Joseph B.

The painter, who no longer had the heart to paint, though his bitter grief sorely needed the mechanical distraction which labor is wont to give, was surrounded by friends who agreed with one another never to leave him entirely alone.  Thus it happened that Bixiou, who loved Joseph as much as a satirist can love any one, was sitting in the atelier with a group of other friends about two weeks after Agathe’s funeral.  The servant entered with a letter, brought by an old woman, she said, who was waiting below for the answer.

  Monsieur,—­To you, whom I scarcely dare to call my brother, I am
  forced to address myself, if only on account of the name I bear.—­

Joseph turned the page and read the signature.  The name “Comtesse Flore de Brambourg” made him shudder.  He foresaw some new atrocity on the part of his brother.

“That brigand,” he cried, “is the devil’s own.  And he calls himself a man of honor!  And he wears a lot of crosses on his breast!  And he struts about at court instead of being bastinadoed!  And the scoundrel is called Monsieur le Comte!”

“There are many like him,” said Bixiou.

“After all,” said Joseph, “the Rabouilleuse deserves her fate, whatever it is.  She is not worth pitying; she’d have had my neck wrung like a chicken’s without so much as saying, ‘He’s innocent.’”

Joseph flung away the letter, but Bixiou caught it in the air, and read it aloud, as follows:—­

Is it decent that the Comtesse Bridau de Brambourg should die in a hospital, no matter what may have been her faults?  If such is to be my fate, if such is your determination and that of monsieur le comte, so be it; but if so, will you, who are the friend of Doctor Bianchon, ask him for a permit to let me enter a hospital?

The person who carries this letter has been eleven consecutive days to the hotel de Brambourg, rue de Clichy, without getting any help from my husband.  The poverty in which I now am prevents my employing a lawyer to make a legal demand for what is due to me, that I may die with decency.  Nothing can save me, I know that.  In case you are unwilling to see your unhappy sister-in-law, send me, at least, the money to end my days.  Your brother desires my death; he has always desired it.  He warned me that he knew three ways of killing a woman, but I had not the sense to foresee the one he has employed.

In case you will consent to relieve me, and judge for yourself the misery in which I now am, I live in the rue du Houssay, at the corner of the rue Chantereine, on the fifth floor.  If I cannot pay my rent to-morrow I shall be put out—­and then, where can I go?  May I call myself,

  Your sister-in-law,

  Comtesse Flore de Brambourg.

“What a pit of infamy!” cried Joseph; “there is something under it all.”

“Let us send for the woman who brought the letter; we may get the preface of the story,” said Bixiou.