“Yes; he is obliged to do so.”

“And you?”

“Sometimes.  Not to the first nights, of course.  One has to dress handsomely for them.  But Paul gives me tickets, oh, as many as I want!  When the plays are no longer drawing money, I go with the neighbors.  But I prefer to stay at home and see to my babies; when I am sitting in the theatre, and they are left in charge of the concierge, I think, Suppose anything should happen to them!  And that idea takes away all my pleasure.  Still, if Paul stayed here—­but he can not; he has his writing to do in the evenings.  Poor fellow, he works so hard!  Well!” with a sigh, “I don’t think that he will be back to-day.  The children will eat his beefsteak, that’s all; it won’t do them any harm.”

As she spoke, she took some pieces of meat from an almost empty cupboard, and placed them on the table, excusing herself for doing so before Zilah.

And he contemplated, with an emotion which every word of the little woman increased, this poor, miserable apartment, where the wife lived, taking care of her children, while the husband, Monsieur Puck or Monsieur Gavroche, paraded at the fancy fairs or at the theatres; figured at the races; tasted the Baroness Dinati’s wines, caring only for Johannisberg with the blue and gold seal of 1862; and gave to Potel and Chabot, in his articles, lessons in gastronomy.

Then Madame Jacquemin, feeling instinctively that she had the sympathy of this sad-faced man who spoke to her in such a gentle voice, related her life to him with the easy confidence which poor people, who never see the great world, possess.  She told him, with a tender smile, the entirely Parisian idyl of the love of the working-girl for the little clerk who loved her so much and who married her; and of the excursions they used to take together to Saint-Germain, going third-class, and eating their dinner upon the green grass under the trees, and then enjoying the funny doings of the painted clowns, the illuminations, the music, and the dancing.  Oh! they danced and danced and danced, until she was so tired that she slept all the way home with her head on his shoulder, dreaming of the happy day they had had.

“That was the best time of my life, Monsieur.  We were no richer than we are now; but we were more free.  He was with me more, too:  now, he certainly makes me very proud with his beautiful articles; but I don’t see him; I don’t see him any more, and it makes me very sad.  Oh! if it were not for that, although we are not millionaires, I should be very happy; yes, entirely, entirely happy.”