The Aspirations of Jean Servien

uncorked a bottle with a special seal, which he had hoarded for years in anticipation of this

door," Monsieur Servien observed, as he imbibed the wine with fit

tragedy was on the bill. He took his ticket for the pit with a vague idea it would be the talisman admitting him to a new wonder-world of passion and emotion. Every trifle is disconcerting to a troubled spirit, and on hi

grew more and more acute till it was almost pain. As scene followed scene, there entered a confidante, then a hero, then a crowd of supers. But he saw nothing but the apparition that had first fascinated him. His eyes fastened greedily on her beauty, caressing the two bare arms, encircled with rings of metal, gliding along the curve of the hips below the high girdle

talking politics and passing one another quarters of orange across him; the newspaper boy and the man who hired out op

the white robe came on again. But he had strained his sight too hard; he could see nothing; by dint of riveting his gaze on the long gold pendants that hu

ary senses, for she wore for him the elemental guise of a supernatural vision. When the prompter's bell tinkled and

of Elmire, nor the soubrette's dimpled arms, nor the ingénue's innocent eyes, nor the noble, witty lines that filled the th

the only thing he saw distinctly. He was entranced, possessed; but the feeling was delicious, and he roamed far and wide in the dark streets, making long detours by the river-side quays to lengthen out his reveries, his heart full, overfull of

he picture of her beauty in his heart. All he wanted was to lose

felt no overmastering impulse, except to read the verses he had heard the actress declaim. He took down from his shelves a volume of Corn

existence had no power to disturb his happy serenity. All day long, in the back-shop where the penetrating smell of paste mingled with the fumes of the cabbage-soup, he lived a life of his own, a life of incom

aim the lines in a slow, pompous voice, and his aunt would rema

é, are you, that you preac

ained that his son would not make up his mind to any way of earning a living, she always took up the cudgels for t

uietude to see a holiday, legitimate enough no doubt after a successful examination, dragging out to such a length. He was anxious to see his son earning money in some department of administration or other. He had he

that his émilie, Mademoiselle Gabrielle T--, was appearing in that evening's piece. This time, ignoring his aunt's

antle nor the bracelets and fillets that had seemed to him part and parcel of the beauty they adorned. Now she wore the turban of Roxana and the wide muslin trousers caught in at the ankle. It was only by degrees he could grow reconciled to the change. He realized that her arms were a trifle thin, and that a tooth stood back behind the rest in the row of pearls. But in the end her very defects pleased him, because they were hers, a

was playing, he watched for her at the stage-door, through which emerged one after the other scene-shifters, actors, constables, firemen, dressers, and actresses. At last she appeared, muffled

on his breast and thou

tossed the leaf into the river and watched it borne away by the current of the stream that lay silvery in the moonlight, spangled with quivering lights. He watched it til