rinking great goblets of red wine at dinner, and he had also
watched him early each morning, divested of all his clothing and
splashing about in a bath-tub on the top of his house, in view of all
the town. One evening he called and found only Mme. Hugo. She was
reclining on a couch, and was evidently suffering great pain.
Surprised, he asked where were her husband and her sons.

"Oh," she replied, "they've all gone to Mme. Drouet's to spend the
evening and enjoy themselves. Go also; you'll not find it amusing here."

One ponders over this sad scene with conflicting thoughts. Was there
really any truth in the story at which Sainte-Beuve more than hinted?
If so, Adele Hugo was more than punished. The other woman had sinned
far more; and yet she had never been Hugo's wife; and hence perhaps it
was right that she should suffer less. Suffer she did; for after her
devotion to Hugo had become sincere and deep, he betrayed her
confidence by an intrigue with a girl who is spoken of as "Claire." The
knowledge of it caused her infinite anguish, but it all came to an end;
and she lived past her eightieth year, long after the death of Mme.
Hugo. She died only a short time before the poet himself was laid to
rest in Paris with magnificent obsequies which an emperor might have
envied. In her old age, Juliette Drouet became very white and very wan;
yet she never quite lost the charm with which, as a girl, she had won
the heart of Hugo.

The story has many aspects. One may see in it a retribution, or one may
see in it only the cruelty of life. Perhaps it is best regarded simply
as a chapter in the strange life-histories of men of genius.

THE STORY OF GEORGE SAND

To the student of feminine psychology there is no more curious and
complex problem than the one that meets us in the life of the gifted
French writer best known to the world as George Sand.

To analyze this woman simply as a writer would in itself be a long,
difficult task. She wrote voluminously, with a fluid rather than a
fluent pen. She scandalized her contemporaries by her theories, and by
the way in which she applied them in her novels. Her fiction made her,
in the history of French literature, second only to Victor Hugo. She
might even challenge Hugo, because where he depicts strange and
monstrous figures, exaggerated beyond the limits of actual life, George
Sand portrays living men and women, whose instincts and desires she
understands, and whom she makes