| | | | Henry Murger is a very popular novel writer in | France. He excels in the extravagantly humorous, and | his Vie de Boheme is read by the | admirers of the style buffoon | with explosions of laughter. In that novel he | gives us abundance of that intentional absurdity which is | the privilege of wit; but when he enters on a more serious | vein, he sometimes gives us that peculiar kind of | unintentional absurdity which is the privilege of the | sentimental French novelist. In Le | Dernier Rendezvous, the first of two tales | contained in the volume before us, the heroine is one | of those ladies who cut off their hair on the slightest | provocation, and startle a lover by suddenly placing in | this hands | without the head it adorned ~~ | who never hear their lover's name without blushing, | raising one hand to their forehead to hide their | blushes, and placing the other on their | ~~ who quit their | husband's home some fine morning, with no more than a | | of clothing which never wants renewing ~~ who sublimely ignore | that base necessity, an income ~~ and, in short, innocence | excepted, live in all respects like the lilies of the field. | and you have the smallest possible | confidence in their knowledge of the multiplication table. | Any man a little fatigued with the commonplace qualities | of a wife who bears in mind that

"black hair,"

once lost, | is not easily renewed ~~ who finds a moderate allowance of | pin-money indispensable ~~ and who has been initiated into | that department of arithmetic called

"bills of parcels,"

will | do well to read such tales as Le Dernier | Rendezvous. He will return from them with new | relish for

"human nature's daily food"

~~ a woman who | has some knowledge of common things, and some | sense of common obligations. | La Resurrection de Lazare | is a different sort of story, written more in the | epigrammatic than the sentimental style. It is called a | | each of the | dramatis personae contributing his quota to the | drama in the shape of letters. The Lazarus in question is | not the brother of Martha and Mary, nor is the | resurrection one of the body from a literal tomb. As the | reader may be curious, we will extract the drama from | the letters and tell it in brief. The Lazarus of M. Murger is | a genius ~~ a poet of this nineteenth century, who is to | initiate a great literary revolution. At the opening of | the drama, however, this high destiny is not apparent, | except to the prophetic eye of friendship; for during the | last four years Lazarus has been wasting his patrimony | and his time, and tarnishing his beau | nom, by a life of mad Parisian dissipation ~~ a | conscious victim to the Mephistophelean temptations | of two cynical rakes, the Vicomte Seraphin and Comte | Antony de Sylvers. At the age of eight-and-twenty | he has so exhausted the possibilities of life and | imagination that even the diabolical ingenuity of his two | friends is unable to devise anything that can astonish | him. Still there is one sacred spot in his memory, one | window in his mind, through which heaven's daylight | shines in on the fumes and the gaslight. He has once | seen at the opera a woman whose calm loveliness and | blond complexion set off by | blue ribbons) so impressed itself on his imagination that | he has painted a miniature of her from memory. At last, | sick of his Parisian life, he has entered on the second | stage of his Byronic career, and retreated to a cottage at | Verrieres, where he spends his days in solitary roaming | through the woods. In the background is a certain M. | de B., a grand poete, the | self-elected providence or good genius of Lazarus, who | opposes his protecting watchfulness to the | machinations of the evil genii, Antony and Seraphin, | and induces another poet (not great) named Theodore, to | act as deputy providence in the shape of valet to Lazarus. | Now opens the story. | Late one evening, on returning from his rambles, | Lazarus, as he is about to enter his house, sees a body | of some sort precipitated with great force from his | bedroom window. While he is gazing, with the unwonted | sensation of astonishment, at the said body, which proves | to be that of an elegantly dressed woman (with blue | ribbons!) a crowd collects in his gardens, the gens-d'armes | appear, and he is arrested as a murderer. At this point | | there appears on the spot Madame Marie d'Alton ~~ a | lady possessed of all charms, and residing in great privacy | at Verrieres, who has risen from her bed on hearing that | her mysterious neighbour, the mad poet, has assassinated a | woman, and who from a benevolent impulse, has repaired to | the scene of action. She finds a lovely woman lying | pale and blood-besprinkled on the ground, and Lazarus | standing with folded arms, looking on with calm contempt | at the indignant crowd and the inquiring police. Marie | d'Alton has the woman carried to her house, and laid | in her own bed, and Lazarus is carried off to prison at | Versailles, where he is disappointed to find that it is | impossible to poser | with effect as a martyr, owing to the delicate consideration | exhibited towards criminals. He thinks of betaking himself | to the classic amusement of taming spiders, but the | elegant salon he occupies | gives no promise of zoological specimens. He entreats | his gaoler to furnish him with a spider, and that functionary | presents him with a | | in which a tame mouse is charged five francs, a tame | spider four, and an untamed spider two and a half. We | leave Lazarus lamenting the prosaism of modern prisons, | and return to Verrieres. The houri with the strongly | gravitating body, on whom Marie d'Alton has taken | compassion, is neither more nor less than a | danseuse | of the Cirque, who, being | madly in love with Lazarus, had been easily prompted by | Antony and Seraphin to attempt the conquest of his | resolute indifference by a tour de force. | She had spent all her money in buying splendid | apparel for the occasion ~~ had come from Paris, and | gained admission into the house by means of her | acquaintance, Theodore ~~ had sprinkled a little blood | over her clothes by way of heightening the effect, and on | hearing the footsteps of Lazarus, had executed in | perfect safety her terrible | | from the window. She had meant to take the heart of | Lazarus by assault ~~ and she had caused him to be sent | to prison as her assassin! However, if he will not love | her, she will make him feel her power by continuing to | act the assassinated woman. She allows a doctor (a lover | in disguise) to dress her unfractured skull, and | accepts the devoted nursing of Marie d'Alton. And who is | Marie herself? The beloved of Count Antony de Sylvers, | for whose sake she has given up friends and fortune ~~ | being one of those astonishing women who, with | the utmost intellectual and moral insight, are unable, on | the most intimate acquaintance, to discern the | difference between a shallow, vicious egotist and a | man worthy of all devotion. In the meantime, Lazarus has | written to his friend Seraphin, begging him to send him a | small tortoise-shell box, which will be found at his | lodgings. Seraphin finds the box does | not send it, but does open it, and discovers in it a | miniature of Marie d'Alton ~~ of course, the miniature | painted from memory by Lazarus, of his unknown | Hebe. Seraphin, exalting in a | discovery which promises annoyance to many people at | once, writes to Louisa, the danseuse, | taunting her with the failure of her stratagem, and | crowning his taunts by announcing to her that Lazarus | loves Marie d'Alton. This letter, having fallen into | the hands of Marie, is communicated by her to | Antony, who regards it as a proof that his false friend | Seraphin is conspiring to rob him of Marie. A duel is the | consequence, and Antony is killed. Before the | catastrophe, Louisa has induced Theodore to escort | her on a visit to Lazarus in prison, where she makes a | last attempt on his obdurate heart, by telling him their | relative position. He receives her story with contemptuous | indignation, and in her jealous rage she reveals the fact that | his unknown adored one is Marie d'Alton. Does the | reader foresee the denouement? | Louisa relents, and confesses the truth to a | magistrate ~~ Lazarus is set at liberty, and declares his | love to Marie d'Alton, who discovers that she has been | unconsciously giving him the precedence in her heart from | the time he began to interest her at Verrieres. And now | Lazarus, a wiser but not a sadder man, enters on his | great career, and is saluted by M. de B. in a dithyrambic | letter as the poet who | | Louisa marries Theodore, and is not happy ever after. | Since this story is so very far from real, there is probably | some moral to which its idealism points. For our own | part, we choose to draw a moral of our own, after the | fashion of Renzo in I promessi | sposi, and we deduce the following piece of advice, | which we offer to our feminine readers: ~~ When | you wish to conquer a man's heart, do not begin by | throwing yourself out of the window.