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Updated: June 7, 2025
The signal he had heard signified: "Is business good to-day?" and M. Joyeuse had instinctively but unwittingly replied: "Not bad for the season." Although young Maranne blushed hotly as he said it, M. Joyeuse believed him.
After the first stress of emotion they talk more seriously. It is certain that Mme. Joyeuse, nee de Saint-Amand, would never have consented to this marriage. Andre Maranne is not rich, still less noble; but the old accountant, luckily, has not the same ideas of grandeur that his wife possessed.
The sight of the little studio, cold and cheerless under its glass ceiling, the empty fireplace, the wind blowing as it blows outside, and making the candle flicker, the only light that shone upon that vigil of a penniless recluse, reflected upon scattered sheets all covered with writing, in a word, that atmosphere of inhabited cells wherein the very soul of the inhabitants exhales, enabled de Géry to comprehend at once the impassioned André Maranne, his long hair thrown back and flying in the wind, his somewhat eccentric appearance, very excusable when one pays for it with a life of suffering and privations; and his sympathy instantly went out to the courageous youth, whose militant pride he fully divined at a single glance.
Who could have come at that hour? They had lived in seclusion since the mother's death, receiving almost no visitors. André Maranne, when he came down to pass a few moments with them, knocked familiarly after the manner of those to whom a door is always open. Profound silence in the salon, a long colloquy on the landing.
This was a woman of about forty, gentle of aspect, fair, and extremely elegant. As he perceived her, de Gery could not suppress an exclamation. "You know her?" asked Andre Maranne. "Why, yes. Mme. Jenkins, the wife of the Irish doctor. I have had supper at their house this winter." "She is my mother." And the young man added in a lower tone: "Mme. Maranne made a second marriage with Dr. Jenkins.
You will see, Mademoiselle, how good she is, and how lovely and charming. What a misfortune that she belongs to such a vile man, who tyrannizes over her and tortures her so far as to forbid her mentioning her son's name!" Poor Maranne heaves a sigh which tells the whole story of the great sorrow he conceals in the depths of his heart.
This last impression, already experienced within the sheltered circle of the Joyeuse's great lamp, he received perhaps still more vividly in this atmosphere, less warm, less peaceful, wherein art also entered to add its despairing or glorious uncertainty; and it was with a moved heart that he listened to Andre Maranne as he spoke to him of Elise, of the examinations which it was taking her so long to pass, of the difficulties of photography, of all that unforeseen element in his life which would end certainly "when he could have secured the production of Revolt," a charming smile accompanying on the poet's lips this so often expressed hope, which he was wont himself to hasten to make fun of, as though to deprive others of the right to do so.
But the most excited of all is André Maranne, for you know what the acceptance of Révolte meant to him, what agreement Grandmamma had made with him. The poor fellow looks at her as if seeking encouragement in her eyes; and those eyes, kindly as always, and with a slight suggestion of raillery, seem to say to him: "Try, at all events. What do you risk?"
Maranne observed this ill-humour, this lassitude of the public, and thinking of all the changes which the success of his play might bring about in his simple life, he asked himself, full of a great anxiety, what he could do to bring his ideas home to those thousands of people, to pluck them away from their preoccupation, and to send through this crowd a single current which should draw to himself those absent glances, those minds of every different calibre, so difficult to move to unison.
But what did they mean? How reply to what seemed a call? Quite at hazard, he repeated the two strokes, the light tapping, and the conversation ended there. On the return of Andre Maranne he learned the explanation of the incident. It was very simple.
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