The Two Brothers

The painter's studio and bedroom was opposite, on the other side of the staircase. When Joseph saw his mother thus reduced, he was determined to make

iture and was newly covered, gave the room an air of elegance and nicety. In the hallway he added a double door, with a "portiere" to the inner one. The window was shaded by a blind which gave soft tones to

n leader. The lottery-offices of the government, the lot, as one might say, of privileged widows, ordinarily sufficed for the support of the family of each person who managed them. But after the Restoration the difficulty of rewarding, within the limits of constitutional government, all the services rendered to the cause, led to the custom of giving to reduced women of title not only one but two lottery-offices, worth, usually, from six to ten thousand a year. In such cases, the widow of a general or nobleman thus "protected" did not keep the lottery-office herself; she employed a paid manager. When these managers were young men they were obliged to employ an assistant; for, according to law, the offices had to be kept open till midnight; moreover, the reports required by the minister

ood nothing whatever of art, the silence of the studio suited her. In the matter of art she made not the slightest progress; she attempted no hypocrisy; she was utterly amazed at the importance they all attached to color, composition, drawing. When the Cenacle friends or some brother-painter, like Schinner, Pierre Grassou, Leon de Lora,-a very youthful "rapin" who was called at that time Mistigris,-discussed a picture, she would come back afterwards, examine it attentively, and discover nothing to justify their fine words and their hot disputes. She made her son

what is h

ng?

ili

oats; that fellow will make so

perhaps it was poverty which changed him to what

ring that journey of his. You are mistaken; he

this moment, near to us,

gladly give him some money; but I don't wa

you would not be willin

rtyrdom. I can make myself remember

a captain of drag

ine horse by Gros and I

at friend of his and find

ll

at her feet; she went and kissed Joseph'

low," said the painter. "We a

e of Issoudun on whom the Bridaus' grandfather, Doctor Rouget, had vowed vengeance; consequently he was the nephew of Madame Hochon. To make himself agreeable to his uncle, Finot gave Philippe the place Giroudeau was quitting; cutting off, however, half the salary. Moreover, daily, at five o'clock, Giroudeau audited the accounts and carried away the receipts. Coloquinte, the old veteran, who was the office boy and did errands, also kept an eye on the

. You shall go to the opera; Florine and Florentine have got a box. I'm going

ded cane, and m

ion; I am to take our mother

he, the poor,

portrait, and aunt Descoings's. I have also painted my own, and I should like

y go

have to co

this hen-coop from n

ays will

poleon's staff officer, lightin

pe was to sit, Agathe arranged a charming breakfast in the studio. She laid it all out on the table; not forgetting a flask of brandy, which, however, was only half full. She herself stayed behind a screen, in which she made a little hole. The ex-dragoon sent his uniform the night before, and she had not refrained from kissing it. When Philippe was placed, in full dress, on one of those straw horses, all saddled, which Jo

"it frightens me to

in this house," cried the colonel in a thu

her hiding-place, and kissing her son.

d Philippe took them to the Rocher de Cancale, where he gave them

e of eleven hundred francs you manage, like Ponchard

k," answered the dragoon,

the Cirque-Olympique (the only theatre her confessor allowed her to visit),-Joseph pinched his mother's arm. She at once pretended to feel unwell, and refused to g

rded in the light of cashiers. Philippe, who had been drinking kirsch before posing, was loquacious. He boasted that he was about to become a great man. But when Joseph asked a question as to his pecuniary resources he was dumb. It so happened that there was no newspaper on the following day, it being a fete, and to finish the picture Philippe proposed to sit again on the morrow. Joseph told him that the S

ippe, pointing to a pict

genius can do. It will take me all to-morrow to get the tones of the o

Philippe, kissing Agat

finished. To play him a trick, Joseph, when he heard his knock, put the copy, which was varnished with a special glaze of his own, in place

l deceive old Magus?

e," answered

Madame Desroches, who had lately lost her husband, and Joseph proposed to Pierre Grassou t

ppe appeared and sa

eph will be in soon, and I wil

e key to the concierge with the excuse that he had forgotten something, and hurried off to sell his Rubens for three thousand fra

me Desroches's, the concierge told him of Philippe's freak,-how

ntly suspecting the theft. He ran rapidly up the three flights and rushed into his stud

at he was saying; but when her son explained what had

son?" she said i

e must now warn the concierge. In future we shall have to keep the keys oursel

ever to look at it," answered the mother, hea

nge his brother through the loss of the Rubens; but nothing restrained him. After this last crime Agathe never mentioned

self, "we shall hear of a B

officer, who announced himself as a friend of Philippe on urgent bus

uched and libidinous expression to his appearance. He wore an old iron-gray overcoat decorated with the red ribbon of an officer of the Legion of honor, which met with difficulty over a gastronomic stomach in keeping with a mouth that stretched from ear to ear, and a pair of powerful shoulders. The torso wa

popular expression, meaning a "loose fish,"

to pay for the doctor and medicines, we shall be obliged, for the sake of curing him, to have him taken to the hospital of the Capuchins. For three hundred francs we would keep him where he is. But he must have a nurse; for at night, when Mademoiselle Florentine is at the theatre, he persists in going out, and takes things that are irritating and injurious to his malady and its treatment. As we are fond of him, this makes us rea

"but this son is banished from my heart, and as for money, I have none. Not to be a burden on my son whom you see here, w

; "can't you do as much for your brother as a poor d

e to tell you in artist language what I think of your vis

brother shall go

answered Joseph. "If I were in l

become indifferent to everything, and, in June, put the cross of the Legion of honor on alpaca overcoats; that is the poverty of small incomes,-of old clerks, who live at Sainte-Perine and care no longer about their outward man. Then comes, in the third place, poverty in rags, the poverty of the people, the poverty that is poetic; which Callot, Hogarth, Murillo, Charlet, Raffet, Gavarni, Meissonier, Art itself adores and cultivates, especially during the carnival. The man in whom poor Agathe thought she recognized her son was astride the last two classes of poverty. She saw the ragged neck-cloth, the scurfy hat, the broken and patched boots, the threadbare coat, whose buttons had shed their mould, leaving the empty shrivelled pod dangling in congruity with the torn pockets and the dirty collar. Scraps of flue were in the creases of the coat, which showed plainly the dust that filled it. The man drew from the pockets of

ant staff officer of the Emperor turn to enter tobacconist's and pause on the threshold; he had felt in his pocket and found nothing. Agathe left the bridge, crossed the quai rapidly, took out her purse, t

ill give him any?" she thought. "Giroudeau did not

starvation, the smoker deprived of his tobacco. At forty-seven years of age she grew to look like a woman of seventy. Her eyes were dimmed with tears and prayers. Yet it was not the last grief this son was to bring upon

he name of Philippe Bridau. She fainted, and the manager, understanding her trouble

as she went to bed that night, "it is

e Desroches," a

one of the keenest and most astute lawyers in Paris, and who, moreover, did sundry services for personages of distinction, a

francs your son will be set at liberty for want of proo

aid the poor mother, with

send her the twelve thousand francs and save his nephew Philippe. If Rouget refused, she entreated Madame Hochon t

your brother has an i

s a year, without co

seventeen years, and

n six hundred thousan

hews whom he has neve

of a farthing while my

in Issoudun. I do not

not give twenty f

borrowing the money,

would refuse it. I h

her, who lives with a

iable to see how the

might have a sister an

h

several times that yo

er, and rescue a fort

a year from the claws

r me, or you seem n

I am obliged to wri

for the misfortune wh

n do no more than pit

e years of age, takes

ed eggs every night, a

spent my whole life

hout ever having had

me to Issoudun and co

r your brother, you m

Rouget cannot receiv

l have hard work to g

r, you can safely com

a way to get what I

ng my will. It seems

en have recourse to

ill do the

ill get out of his tro

In any case, come to I

r imbecile of a brothe

than Monsieur Hocho

lking already of a wi

ieur Hochon says ther

rev

he; may God help you!

godmo

e Hochon, n

tienne, who writes in

e, with your son Phil

come at once to Issou

thi

om she had been forced to mention Giroudeau's proposal. The artist, who grew wary when it

in the rue de Bussy. The lawyer, as cold and stern as his late father, with a sharp voice, a rough skin, implacable eyes, and the

ight save his future. You are afraid he will be condemned; but I say, may it please God his lawyer lets him be convicted. Go to Issoudun, secure the property for your children. If you don't succeed, if your brother has made a will in favor of that woman, and you can't m

s winked at him to let his mother go downstairs first, and

ly no one can find out the exact truth as to that. Fool or traitor,-take your choice. He will be put under the surveillance of the police, nothing

ining Agathe on the staircase. "I have sold my two pictures,

ip to Issoudun, leaving Philippe to his fate. The diligence rolled through the rue d'Enfer toward the Orleans hig

r the Allies he wo

ity; but the artist, who was alone with his mother in the coupe,

as Raphael was a painter. And you

ds "concubine" and "slut," which the pen of a septuagenarian as pious as she was respectable had used to designate the woman now in process of getting hold of Jean-Jacques Rouget's property, struck also with the word "imbecile" applied to

protect our rights, he ought to have explain

to appear before the Court of Peers!-leaves me any distinct memory," returned Agathe, "I think young Desroches s

d the painter. "Bah! if we can make noth

essly," said Agathe. "When we get to Issou

es at Orleans and entered the Sologne, is sufficient proof of the incapacity of the p

aughter, or the strange situation of Jean-Jacques Rouget. Though Doctor Rouget had taught his son to regard Agathe in the light of a stranger, it was certainly a somewhat extraordinary thing that for thirty years a brother should have given no signs of life to a sister. Such a silence was evidently