But Marcel could do this himself. He had to be home by the time Richard got there, Richard was convinced. And he vowed to slip behind the cottage quickly before Cecile Ste. Marie might see him, and go up to Marcel's room over the kitchen in the garconniere garconniere. It had been six months since Marcel had moved out of the cottage proper to these private quarters in the rear-a fabulous luxury in Richard's eyes-yet never had Richard skirted the proper entrance to the house to seek him there. But the thought of giving this bill to Cecile, of explaining the expulsion...all that was intolerable.

However, as soon as he reached the garden gate in the Rue Ste. Anne, he was foiled. Cecile stood at her door, head c.o.c.ked to one side, her black eyes wild with distress, as he approached by the gravel path.

She was startling in her lemon muslin, two tiny pearls pressed into the tender flesh of her earlobes, and the heat of the day had not touched her. He had never known a woman more delicate, more fragile, and he felt in her presence now a familiar awe that often rendered him awkward and speechless. With some shame he knew it was all bound up with her being the kept woman of a white man, the dark "wife" of a wealthy planter, but that could not fully explain it. A faint cologne emanated from her like breath as she brought her handkerchief to her lips and whispered faintly in French, "Where is Marcel?"

He fumbled for the bill, and had it half extended when he saw her turn, tears starting in her eyes, and heard the door crack back against the wall. This was going to be unbearable.

She moved awkwardly into the small parlor, and let out a gasp when she reached the china closet and heard the vast contents chatter. She put out a hand to steady it on its tiny legs and then looked, imploring, into Richard's eyes.

"What is this?" she said. "What are you giving me?" She sank down on the settee in a perfect circle of crumpling muslin, her prim b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving as though she were going to faint. "What has he done now?" She looked up. "Just tell me, Richard, what has he done?"

Richard stared stupidly at the small curling hand in her lap, the tight bands of gold. It was perfectly useless to glance about for Marcel, to beg time to look for him, "Madame," he whispered. "Madame..." He cursed Monsieur De Latte! He cursed himself that he had undertaken this duty. But it was too late for all that. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the bill from him suddenly and seeing the sum written out, slammed it down on the side table.

"I pay this always, what does this mean!" she demanded. All the crystal in the room tinkled, and the dimming sun flashed in the shivering gla.s.sed portraits on the wall.

"He's been...well, he's been asked...I mean I am to tell you..." Richard stammered. But something intervened. There was the glimmer of salvation. For in the shadows beyond the arch that divided this small parlor from the dining room, Marcel's sister, Marie, had silently appeared. She held an open book against her breast as though she'd been reading. And her hair was loose, as though she'd just taken it down. Richard stared helplessly at her, but Cecile, rising, took his wrist. "What is it, Richard, what are you telling me!" she demanded angrily. "For the love of heaven, what has he done!"

"He's been expelled, Madame," Richard whispered. "Monsieur De Latte has asked that he make arrangements at some other..."

She shrieked. So sudden and so loud that he jumped backwards, all but upsetting a small table. Clumsily he reached for a teetering lamp, and turning, caught his foot on the leg of a chair. She was crying in choking sobs. His heart was in his mouth.

But Marie had come forward and stood beside her mother. Face burning, Richard stared blindly through the open door.

"Get out!" Cecile shouted suddenly, her voice hoa.r.s.e and cold. "Get out!"

He glanced at her, at her bowed head, her clenched fist which pounded soundlessly against the carved roses of the settee, her foot stomping dully against the floor. "Get out!" she roared again, the voice coa.r.s.e with anger. And he felt his temper rise. Marie was drawing back, and suddenly turned her face away. Not for the best of friends am I going to endure this a moment longer, Richard thought. Get out, indeed! With a muttered, "Bonjour, Madame," "Bonjour, Madame," he marched down the front step and down the path. he marched down the front step and down the path.

It was only very late that night as he lay in bed that a thought came to him. It was long after the lengthy agonizing dinner when the family had railed against Marcel, and Rudolphe had dragged in the cook, who trembled to admit that Richard's mother, Suzette, might have "ruined the shrimp" with her own "special touches" and Antoine had glowered across the table at Richard, saying with his eyes, this all has to do with Christophe, doesn't it, this getting expelled, you romantic imbeciles, all of you. And Richard, sick, had begged to go upstairs just when his mother, throwing up her hands to scream, "It's the way I have made it for ten years!" overturned her wine.

Nothing much out of the ordinary, really. And they hadn't guessed Richard's waterfront debauchery-and he had not expected to feel so little guilt for it-and Grandpere said finally that Marcel was a good boy, better perhaps than one might expect, what he needed was a father.

And then as Richard lay awake, the windows up despite the familiar noises of the street, this thought had come to him. It was something about the way Marie had backed away from her mother, the way that Marie had bowed her head at the moment when Cecile's words had stung him so, when Cecile had said, "Get out!" It was something to do with the very tone of Cecile's voice, a ferocious intimacy.

She wasn't talking to me at all, he realized, she was talking to Marie.

He was certain. And opening his eyes wide, he looked at the pale ceiling. The light of a lantern below threw the shadow of a lace curtain shivering across the plaster. And the shadow slid down the wall and away as the lantern pa.s.sed at the pace of a weary horse. The sting of the words went away. But this was yet another mystery. Because why would Cecile speak that way to her own daughter? And uncomfortable suddenly, Richard wished that he had not heard it. He felt all the more the intruder, and the sting came back. But it was worse.

What had Marie felt, and with him there? No, he must be wrong, he thought suddenly, but he was not wrong. And there was some powerful resonance to those stinging words, "Get out," that he felt now with all he had ever known of Cecile and her daughter. He was most definitely uncomfortable, he wished he had not ever had such thoughts.

He loved the Ste. Marie family, all of them, not just Marcel who was his closest friend, his only real brother, but the lovely Cecile, such a lady, and the beautiful quiet young girl that Marie had become. She'd been the story-book child of his life in years past, the vision of sashes and ribbons and shining slippers that one seldom sees except on painted pages bordered with roses, the companion of verses and songs. And now she was as tall as her mother, swan-necked and round-armed, with eyes like the marble angels at the church doors that hold the holy water out to you in deep sh.e.l.ls.

It took his breath away suddenly, thinking of her. Marie. The sheer simplicity of the name seemed perfect. He'd written poems to her and torn them up at once as though the room were full of spies.

He couldn't bear it suddenly, the thought that she'd been scourged by a cross word. But they were a close family, he knew them too well to think...? But then....His thoughts were making circles. He shut his eyes, but could not sleep. He was coming back and back to the same place. So that he turned over, shifting the pillow to feel something fresh and cool beneath his face, and he let himself slip into some fragment of fantasy. He was sitting with Marie on the back steps of the garconniere garconniere as they had done years before one day when he had b.u.t.toned the little strap of her slipper. Only now they were not children, and they were speaking together intimately so that he reached out and....No. He saw the angels again at the church doors. Marcel was in trouble, she was in trouble, Cecile had been crying, crying when he left. He sighed, and carrying now only one of the thousands of burdens to which he had grown daily accustomed, he sank slowly through his care, into a thin, restless sleep. as they had done years before one day when he had b.u.t.toned the little strap of her slipper. Only now they were not children, and they were speaking together intimately so that he reached out and....No. He saw the angels again at the church doors. Marcel was in trouble, she was in trouble, Cecile had been crying, crying when he left. He sighed, and carrying now only one of the thousands of burdens to which he had grown daily accustomed, he sank slowly through his care, into a thin, restless sleep.

IV.

IT WAS a long time after Richard left him at the market before Marcel actually accosted Juliet. Marcel had memorized the newspaper clipping, and there was no doubt in his feverish mind that he had the momentum needed to carry him across the barrier that separated her from all the world. But he waited for his moment, letting her see him from time to time, as she had, again, just before Richard bolted, and watching expressionless, as her gaze drifted and she went on her way. With the infinite misery and patience of a lover, he followed her, thinking let it take a day, or a year. a long time after Richard left him at the market before Marcel actually accosted Juliet. Marcel had memorized the newspaper clipping, and there was no doubt in his feverish mind that he had the momentum needed to carry him across the barrier that separated her from all the world. But he waited for his moment, letting her see him from time to time, as she had, again, just before Richard bolted, and watching expressionless, as her gaze drifted and she went on her way. With the infinite misery and patience of a lover, he followed her, thinking let it take a day, or a year.

He had nothing but disgust for the profligate he had so recently become, but at the same time he understood what was happening to him, and was curiously without regret. His childhood had become a wasteland; or rather he had finally become aware of just how barren and desolate it had always been, and following Juliet, he felt as if he moved toward life itself, the drudgery of his day-to-day disobedience left behind.

She bought clucking hens and ripe tomatoes, oysters in the sh.e.l.l and writhing shrimps, her cat darting in and out of the market stalls, arching its back against her dragging skirts. And for all this, she took money from the tight silk over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s under which Marcel could see the tiny raisins of her nipples so that he grew dizzy from the heat and lounged against the hogsheads like a roustabout, never taking his eyes from her straight back or from the men who leered at her, or stopped in their hacking or sweeping to watch her pa.s.s.

Of course the market men stared at him also, carters stared at him, black men with bushel baskets on their shoulders stared at him, this stiff-starched little gentleman getting hay all over his fine coat, with such wide and wild blue eyes fixed to the figure in front of him.

But Marcel did not see this. He saw only that Juliet had at last filled her basket, heaped it with yams and carrots and bunches of greens, tethering two hens to the handle by their feet so that they squawked and fluttered as she swung the whole enterprise up high onto the top of her head, and then dropping her hands idly at her sides, managed to walk swiftly through the bustling crowd, the basket perfectly balanced, her back straight, her steps rhythmic as those of a common African vendeuse vendeuse.

"Mon Dieu," Marcel whispered. "She can do that!" Better than those slaves who came to market day after day from the outlying farms. Marcel whispered. "She can do that!" Better than those slaves who came to market day after day from the outlying farms.

Of course it was positively shocking.

He was delighted by it! And mesmerized by her grace, he went after her out of the shocks and smells of the market, the gap closing between them, so that he was all but hovering in her wake with an air of protective menace. Let some sneering shopkeeper utter one word as he stopped to lean on his broom in an open door. Marcel would kill him.

But soon he was sick to see that they had all but reached the Rue Dauphine, and her gate lay only a few paces ahead of them. He drew up behind her so that he could almost touch the fringe of her shawl.

She stopped. Her arm went up, graceful, the wrist bent, and steadying the load on the top of her head, she turned as if on an axis.

"You're following me!" she said. He was stunned.

Shoppers pushed past them, but she didn't move. She was looking down at him, seemed in fact to tower over him, though they were almost the same height. She adjusted the teetering basket and he saw that her face was not cross at all, merely inquisitive.

"Come now, why?" she asked, and as she studied him her lips drew back in a cunning smile. He felt his heart slowing gradually to its regular pace. Her voice was lilting, rich with some suppressed laughter. "You are going to tell me?" she asked with a gentle lift to her eyebrows. There was something in her speech which made him think of his aunts, even his mother, something that he connected with the wilds of Saint-Domingue where all of these women had been born.

And suddenly he felt the thrust he had awaited all the long day.

"Madame Mercier," he said. "It's a matter of what I've read in the Paris papers! Today! I have to speak to you about it, please, please forgive me for approaching you this way, but I have to..."

She was regarding him with mild astonishment, but seemed at once bored, as though she could not understand what he was saying. She gestured to something at his feet.

It was the black cat. It had been following them all the while, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and now it rubbed its back on Marcel's boot. He gathered it at once and lifted it to her outstretched hand. Clasping it to her bosom, she turned away and stepped off the curb.

"But it's about Christophe!" Marcel said desperately.

"Christophe," she whispered. She turned her head majestically to look at him over her shoulder. Something vicious showed itself in her eyes, and the change of expression was altogether so violent that he was frightened.

But with an indefinable sense of what must work, he went on, "The papers...they say he is coming home." That was it.

"No!" she gasped, turning full round again. "They say this, Paris papers?" Behind her a cart had come to a halt, and a red-faced white man was shouting at her.

"But tell me, cher cher-" she started. The horse shied, and whinnied. "Where is this Paris paper, what does it say?" She looked Marcel up and down, on the verge of frenzy, as if she might see the paper bulging from his pockets and attack him in an instant to lay hands on it. He felt a ruthless regret suddenly for ever having surrendered the clipping to Richard.

"I saw it this morning, Madame, with my own eyes. I don't have it with me, but I read it so many times I memorized it, I can tell it to you word for word."

"Tell me, tell me!" she burst out. And at that moment the driver of the cart began to bellow. He raised his whip over Juliet's head; shearing the leafy stems from the load in her basket. Marcel clenched his fist and started forward in a rage; but Juliet, faster by far, jerked around and lifting the black cat in her right hand, heaved it over the horse's head into the man's face.

A cry went up from the loose crowd on the banquette and someone in the door of a shop laughed. The carter was furious. The cat scratched wildly, only to get a hold, and he could not get it loose until there was blood streaming down his cheek and the horse had lurched backward forcing the wheel of the cart up over the edge of the banquette. He was cursing Juliet in a strange guttural tongue.

And then in fast French came the warning from a black man on the pavement, "You beware, Monsieur, she put the evil eye on you, you beware, Monsieur..." only he'd broken into laughter.

But Juliet had reached out for Marcel's hand and was dragging him across the street. "Come, cher cher, come..." she said. The carter was scrambling down to the pavement. Her grip was moist and amazingly strong. She pulled Marcel forward and to her garden gate. Someone on the far banquette had taken hold of the carter, was trying to reason with him. And they were inside the yard suddenly with the gate shut and Marcel found himself in a narrow pa.s.sage where the ivy spilling from the wall had long ago found the side of the house and made the walkway a soft fluttering leafy bed.

Juliet stepped daintily through it ahead of him, and the black cat appeared behind her, its tail high in the air.

For a moment Marcel hesitated. Looking up he saw the stained walls, the weathered blinds, and beyond nothing but the blue sky. The tall banana fronds obliterated those high buildings which he knew to be across the street still, and he seemed alone for the moment in this alien place. There was a small window in the gate, partially covered with slime. He had strained to see through it many times before, as had others, and he found himself peering through it now. There was only a dim glimmer of shapes beyond.

"Come, cher," cher," she called to him. He turned, confused, and hurried toward her. She went into the backyard. she called to him. He turned, confused, and hurried toward her. She went into the backyard.

As he reached the end of the pa.s.sage, the sun for an instant blinded him. Shutting his eyes, he saw the blazing outline of a ruined cistern clinging to the far fence, and the sloping roof of an ancient shed. He reached out to steady himself against the plastered brick, and realized that he had been running almost all day, but it was only an annoyance, this momentary weakness, this threat of a pain behind the eyes. He was within her walls! And with a reverent throbbing of the heart, he looked up into her sun-drenched yard.

It was a cistern he saw again, rising high beside the three stories of the house, its gray boards splintered against the sky, and hung with the writhing tentacles of the Queen's Wreath, a bright pink flowering vine. Rust stained the rotting wood in long streaks from iron bands that had fallen away, and the soft dark of the broad base showed that it was still partially filled with water.

He did not like the look of it, to think of it, and had the awful sensation that it was falling slowly down on him, and on the woman who stood in the high weeds before him, tending an iron pot that simmered over a heap of coals. She bent gingerly to taste from a large wood spoon as if that hulk did not menace them both. But she was troubled, brooding, and looked quickly, fiercely toward Marcel.

"Come, monkey," she said. "You read the Paris papers, then you can read to me!" And quickly getting him by the wrist again, pulled him into the dark house.

It was ruin everywhere.

The rain had long beaten through the rotted shutters, and they walked softly along stained and buckling floors through desolate rooms where wallpaper, once flowers and ribbons, hung in yellowed strips from the damp ceilings and laid bare holes in the crumbling walls. Paint peeled from the frames of mirrors, cushions had fallen from the seats of chairs. A gossamer thing which had once been a curtain fell like dust from a window frame as if they had violently stirred the air.

But someone lived here still, that was the horror of it. A pair of new shoes stood before a gaping marble grate, and here lay a plate and a gla.s.s glittering with ants.

A packing case sat stranded on a faded carpet, and from its contents, still wrapped in yellow paper, protruded one large green gla.s.s vase. All the rest was left and under dust.

"Upstairs," she whispered, and pointed to the banister beyond the parlor door.

It was unsteady when he grasped it. Tall windows let in only bursts of leafy light. Pausing, he shuddered at the rustle and the scent of rats. And from beyond the dusty slats there came suddenly the day-to-day chorus of the street-a man cursing at his mule, a child's sudden sharp cry, and under all the rumble of wooden wheels. Gazing upward at a dim light on paneled doors that lay ajar, he felt himself wound up in the warp and woof of dream.

She led him to a dining room. Mosquitoes swarmed over a china pitcher which she stirred with an easy gesture of her hand as she pa.s.sed, and reached to let in a stream of burning yellow sun on a chest that sat there, beneath the window, dusted and somewhat new. The table here still had its polish and a soiled napkin lay crumpled on a chair. The gilt-framed portrait of a black man in military dress hung on the wall.

"The Old Haitian," Marcel whispered, remembering Monsieur Philippe's long tale. But the sun pouring in had rendered the surface of it opaque and Marcel could make out nothing of him at all.

"Here, cher cher, here..." Juliet said quickly, as though he might forget why he had come. And dropping to her knees, she raised the lid of the chest.

It was letters, hundreds of letters. The correspondence of years! And Marcel had no doubt from whom all these letters had come. He was breathless as he knelt down. He lifted one, then another, shifted a ma.s.s of them here and there to reveal the varied scribbled words, Istanbul, Rome, Cairo, London, and Paris. Paris, Paris, Paris. And dozens, scores of them, had never even been unsealed!

"No, no," she whispered. "Here, these new ones...see." She picked them up and put them into his hand. One had been torn open and from its bulk and creases he could see it had once contained something larger than a letter. A mere note was inside.

But the other was more recent, he could tell. The date was at the top of the page as he unfolded it, it was this year, this spring.

"Read it to me, cher," cher," she said. "Read it...hurry, now." she said. "Read it...hurry, now."

She sank down sitting back on her heels and gazed at him, her hands clasped in her skirt, with the open expression of a child. She did not see the dizziness that swept over him, the vague disconcerting fear. It was awful the sight of these letters, sealed and piled here. Yet some pounding excitement dissipated the sadness that threatened at the edges of things, and he was staring now at the creased parchment page. It was Christophe's letter all right, there was the scrawled signature at the bottom.

What would all of those on the outside have given for this moment, Richard, Fantin, Emile, so many of his friends. But there was no "outside." There was only this place, and this awful waste, and something akin to tragedy. He looked at Juliet who lost in her thoughts or fears did not see him. It had its wild magnetism. His voice did not sound like his own as he began: "Maman..."

"Go on!" she said; he hesitated. It was too personal. He felt it a crime.

"Read it to me, cher!" cher!" she clasped his wrist. Of course, he realized, she could not read any more than his own mother could read. She had no idea, no idea at all... she clasped his wrist. Of course, he realized, she could not read any more than his own mother could read. She had no idea, no idea at all...

You've won. It's as simple as that. Sometimes when I am distraught I imagine you are dead. But then some traveler I meet in the street tells me different, that he's only been away from New Orleans a matter of months, and you're alive, he's seen you with his own eyes. Still no answer from you, no response. Charbonnet goes to call on you from the bank, and you do not answer the door. For six months you do not answer the door.Well, I won't say that I'm giving up everything for you, that you haunt my waking thoughts and make my dreams nightmares. Nor will I say I love you. I sail at the end of the month.Chris He showed it to her. But she had turned away, and let out a long sigh. She whispered softly that it was true then.

"Shall I read any more of them?" he asked.

"Why?" she murmured. She was not happy, not excited. He watched her rise slowly, steadying herself for an instant on the sill of the window. "He's coming home then," she said. She pa.s.sed silently out of the room.

He looked after her, watching the low flounce of her dress move on the dusty floor, and he did not know what to do. Something held him where he was, near this chest with its hundreds of unopened letters, and looking down at it again, his fingers involuntarily closing, he was aware of a bright light at the end of the pa.s.sage, and what seemed the flash of her shadow against the gray wall.

He could well imagine what these letters contained. He could see packets, some torn, some sealed, the thick folded pages of journals protruding from their wrapping, it was a treasure, and yet he could not touch these things. He had no leave. He got to his feet, wiped the dust from his pants, and reaching for the open blinds gently pulled them shut. It seemed the darkness gathered around him like a cloud.

He stood still for a moment. He was excited, perhaps more excited than he had ever been. Outside lay the everyday life that so frustrated him, driving him, pushing him toward all manner of petty mischief and petty defeat. Yet here he felt alive, marvelously alive, and he was afraid of being sent away. He turned quickly, brushing again at the dust on his pants, and went in search of Juliet.

A soft sunlight flooded the end of the pa.s.sage, aflicker with the shapes of leaves, and shading his eyes with his hand he found himself on the threshold of a vast room, and heard Juliet say to him, "Cher "Cher...come in."

She was sitting at a wicker table, her back to the open windows where the wild arcs of the Queen's Wreath shivered with their tiny pink blossoms in the breeze. The air was cool here, and not stale, and had the tang of freshly cut oranges. Gradually he made out the shadowed features of Juliet's brooding face. She was holding something small in her hands, a mirror perhaps, and was whispering to it though he could not make out the words. There was a bowl of fruit in front of her. But he was quickly distracted by the scattered contents of the room.

A stack of feather mattresses made up her bed, and it was littered with the lovely fabrics she often wore-tarleton, silk, and flowered silk, flimsy things for which he did not know the name. The windows above it were shaded by the thick-leaved branches of the trees and bathed all in a green-tinted light. While along the walls sat trunks sprung and bursting, and here and there packing crates, papered boxes, cl.u.s.ters of bonnets with wide tangled ribbons, and bunches of crinkled shoes. Before a cluttered marble-top dresser there stood a magnificent Chinese screen. It was alive with slant-eyed maidens sketched in gold against painted clouds.

Marcel drew in his breath. Every instinct in him responded to this place and to the silent beautiful woman who sat there, her rippling dark hair like a veil over her arms, intent upon the small object in her hands. Her deepset lids were languid with heat or with sadness.

But one splendid detail touched him more deeply perhaps than all the rest. Throughout this place there stood vases of flowers: roses, lilies, fragile bunches of lavender, and wild clumps of jasmine withering there among the st.u.r.dier blooms with the thick arching fronds of ferns. She must have gathered these herself, and only she could have placed them so carefully amid this chaos. The table before her was shining clean as was the dresser mirror between the windows behind her head.

A breeze stirred the dark leaves beyond the windows. It lifted the spun gold of the mosquito netting that hung above the mattresses from a peg, sighing with the netting, and dropping it softly back against the wall. It seemed an insignificant thing, yet made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

Juliet leaned wearily to one side on her hand. And raising her eyes to Marcel slowly with a sweep of dark lashes, she smiled. "Look, cher," cher," she whispered, and held the small framed object out to him so that it exploded all at once with the light. she whispered, and held the small framed object out to him so that it exploded all at once with the light.

He sank down in the chair beside her own. It was not a mirror at all.

In fact, it was a portrait so finely drawn and so lifelike in its little ornate frame that it gave him an almost unpleasant start. All painting broke his heart over his own crude sketches, but this was quite beyond belief.

"But what..." he murmured.

"Christophe, cher cher..." she said. "My Christophe...he's a man now, look at him. The boy is all gone..." She herself looked mournfully away.

Marcel had realized this, of course. He had seen that face in numerous engravings, the frontpiece in his novel, on the published text of two essays, and once in a journal, and he had copied it himself in ink a dozen times. Pictures of Christophe covered the wall above Marcel's desk. He had even cheated for the making of these pictures, using paper to trace or crude devices rigged from lamps to throw the printed image on fresh paper for him to copy it there with his pen.

But here was such a lively picture and so perfect that the technique staggered the imagination. Marcel could all but feel the smoothness of the small square face, and the rougher texture of the dark coat. He rose, almost upsetting the chair behind him, and held the picture at the window in the light.

The man was breathing there, and only the eyes seemed lifeless, like gems in the marvelous plasticity of the face. "But this can't be a painting!" Marcel sighed. And with his nail he tapped it lightly to discover that it was made of gla.s.s. However, the most baffling aspect of it was the color; it was done entirely in muted tones of black and white. And suddenly with a loud gasp, he realized what he was holding in his hands. "Monsieur Daguerre!" he whispered. This was not a painting at all. It was the living Christophe in the frame, captured in Paris by Monsieur Daguerre's magic box! All the newspapers had been on fire with the news of this invention, and yet he had not believed it until now! And as he realized he was looking upon a genuine photographic likeness, even to the slight scuff on Christophe's boot, he felt the blood drain from his face. The implications of the picture dazed him, never had the world known such a miracle, by which men and women could be captured exactly as they were and the pictures, clear as the reflection in a mirror, kept for all time. And the papers had spoken of Daguerreotypes of buildings, whole crowds of human beings, the streets of Paris, moments in time fixed forever from the clouds in the sky to the expression on a man's face.

"Perhaps he lies in his letter," came the voice, weary and rather deep behind him.

Marcel was startled. "Oh, no, Madame, he's coming home, I read this in the papers," he said. He sat down beside her and placed the portrait against the bowl. It took an act of will for him to detach himself from it and look into her eyes. "They said he was coming back here to found a school, Madame...for us." He touched his breast lightly when he said this. "You can imagine what this means to us, Madame...the way that we admire him, the way that everyone admires him. Why, we follow him through every bit and piece of news that we can find."

Again he glanced at the little Daguerreotype, Christophe in Paris as he lived and breathed. Christophe among the men who invented such magic, and on his way home.