flanked by a child sleeping against a drum beside a dog, books
whose bindings were detached, tattered musical scores, a couple of
broken fans, a flute, and a small heap of carte-de-visite portraits.
There she discovered a second Chevalier, the Don Caesar de Bazan. The
third was not there. She asked herself in vain where it could have been
hidden away. Fruitlessly she hunted through boxes, bowls, flowerpot
holders, and the music davenport. And while she was eagerly searching
for the portrait, it was growing in size and distinctness in her
imagination, attaining to a man's stature, was assuming a mocking air
and defying her. Her head was on fire, her feet were like ice, and she
could feel terror creeping into the pit of her stomach. Just as she was
about to give up the search, about to go and bury her face in her
pillow, she remembered that her mother kept some photographs in her
mirror-panelled wardrobe. She again took courage. Softly she entered the
room of the sleeping Madame Nanteuil. With silent steps she crept over
to the wardrobe, opened it slowly and noiselessly, and, standing on a
chair, explored the top shelf, which was loaded with old cardboard
boxes. She came upon an album which dated from the Second Empire, and
which had not been opened for twenty years. She rummaged among a mass of
letters, of bundles of receipts and Mont-de-Piete vouchers. Awakened by
the light of the candle and by the mouse-like noise made by the seeker,
Madame Nanteuil demanded:

"Who is there?"

Immediately, perceiving the familiar little phantom in her long
nightgown, with a heavy plait of hair down her back, perched on a chair,
she exclaimed:

"It's you, Felicie? You are not ill, are you? What are you doing there?"

"I am looking for something."

"In my wardrobe?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Will you kindly go back to your bed! You will catch cold. Tell me at
least what you are looking for. If it's the chocolate, it is on the
middle shelf next to the silver sugar-basin."

But Felicie had seized upon a packet of photographs, which she was
rapidly turning over. Her impatient fingers rejected Madame Doulce,
bedecked with lace, Fagette, radiant, her hair dissolving in its own
brilliance; Tony Meyer, with close-set eyes and a nose drooping over his
lips; Pradel, with his flourishing beard; Trublet, bald and snub-nosed;
Monsieur Bondois, with timorous eye and straight nose set above a heavy
moustache. Although not in a mood to bestow any atte