It represented a fine-looking old man, seated at table with his wife, his daughter, and his children, and singing to the accompaniment of musicians who appeared in the background. At first sight I recognized the subject, which I had often admired at the Louvre, and I declared it to be a splendid copy of Jordaens.
“A copy!” cried M. Antoine; “say an original, neighbor, and an original retouched by Rubens! Look closer at the head of the old man, the dress of the young woman, and the accessories. One can count the pencil-strokes of the Hercules of painters. It is not only a masterpiece, sir; it is a treasure—a relic! The picture at the Louvre may be a pearl, this is a diamond!”
And resting it against the stove, so as to place it in the best light, he fell again to soaking his crusts, without taking his eyes off the wonderful picture. One would have said that the sight of it gave the crusts an unexpected relish, for he chewed them slowly, and emptied his glass by little sips. His shrivelled features became smooth, his nostrils expanded; it was indeed, as he said himself, “a feast for the eyes.”
“You see that I also have my treat,” he resumed, nodding his head with an air of triumph. “Others may run after dinners and balls; as for me, this is the pleasure I give myself for my Carnival.”
“But if this painting is really so precious,” replied I, “it ought to be worth a high price.”
“Eh! eh!” said M. Antoine, with an air of proud indifference. “In good times, a good judge might value it at somewhere about twenty thousand francs.”
I started back.
“And you have bought it?” cried I.
“For nothing,” replied he, lowering his voice. “These brokers are asses; mine mistook this for a student’s copy; he let me have it for fifty louis, ready money! This morning I took them to him, and now he wishes to be off the bargain.”
“This morning!” repeated I, involuntarily casting my eyes on the letter containing the refusal that M. Antoine had made me write to his son’s widow, which was still on the little table.
He took no notice of my exclamation, and went on contemplating the work of Jordaens in an ecstasy.
“What a knowledge of chiaroscuro!” he murmured, biting his last crust in delight. “What relief! what fire! Where can one find such transparency of color! such magical lights! such force! such nature!”
As I was listening to him in silence, he mistook my astonishment for admiration, and clapped me on the shoulder.
“You are dazzled,” said he merrily; “you did not expect such a treasure! What do you say to the bargain I have made?”
“Pardon me,” replied I, gravely; “but I think you might have done better.”
M. Antoine raised his head.
“How!” cried he; “do you take me for a man likely to be deceived about the merit or value of a painting?”
“I neither doubt your taste nor your skill; but I cannot help thinking that, for the price of this picture of a family party, you might have had—”
“What then?”
“The family itself, sir.”
The old amateur cast a look at me, not of anger, but of contempt. In his eyes I had evidently just proved myself a barbarian, incapable of understanding the arts, and unworthy of enjoying them. He got up without answering me, hastily took up the Jordaens, and replaced it in its hiding-place behind the prints.
It was a sort of dismissal; I took leave of him, and went away.
Seven o’clock.—When I come in again, I find my water boiling over my lamp, and I busy myself in grinding my Mocha, and setting out my coffee-things.
The getting coffee ready is the most delicate and most attractive of domestic operations to one who lives alone: it is the grand work of a bachelor’s housekeeping.
Coffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between bodily and spiritual nourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the same time, upon the senses and the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delightful activity to the wits; it is a genius that lends wings to our fancy, and transports it to the land of the Arabian Nights.
When I am buried in my old easy-chair, my feet on the fender before a blazing fire, my ear soothed by the singing of the coffee-pot, which seems to gossip with my fire-irons, the sense of smell gently excited by the aroma of the Arabian bean, and my eyes shaded by my cap pulled down over them, it often seems as if each cloud of the fragrant steam took a distinct form. As in the mirages of the desert, in each as it rises, I see some image of which my mind had been longing for the reality.
At first the vapor increases, and its color deepens. I see a cottage on a hillside: behind is a garden shut in by a whitethorn hedge, and through the garden runs a brook, on the banks of which I hear the bees humming.
Then the view opens still more. See those fields planted with apple-trees, in which I can distinguish a plough and horses waiting for their master! Farther on, in a part of the wood which rings with the sound of the axe, I perceive the woodsman’s hut, roofed with turf and branches; and, in the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem to see a figure of myself gliding about. It is my ghost walking in my dream!
The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, compels me to break off my meditations, in order to fill up the coffee-pot. I then remember that I have no cream; I take my tin can off the hook and go down to the milkwoman’s.
Mother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Savoy, which she left when quite young; and, contrary to the custom of the Savoyards, she has not gone back to it again. She has neither husband nor child, notwithstanding the title they give her; but her kindness, which never sleeps, makes her worthy of the name of mother.
A brave creature! Left by herself in the battle of life, she makes good her humble place in it by working, singing, helping others, and leaving the rest to God.
At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of laughter. In one of the corners of the shop three children are sitting on the ground. They wear the sooty dress of Savoyard boys, and in their hands they hold large slices of bread and cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the eyes with his, and that is the reason of their mirth.
Mother Denis points them out to me.
“Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy themselves!” said she, putting her hand on the head of the little glutton.
“He has had no breakfast,” puts in one of the others by way of excuse.
“Poor little thing,” said the milkwoman; “he is left alone in the streets of Paris, where he can find no other father than the All-good God!”
“And that is why you make yourself a mother to them?” I replied, gently.
“What I do is little enough,” said Mother Denis, measuring out my milk; “but every day I get some of them together out of the street, that for once they may have enough to eat. Dear children! their mothers will make up for it in heaven. Not to mention that they recall my native mountains to me: when they sing and dance, I seem to see our old father again.”
Here her eyes filled with tears.
“So you are repaid by your recollections for the good you do them?” resumed I.
“Yes! yes!” said she, “and by their happiness, too! The laughter of these little ones, sir, is like a bird’s song; it makes you gay, and gives you heart to live.”
As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, and added some apples and a handful of nuts to them.
“Come,