rk, he went early to his studio;
but the visit he undoubtedly had a right to pay to his neighbors was the
true cause of his haste; he had already forgotten the pictures he had
begun. At the moment when a passion throws off its swaddling clothes,
inexplicable pleasures are felt, known to those who have loved. So some
readers will understand why the painter mounted the stairs to the fourth
floor but slowly, and will be in the secret of the throbs that followed
each other so rapidly in his heart at the moment when he saw the humble
brown door of the rooms inhabited by Mademoiselle Leseigneur. This
girl, whose name was not the same as her mother's, had aroused the young
painter's deepest sympathies; he chose to fancy some similarity between
himself and her as to their position, and attributed to her misfortunes
of birth akin to his own. All the time he worked Hippolyte gave himself
very willingly to thoughts of love, and made a great deal of noise to
compel the two ladies to think of him, as he was thinking of them. He
stayed late at the studio and dined there; then, at about seven o'clock,
he went down to call on his neighbors.

No painter of manners has ventured to initiate us--perhaps out of
modesty--into the really curious privacy of certain Parisian existences,
into the secret of the dwellings whence emerge such fresh and elegant
toilets, such brilliant women, who rich on the surface, allow the signs
of very doubtful comfort to peep out in every part of their home. If,
here, the picture is too boldly drawn, if you find it tedious in places,
do not blame the description, which is, indeed, part and parcel of my
story; for the appearance of the rooms inhabited by his two neighbors
had a great influence on the feelings and hopes of Hippolyte Schinner.

The house belonged to one of those proprietors in whom there is a
foregone and profound horror of repairs and decoration, one of the men
who regard their position as Paris house-owners as a business. In the
vast chain of moral species, these people hold a middle place between
the miser and the usurer. Optimists in their own interests, they are all
faithful to the Austrian status quo. If you speak of moving a cupboard
or a door, of opening the most indispensable air-hole, their eyes flash,
their bile rises, they rear like a frightened horse. When the wind blows
down a few chimney-pots they are quite ill, and deprive themselves of an
evening at the Gymnase or the Porte-Saint-M