II

In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late,

rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busy

street lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to

those who have wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when its

roar, hushed for a moment, rises and spreads in the distance like the

great voice of the sea. This strange young man must have seemed as

curious to the shopkeeping folk of the "Cat and Racket" as the "Cat

and Racket" was to him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxious

face look even paler than it really was. The fire that flashed in his

black eyes, gloomy and sparkling by turns, was in harmony with the

singular outline of his features, with his wide, flexible mouth,

hardened into a smile. His forehead, knit with violent annoyance, had

a stamp of doom. Is not the forehead the most prophetic feature of a

man? When the stranger's brow expressed passion the furrows formed in

it were terrible in their strength and energy; but when he recovered

his calmness, so easily upset, it beamed with a luminous grace which

gave great attractiveness to a countenance in which joy, grief, love,

anger, or scorn blazed out so contagiously that the coldest man could

not fail to be impressed.

He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of the

loft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparition

of three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as

the face of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments.

These three faces, framed by the window, recalled the puffy cherubs

floating among the clouds that surround God the Father. The

apprentices snuffed up the exhalations of the street with an eagerness

that showed how hot and poisonous the atmosphere of their garret must

be. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he

seemed, of the apprentices retired and came back holding an instrument

whose hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they

all grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and

sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that

three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest

corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased

laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man

shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he

glanced up at the empty window-frame.

At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of

the clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners,

of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy

panes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long

waiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of the

white cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frill

of tumbled muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence.

Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed here and

there through little openings left by her movements in sleep. No

expression of embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, or

the calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works of

Raphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in those

Virgins, and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrast between

the cheeks of that face on which sleep had, as it were, given high

relief to a superabundance of life, and the antiquity of the heavy

window with its clumsy shape and black sill. Like those day-blowing

flowers, which in the early morning have not yet unfurled their cups,

twisted by the chills of night, the girl, as yet hardly awake, let her

blue eyes wander beyond the neighboring roofs to look at the sky;

then, from habit, she cast them down on the gloomy depths of the

street, where they immediately met those of her adorer. Vanity, no

doubt, distressed her at being seen in undress; she started back, the

worn pulley gave way, and the sash fell with the rapid run, which in

our day has earned for this artless invention of our forefathers an

odious name, /Fenetre a la Guillotine/. The vision had disappeared. To

the young man the most radiant star of morning seemed to be hidden by

a cloud.

During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters that protected

the slight windows of the shop of the "Cat and Racket" had been

removed as if by magic. The old door with its knocker was opened back

against the wall of the entry by a man-servant, apparently coeval with

the sign, who, with a shaking hand, hung upon it a square of cloth, on

which were embroidered in yellow silk the words: "Guillaume, successor

to Chevrel." Many a passer-by would have found it difficult to guess

the class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the

strong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside,

certain packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though

as numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the

primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the

merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always the

best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose

commercial honesty never lay under the slightest suspicion. If some of

his brethren in business made a contract with the Government, and had

not the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it,

however large the number of pieces tendered for. The wily dealer knew

a thousand ways of extracting the largest profits without being

obliged, like them, to court patrons, cringing to them, or making them

costly presents. When his fellow-tradesmen could only pay in good

bills of long date, he would mention his notary as an accommodating

man, and managed to get a second profit out of the bargain, thanks to

this arrangement, which had made it a proverb among the traders of the

Rue Saint-Denis: "Heaven preserve you from Monsieur Guillaume's

notary!" to signify a heavy discount.

The old merchant was to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop,

as if by a miracle, the instant the servant withdrew. Monsieur

Guillaume looked at the Rue Saint-Denis, at the neighboring shops, and

at the weather, like a man disembarking at Havre, and seeing France

once more after a long voyage. Having convinced himself that nothing

had changed while he was asleep, he presently perceived the stranger

on guard, and he, on his part, gazed at the patriarchal draper as

Humboldt may have scrutinized the first electric eel he saw in

America. Monsieur Guillaume wore loose black velvet breeches, pepper-

and-salt stockings, and square toed shoes with silver buckles. His

coat, with square-cut fronts, square-cut tails, and square-cut collar

clothed his slightly bent figure in greenish cloth, finished with

white metal buttons, tawny from wear. His gray hair was so accurately

combed and flattened over his yellow pate that it made it look like a

furrowed field. His little green eyes, that might have been pierced

with a gimlet, flashed beneath arches faintly tinged with red in the

place of eyebrows. Anxieties had wrinkled his forehead with as many

horizontal lines as there were creases in his coat. This colorless

face expressed patience, commercial shrewdness, and the sort of wily

cupidity which is needful in business. At that time these old families

were less rare than they are now, in which the characteristic habits

and costume of their calling, surviving in the midst of more recent

civilization, were preserved as cherished traditions, like the

antediluvian remains found by Cuvier in the quarries.