bronze? Shall I have a fair or a dark passion? Terrible perplexity.

As he plodded along, head down, pondering this question, he ran against something hard, which caused him

to jump back with a bloodcurdling oath. That something was a painter friend of his; together they entered

the Museum. The painter, an enthusiastic admirer of Rubens, paused by preference before the canvasses of

the Dutch Michelangelo, whom he extolled with a most contagious frenzy of admiration. Tiburce, surfeited

with the Greek outline, the Roman contour, the tawny tones of the Italian masters, took delight in the plump

forms, the satiny flesh, the ruddy faces, as blooming as bouquets of flowers, the luxuriant health that the

Antwerpian artist sends bounding through the veins of those faces of his, with their network of blue and

scarlet. His eye caressed with sensuous pleasure those lovely pearlwhite shoulders and those sirenlike hips

drowned in waves of golden hair and marine pearls. Tiburce, who had an extraordinary faculty of

assimilation, and who understood equally well the most contrasted types, was at that moment as Flemish as if

he had been born in the polders and had never lost sight of Lillo fort and the steeples of Antwerp.

"It is decided," he said to himself as he left the gallery, "I will love a Fleming."

As Tiburce was the most logical person in the world, he placed before himself this irrefutable argument,

namely, that Flemish women must be more numerous in Flanders than elsewhere, and that it was important

for him to go to Belgium at once�to hunt the blonde. This Jason of a new type, in quest of another fleece of

gold, took the Brussels diligence that same evening, with the mad haste of a bankrupt weary of intercourse

with men and feeling a craving to leave France, that classic home of the fine arts, of lovely women, and of

After a few hours, Tiburce, not without a thrill of joy, saw the Belgian lion appear on the signs of inns,

beneath a poodle in nankeen breeches, accompanied by the inevitable Verkoopt men dranken. On the

following evening he walked on Magdalena Strass in Brussels, climbed the mountain with its kitchen

gardens, admired the stainedglass windows of St. Gudule's and the belfry of the Hotel de Ville, and

He met an incalculable number of negresses, mulattresses, quadroons, halfbreeds, griffs, yellow women,

coppercolored women, green women, women of the color of a bootflap, but not a single blonde; if it had

been a little warmer he might have imagined himself at Seville; nothing was lacking, not even the black

As he returned to his hotel on Rue d'Or, however, he saw a girl who was only a dark chestnut, but she was

ugly. The next day, he saw near the residenz of Laeken, an Englishwoman with carrotyred hair and

lightgreen shoes; but she was as thin, as a frog that has been shut up in a bottle for six months, to act as a

barometer, which rendered her inapt to realize an ideal after the style of Rubens.

Finding that Brussels was peopled solely by Andalusians with burnished breasts�which fact is readily

explained by the Spanish domination that held the Low Countries in subjection so long�Tiburce determined

to go to Antwerp, thinking, with some appearance of reason, that the types familiar to Rubens and so

constantly reproduced on his canvases were likely to be frequently met with in his beloved native city.

He betook himself, therefore, to the station of the railway that runs from Brussels to Antwerp. The steam

horse had already eaten his ration of coal; he was snorting impatiently and blowing from his inflamed

nostrils, with a strident noise, dense puffs of white smoke, mingled with showers of sparks. Tiburce seated

himself in his compartment, in company with five Walloons, who sat as motionless in their places as canons

in the chapterhouse, and the train started. The pace was moderate at first; they moved little faster than one

rides in a post chaise at ten francs the relay; but soon the beast became excited and was seized with a most

extraordinary rage for rapidity. The poplars beside the track fled to right and left like a routed army; the

landscape became blurred and was blotted out in a gray vapor; the colewort and the peony studded the black

strips of ground with indistinct stars of gold and azure. Here and there a slender spire appeared amid the

billowing clouds and disappeared instantly, like the mast of a ship on a stormy sea. Tiny lightpink or

applegreen wineshops made a fleeting impression on the eye at the rear of their gardens, beneath their

garlands of vines or hops; here and there pools of water, encircled by dark mud, dazzled the eye like the

mirror in a trap for larks. Meanwhile the iron monster belched forth with an everincreasing roar its breath of

boiling steam; it puffed like an asthmatic whale; a fiery sweat bathed its brazen sides. It seemed to complain

of the insensate swiftness of its pace and to pray for mercy to its begrimed postillions, who spurred it on

incessantly with shovelfuls of coal. There came a noise of bumping carriages and rattling chains: they had

Tiburce ran to right and left without fixed purpose, like a rabbit suddenly released from its cage. He took the

first street that he saw, then a second, then a third, and plunged bravely into the heart of the ancient city,

He saw a vast number of houses painted mousegray, canaryyellow, seagreen, pale lilac; with roofs like

stairways, moulded gables, doors with vermiculated bosses, with short stout pillars, decorated with

quadrangular bracelets like those at the Luxembourg, leaded Renaissance windows, gargoyles, carved beams,

and a thousand curious architectural details, which would have enchanted him on any other occasion; he

barely glanced at the illuminated Madonnas, at the Christs bearing lanterns at the street corners, at the saints

of wax or wood with their gewgaws and tinsel�all those Catholic emblems that have so strange a look to an

inhabitant of one of our Voltairean cities. Another thought absorbed him: his eyes sought, through the dark,

smokebegrimed windows, some fairhaired feminine apparition, a tranquil and kindly Brabantine face, with

He saw only old women making lace, reading prayerbooks, or squatting in corners and watching for the

passing of an infrequent pedestrian, reflected by the glass of their espions, or by the ball of polished steel

The streets were deserted, and more silent than those of Venice; no sound was to be heard save that of the

chimes of various churches striking the hours in every possible key, for at least twenty minutes. The

pavements, surrounded by a fringe of weeds, like those in the courtyards of unoccupied houses, told of the

infrequency and small number of the passersby. Skimming the ground like stealthy swallows, a few women,

wrapped discreetly in the folds of their dark hoods, glided noiselessly along the houses, sometimes followed

by a small boy carrying their dog. Tiburce quickened his pace, in order to catch a glimpse of the features

buried beneath the shadow of the hood, and saw there pale faces, with compressed lips, eyes surrounded by

dark circles, prudent chins, delicate and circumspect noses�the genuine type of the pious Roman or the

Spanish duenna; his burning glance was shattered against dead glances, the glassy stare of a dead fish.

From square to square, from street to street, Tiburce arrived at last at the Quay of the Scheldt by the Harbor

Gate. The magnificent spectacle extorted a cry of surprise from him; an endless number of masts, yards, and

cordage resembled a forest on the river, stripped of leaves and reduced to the state of a mere skeleton. The

bowsprits and lateen yards rested familiarly on the parapet of the wharf, as a horse rests his head on the neck

of his carriagemate. There were Dutch orques, roundsterned, with their red sails; sharp, black American

brigs, with cordage as fine as silk thread; salmoncolored Norwegian koffs, emitting a penetrating odor of

planed fir; barges, fishermen, Breton saltvessels, English coalers, ships from all parts of the world. An

indescribable odor of sour herring, tobacco, rancid suet, melted tar, heightened by the acrid smells of the

ships from Batavia, loaded with pepper, cinnamon, ginger and cochineal, floated about in the air in dense

Tiburce, hoping to find the true Flemish type among the lower classes entered the taverns and ginshops. He

drank lambick, white beer of Louvain, ale, porter, and whisky, desiring to improve the opportunity to make

the acquaintance of the northern Bacchus. He also smoked cigars of several brands, ate salmon, sauerkraut,

yellow potatoes, rare roastbeef, and partook of all the delights of the country.

While he was dining, German women, chubbyfaced, swarthy as gypsies, with short skirts and Alsatian caps,

came to his table and squalled unmelodiously some dismal ballad, accompanying themselves on the violin

and other unpleasant instruments. Blonde Germany, as if to mock at Tiburce, had besmeared itself with the

deepest shade of sunburn; he tossed them angrily a handful of small coins, which procured him the favor of

In the evening he went to the musichalls to see the sailors dance with their mistresses; all of the latter had

beautiful glossy black hair that shone like a crow's wing. A very pretty Creole seated herself beside him and

familiarly touched her lips to his glass, according to the custom of the country, and tried to enter into

conversation with him in excellent Spanish, for she was from Havana; she had such velvetyblack eyes, a

pale complexion, so warm and golden, such a small foot, and such a slender figure, that Tiburce, exasperated,

sent her to all the devils, to the great surprise of the poor creature, who was little accustomed to such a

Utterly insensible to the dark perfections of the dancers, Tiburce withdrew to the Arms of Brabant Hotel. He

undressed in a dissatisfied frame of mind, and wrapping himself as well as he could in the openwork napkins

which take the place of sheets in Flanders, he soon slept the sleep of the just.

The nymphs and allegorical figures of the Medici Galley, in the most enticing deshabille, paid him a

nocturnal visit; they gazed fondly at him with their great blue eyes, and smiled at him in the most friendly

way, with their lips blooming like red flowers amid the milky whiteness of their round, plump faces. One of

them, the Nereid in the picture called The Queen's Voyage, carried familiarity so far as to pass her pretty taper

fingers, tinged with carmine, through the hair of the lovelorn sleeper. Drapery of flowered brocade cleverly

concealed the deformity of her scaly legs, ending in a forked tail; her fair hair was adorned with seaweed and

coral, as befits a daughter of the sea; she was adorable in that guise. Groups of chubby children, as red as

roses, swam about in a luminous atmosphere, holding aloft wreaths of flowers of insupportable brilliancy,

and drew down from heaven a perfumed rain. At a sign from the Nereid, the nymphs stood in two rows and

tied together the ends of their long auburn hair, in such wise as to form a sort of hammock of gold filigree for

the fortunate Tiburce and his finny mistress; they took their places therein, and the nymphs swung them to

Suddenly there was a sharp noise, the golden threads broke, and Tiburce fell to the ground. He opened his

eyes and saw naught save a horrible bronzecolored face, which fastened upon him two great enamel eyes,

"Your breakfast, mein Herr," said an old Hottentot negress, a servant of the hotel, placing on a small table a

"Damnation! I ought to have gone to Africa to look for blondes!" grumbled Tiburce, as he attacked his

TTBURCE, having duly satisfied his appetite, left the Arms of Brabant with the laudable and conscientious

purpose of continuing the search for his ideal. He was no more fortunate than on the previous day;

darkskinned ironies, emerging from every street, cast sly and mocking glances at him; India, Africa,

America, passed before him in specimens more or less coppercolored; one would have said that the

venerable city, advised of his purpose, concealed in a spirit of mockery, in the depths of its most impenetrable

back yards and behind its dingiest windows, all those of its daughters who might have recalled, vividly or

remotely, the paintings of Jordaems or Rubens; stingy with its gold it was lavish with its ebony.

Enraged by this sort of mute ridicule, Tiburce visited the museums and galleries, to escape it. The Flemish

Olympus shone once more before his eyes. Once more cascades of hair glistened in tiny reddish waves, with

aquiver of gold and radiance; the shoulders of the allegories, refurbishing their silvery whiteness, glowed

more vividly than ever; the blue of the eyes became lighter, the ruddy cheeks bloomed like bunches of

carnations; a pink vapor infused warmth into the bluish pallor of the knees, elbows, and fingers of all those

fairhaired goddesses; soft gleams of changing light, ruddy reflections, played over the plump, rounded flesh;

the pigeonbreast draperies swelled before the breath of an invisible wind, and began to flutter about in the

azure vapor; the fresh, plump Netherlandish poesy was revealed in all its entirety to our enthusiastic traveler.

But these beauties on canvas were not enough for him. He had come thither in search of real, living types. He

had fed long enough on written and painted poetry, and he had discovered that intercourse with abstractions

was somewhat unsubstantial. Doubtless it would have been much simpler to stay in Paris and fall in love with

a pretty woman, or even with an ugly one, like everybody else; but Tiburce did not understand nature and was

able to read it only in translations. He grasped admirably all the types realized in the works of the masters,

but he would not have noticed them of his own motion if he had met them on the street or in society; in a

word, if he had been a painter, he would have made vignettes based on the verses of poets; if he had been a

poet, he would have written verses based on the pictures of painters. Art had taken possession of him when he

was too young and had corrupted him and prejudiced him. Such instances are more common than is supposed

in our overrefined civilization, where we come in contact with the works of man more often than with those

For a moment Tiburce had an idea of compromising with himself, and made this cowardly and illsounding

remark: "Chestnuthair is a very pretty color." He even went so far, the sycophant, the villain, the man of

little faith, as to admit to himself that black eyes were very bright and very attractive. It may be said, to

excuse him, that he had scoured in every direction, and without the slightest result, a city which everything

justified him in believing to be radically blonde. A little discouragement was quite pardonable.

At the moment that he uttered this blasphemy under his breath, a lovely blue glance, wrapped in a mantilla,

flashed before him and disappeared like a willo'thewisp around the corner of Mei'r Square.

Tiburce quickened his pace, but he saw nothing more; the street was deserted from end to end. Evidently the

flying vision had entered one of the neighboring houses, or had vanished in some unknown alley. Tiburce,

bitterly disappointed, after glancing at the well, with the iron scrollwork forged by Quintin Metzys, the

painterlocksmith, took it into his head to visit the cathedral, which he found daubed from top to bottom with

a horrible canaryyellow. Luckily the wooden pulpit, carved by Verbruggen, with its decorations of foliage

alive with birds, squirrels, and turkeys displaying their plumage, and all the zoological equipage which

surrounded Adam and Eve in the terrestrial paradise, redeemed that general insipidity by the delicacy of its

angles and its nicety of detail. Luckily, the blazonry of the noble families, and the pictures of Otto Venius, of

Rubens, and of Van Dyck, partly concealed that hateful color, so dear to the middle classes and to the clergy.

A number of Beguins at prayer were scattered about on the pavement of the church; but the fervor of their

piety caused them to bend their faces so low over their rededged prayerbooks, that it was difficult to

distinguish their features. Moreover, the sanctity of the spot and the venerable aspect of their costumes

Five or six Englishmen, breathless after ascending and descending the four hundred and seventy stairs of the

steeple to which the dove'snests with which it is always capped give the aspect of an Alpine peak, were

examining the pictures and, trusting only in part to their guide's loquacious learning, were hunting up in their

guidebooks the names of the masters, for fear of admiring one thing for another; and they repeated in front of

every canvas, with imperturbable stolidity: "It is a very fine exhibition." These Englishmen had

squarelycut faces, and the enormous distance between their noses and their chins demonstrated the purity of

the breed. As for the English lady who was with them, she was the same one whom Tiburce had previously

seen at the residenz of Laeken; she wore the same green boots and the same red hair. Tiburce, despairing of

finding Flemish blondes, was almost on the point of darting a killing glance at her; but the vaudeville

In honor of these visitors, so manifestly Britannic, who could not move without a jingling of guineas, the

beadle opened the shutters which, during threefourths of the year, concealed the two wonderful paintings of

The Crucifixion is a work that stands by itself, and Rubens, when he painted it, was thinking of

Michelangelo. The drawing is rough, savage, impetuous, like those of the Roman school; all the muscles

stand out at once, all the bones and sinews are visible, nerves of steel are surrounded by flesh like granite.

Here is no trace of the joyous, ruddy tones with which the Antwerpian artist nonchalantly sprinkles his

innumerable productions; it is the Italian bistre in its tawniest intensity; executioners, colossi shaped like

elephants, have tigers' muzzles and attitudes of bestial ferocity; even the Christ Himself, included in this

exaggeration, wears rather the aspect of a Milo of Crotona, nailed to a wooden horse by rival athletes, than of

a God voluntarily sacrificing Himself for the redemption of humanity. There is nothing Flemish in the picture

When the shutters of the Descent from the Cross were thrown open, Tiburce was dazzled and seized with

vertigo as if he had looked into an abyss of blinding light; the sublime head of the Magdalen blazed

triumphantly in an ocean of gold, and seemed to illuminate with the beams from its eyes the pale, gray

atmosphere that filtered through the narrow Gothic windows. Everything about him faded away; there was an

absolute void; the squarejawed Englishman, the redhaired English woman, the violetrobed beadle� he

The sight of that face was to Tiburce a revelation from on high; scales fell from his eyes, he found himself

face to face with his secret dream, with his unavowed hope; the intangible image which he had pursued with

all the ardor of an amorous imagination, and of which he had been able to espy only the profile or the

ravishing fold of a dress; the capricious and untamed chimera, always ready to unfold its restless wings, was

there before him, fleeing no more, motionless in the splendor of its beauty. The great master had copied in his

own heart the anticipated and longedfor mistress; it seemed to him that he himself had painted the picture;

the hand of genius had drawn unerringly and with broad strokes of the brush, what was only confusedly

sketched in his mind, and had garbed in gorgeous colors his undefined fancy for the unknown. He recognized

He stood there, mute, absorbed, as insensible as a man in a cataleptic fit, not moving an eyelid and plunging

A foot of the Christ, white with a bloodless whiteness, as pure and lifeless as a consecrated wafer, hovered

with all the inert listlessness of death over the saint's white shoulder, an ivory footstool placed there by the

sublime artist to enable the divine corpse to descend from the tree of redemption. Tiburce felt jealous of the

Christ. For such a blessed privilege he would gladly have endured the Passion. The bluish pallor of the flesh

too, because the Magdalen did not turn towards him her melting, glistening eye, wherein the light bestowed

its diamonds and grief its pearls. The dolorous and impassioned persistence of that glance, which wrapped the

beloved body in a windingsheet of love, seemed to him humiliating, and eminently unjust to him, Tiburce.

He would have rejoiced if the most imperceptible gesture had given him to understand that she was touched

by his love; he had already forgotten that he was standing before a painting, so quick is passion to attribute its

own ardor even to objects incapable of feeling it. Pygmalion must have been astonished, as if it were a most

extraordinary thing, that his statue did not return caress for caress; Tiburce was no less shocked by the

Kneeling in her robe of green satin, with its ample and swelling folds, she continued to gaze upon the Christ

with an expression of griefstricken concupiscence, like a mistress who seeks to surfeit herself with the

features of an adored face which she is never to see again; her hair fell over her shoulders, a luminous fringe;

a sunbeam, straying in by chance, heightened the warm whiteness of her linen and of her arms of gilded

marble; in the wavering light her breast seemed to swell and throb with an appearance of life; the tears in her

The English visitors had withdrawn, after observing: "Very well; a pretty picture"; and the beadle, annoyed

byTiburce's prolonged contemplation, had closed the shutters, and was demanding the usual fee. Tiburce

gave him all that he had in his pocket; lovers are generous to duennas; the Antwerpian beadle was the

Magdalen's duenna, and Tiburce, already looking forward to another interview, was interested in obtaining

The colossal St. Christopher, and the hermit carrying a lantern, painted on the exterior of the shutters, albeit

very remarkable works, were far from consoling Tiburce for the closing of that dazzling tabernacle, whence

He left the church, carrying in his heart the barbed arrow of an impossible love; he had at last fallen in with

the passion that he sought, but he was punished where he had sinned: he had become too fond of painting, he

was doomed to love a picture. Nature, neglected for art, revenged herself in barbarous fashion; the most timid

lover in the presence of the most virtuous of women, always retains a secret hope in a corner of his heart; as

for Tiburce, he was sure of his mistress's resistance and he was perfectly well aware that he would never be

happy; so that his passion was a genuine passion, a wild, insensate passion, capable of anything; it was

Do not make too merry over Tiburce's love; how many men do we see deeply enamored of women whom

they have never seen except in a box at the theater, to whom they have never spoken, and even the sound of

whose voice they do not know! Are such men much more reasonable than our hero, and are their impalpable

Tiburce walked the streets with a proud and mysterious air, like a gallant returning from a first assignation.

The intensity of his sensations surprised him agreeably�he who had never lived except in the brain felt the

beating of his heart. It was a novel sensation; and so he abandoned himself without reserve to the charms of

that unfamiliar impression; a real woman would not have touched him so deeply. An artificial man can be

moved only by an artificial thing; there is a harmony between them; the true would create a discord. As we

have said, Tiburce had read much, seen much, thought much, and felt very little; his fancies were simply

brain fancies; in him passion rarely went below the cravat. But this time he was really in love, just like a

student of rhetoric; the dazzling image of the Magdalen floated before his eyes in luminous spots, as if he had

been looking at the sun; the slightest fold, the most imperceptible detail stood out clearly in his memory; the

picture was always present before him. He tried in all seriousness to devise some means to impart life to that

insensible beauty and to induce her to come forth from her frame; he thought of Prometheus, who kindled the

fire of heaven in order to give a soul to his lifeless work; of Pygmalion, who succeeded in finding a way to

move and warm a block of marble; he had an idea of plunging into the bottomless ocean of the occult

sciences, in order to discover a charm sufficiently powerful to give life and substance to that vain appearance.

Have you not yourself, without reaching that pitch of excitement, been invaded by a feeling of indescribable

melancholy in a gallery of old masters, while thinking of the vanished beauties represented by their pictures?

Would not one be glad to infuse life into all those pale and silent faces which seem to muse sadly against the

greenish ultramarine or the coalblack which forms the background? Those eyes, whose vital spark gleams

more brightly beneath the veil of age, were copied from those of a young princess or a lovely courtesan, of

whom naught remains, not even a single grain of dust; those lips, half parted in a painted smile, recall real

smiles forever fled. What a pity, in truth, that the women of Raphael, of Correggio, and of Titian are but

impalpable shades! And why have not the models, like their portraits, received the privilege of immortality?

The harem of the most voluptuous sultan would be a small matter compared with that which one might form

with the odalisques of painting, and it is really to be regretted that so much beauty is lost.

Tiburce went every day to the cathedral, and lost himself in contemplation of his beloved Magdalen; and he

returned to the hotel each evening, more in love, more depressed, and more insane than ever. More than one

noble heart, even without caring for pictures, has known the sufferings of our friend, when trying to breathe

his soul into some lifeless idol, who had only the outward phantom of life, and realized the passion she

With the aid of powerful glasses our lover scrutinized his inamorata even in the most imperceptible details.

He admired the fineness of the flesh, the solidity and suppleness of the coloring, the energy of tne brush, the

vigor of the drawings, as another would admire the velvety softness of the skin, the whiteness and the

beautiful coloring of a living mistress. On the pretext of examining the work at closer range, he obtained a

ladder from his friend, the beadle, and, all aquiver with love, he dared to rest a presumptuous hand on the

Magdalen's shoulder. He was greatly surprised to feel, instead of the satinlike softness of a woman's flesh, a

hard, rough surface like a file, with hollows and ridges everywhere, due to the impetuosity of the impulsive

painter's brush. This discovery greatly depressed Tiburce, but, as soon as he had descended to the floor again,

He passed more than a fortnight thus, in a state of transcendental enthusiasm, wildly stretching out his arms

to his chimera, imploring Heaven to perform a miracle. In his lucid moments he resigned himself to the

alternative of seeking throughout the city some type approaching his ideal; but his search resulted in nothing,

for one does not find readily on streets and public promenades such a diamond of beauty.

One evening, however, he met again, at the corner of Mei'r Square, the charming blue glance we have

previously mentioned; this time the vision disappeared less quickly, and Tiburce had time to see a lovely face

framed by rich clusters of fair hair, and an artless smile playing about the freshest lips in the world. She

quickened her pacewhen She realized that she was followed, but Tiburce, keeping at a distance, saw her stop

in front of a respectable old Flemish house, of poor but decent aspect. As there was some delay in admitting

her, she turned for an instant, doubtless in obedience to a vague instinct of feminine coquetry, to see if the

stranger had been discouraged by the long walk she had compelled him to take. Tiburce as if enlightened by a

sudden gleam of light, saw that she bore a striking resemblance to�the Magdalen.

THE house which the slender figure had entered had an air of Flemish simplicity altogether patriarchal. It

was painted a faded rosecolor, with narrow white lines to represent the joints of the stones. The gable,

denticulated like the steps of a staircase; the roof with its round windows surrounded by scrollwork; the

impost, representing, with Gothic artlessness, the story of Noah derided by his sons; the stork's nest, and the

pigeons making their toilet in the sun, made it a perfect example of its type; you would have said that it was

one of those factories so common in the pictures of Van der Heyden and of Teniers.

A few stalks of hops softened with their playful greenery the too severe and too methodical aspect of the

house as a whole. The lower windows were provided with round bars, and over the two lower panes were

squares of muslin embroidered with great bunches of flowers after the Brussels fashion; in the

space left empty by the swelling of the iron bars were china pots containing a few pale carnations of sickly

aspect, despite the evident care the owner took of them, for their drooping heads were supported by

playingcards and a complicated system of tiny scaffolding of twigs of osier. Tiburce observed this detail,

As, after two hours of waiting, he had not seen the fair Magdalen with the blue eyes come forth, he sagely

concluded that she must live there; which was true. All that he had left to do was to learn her name, her

position in society, to become acquainted with her, and to win her love; mere trifles, in very truth. A

professional Lovelace would not have been delayed five minutes; but honest Tiburce was not a Lovelace; on

the contrary, he was bold in thought, but timid in action; no one was less clever than he at passing from the

general to the particular, and in love affairs he had a most pressing need of a truthworthy Pandarus to extol

his perfections and to arrange his rendezvous. Once under way, he did not lack eloquence; he declaimed the

languorous harangue with due selfpossession, and played the lover at least as well as a provincial jeune

premier; but, unlike PetitJean, the clog's lawyer, the part that he was least expert at was the beginning.

We are bound to admit, therefore, that worthy Tiburce swam in a sea of uncertainty, devising a thousand

stratagems more ingenious than those of Polybius, to gain access to his divinity. As he found nothing

suitable, he conceived the idea, like Don Cleofas in the Diable Boiteux, of setting fire to the house, in order to

have an opportunity to rescue his darling from the flames and thus to prove to her his courage and his

devotion; but he reflected that a fireman, more accustomed than he to roam about on burning rafters, might

supplant him; and, moreover, that the method of making a pretty girl's acquaintance was forbidden by the

Awaiting a better inspiration, he engraved very clearly on his brain the location of the house, noted the name

of the street, and returned to his hotel, reasonably content, for he had imagined that he saw vaguely outlined

behind the embroidered muslin at the window the graceful silhouette of the unknown, and a tiny hand put

aside a corner of the transparent fabric, doubtless to make sure of his virtuous persistence in standing sentry,

without hope of being relieved, at the corner of a lonely street in Antwerp. Was this mere conceit on the part

of Tiburce, and was his bonne fortune one of those common to nearsighted men, who mistake linen hanging

in the window for the scarf of Juliet leaning over toward Romeo, and pots of flowers for princesses in gowns

of gold brocade? However that may have been, he went away in high spirits, looking upon himself as one of

the most triumphant of gallants. The hostess of the Arms of Brabant and her black maidservant were

surprised at the airs of Hamilcar and of a drummajor which he assumed. He lighted his cigar in the most

determined fashion, crossed his legs, and began to dandle his slipper on his toes with the superb nonchalance

of a mortal who utterly despises all creation, and who is blessed with joys unknown to the ordinary run of

mankind; he had at last found the blonde. Jason was no happier when he took the marvelous fleece from the

Our hero was in the best of all possible situations: a genuine Havana cigar in his mouth, slippers on his feet, a

bottle of Rhine wine on his table, with the newspapers of the past week and a pretty little pirated edition of

He could drink a glass, or even two, of Tokay, read Namouna, or an account of the latest ballet; there is no

reason, therefore, why we should not leave him alone for a few moments; we have given him enough to

dispel his ennui, assuming that a lover can ever suffer from ennui. We will return without him� for he is not

the sort of a man to open the doors for us�to the little house on Rue Kipdorp, and we will act as introducers,

we will show you what there is behind the embroidered muslin of the lower windows; for, as our first piece of

information, we will tell you that the heroine of this tale lived on the ground floor and her name was

Gretchen; a name which, albeit not so euphonious as Ethelwina, or Azalia, seemed sufficiently sweet to

Enter, after carefully wiping your feet, for Flemish cleanliness reigns despotically here. In Flanders, people

wash their faces only once a week, but by way of compensation the floors are scalded and'scraped to the

quick twice a day. The floor in the hall, like those in the rest of the house, is made of pine boards, whose

natural color is retained, the long, pale veins and the starlike knots being hidden by no varnish; it is

sprinkled with a light coating ofseasand, carefully sifted, the grains of which hold the feet and prevent the

slipping so frequent in our salons, where one skates rather than walks. Gretchen's bedroom is at the right,

behind that door painted a modest gray, whose copper knob, scoured with pumice, shines as if it were of

gold; rub your feet once more upon this mat of rushes; the emperor himself might not enter with muddy feet.

Observe an instant this placid and peaceful interior; there is nothing to attract the eye; everything is calm,

sober, restrained; the chamber of Marguerite herself produces no more virginal impression; it is the serenity

The brown walls, with an oaken wainscoting waisthigh, have no other ornament than a Madonna in colored

plaster, dressed in real fabrics like a doll, with satin shoes, a wreath of rushes, a necklace of colored glass,

and two small vases of artificial flowers in front of her. At the rear of the room, in the corner most in the

shadow, stands a fourposted bed of antique shape, with curtains of green serge and valances with pinked

edges and a hem of yellow lace. By the pillow, a figure of the Christ, the lower part of the cross forming a

A chest which glistens like a mirror, so diligently is it rubbed; a table with twisted legs standing near the

window, and covered with spools, skeins of silk, and all the paraphernalia of lacework; a huge, upholstered

easychair, three or four highbacked, chairs of the style of Louis XIII, such as we see in the engravings of

We must add, however, that Gretchen, innocent as she was, had indulged in the luxury of a Venetian mirror,

with beveled edges, surrounded by a frame of ebony encrusted with copper. To be sure, to sanctify that

Imagine Gretchen sitting in the great upholstered easychair, with her feet upon a stool embroidered by

herself, entangling and disentangling with her fairy fingers the almost imperceptible network of a piece of

lace just begun; her pretty head leaning over her work is lighted from below by a thousand frolicsome

reflections which brighten with fresh and vapory tints the transparent shadow in which she is bathed; a

delicate bloom of youth softens the somewhat too Dutch ruddiness of her cheeks, whose freshness the

halflight cannot impair; the daylight, admitted sparingly through the upper panes, touches only the top of

her brow, and makes the little wisps of hair that rebel against the restraint of the comb gleam like golden

tendrils. Cause a sudden ray of sunlight to play upon the cornice and upon the chest, sprinkle dots of gold

over the rounded sides of the pewter pots, make the Christ a little yellower; retouch with a deeper shadow the

stiff, straight folds of the serge curtains; darken the modernized pallor of the windowglass; stand old

Barbara, armed with her broom, at the end of the room, concentrate all the light upon the maiden's head and

hands, and you will have a Flemish painting of the best period, which Terburg or Gaspard Netscher would

What a contrast between that interior, so clean and neat and so easily understood, and the bedroom of a young

Frenchwoman, always filled with clothes, with musicpaper, with unfinished watercolors; where every

article is out of its place; where tumbled dresses hang on the backs of chairs; and where the household cat

tears with her claws the novel carelessly left on the floor! How clear and crystalline is the water in which that

halfwithered rose stands! How white that linen, how clear and transparent that glassware! Not a particle of

Metzu, who painted in a summerhouse situated in the%enter of a lake, in order to preserve %he integrity of

his colors, might have' worked without annoyance in Gretchen's bedroom. The iron back of the fireplace

At this point a sudden apprehension seizes us; is she really the heroine suited to our hero? Is Gretchen really

Tiburce's ideal? Is not all this very minute, very commonplace, very practical? is it not rather the Dutch than

the Flemish type, and do you really be'lieve that Ruben's models were built like her? Was it not rather merry

gossips, highlycolored, abounding in flesh, of robust health, and careless and vulgar manners, whose

commonplace reality the painter's genius has idealized? The great masters often play us such tricks. Of an

indifferent site they make a lovely landscape; of an ugly maidservant, a Venus; they do not copy what they

And yet Gretchen, although daintier and more refined, really bore a striking resemblance to the Magdalen of

Antwerp Cathedral, and Tiburce's imagination might well rest upon her without going astray. It would have

been hard for him to find a more magnificent body for the phantom of his painted mistress. You desire,

doubtless, now that you know Gretchen and her bedroom, the bird and its nest, as well as we ourselves do, to

have some details concerning her life and her social position. Her history was as simple as possible: Gretchen

was the daughter of small tradespeople who had been unfortunate, and she had been an orphan for several

years; she lived with Barbara, a devoted old servant, upon a small income, the remains of her father's

property, and upon the proceeds of her work; as Gretchen made her own dresses and her laces, as she was

looked upon by the Flemings as a prodigy of prudence and neatness, she was able, although a simple

workinggirl, to dress with a certain elegance, and to differ little from the daughters of citizens of the middle

class; her linen was fine, her caps were always notable for their whiteness; her boots were the best made in

the city; for�we trust that this detail will not displease Tiburce�we must admit that Gretchen had the foot

of a Spanish countess, and shod herself to correspond. She was a welleducated girl; she knew how to read,

could write well, knew all possible stitches in embroidery, had no rival on earth in needlework, and did not

play the piano. Let us add that she had by way of compensation an admirable talent for cooking peartarts,

carp au bleu, and cake; for she prided herself on her culinary skill, like all good housekeepers, and knew how

These details will seem without doubt far from aristocratic, but our heroine is neither a princess of diplomacy

nor a charming woman of thirty, nor a fashionable singer; she is a simple workinggirl of Rue Kipdorp, near

the ramparts, Antwerp; but as, in our eyes, women have no real distinction save their beauty, Gretchen is the

equal of a duchess who is entitled to sit in the king's presence, and we look upon her sixteen years as sixteen

What was the state of Gretchen's heart? The state of her heart was most satisfactory; she had never loved

anything but coffeecolored turtledoves, goldfish, and other absolutely innocent small creatures, which

could not cause the most savagely jealous lover a moment's anxiety. Every Sunday she went to hear high

mass at the Jesuits' church, modestly wrapped in her hood and attended by Barbara carrying her book; then

she went home and turned over the leaves of a Bible, "in which God the Father was represented in the

costume of an emperor," and of which the woodengravings aroused her admiration for the thousandth time.

If the weather was fine, she went out to Lillo fort, or to the Head of Flanders, with a girl of her own age, also

a laceworker. During 'the week she seldom went out, except to deliver her work; and Barbara undertook that

duty most of the time. A girl of sixteen years who has never thought of love would be an improbable

character in a warmer climate; but the atmosphere of Flanders, made heavy by the sickly exhalations from the

canals, contains very few aphrodisiac molecules; the flowers are backward there, and when they come are

thick and pulpy; their odors, laden with moisture, resemble the odors of decoctions of aromatic herbs; the

fruits are watery; the earth and the sky, saturated with moisture, send back and forth the vapors which they

cannot absorb, and which the sun tries in vain to drink with its pale lips; the women who live in this bath of

mist have no difficulty in being virtuous, for, according to Byron, that rascal of a sun is a great seducer and

It is not surprising, therefore, that Gretchen, in such a moral atmosphere, was a perfect stranger to all ideas of

love, even under the form of marriage, a legal and permissible form if such there be. She has read no bad

novels, nor even any good ones; she had not any male relatives, cousins or second cousins. Lucky Tiburce!

Moreover, the sailors with their short, colored pipes, the captains of the EastIndiamen who strolled about

the city during their brief time on shore, and the dignified merchants who went to the Bourse, revolving

figures in the wrinkles of their foreheads, and who cast their fleeting shadows into Gretchen's sanctum as they

Let us admit, however, that, despite her.maidenly ignorance, the laceworker had remarked Tiburce as a

wellturned cavalier with regular features; she had seen him several times at the cathedral, in rapt

contemplation before the Descent from the Cross, and attributed his ecstatic attitude to an excessive piety

most edifying in so young a man. As she whirled her bobbins about, she thought of the stranger of Me'i'r

Square, and abandoned herself to innocent reverie. One day even, under the influence of that thought, she

rose, and unconscious of her own act, went to her mirror, which she consulted for a long while; she looked at

herself fullfaced, in profile, in all possible lights, and discovered�what was quite true�that her

complexion was more silky than a sheet of rice or camellia paper; that she had blue eyes of a marvelous

limpidity, charming teeth in a mouth as red as a peach, and fail hair of the loveliest shade. She noticed for the

first time her youthful charm and her beauty; she took the white rose which stood in the pretty glass, placed it

in her hair, and smiled to see how that simple flower embellished her; coquetry was born and love would

But it is a long time since we left Tiburce; what had he been doing at the Arms of Brabant, while we

furnished this information concerning the laceworker? He had written upon a very fine sheet of paper what

was probably a declaration of love, unless it was a challenge; for several other sheets, besmeared and marred

by erasures, which lay on the floor, proved that it was a document very difficult to draw up, and of great

importance. After finishing it, he took his cloak and bent his steps once more toward Rue Kipdorp.

Gretchen's lamp, a star of peace and toil, shone softly behind the glass, and the shadow of the girl as she

leaned over her work was cast upon the transparent muslin. Tiburce, more excited than a robber about to turn

the key of a treasurechest, drew near the window with the step of a wolf, passed his hand through the bars,

and buried in the soft earth of the vase of carnations the corner of his letter thrice folded, hoping that

Gretchen could not fail to see it when she opened her window in the morning to water her flowers. That done,

he withdrew with a step as light as if the soles of his boots were covered with felt.

THE fresh blue light of the morning paled the sickly yellow of the lanterns, which were almost burned out;

the Scheldt streamed like a sweating horse, and the daylight was beginning to filter through the rents in the

mist, when Gretchen's window opened. Gretchen's eyes were still swimming in languor, and the mark left on

her delicate cheek by a fold of the pillow showed that she had slept without moving in her little virginal bed,

that profound sleep of which youth alone has the secret. She was anxious to see how her dear carnations had

passed the night, and had hastily wrapped herself in the first garment that came to hand; that graceful and

modest deshabille became her wondrously; and if the idea of a goddess can be reconciled with a little cap of

Flanders, linen embellished with lace, and a dressingsack of white dimity, we will venture to say that she

had the aspect of Aurora opening the gates of the East; this comparison is perhaps a little too majestic for a

laceworker who is about to water a garden contained in two porcelain pots; but surely Aurora was less fresh

and rosy, especially the Aurora of Flanders, whose eyes are always a little dull.

Gretchen, armed with a large pitcher, prepared to water her carnations, and Tiburce's ardent declaration came

very near being drowned beneath a moral deluge of cold water; luckily the white paper caught Gretchen's

eye; she disinterred the letter and was greatly surprised when she saw the contents. There were only two

sentences, one in French, the other in German; the French sentence was composed of two words, "je t'aime;"

the German of three, "ich liebe dich;" which means exactly the same thing�"I love you." Tiburce had

provided for the possibility that Gretchen would understand only her mother tongue; he was, as you see, a

Really, it was well worth while to besmear more paper than Malherbe ever used to compose a stanza, and to

drink, on the pretext of exciting the imagination, a bottle of excellent Tokay, in order to arrive at that

ingenious and novel thought. But, despite its apparent simplicity, Tiburce's letter was perhaps a masterpiece

of libertinism, unless it was mere folly, which is possible. However, was it not a masterstroke to let fall thus,

like a drop of melted lead, into the midst of that tranquillity of mind that single phrase, "I love you?" And was

not its fall certain to produce, as on the surface of a lake, an infinite number of radiations and concentric

In truth, what do all the most ardent loveletters contain? What remains of all the bombast of passion when

one pricks it with the pin of reason? All the eloquence of SaintPreux reduces itself to a phrase; and Tiburce

had really attained great profundity by concentrating in that brief sentence the flowery rhetoric of his first

He did not sign it; indeed, what information would his name have given? He was a stranger in the city, he did

not know Gretchen's name, and, to tell the truth, cared very little about it. The affair was more romantic, more

mysterious thus; the least fertile imagination might build thereupon twenty octavo volumes more or less

probable. Was he a sylph, a pure spirit, a lovelorn angel, a handsome officer, a banker's son, a young

nobleman, a peer of England with an income of a million, a Russian feudal lord, with a name ending in off,

many roubles, and a multitude of fur collars? Such were the serious questions which that laconically eloquent

letter must inevitably raise. The familiar form of address, which is used only to Divinity, betrayed a violence

of passion which Tiburce was very far from feeling, but which might produce the best effect upon the girl's

Gretchen did not hesitate an instant to believe the young man of Mei'r Square to be the author of the note;

women never err in such matters; they have a wonderful instinct, a scent, which takes the place of familiarity

with the world and knowledge of the passions. The most virtuous of them knows more than Don Juan with

We have described our heroine as a very artless, very ignorant, and very respectable young woman; we must

confess, however, that she did not feel the virtuous indignation which a woman ought to feel who receives a

note written in two languages and containing such a decided incongruity. She felt rather a thrill of pleasure,

and a faint pink flush passed over her face. Thatletter was to her like a certificate of beauty; it reassured her

concerning herself, and gave her a definite rank; it was the first glance that had ever penetrated her modest

obscurity; the small proportions of her fortune prevented her being sought in marriage. Thus far she had been

considered simply as a child, Tiburce consecrated her a young woman; she felt for him such gratitude as the

pearl must feel for the diver who discovers it in its coarse shell beneath the dark cloak of the ocean.

This first impression passed, Gretchen experienced a sensation well known to all those who have been

brought up strictly, and who never have had a secret; the letter embarrassed her like a block of marble; she

did not know what to do with it. Her room seemed to her not to have enough dark corners, enough

impenetrable hiding places, in which to conceal it from all eyes. She put it in the chest behind a pile of linen;

but after a few moments she took it out again; the letter blazed through the boards of the wardrobe like

Doctor Faust's microcosm in Rembrandt's etching. Gretchen looked for another, safer place; Barbara might

need napkins or sheets and might find it. She took a chair, stood upon it, and placed the letter on the canopy

Barbara entered to arrange the room. Gretchen, affecting the most indifferent air imaginable, took her usual

seat and resumed her work of the day before; but at every step that Barbara took toward the bed, she fell into

a horrible fright; the arteries in her temples throbbed, the sweat of anguish stood upon her forehead, her

fingers became entangled in the threads, and it seemed to her that an invisible hand was grasping her heart.

Barbara seemed to her to have an uneasy, suspicious expression which was not customary with her. At last

the old woman went out, with a basket on her arm, to do her marketing. Poor Gretchen breathed freely again,

and took down her letter, which she put in her pocket; but soon it made her itch; the creaking of the paper

terrified her, and she put it in her breast; for that is where a woman puts everything that embarrasses her. The

waist of a dress is a cupboard without a key, an arsenal filled with flowers, locks of hair, lockets, and

sentimental epistles; a sort of letter box, in which one mails all the correspondence of the heart.

But why did Gretchen not burn that insignificant scrap of paper which caused her such keen terror? In the

first place, Gretchen had never in her life experienced such poignant emotion; she was terrified and enchanted

at once. And then, pray tell us why lovers persist in not destroying letters which may lead later to their

detection and perdition? It is because a letter is a visible soul; because passion has passed through that paltry

sheet with its electric fluid, and has imparted life to it. To burn a letter is to commit a moral murder; in the

ashes of a destroyed correspondence there are always some particles of two hearts.

So Gretchen kept her letter in the folds of her dress, beside a little gold crucifix, which was greatly surprised

Like a shrewd young man, Tiburce left his declaration time to work. He played the dead man and did not

againappear in Rue Kipdorp. Gretchen was beginning to be alarmed, when one fine morning she perceived in

the bars of her window a superb bouquet of exotic flowers. Tiburce had passed that way; that was his

The bouquet afforded much pleasure to the young workinggirl, who had become accustomed to the thought

of Tiburce, and whose stelfesteemi was secretly hurt by the small amount of zeal which he had shown after

such an ardent beginning; she took the bunch of flowers, filled with water one of her pretty Saxon vases with

a raised blue design, untied the stalks and put them in water, in order to keep them longer. On this occasion

she told the first lie of her life, informing Barbara that the bouquet was a present from a lady to whom she

During the day Tiburce came to cool his heels in front of the house, on the pretext of making a drawing of

some odd bit of architecture; he remained for a long while, working with a blunt pencil on a piece of

wretched vellum. Gretchen played the dead in her turn; not a fold stirred, not a window opened; the house

seemed asleep. Entrenched in a corner, she was able by means of the mirror in her workbox to watch

Tiburce at her ease. She saw that he was tall, wellbuilt, with an air of distinction in his whole person, regular

features, a soft and melting eye, and a melancholy expression, which touched her deeply, accustomed as she

was to the rubicund health of Brabantine faces. Moreover, Tiburce, although he was neither a lion nor a

dandy, did not lack natural refinement, and must have appeared an ultrafashionable to a young girl so

innocent as Gretchen; on Boulevard de Gand he would have seemed hardly uptodate, on Rue Kipdorp he

In the middle of the night, Gretchen, obeying an adorable childish impulse, rose and went barefooted to look

at her bouquet; she buried her face in the flowers, and kissed Tiburce on the red lips of a magnificent dahlia;

she 'thrust her head passionately into the multicolored waves of that bath of flowers, inhaling with long

breaths intoxicating perfume, breathing with full nostrils, until she felt her heart melt and her eyes grow

moist. When she stood erect, her cheeks glistened with pearly drops, and her fascinating little nose, smeared

as prettily as possible with the golden dust from the stamens, was a lovely shade of yellow. She wiped it

laughingly, returned to bed and to sleep; as you may imagine, she saw Tiburce in all her dreams.

In all this what had become of the Magdalen of the Descent from the Cross? She still reigned without a rival

in our young enthusiast's heart; she had the advantage over the loveliest living woman of being impossible;

with her there was no disillusionment, no satiety; she did not break the spell by commonplace or absurd

phrases; she was always there, motionless, adhering religiously to the sovereign lines within which the great

master had confined her; sure of being beautiful to all eternity; and relating to the world in her silent language

The little laceworker of Rue Kipdorp was truly a charming creature; but how far were her arms from having

that undulating and supple contour, that potent energy, all enveloped with grace! how juvenile was the

slender curve of her shoulders! and how pale the shade of her hair beside those strange, rich tones with which

Rubens had warmed the rippling locks of the placid sinner! Such was the language which Tiburce used to

However, seeing that he made little progress in his love affair with the painting, he reasoned with himself

most sensibly concerning his monumental folly. He returned to Gretchen, not without a longdrawn sigh of

regret; he did not love her, but at all events she reminded him of his dream, as a daughter reminds one of an

adored mother who is dead. We will not dwell on the details of this little intrigue, for everyone can easily

imagine them. Chance, that great procurer, afforded our two lovers a very natural opportunity to speak.

Gretchen had gone as usual to the Head of Flanders on the other side of the Scheldt with her young friend.

They had run after butterflies, made wreaths of bluebottles, and rolled about on the straw in the mills, so

long that night had come and the ferryman had made his last trip, unperceived by them. They were standing

there, both decidedly perturbed, with one foot in the water, shouting with all the strength of their little silvery

voices for him to come back and get them; but the playful breeze carried their shouts away, and there was no

reply save the soft splashing of the waves on the sand. Luckily, Tiburce was drifting about in a small sailboat;

he heard them and offered to take them across; an offer which the friend eagerly accepted, despite

Gretchen's embarrassed air and her flushed cheeks. Tiburce escorted her home and took care to organize a

boating party for the following Sunday, with the assent of Barbara, whom his assiduous attendance at the

churches and his devotion to the picture of the Descent from the Cross had very favorably disposed.

Tiburce met with no great resistance on Gretchen's part. She was so pure that she did not defend herself,

because she did not know that she was attacked; and besides, she loved Tiburce; for although he talked very

jocosely and expressed himself upon all subjects with ironical heedlessness, she divined that he was unhappy,

and a woman's instinct is to console: grief attracts them as a mirror attracts the lark.

Although the young Frenchman was most attentive to her and treated her with extreme courtesy, she felt that

she did not possess his heart entirely, and that there were corners in his mind to which she never penetrated.

Some hidden thought of superior moment seemed to engross him and it was evident that he made frequent

journeys into an unknown world; his fancy, borne away by the involuntary flappings of its wings, lost its

footing constantly and beat against the ceiling, seeking, like a captive bird, some issue through which to dart

forth into the blue sky. Often, he scrutinized her with extraordinary earnestness for hours at a time,

sometimes with a satisfied expression, and again with an air of dissatisfaction. That look was not the look of

a lover. Gretchen could not understand such behavior, but as she was sure of Tiburce's loyalty, she was not

Tiburce, on the pretext that Gretchen's name was hard to pronounce, had christened her Magdalen, a

substitution which she had gladly accepted, feeling a secret pleasure in having her lover call her by a

different and mysterious name, as if she were to him another woman. He still made frequent visits to the

cathedral, teasing his mania by impotent contemplations; and on 'those days Gretchen paid the penalty for the

harsh treatment of the Magdalen; the real had to pay for the ideal. He was cross, bored, tiresome, which the

Nevertheless, Gretchen was a charming girl, who deserved to be loved on her own account. Not in all the di

visions of Flanders, in Brabant or Hainault, could you find a whiter and fresher skin and hair of a lovelier

shade; her hand was at once plump and slender, with nails like agate,�a genuine princess's hand; and�a rare

Ah! Tiburce, Tiburce, who longed to hold in your arms a real ideal, and to kiss your chimera on the mouth,

beware! Chimeras, despite their rounded throats, their swan's wings, and then sparkling smiles, have sharp

teeth and tearing claws. The evil creatures will pump the pure blood from your heart, and leave you dryer and

more hollow than a sponge; avoid that unbridled ambition, do not try to make marble statues descend from

their pedestals, and do not address your supplications to dumb canvases; all your painters and your poets

were afflicted with the same disease that you have; they tried to make creations of their own in the midst of

God's creation. With marble, with colors, with the rhythm of verses, they translated and defined their dream

of beauty; their works are not the portraits of their mistresses, but of the mistresses they longed for and you

would seek in vain their models on earth. Go and buy another bouquet for Gretchen, who is a sweet and

lovely maiden; drop your dead women and your phantoms, and try to live with the people of this world.

YES, Tiburce, though it will surprise you greatly to learn it, Gretchen is vastly superior to you. She has never

read the poets, and does not even know the names of Homer and Virgil; the lamentations of the Wandering

Jew, of Henriette and Damon, printed on wood and roughlycolored, compose all of her literature, except the

Latin in her massbook, which she spells out conscientiously every Sunday; Virginie knew little more in the

You are, it is true, thoroughly posted in literary affairs. You are profoundly versed in esthetics, esoterics,

plastics, architectonics, and poetics; Marphurius and Pancratius had not a finer list of acquirements in ics.

From Orpheus and Lycophron down to M. de Lamartine's last volume, you have devoured everything that is

composed of meters,, of rimed lines, and of strophes cast in every possible mold; no romance has escaped

you. You have traversed from end to end the vast world of the imagination; you know all the painters from

Andrea Rico of Crete, and Bizzamano, down to Messieurs Ingres and Delacroix; you have studied beauty at

its purest sources; the basreliefs ofthe friezes of the Parthenon, the Etruscan vases, the hieratic sculptures of

Egypt, Greek art and Roman art, the Gothic and the Renaissance; you have searched and analyzed

everything; you have become a sort of jockey of Beauty, whose advice painters take when they desire to

select a model, as one consults a groom concerning the purchase of a horse. Certainly no one is more familiar

than you with the physical side of woman; you are as expert as an Athenian sculptor on that point; but poetry

has engrossed you so much that you have suppressed nature, the world, and life. Your mistresses have been to

you simply pictures more or less satisfying; your love for the beauty and attractive ones was in the proportion

of a Titian to a Coucher or a Vanloo; but you have never wondered whether anything real throbbed and

vibrated beneath that exterior. Although you have a kind heart, grief and joy seem to you like two grimaces

which disturb the tranquillity of the outlines; woman is in your eyes a warm statue.

Ah! unhappy child, throw your books into the fire, tear your engraving, shatter your plaster casts, forget

Raphael, forget Homer, forget Phidias, since you have not the courage to take a pencil, a pen, or a

modelingtool; of what use is this sterile admiration to you? what will be the end of these insane impulses?

Do you demand more of life than it can give you? Great geniuses alone are entitled not to be content with

creation. They can go and look the Sphinx squarely in the face, for they solve its riddles. But you are not a

great genius; be simple of heart, love those who love you, and, as Jean Paul says, do not ask for moonlight, or

Become a philanthropic advocate or a concierge; limit your ambition to becoming a voter and a corporal in

your company; have what in the world is called a trade; become an honest citizen. At these words no doubt

your long hair will stand erect in horror, for you have the same scorn for the simple bourgeois that the

German student professes for the Philistine, the soldier for the civilian, and the Brahma for the Pariah. You

crush with ineffable disdain every worthy tradesman who prefers a vaudeville song to a tercet of Dante, and

the muslin of fashionable portraitpainters to a sketch by Michelangelo. Such a man is in your eyes below the

brute, and yet there are plain citizens whose minds�and they have minds�are rich with poetic feeling, who

are capable of love and devotion, and who experience emotions of which you are incapable, yet whose brain

Look at Gretchen, who has done nothing but water carnations and make lace all her life; she is a thousand

times more poetic than you, monsieur I'artiste, as they say nowadays; she believes, she hopes, she smiles, and

weeps; a word from you brings sunshine or rain to her lovely face; she sits there in her great upholstered

armchair, beside her window, in a melancholy light, at work upon her usual task; but how her young brain

labors! how fast her imagination travels! how many castles in Spain she builds and throws down! See her

blush and turn pale, turn hot and cold, like the amorous maiden of the ancient ode; her lace drops from her

hands, she has heard on the brick sidewalk a step whichshe distinguishes among a thousand, with all the

acuteness which passion gives to the senses; although you arrive at the appointed time, she has been waiting

for you a long while. All day you have been her sole preoccupation; she has asked herself: "Where is he

now?�What is he doing?�Is he thinking of me as I am thinking of him?� Perhaps he is ill; yesterday he

seemed to me paler than usual, and he had a distressed and preoccupied expression when he left me; can

anything have happened to him? Has he received unpleasant news from Paris?"�and all those questions

That poor child, with her great loving heart, has displaced the center of her existence, she no longer lives

except in you and through you. By virtue of the wonderful mystery of the incarnation of love, her soul

inhabits your body, her spirit descends upon you and visits you; she would throw herself in front of the sword

which should threaten your breast; the blow that should reach you would cause her death; and yet you have

taken her up simply as a plaything, to use her as a manikin for your ideal. To merit such a wealth of love, you

have darted a few glances at her, given her a few bouquets, and declaimed in a passionate tone the

commonplaces of romance. A more earnest lover would have failed perhaps; for, alas! to inspire love, it is not

necessary to feel it oneself. You have deliberately disturbed for all time the limpidity of that modest

existence. Upon my word, Master Tiburce, adorer of the blonde type and contemner of the bourgeois, you

Gretchen was not happy; she divined an invisible rival between herself and her lover and jealousy seized her;

she watched Tiburce's movements, and saw. that he went only to his hotel, the Arms of Brabant, and to the

"What is the matter with you," she asked him once, "that you are always looking at the figure of the

Magdalen supporting the Saviour's body in the picture of the Descent from the Cross?"

Gretchen blushed with pleasure and ran to the mirror to verify the accuracy of the comparison; she saw that

she had the unctuous and glowing eyes, the fair hair, the arched forehead, the general shape of the saint's face.

"So that is the reason that you call me Magdalen and not Gretchen, or Marguerite, which is my real name?"

"I would never have believed that I was so lovely," said Gretchen; "and it makes me very happy, for you will

Serenity returned for some time to the maiden's heart, and we must confess that Tiburce made virtuous efforts

to combat his insane passion. The fear of becoming a monomaniac came to his mind; and to cut short that

Before starting, he went to pay one last visit to the cathedral, and his friend the beadle opened the shutters of

The Magdalen seemed to him more sad and disconsolate than usual; great tears rolled down her pallid cheeks,

her mouth was contracted by a spasm ofgrief, a bluish circle surrounded her melting eyes, the sunbeam had

left her hair, and there was, in her whole attitude, an expression of despair and prostration; one would have

said that she no longer believed in the resurrection of her beloved Lord. In truth, the Christ was that day of

such a sallow, greenish hue that it was difficult to imagine that life could ever return to His decomposing

flesh. All the other people in the picture seemed to share that feeling; their eyes were dull, their expressions

mournful, and their halos gave forth only a leaden gleam; the livid hue of death had invaded that canvas

Tiburce was deeply touched by the expression of supreme melancholy upon the Magdalen's face, and his

resolution to depart was shaken. He preferred to attribute it to a secret sympathy rather than to a caprice of the

light. The weather was dull, the rain cut the sky with slender threads, and a ray of daylight, drenched with

water and mist, forced its way with difficulty through the glass, streaming and beaten by the wing of the

"Ah!" he said to himself in an undertone, quoting a verse of one of our young poets, " 'How I would love thee

tomorrow if thou wert living!'�Why art thou only an impalpable ghost attached for ever to the meshes of this

canvas and held captive by this thin layer of varnish? Why art thou the phantom of life, without the power to

live? What does it profit thee to be lovely, noble, and great, to have in thine eyes the flame of earthly love and

of divine love, and about thy head the resplendent halo of repentance, being simply a little oil and paint

spread on canvas in a certain way? Oh! lovely adored one, turn toward me for an instant that glance, at once

so soft and so dazzling; sinner, take pity upon an insane passion, thou, to whom love opened the gates of

Heaven; descend from that frame, stand erect in thy long, green satin skirt; for it is a long while that thou hast

knelt before the sublime scaffold; these holy women will guard the body without thee and will suffice for the

death vigil. Come, Magdalen, come! thou hast not emptied all thy jars of perfume at the feet of the Divine

Master! there must remain enough of nard and cinnamon in the bottom of thy onyx jar to renew the luster of

thy hair, dimmed by the ashes of repentance. Thou shalt have, as of yore, strings of pearls, negro pages, and

coverlets of the purple of Sidon. Come, Magdalen, although thou hast been two thousand years dead, I have

enough of youth and ardor to reanimate thy dust. Ah! specter of beauty, let me but hold thee in my arms one

A stifled sigh, as faint and soft as the wail of a dove mortally wounded, echoed sadly in the air. Tiburce

It was Gretchen, who, hidden behind a pillar, had seen all, heard all, understood all. Something had broken in

That evening Tiburce came to see her; he was pale and depressed. Gretchen was as white as wax. The

excitement of the morning had driven the color from her cheeks, like the powder from the wings of a

"To Paris or elsewhere; wherever you please," replied Gretchen, in whom every shred of willpower seemed

"Come tomorrow morning; I will be ready; I have given you my heart and my life. Dispose of your servant."

She went with Tiburce to the Arms of Brabant, to assist him to make his preparations for departure; she

packed his books, his linen, and his pictures, then she returned to her little room on Rue Kipdorp; she did not

An unconquerable depression had seized upon her soul; everything about her seemed sad: the bouquets were

withered in their blue glass vases; the lamps flickered and cast a dim and intermittent light; the ivory Christ

bent His head in despair upon His breast; and the blessed boxwood assumed the aspect of a cypress dipped in

The little Virgin from her little recess watched her in surprise with her enamel eyes; and the storm, pressing

The heaviest furniture, the most unimportant utensils, wore an expression of intelligence and compassion;

they cracked dolorously and gave forth mournful sounds. The easychair held out its long, unoccupied arms;

the hopvine on the trellis passed its little green hand familiarly through a broken pane; the kettle complained

and wept among the ashes; the curtains of the bed fell in more lifeless and more distressed folds; the whole

room seemed to understand that it was about to lose its young mistress. Gretchen called her old servant, who

wept bitterly; she handed her her keys and the certificates of her little income, then opened the cage of her

TIBURCE'S apartment greatly surprised the young Antwerp maiden, accustomed to Flemish strictness and

method. That mixture of luxury and heedlessness upset all her ideas. For instance, a crimson velvet cover was

thrown upon a wretched broken table; magnificent candelabra of the most ornate style, which would not have

been out of place in the boudoir of a king's mistress, were supplied with paltry bobdches of common glass,

which the candles, burning down to the very bottom, had burst; a china vase of beautiful material and

workmanship and of great value had received a kick in the side, and its splintered fragments were held

together by iron wire; exceedingly rare engravings were fastened to the wall by pins; a Greek cap was on the

head of an antique Venus, and a multitude of incongruous objects, such as Turkish pipes, narghiles, daggers,

yataghans, Chinese shoes, and Indian slippers, encumbered the chairs and whatnots.

The painstaking Gretchen had no rest until all this was cleaned, neatly hung, and labeled; like God who made

the world from chaos, she made of thatmedley a delightful apartment. Tiburce, who was accustomed to its

confusion and who knew perfectly where things ought not to be, had difficulty at first in recognizing his

surroundings; but he ended by becoming used to it. The objects which he disarranged returned to their places

as if by magic. He realized for the first time what comfort meant. Like all imaginative people, he neglected

details. The door of his bedroom was gilded and covered with arabesques, but it had no weatherstrips; like

the genuine savage that he was, he loved splendor and not wellbeing; he would have worn, like the

And yet, although he seemed to enjoy this more human and more reasonable mode of life, he was often sad

and distraught; he would remain whole days upon his divan, flanked by two piles of cushions, with eyes

closed and hands hanging, and not utter a word; Gretchen dared not question him, she was so afraid of his

reply. The scene in the cathedral had remained engraved upon her memory, in painful and ineffaceable

He continued to think of the Magdalen at Antwerp; absence made her more beautiful in his sight; he saw her

before him like a luminous apparition. An imaginary sunlight riddled her hair with rays of gold, her dress had

the transparency of an emerald, her shoulders gleamed like Parian marble. Her tears had dried, and youth

shone in all its bloom upon, the down of her rosy cheeks; she seemed entirely consoled for the death of the

Christ; whose bluish white foot she supported heedlessly, while she turned her face towards her earthly lover.

The rigid outlines of sanctity were softened and had become undulating and supple; the sinner reappeared in

the person of the penitent; her neckerchief floated more freely, her skirt swelled out in alluring and worldly

folds, her arms were amorously outstretched,.as if ready to seize a victim of love. The great saint had become

a courtesan, and had transformed herself into a temptress. In a more credulous age Tiburce would have seen

therein some underhand machination of him who goes prowling about, "seeking whom he may devour"; he

would have believed that the devil's claw was upon his shoulder and that he was bewitched in due form.

How did it happen that Tiburce, beloved by a charming young girl, simple of heart, and endowed with

intelligence, possessed of beauty, youth, innocence, all the real gifts which come from God, and which no

one can acquire, persisted in pursuing a mad chimera, an impossible dream; and how could that mind, so keen

and powerful, have arrived at such a degree of aberration? Such things are seen every day; have we not, each

one of us in our respective spheres, been loved obscurely by some humble heart, while we sought more

exalted loves? Have not we trodden under foot a pale violet with its timid perfume, while striding along with

lowered eyes toward a cold and gleaming star which cast its ironic glance upon us from the depths of

One day Tiburce entered Gretchen's chamber carrying a bundle; he took from it a skirt and waist of green

satin, made after the antique style, a chemisette of a shape long out of fashion, and a string of huge pearls.

He requested Gretchen to put on those garments, which could not fail to be most becoming to her, and to

keep them in the house; he told her by way of explanation that he was very fond of. sixteenthcentury

costumes, and that by falling in with that fancy of his she would confer very great pleasure upon him. You

will readily believe that a young girl did not need to be asked twice to try on a new gown; she was soon

dressed, and when she entered the salon, Tiburce could not withhold a cry of surprise and admiration. He

found something to criticize, however, in the headdress, and, releasing the hair from the teeth of the comb,

he spread it out in great curls over Gretchen's shoulders, like the Magdalen's hair in the Descent from the

Cross. That done, he gave a different twist to some folds of the skirt, loosened the laces of the waist, rumpled

the neckerchief, which was too stiff and starchy, and, stepping back a few feet, contemplated his work.

Doubtless you have seen what are called living pictures, at some special performance. The most beautiful

actresses are selected, and dressed and posed in such wise as to reproduce some familiar painting. Tiburce

had achieved a masterpiece of that sort; you would have said that it was a bit cut from Ruben's canvas.

"Don't stir, you will spoil the pose; you are so lovely thus!" cried Tiburce in a tone of entreaty.

The poor girl obeyed and remained motionless for several minutes. When she turned, Tiburce saw that her

Gretchen's tears flowed silently down her cheeks, without contraction of the features, without effort, like

pearls overflowing from the too full cup of her eyes, lovely azure flowers of divine limpidity; grief could not

mar the harmony of her face, and her tears were lovelier than another woman's smile.

Gretchen wiped them away with the back of her hand, and leaning upon the arm of a chair, she said in a voice

"Oh, how you have made me suffer, Tiburce! Jealousy of a new sort wrung my heart; although I had no rival,

I was betrayed none the less; you loved a painted woman; she possessed your thoughts, your dreams; she

alone seemed fair to you, who saw only her in all the world; plunged in that mad contemplation, you did not

even see that I had wept. And I believed for an instant that you loved me, whereas I was simply a duplicate, a

counterfeit of your passion! I know well that in your eyes I am only an ignorant little girl who speaks French

with a German accent that makes you laugh; my face pleases you as a reminder of your imaginary mistress;

you see in me a pretty manikin which you drape according to your fancy; but I tell you the manikin suffers

"You talked to me enchantingly of love, you taught me that I was lovely and charming to look upon, you

pressed my hands and declared that no fairy had smaller ones; you said of my hair that it was more precious

than a prince's golden cloak, and of my eyes that the angels came down from Heaven to lookat themselves in

them, and that they stayed so long that they were late in returning and were scolded by the good Lord; and all

this in a sweet and penetrating voice, with an accent of truth that would have deceived those more

experienced than I. Alas! my resemblance to the Magdalen in the picture kindled your imagination and gave

you that artificial eloquence; she answered you through my mouth; I gave her the life that she lacks, and I

served to complete your illusion. If I have given you a few moments of happiness, I forgive you for making

me play this part. After all, it is not your fault if you do not know how to love, if the impossible alone attracts

you, if you long only for that which you cannot attain. You are ambitious to love, you are deceived

concerning yourself, you will never love. You must have perfection, the ideal and poesy�all those things

which do not exist.' Instead of loving in a woman the love that she has for you, of being grateful to her for her

devotion and for the gift of her heart, you look to see if she resembles that plaster Venus in your study. Woe

to her if the outline of her brow has not the desired curve! You are concerned about the grain of her skin, the

shade of her hair, the fineness of her wrists and her ankles, but never about her heart. You are not a lover,

poor Tiburce, you are simply a painter. What you have taken for passion is simply admiration for shape and

beauty; you were in love with the talent of Rubens, not with the Magdalen; your vocation of painter stirred

vaguely within you and produced those frantic outbursts which you could not control. Thence came all the

degradation of your fantasy. I have discovered this, because I love you. Love is a woman's genius, her mind

is not engrossed in selfish contemplation! Since I have been here I have turned over your books, I have read

your poets, I have become almost a scholar. The veil has fallen from my " eyes. I have discovered many

things that I should never have suspected. Thus I have been able to read clearly in your heart. You used to

draw�take up your pencils again. You must place your dreams upon canvas, and all this great agitation will

calm down of itself. If I cannot be your mistress, I will at all events be your model."

When the servant had prepared everything, the chaste girl suddenly let her garments fall to the floor with

sublime immodesty, and raising her hair, like Aphrodite come forth from the sea, stood in the bright light.

After two hours, the face was already alive and half protruding from the canvas; in a week it was finished. It

was not a perfect picture, however; but an exquisite touch of refinement and of purity, a wonderful softness

of tone, and the noble simplicity of the arrangement made it noteworthy, especially to connoisseurs. That

slender white and fairhaired figure, standing forth in an unconstrained attitude against the twofold azure of

the sky and the sea, and presenting herself to the world nude and smiling, had' a reflection of antique poesy

"I shall be the wife of a great painter," she said, throwing her arms about her lover's neck; "but do not forget,

monsieur, that it was I who discovered your genius, that priceless jewel �I, little Gretchen of Rue Kipdorp!"