CHAPTER XXV
THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLTE."
"Ready for the first act!"
That cry from the stage manager, standing, with his hands at his mouthlike a trumpet, at the foot of the actors' stairway, soars upward in itslofty well, rolls hither and thither, loses itself in the recesses ofpassage-ways filled with the noise of closing doors and hurriedfootsteps, of despairing calls to the wig-maker and the dressers, whileon the landings of the different floors, slowly and majestically,holding their heads perfectly still for fear of disarranging theslightest detail of their costumes, all the characters of the first actof _Revolte_ appear one by one, clad in elegant modern ball costumes,with much creaking of new shoes, rustling of silk trains, and clankingof handsome bracelets pushed up by the gloves in process of beingbuttoned. They all seem excited, nervous, pale under their paint, andlittle shivers pass in waves of shadow over the skilfully preparedvelvety flesh of shoulders drenched with white lead. They talk butlittle, their mouths are dry. The most self-assured, while affecting tosmile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation ofabsent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before thefootlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions ofthe actor's profession, its piquancy, its ever-recurring springtime.
On the crowded stage, where scene-shifters and machinists are runninghither and thither, jostling one another in the soft, snowy light fromthe wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliantlight from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, hishat cocked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of thescenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the _ingenue_, humming a tunethe while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect theterrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved withall the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his stock company wasswallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given thisevening, and will be forced--if it does not succeed--to leave thismarvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard,unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deucetake it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters thatfeed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirelynew on the posters, flatters the gambler's superstitions.
Andre Maranne is not so confident. As the time for the performance drawsnear, he loses faith in his work, dismayed by the sight of the crowdedhall, which he surveys through a hole in the curtain as through thesmall end of a stereoscope.
A magnificent audience, filling the hall to the ceiling, despite thelateness of the season and the fashionable taste for going early to thecountry; for Cardailhac, the declared foe of nature and the country, whoalways struggles to keep Parisians in Paris as late as possible, hassucceeded in filling his theatre, in making it as brilliant as inmid-winter. Fifteen hundred heads swarming under the chandeliers, erect,leaning forward, turned aside, questioning, with a great abundance ofshadows and reflections; some massed in the dark corners of the pit,others brilliantly illuminated by the reflection of the white walls ofthe lobby shining through the open doors of the boxes; a first-nightaudience, always the same, that collective brigand from the theatricalcolumns of the newspapers, who goes everywhere and carries by assaultthose much-envied places when some claim to favor or the exercise ofsome public function does not give them to him.
In the orchestra-stalls, lady-killers, clubmen, glistening craniums withbroad bald streaks fringed with scanty hair, light gloves, hugeopera-glasses levelled at the boxes. In the galleries, a medley ofcastes and fine dresses, all the names well known at functions of thesort, and the embarrassing promiscuousness which seats the chaste,modest smile of the virtuous woman beside the eyes blazing with kohl andthe lips streaked with vermilion of the other kind. White hats, pinkhats, diamonds and face paint. Higher up, the boxes present the samescene of confusion: actresses and courtesans, ministers, ambassadors,famous authors, critics solemn of manner and frowning, lying back intheir chairs with the impassive gloom of judges beyond the reach ofcorruption. The proscenium boxes are ablaze with light and splendor,occupied by celebrities of the world of finance, decolletee, bare-armedwomen, gleaming with jewels like the Queen of Sheba when she visited theKing of the Jews. But one of those great boxes on the left is entirelyunoccupied, and attracts general attention by its peculiar decoration,lighted by a Moorish lantern at the rear. Over the whole assemblagehovers an impalpable floating dust, the flickering of the gas, whichmingles its odor with all Parisian recreations, and its short, sharpwheezing like a consumptive's breath, accompanying the slow waving offans. And with all the rest, ennui, deathly ennui, the ennui of seeingthe same faces always in the same seats, with their affectations ortheir defects, the monotony of society functions, which results everywinter in turning Paris into a backbiting provincial town, more gossipyand narrow-minded than the provinces themselves.
Maranne noticed that sullen humor, that evident weariness on the part ofthe audience, and as he reflected upon the change that would be wroughtby the success of his drama in his modest life, now made up entirely ofhopes, he asked himself, in an agony of dread, what he could do to bringhis thoughts home to that multitude of human beings, to force them tolay aside their preoccupied manner, to set in motion in that vast thronga single current which would attract to him those distraught glances,those minds, now scattered over all the notes in the key-board and sodifficult to bring into harmony. Instinctively he sought friendly faces,a box opposite the stage filled by the Joyeuse family; Elise and theyounger girls in front, and behind them Aline and their father, a lovelyfamily group, like a bouquet dripping with dew in a display ofartificial flowers. And while all Paris was asking disdainfully: "Whoare those people?" the poet placed his destiny in those littlefairy-like hands, newly gloved for the occasion, which would boldly givethe signal for applause when it was time.
"Clear the stage!" Maranne has barely time to rush into the wings; andsuddenly he hears, far, very far away, the first words of his play,rising, like a flock of frightened birds, in the silence and immensityof the theatre. A terrible moment! Where should he go? What would becomeof him? Should he remain there leaning against a post, with earsstrained and a feeling of tightness at his heart; to encourage theactors when he was so in need of encouragement himself? He prefers toconfront the danger face to face, and he glides through a little doorinto the lobby outside the boxes and stops at a box on the first tierwhich he opens softly.--"Sh!--it's I." Some one is sitting in theshadow, a woman whom all Paris knows, and who keeps out of sight. Andretakes his place beside her, and sitting side by side, invisible to all,the mother and son, trembling with excitement, watch the performance.
The audience was dumbfounded at first. The Theatre des Nouveautes,situated at the heart of the boulevard, where its main entrance was ablaze of light, among the fashionable restaurants and select clubs,--atheatre to which small parties used to adjourn after a choice dinner tohear an act or two of something racy, had become in the hands of itsclever manager the most popular of all Parisian play-houses, with nowell-defined speciality but providing a little of all sorts, from thespectacular fairy-play which exhibits the women in scant attire, to thegreat modern drama which does the same for our morals. Cardailhac wasespecially bent upon justifying his title of "manager of theNouveautes,"[9] and since the Nabob's millions had been behind theundertaking, he had striven to give the frequenters of the boulevardsome dazzling surprises. That of this evening surpassed them all: theplay was in verse--and virtuous.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Novelties.
A virtuous play!
The old monkey had realized that the time had come to try that _coup_,and he tried it. After the first moments of amazement, and a fewmelancholy ejaculations here and there in the boxes: "Listen! it's inverse!" the audience began to feel the charm of that elevating, healthywork, as if someone had shaken over it, in that rarefied atmosphere,some cool essence, pleasant to inhale, an elixir of life perfumed withthe wild thyme
of the hillsides.
"Ah! this is fine--it is restful."
That was the general exclamation, a thrill of comfort, a bleat ofsatisfaction accompanying each line. It was restful to the corpulentHemerlingue, puffing in his proscenium box on the ground floor, as in asty of cherry-colored satin. It was restful to tall Suzanne Bloch, inher antique head-dress with crimps peeping out from under a diadem ofgold; and Amy Ferat beside her, all in white like a bride, sprigs oforange-blossoms in her hair dressed _a la chien_, it was restful to her,too.
There were numbers of such creatures there, some very stout with anunhealthy stoutness picked up in all sorts of seraglios, triple-chinnedand with an idiotic look; others absolutely green despite their rouge,as if they had been dipped in a bath of that arsenite of copper known tocommerce as "Paris green," so faded and wrinkled that they kept out ofsight in the back of their boxes, letting nothing be seen save a bit ofwhite arm or a still shapely shoulder. Then there were old beaux, limpand stooping, of the type then known as little _creves_, with protrudingneck and hanging lips, incapable of standing straight, or of uttering aword without a break. And all these people exclaimed as one man: "Thisis fine--it is restful." Beau Moessard hummed it like a tune under hislittle blond moustache, while his queen in a first tier box oppositetranslated it into her barbarous foreign tongue. Really it was restfulto them. But they did not say why they needed rest, from whatheart-sickening toil, from what enforced task as idlers and utterlyuseless creatures.
All these well-disposed murmurs, confused and blended, began to give thetheatre the aspect that it wore on great occasions. Success was in theair, faces became brighter, the women seemed embellished by thereflection of the prevailing enthusiasm, of glances as thrilling asapplause. Andre, sitting beside his mother, thrilled with an unfamiliarpleasure, with that proud delight which one feels in stirring theemotions of a crowd, even though it be as a street-singer in thefaubourgs, with a patriotic refrain and two tremulous notes in one'svoice. Suddenly the whispering redoubled, changed into a tumult. Peoplebegan to move about and laugh sneeringly. What was happening? Someaccident on the stage? Andre, leaning forward in dismay toward hisactors, who were no less surprised than himself, saw that all theopera-glasses were levelled at the large proscenium box, empty untilthen, which some one had just entered and had taken his seat there, bothelbows on the velvet rail, opera-glass in hand, in ominous solitude.
The Nabob had grown twenty years older in ten days. Those impulsiveSouthern natures, rich as they are in enthusiastic outbursts, inirresistible spurts of flame, collapse more utterly than others. Sincehis rejection by the Chamber the poor fellow had remained shut up inhis own room, with the curtains drawn, refusing to see the daylight orto cross the threshold beyond which life awaited him, engagements he hadentered into, promises made, a wilderness of protests and summonses. TheLevantine having gone to some watering-place, attended by her masseurand her negresses, absolutely indifferent to the ruin of thefamily,--Bompain, the man in the fez, aghast amid the constant demandsfor money, being utterly at a loss to know how to approach hisunfortunate employer, who was always in bed and turned his face to thewall as soon as any one mentioned business to him,--the old mother wasleft alone to struggle with the disaster, with the limited, guilelessknowledge of a village widow, who knows what a stamped paper is, and asignature, and who considers honor the most precious possession onearth. Her yellow cap appeared on every floor of the great mansion,overlooking the bills, introducing reforms among the servants, heedlessof outcries and humiliations. At every hour in the day the good womancould be seen striding along Place Vendome, gesticulating, talking toherself, saying aloud: "Bah! I'll go and see the bailiff." And she neverconsulted her son except when it was indispensable, and then only in afew concise words, careful to avoid looking at him. To arouse Jansouletfrom his torpor nothing less would suffice than a despatch from Paul deGery at Marseille, announcing his arrival with ten millions. Tenmillions, that is to say, failure averted, a possibility of standingerect once more, of beginning life anew. And behold our Southerner,rebounding from the depths to which he had fallen, drunk with joy andhope. He ordered the windows to be thrown open, newspapers to bebrought. What a magnificent opportunity that first night of _Revolte_would afford him to show himself to the Parisians, who believed that hehad gone under, to re-enter the great eddying whirlpool through thefolding doors of his box at the Nouveautes! His mother, warned by aninstinctive dread, made a slight effort to hold him back. Paristerrified her now. She would have liked to take her child away to somesecluded corner in the South, to care for him with the Elder, both illwith the disease of the great city. But he was the master. It wasimpossible to resist the will of that man whom wealth had spoiled. Shehelped him to dress, "made him handsome," as she laughingly said, andwatched him not without a certain pride as he left the house, superb,revivified, almost recovered from the terrible prostration of the lastfew days.
Jansoulet quickly remarked the sensation caused by his presence in thetheatre. Being accustomed to such exhibitions of curiosity, he usuallyresponded to them without the least embarrassment, with his kindly,expansive smile; but this time the manifestation was unfriendly, almostinsulting.
"What!--is that he?"
"There he is!"
"What impudence!"
Such exclamations went up from the orchestra stalls, mingled with manyothers. The seclusion and retirement in which he had taken refuge forthe past few days had left him in ignorance of the public exasperationin his regard, the sermons, the dithyrambs with which the newspaperswere filled on the subject of his corrupting wealth, articles writtenfor effect, hypocritical verbiage to which public opinion resorts fromtime to time to revenge itself on the innocent for all its concessionsto the guilty. It was a terrible disappointment, which caused him atfirst more pain than anger. Deeply moved, he concealed his distressbehind his opera-glass, turning three-fourths away from the audience andgiving close attention to the slightest details of the performance, butunable to avoid the scandalized scrutiny of which he was the victim, andwhich made his ears ring, his temples throb, and covered the dimmedlenses of his opera-glass with multi-colored circles, whirling about inthe first vagaries of apoplexy.
When the act came to an end and the curtain fell, he remained, withoutmoving, in that embarrassed attitude; but the louder whispering, nolonger restrained by the stage dialogue, and the persistency of certaincurious persons who changed their seats in order to obtain a better viewof him, compelled him to leave his box, to rush out into the lobby likea wild beast fleeing from the arena through the circus.
Under the low ceiling, in the narrow circular passage common in theatrelobbies, he stumbled upon a compact crowd of dandies, newspaper men,women in gorgeous hats, tightly laced, laughers by trade, shrieking withidiotic laughter as they leaned against the wall. From the open boxes,which sought a breath of fresh air from that swarming, noisy corridor,issued broken, confused fragments of conversation:
"A delightful play. It is so fresh and clean!"
"That Nabob! What insolence!"
"Yes, it really is very restful. One feels the better for--"
"How is it he hasn't been arrested yet?"
"A very young man, it seems; this is his first play."
"Bois-l'Hery at Mazas!--It isn't possible. There's the marchioness justopposite us in the first gallery, with a new hat."
"What does that prove? She's plying her trade of _lanceuse_. That's avery pretty hat, by the way--the colors of Desgranges' horse."
"And Jenkins? What has become of Jenkins?"
"At Tunis with Felicia. Old Brahim saw them both. It seems that the beyhas taken a decided liking to the pearls."
"_Bigre!_"
Farther on, sweet voices whispered:
"Go, father, do go. See how entirely alone he is, poor man."
"But I don't know him, children."
"Even so, just a bow. Something to show him that he isn't utterlyabandoned."
Whereupon a little old gentleman, in a
white cravat, with a very redface, darted to meet the Nabob and saluted him with a respectfulflourish of his hat. How gratefully, with what an eager, pleasant smile,was that single salutation returned, that salutation from a man whomJansoulet did not know, whom he had never seen, but who, nevertheless,exerted a very great influence upon his destiny; for, except for PereJoyeuse, the president of the council of the _Territoriale_ wouldprobably have shared the fate of the Marquis de Bois-l'Hery. So it isthat in the network of modern society, that vast labyrinth of selfishinterests, ambitions, services accepted and rendered, all castescommunicate between themselves, mysteriously connected by hidden bonds,from the most elevated to the humblest existences; therein lies theexplanation of the variegated coloring, the complication of this studyof manners, the assemblage of scattered threads of which the writer witha regard for truth is compelled to make the groundwork of his drama.
Glances cast vaguely into the air, steps turned aimlessly aside, hatspulled abruptly over the eyes, in ten minutes the Nabob was subjected toall the outward manifestations of that terrible ostracism of Parisiansociety, where he had neither kindred nor substantial connections of anysort, and where contempt isolated him more surely than respect isolatesa sovereign when paying a visit. He staggered with embarrassment andshame. Some one said aloud: "He has been drinking," and all that thepoor man could do was to go back into the salon of his box and close thedoor. Ordinarily that little _retiro_ was filled during the entr'acteswith financiers and journalists. They laughed and talked and smokedthere, making a great uproar; the manager always came to pay hisrespects to his partner. That evening, not a soul. And the absence ofCardailhac, with his keen scent for success, showed Jansoulet the fullmeasure of his disgrace.
"What have I done to them? Why is it that Paris will no longer haveanything to do with me?"
He questioned himself thus in a solitude which was emphasized by thesounds all about, the sudden turning of keys in the doors of boxes, theinnumerable exclamations of an amused crowd. Then suddenly the newnessof his luxurious surroundings, the odd shadows cast by the Moorishlantern on the brilliant silk covering of the couch and the hangingsreminded him of the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six monthssince he arrived in Paris! Everything consumed and vanished in sixmonths! He relapsed into a sort of torpor from which he was aroused byenthusiastic applause and bravos. Clearly this play of _Revolte_ was agreat success. They had now reached the powerful, satirical passages;and the virulent declamation, a little emphatic in tone but relieved bya breath of youth and sincerity, made every heart beat fast after theidyllic effusions of the first act. Jansoulet determined to look andlisten with the rest. After all, the theatre belonged to him. His seatin that proscenium box had cost him more than a million; surely theleast he was entitled to was the privilege of occupying it.
Behold him seated once more at the front of his box. In the hall aheavy, suffocating heat, stirred but not dissipated by the waving fans,their glittering spangles mingling their reflections with the impalpableoutbreathings of the silence. The audience listened intently to anindignant and spirited passage against the pirates, so numerous at thatperiod, who had become cocks of the roost after long haunting thedarkest corners to rob all who passed. Certainly Maranne, when he wrotethose fine lines, had had nobody less in his mind than the Nabob. Butthe audience saw in them an allusion to him; and while a triple salvo ofapplause greeted the end of the tirade, all eyes were turned toward thebox on the left, with an indignant, openly insulting movement. The poorwretch, pilloried in his own theatre! A pillory that had cost him sodear! That time he did not seek to avoid the affront, but settledhimself resolutely on his seat, with folded arms, and defied that crowd,which stared at him with its hundreds of upturned, sneering faces, thatvirtuous All-Paris which took him for a scapegoat and drove him forthafter loading all its crimes upon him.
A pretty assemblage, in sooth, for such an exhibition! Opposite, the boxof an insolvent banker, the wife and the lover side by side in front,the husband in the shadow, neglected and grave. At one side the frequentcombination of a mother who has married her daughter according to her(the mother's) own heart, and to make the man she loved her son-in-law.Contraband couples too, courtesans flaunting the price of their shame,diamonds in circlets of flame riveted around arms and necks likedog-collars, stuffing themselves with bonbons, which they swallowed ingluttonous, beastly fashion because an exhibition of the animal naturein woman pleases those who pay for it. And those groups of effeminatefops, with low collars and painted eyebrows, whose embroidered lawnshirts and white satin corsets aroused admiration in the guest chambersat Compiegne; _mignons_ of Agrippa's day, who called one another: "Myheart," or "My dear love." Scandal and wickedness in every form,consciences sold or for sale, the vice of an epoch devoid of grandeur ororiginality, attempting to copy the freaks of all other epochs, andcontributing to the Jardin Bullier that duchess, the wife of a ministerof state, who rivalled the most shameless dancers of that resort. Andthey were the people who turned their back upon him, who cried out tohim: "Begone! You are unworthy."
"I unworthy! Why, I am worth a hundred times more than the whole of you,vile wretches! You reproach me with my millions. In God's name, whohelped me squander them?--Look you, you cowardly, treacherous friend,hiding in the corner of your box your fat carcass like a sick pasha's! Imade your fortune as well as my own in the days when we sharedeverything like brothers.--And you, sallow-faced marquis, I paid ahundred thousand francs at the club to prevent your being expelled indisgrace.--I covered you with jewels, you hussy, so letting people thinkyou were my mistress, because that is good form in our circle, and neverasked you for anything in return.--And you, brazen-faced journalist,with no other brains than the dregs of your inkstand, and with as manyleprous spots on your conscience as your queen has on her skin, youconsider that I didn't pay you what you were worth, and that's thesecret of your insults.--Yes, yes, look at me, _canaille_! I am proud. Iam better than you."
All that he said thus to himself, in a frenzy of wrath, visible in thetrembling of his thick, pallid lips, the unhappy man, upon whom madnesswas swooping down, was, perhaps, on the point of shouting aloud in thesilence, of pouring out a flood of maledictions upon that insulting mob,and, who can say? of leaping down into the midst of them and killingsome one, ah! God's blood! of killing some one, when he felt a lighttouch on his shoulder; and he saw a blond head, a frank, grave face, andtwo outstretched hands which he grasped convulsively, like a drowningman.
"Ah! my dear--my dear--" stammered the poor man. But he had no strengthto say more. That grateful emotion coming upon him in the midst of hisfrenzy, melted it into a sob of tears, of blood, of choking speech. Hisface became purple. He motioned: "Take me away." And, leaning on Paul deGery's arm, he stumbled through the door of his box and fell to thefloor in the lobby.
"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the audience at the conclusion of the actor'stirade; and there was a noise as of a hail-storm, an enthusiasticstamping,--while the great inert body, borne by scene-shifters, passedthrough the brilliantly-lighted wings, obstructed by men and womencrowding around the entrances to the stage, excited by the atmosphere ofsuccess, and hardly noticing the passage of that lifeless victim carriedin men's arms like the victim of a street affray. They laid him on acouch in the property room, Paul de Gery by his side with a physicianand two attendants who were eager to help. Cardailhac, who was very busywith the performance, had promised to come and see how he was gettingon, "in a moment, after the fifth act."
Bloodletting upon bloodletting, cupping, plasters, nothing produced evena twitching of the skin in the sick man, who was insensible to all themethods of resuscitation usually resorted to in cases of apoplexy. Arelaxation of every fibre of his being seemed to give him over to death,to prepare his body for the rigidity of the corpse; and that in the mostdismal place on earth, chaos lighted by a dark lantern, where all thedebris of plays that had been performed, gilded furniture, hangings withgorgeous fringe, carriages, strong boxes, card-tables, discarded fl
ightsof stairs and banisters, were heaped together pell-mell under the dust,among ropes and pulleys, a wilderness of damaged, broken, demolished,cast-off stage properties. Bernard Jansoulet, as he lay amid thatwreckage, his shirt torn away from his chest, at once bleeding andbloodless, was the typical shipwrecked victim of life, bruised and castashore with the pitiable debris of his artificial splendor broken andscattered by the Parisian whirlpool. Paul, broken-hearted, gazed sadlyat that face with its short nose, retaining in its inert condition thewrathful yet kindly expression of an inoffensive creature who tried todefend himself before dying, but had no time to bite. He blamed himselffor his inability to serve him to any useful purpose. What had become ofthat fine project of his of leading Jansoulet through the quagmires, ofsaving him from ambuscades? All that he had been able to do was torescue a few millions, and even those came too late.
* * * * *
The windows were opened on the balcony overlooking the boulevard, thenat its full tide of noise and animation, and blazing with light. Thetheatre was surrounded with rows of gas-jets, a circle of flame lightingup the most obscure recesses where flickering lanterns gleamed likestars travelling through the dark sky. The play was done. The audiencewas leaving the theatre. The dark throng moved in a compact mass downthe steps and scattered to right and left along the white sidewalks, tospread through the city the news of a great success and the name of anunknown author, who would be illustrious and famous on the morrow. Amost enjoyable evening, causing the restaurant windows to blaze withdelight and the streets to be filled with long lines of belatedcarriages. That holiday uproar, of which the poor Nabob had been so fondand which was well adapted to the giddy whirl of his existence, arousedhim for a second. His lips moved, and his staring eyes, turned toward deGery, assumed in presence of death a sorrowful, imploring, rebelliousexpression, as if to call upon him to bear witness to one of thegreatest, the most cruel acts of injustice that Paris ever committed.
THE END.
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=George Sand's Works in English.=
MAUPRAT. ANTONIA. THE BAGPIPERS. MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE. THE SNOW MAN. NANON. THE MILLER OF ANGIBAULT.
As to "Mauprat," if there were any doubts as to George Sand's power, itwould forever set them at rest.--_Harper's Monthly._
=12mo. Half Russia, uniform with Balzac's Novels. Each, $1.50.=
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=Little Classics, by George Sand.=
FADETTE. FRANCOIS THE WAIF. THE DEVIL'S POOL. THE MASTER MOSAIC WORKERS.
Translated by Jane Minot Sedgwick, Ellery Sedgwick, and Charlotte C.Johnston. With etched frontispieces by Abot and an etched portrait ofTitian.
=16mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top. Each, $1.25.=
Studies of rustic life, of which "La Petite Fadette," "Francois leChampi," and "La Mare au Diable" are the chief, and which some of heradmirers regard as her greatest works.--_George Saintsbury, in Chambers'Cyclopaedia._
No description is needed of works so well known as "La Petite Fadette,""La Mare au Diable," and "Francois le Champi." Like Wordsworth, with theinward eye she sees into the life of things.--_Encyclopaedia Britannica._
"The Master Mosaic Workers" is _one of the most delightful of historicalnovels_, and gives a vivid picture of the life in Venice at the timewhen Titian, Tintoretto, and Giorgione were in their zenith, and whenthe famous mosaics which still adorn St. Mark's were beingmade.--_Literary World._
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=George Sand's Convent Life.=
Translated from "L'Histoire de ma Vie" by Maria Ellery McKaye.
These brief chapters from a fragmentary autobiography of the famousFrench author have been translated from the published memoirs, and aremuch more familiar in France than here. They relate to George Sand'sgirlhood, and cover only a few years, and yet are written with thatvivid and picturesque charm peculiar to all her writings. They show us,with much force and interest, the kind of life which young girls led inconvents seventy years ago.--_N. Y. Times._
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