some early successful exhibitions promised him future fame; but the
necessity of providing for the support of his family, the clothing,
feeding and future establishment of his children, threw him back
into the ordinary work of the trade. As for Madame Simaise, she never
attended to anything.

Very handsome when she married, very much admired in the artistic world
into which her husband introduced her, at first satisfied with being
only a pretty woman, later on she resigned herself to the part of a
woman who had been pretty. A creole by birth, at least such was her
pretension--although it was asserted that her parents had never left
Courbevoie,--she spent the days from morning to night in a hammock swung
up in turn in all the different rooms of the house, fanning herself and
taking siestas, full of contempt for the material details of everyday
life. She had so often sat to her husband as model for Hebes and Dianas,
that she fancied her only duty was to pass through life carrying some
emblem of a goddess, such as a crescent on her head or a goblet in her
hand. Indeed the disorder of the establishment was a sight in itself.
The least thing necessitated a full hour's search.

"Have you seen my thimble? Marthe, Eva, Genevieve, Madeleine, who has
seen my thimble?"

The drawers, in which books, powder, rouge, spangles, spoons and fans
are tossed at haphazard, though crammed full, contain absolutely nothing
useful; moreover they belong to strange pieces of furniture, curious,
battered and incomplete. And how peculiar is the house itself! As they
are constantly changing their residence, they never have time to settle
anywhere, and this merry household seems to be perpetually awaiting the
setting to rights indispensable after a ball. Only so many things are
lacking, that it is not worth while settling, and as long as they can
put on a bit of finery, display themselves out of doors with something
of a meteor flash, a semblance of style and appearance of luxury, honour
is saved! Encampment does not in any way distress this migratory tribe.
Through the half-opened doors, their poverty is betrayed by the four
bare walls of an unfurnished chamber, or the litter of an overcrowded
room. It is bohemianism in the domestic circle, a life full of
improvidence and surprises.

At the very moment when they sit down to table, they suddenly perceive
that everything is wanting, and that the breakfast must be sent out for
at once. In this man