Then the poor young man, after groaning to think that he was dependent on this shrew and under the thumb of a peasant of the Vosges, was bewitched by her coaxing ways and by a maternal affection that attached itself solely to the physical and material side of life.  He was like a woman who forgives a week of ill-usage for the sake of a kiss and a brief reconciliation.

Thus Mademoiselle Fischer obtained complete power over his mind.  The love of dominion that lay as a germ in the old maid’s heart developed rapidly.  She could now satisfy her pride and her craving for action; had she not a creature belonging to her, to be schooled, scolded, flattered, and made happy, without any fear of a rival?  Thus the good and bad sides of her nature alike found play.  If she sometimes victimized the poor artist, she had, on the other hand, delicate impulses like the grace of wild flowers; it was a joy to her to provide for all his wants; she would have given her life for him, and Wenceslas knew it.  Like every noble soul, the poor fellow forgot the bad points, the defects of the woman who had told him the story of her life as an excuse for her rough ways, and he remembered only the benefits she had done him.

One day, exasperated with Wenceslas for having gone out walking instead of sitting at work, she made a great scene.

“You belong to me,” said she.  “If you were an honest man, you would try to repay me the money you owe as soon as possible.”

The gentleman, in whose veins the blood of the Steinbocks was fired, turned pale.

“Bless me,” she went on, “we soon shall have nothing to live on but the thirty sous I earn—­a poor work-woman!”

The two penniless creatures, worked up by their own war of words, grew vehement; and for the first time the unhappy artist reproached his benefactress for having rescued him from death only to make him lead the life of a galley slave, worse than the bottomless void, where at least, said he, he would have found rest.  And he talked of flight.

“Flight!” cried Lisbeth.  “Ah, Monsieur Rivet was right.”

And she clearly explained to the Pole that within twenty-four hours he might be clapped into prison for the rest of his days.  It was a crushing blow.  Steinbock sank into deep melancholy and total silence.

In the course of the following night, Lisbeth hearing overhead some preparations for suicide, went up to her pensioner’s room, and gave him the schedule and a formal release.

“Here, dear child, forgive me,” she said with tears in her eyes.  “Be happy; leave me!  I am too cruel to you; only tell me that you will sometimes remember the poor girl who has enabled you to make a living.  —­What can I say?  You are the cause of my ill-humor.  I might die; where would you be without me?  That is the reason of my being impatient to see you do some salable work.  I do not want my money back for myself, I assure you!  I am only frightened at your idleness, which you call meditation; at your ideas, which take up so many hours when you sit gazing at the sky; I want you to get into habits of industry.”