Besides, she lets only one trait of her character be known, and that the only one which renders her blamable; her noble virtues are hidden; she prefers to glory in her naive libertinism. Most incompletely rendered in dramas and tales where she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really true but in her garret; elsewhere she is invariably calumniated or over-praised. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. She has too many vices, and too many good qualities; she is too near to pathetic asphyxiation or to a dissolute laugh; too beautiful and too hideous. She personifies Paris, to which, in the long run, she supplies the toothless portresses, washerwomen, street-sweepers, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired actresses, applauded singers; she has even given, in the olden time, two quasi-queens to the monarchy. Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is all woman, less than woman, more than woman. From this vast portrait the painter of manners and morals can take but a feature here and there; the /ensemble/ is infinite.
She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette in a hackney-coach,--happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a perfect /lionne/ in her way; issuing from the little apartment of which she had dreamed so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks (under glass cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt,--in short, all the domestic joys of a grisette's life; and in addition, the woman-of-all-work (a former grisette herself, now the owner of a moustache), theatre-parties, unlimited bonbons, silk dresses, bonnets to spoil,--in fact, all the felicities coveted by the grisette heart except a carriage, which only enters her imagination as a marshal's baton into the dreams of a soldier. Yes, this grisette had all these things in return for a true affection, or in spite of a true affection, as some others obtain it for an hour a day,--a sort of tax carelessly paid under the claws of an old man.
The young woman who now entered the presence of Monsieur and Madame Jules had a pair of feet so little covered by her shoes that only a slim black line was visible between the carpet and her white stockings. This peculiar foot-gear, which Parisian caricaturists have well-rendered, is a special attribute of the grisette of Paris; but she is even more distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define. On this occasion she was trigly dressed in a green gown, with a white chemisette, which allowed the beauty of her bust to be seen; her shawl, of Ternaux cashmere, had fallen from her shoulders, and was held by its two corners, which were twisted round her wrists. She had a delicate face, rosy cheeks, a white skin, sparkling gray eyes, a round, very promising forehead, hair carefully smoothed beneath her little bonnet, and heavy curls upon her neck.
"My name is Ida," she said, "and if that's Madame Jules to whom I have the advantage of speaking, I've come to tell her all I have in my heart against her. It is very wrong, when a woman is set up and in her furniture, as you are here, to come and take from a poor girl a man with whom I'm as good as married, morally, and who did talk of making it right by marrying me before the municipality. There's plenty of handsome young men in the world--ain't there, monsieur?--to take your fancy, without going after a man of middle age, who makes my happiness. Yah! I haven't got a fine hotel like this, but I've got my love, I have. I hate handsome men and money; I'm all heart, and--"
Madame Jules turned to her husband.
"You will allow me, monsieur, to hear no more of all this," she said, retreating to her bedroom.
"If the lady lives with you, I've made a mess of it; but I can't help that," resumed Ida. "Why does she come after Monsieur Ferragus every day?"
"You are mistaken, mademoiselle," said Jules, stupefied; "my wife is incapable--"
"Ha! so you're married, you two," said the grisette showing some surprise. "Then it's very wrong, monsieur,--isn't it?--for a woman who has the happiness of being married in legal marriage to have relations with a man like Henri--"
"Henri! who is Henri?" said Jules, taking Ida by the arm and pulling her into an adjoining room that his wife might hear no more.
"Why, Monsieur Ferragus."
"But he is dead," said Jules.
"Nonsense; I went to Franconi's with him last night, and he brought me home--as he ought. Besides, your wife can tell you about him; didn't she go there this very afternoon at three o'clock? I know she did, for I waited in the street, and saw her,--all because that good-natured fellow, Monsieur Justin, whom you know perhaps,--a little old man with jewelry who wears corsets,--told me that Madame Jules was my rival.
