thing Socialism. And Jerome is well set off by his still more
"Jeune-France" friend Oscar, a painter, not exactly a bad fellow, but a
_poseur_, a dauber (he would have been a great Futurist or Cubist
to-day), a very Bragadochio in words and flourish, and, alas! as he
turns out presently, a Bragadochio also in deeds and courage.

[Sidenote: The windfall of Malvina.]

But the gem of the book perhaps, as far as good novel-matter is
concerned (for Jerome himself is not much more than a stalking-horse for
satire), is Malvina, his first left-handed and then "regularised"
spouse, and very much his better half. Malvina is Paul de Kock's
grisette (like all good daughters, she is very fond of her literary
father) raised to a higher power, dealt with in a satiric fashion
unknown to her parent, but in perfectly kindly temper. She is, though
just a little imperious, a thoroughly "good sort," and, with occasional
blunders, really a guardian angel to her good-hearted, not uncourageous,
but visionary and unpractical lover and husband. She has the sharpest of
tongues; the most housewifely and motherly of attitudes; the flamingest
of bonnets. It is she who suggests Saint-Simonianism (as a resource, not
as a creed), and actually herself becomes a priestess of the first
class--till the funds give out. She, being an untiring and unabashed
canvasser, gets Jerome his various places; she reconciles his
nightcap-making uncle to him; she, when the pair go to the Palace and he
is basely occupied with supper, carries him off in dudgeon because none
of the princes (and in fact nobody at all) has asked her to dance. And
when at last he subsides upon his shelf at the country prefecture, she
becomes delightfully domesticated--and keeps canaries.

The book (at least its first two parts) appeared in 1843, when the July
Monarchy was still in days of such palminess as it ever possessed, and
Thackeray reviewed it soon after. At the close of his article he
expressed a hope that M. Reybaud "had more of it, in brain or portfolio,
for the benefit of the lazy, novel-reading, unscientific world."
Whether, at that time, the hope was in course of gratification I do not
know; but years later, when February had killed July, Thackeray's wish
was granted. It cannot be said that, as too often happens with wishes,
the result was entirely disappointing; but it certainly justified the
famous description of a still larger number of them, in that only half
was granted an