sible, among the audience. At
this moment, a woman appeared on the stage, clad in a short spangled
frock. Owing to the reflection of the footlights and the paint on her
face all that was visible of the latter was the expression and the
smile. Her body was supple and voluptuous.

"She sang and danced.... Arcade, I have always loved dancing and music,
but this creature's thrilling voice and insidious movements created in
me an uneasiness I had never known before. My colour came and went. My
eyelids drooped, my tongue clove to my mouth. I could not leave the
spot."

And Theophile related, groaning, how, possessed by desire for this
woman, he did not return to Heaven again, but, taking the shape of a
man, lived an earthly life, for it is written: "In those days the sons
of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful."

A fallen angel, having lost his innocence along with the vision of God,
Theophile at heart still retained his simplicity of soul. Clad in rags,
filched from the stall of a Jewish hawker, he went to seek the woman he
loved. She was called Bouchotte and lodged in a small house in
Montmartre. He flung himself at her feet and told her she was adorable,
that she sang delightfully, that he loved her madly, that, for her, he
would renounce his family and his country, that he was a musician and
had nothing to eat. Touched by such youthful ingenuousness, candour,
poverty, and love, she fed, clothed, and loved him.

However, after long and painful struggles, he procured employment as a
music-teacher, and made some money, which he brought to his mistress,
keeping nothing for himself. From that time forward she loved him no
longer. She despised him for earning so little and did not conceal her
indifference, weariness, and disgust. She overwhelmed him with
reproaches, irony, and abuse, in spite of which she kept him, for she
had had experience of worse partners and was used to domestic quarrels.
For the rest, she led a busy, serious, and rather hard life as artist
and woman. Theophile loved her as he had loved her the first night, and
he suffered.

"She overworks herself," he told his celestial brother, "that is what
makes her so hard to please, but I am certain she loves me. I hope soon
to give her more comfort."

And he spoke at length of an operetta at which he was working and which
he hoped to have brought out at a Paris theatre. A young poet had given
him the libretto. It was the story of Aline, queen of