rtments by the month or
night?"_

THE PAINTER.

_Such are all in the wrong. They accept the worries of wedlock and will
never know its joys._

THE POET.

_"You acknowledge then that there are some joys?"_

_Here the painter, instead of replying, rose, searched out from among
drawings and sketches a much-thumbed manuscript, and returning to his
companion:_

_"We might argue like this," said he, "for ever so long without either
convincing the other. But since, notwithstanding my observations, you
seem determined to try marriage, here is a little work I beg you to
read. It is written--I would have you note--by a married man, much in
love with his wife, very happy in his home, an observer who, spending
his life among artists, amused himself by sketching one or two such
households as I spoke of just now. From the first to the last line of
this book, all is true, so true that the author would never publish it.
Read it, and come to me when you have read it. I think you will have
changed your mind."_

_The poet took the manuscript and carried it home with him; but he did
not keep the little book with all the needful care, for I have been able
to detach a few leaves from it and boldly offer them to the public._

[Illustration: p023-034]

MADAME HEURTEBISE.

She was certainly not intended for an artist's wife, above all for
such an artist as this outrageous fellow, impassioned, uproarious and
exuberant, who, with his nose in the air and bristling moustaches,
rushed through life defiantly flaunting the eccentric and whirlwind-like
name of Heurtebise,* like a challenge thrown down to all the absurd
conventionalities and prejudices of the _bourgeois_ class. How, and by
what strange charm had the little woman, brought up in a jeweller's
shop, behind rows of watch chains and strings of rings, found the means
of captivating this poet?

* Hit the blast (literally).

Picture to yourself the affected graces of a shopwoman with
insignificant features, cold and ever-smiling eyes, complacent and
placid physiognomy, devoid of real elegance, but having a certain love
for glitter and tinsel, no doubt caught at her father's shopwindow,
making her take pleasure in many-coloured satin bows, sashes and
buckles; and her hair glossy with cosmetic, stiffly arranged by the
hairdresser over a small, obstinate, narrow forehead, where the total
absence of wrinkles told less of youth than of complete lack of thought.
Such as s