That morning, Franz was taking his way very slowly to school. He had a great dread of being scolded, particularly as the school-master had said that the lesson for the day would be on participles about which Franz did not know a word. Suddenly an idea came to him. He would go through the fields. […]

That morning was the dawn of a glorious day for the sculptor Guillardin. Elected on the previous day a member of the Institut, he was about to inaugurate before the five Academies gathered together in solemn concourse, his academic coat, a magnificent garment ornamented with green palm-leaves, resplendent in its new cloth and silken embroidery, […]

“M. Charles d’Athis, literary man, has the honour to inform you of the birth of his son Robert. “The child is doing well.” Some dozen years ago, all literary and artistic Paris received this little note on the glossiest of paper, embossed with the arms of the Counts of d’Athis-Mons, of whom the last Charles […]

I have loved but one woman in my life, the painter D—— said one day to us. I spent five years of perfect happiness and peaceful and fruitful tranquillity with her. I may say that to her I owe my present celebrity, so easy was work, and so spontaneous was inspiration by her side. Even […]

No one was astonished at hearing she was going to marry again. Notwithstanding all his genius, perhaps even on account of his genius, the great man had for fifteen years led her a hard life, full of caprices and mad freaks that had attracted the attention of all Paris. On the high road to fame, […]

(Fragment Of A Woman’s Letter Found In The Rue Notre-Dame-Des-Champs) … What it has cost me to marry an artist! Oh, my dear! if I had known! but young girls have singular ideas about so many things. Just imagine that at the Exhibition, when I read in the catalogue the addresses of far-away quiet streets […]

I hardly fancy it would be possible to find in the whole of Paris, a more lively and peculiar house than that of the sculptor Simaise. Life there is one continual round of festivities. At whatever hour you drop in upon them, a sound of singing and laughter, or the jingle of a piano, guitar, […]

MR. PETITBRY, Chamber Counsel. To Madame Nina de B., at her Aunt’s house, in Moulins . Madame, conformably to the wishes of Madame your aunt, I have looked into the matter in question. I have noted down one by one all the different points and submitted your grievances to the most scrupulous investigation. Well, on […]

A MISUNDERSTANDING — THE WIFE’S VERSION. What can be the matter with him? What can he complain of? I cannot understand it. And yet I have done all I could to make him happy. To be sure, I don’t say that instead of a poet I would not rather have married a notary or a […]

How could they help falling in love? Handsome and famous as they both were, singing in the same operas, living each night during five whole acts the same artificial and passionate existence. You cannot play with fire without being burnt. You cannot say twenty times a month: “I love you!” to the sighing of a […]

To be the wife of a poet! that had been the dream of her life! but ruthless fate, instead of the romantic and fevered existence she sighed for, had doomed her to a peaceful, humdrum happiness, and married her to a rich man at Auteuil, gentle and amiable, perhaps indeed a trifle old for her, […]

The play was just over, and while the crowd, with its many varied impressions, hurried away and poured out under the glare of the principal portico of the theatre, a few friends, of whom I was one, awaited the poet at the artists’ entrance in order to congratulate him. His production had not, indeed, been […]

Stretched at full length, on the great divan of a studio, cigar in mouth, two friends–a poet and a painter–were talking together one evening after dinner. It was the hour of confidences and effusion. The lamp burned softly beneath its shade, limiting its circle of light to the intimacy of the conversation, leaving scarcely distinct […]

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 […]

I. “Two truffled turkeys, Garrigou?” “Yes, reverend Father, two magnificent turkeys stuffed with truffles. There’s no mistake, for I helped to stuff them myself. The flesh almost cracked as they roasted, it was so tight–so—-“ “Holy Virgin! and I, who love truffles as—-Hurry; give me my surplice, Garrigou. And what else besides the turkeys; what […]

I. It is the eve of Christmas in a large village of Bavaria. Along the snow-whitened streets, amid the confusion of the fog and noise of carriages and bells, the crowd presses joyously about cook-shops, wine-booths, and busy stores. Rustling with a light sweep of sound against the flower-twined and be-ribboned stalls, branches of green […]

I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a scolding, especially because M. Hamel had said that he would question us on participles, and I did not know the first word about them. For a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors. It […]