up, her nervous attacks and torrents of tears when
they gave her parts with only fifteen lines in a new piece, had begun to
annoy Amedee, when chance gave him a new rival in the person of Gradoux,
an actor in the Varietes, the ugly clown whose chronic cold in the head
and ugly face seemed for twenty years so delicious to the most refined
public in the world. Relieved of a large number of bank-notes, Violette
discreetly retired.

He next carried on a commonplace romance with a pretty little girl whose
acquaintance he made one evening at a public fete. Louison was twenty
years old, and earned her living at a famous florist's, and was as pink
and fresh as an almond-bush in April. She had had only two lovers, gay
fellows--an art student first--then a clerk in a novelty store, who had
given her the not very aristocratic taste for boating. It was on the
Marne, seated near Louison in a boat moored to the willows on the Ile
d'Amour, that Amedee obtained his first kiss between two stanzas of a
boating song, and this pretty creature, who never came to see him without
bringing him a bouquet, charmed the poet. He remembered Beranger's
charming verses, "I am of the people as well, my love!" felt that he
loved, and was softened. In reality, he had turned this naive head.
Louison became dreamy, asked for a lock of his hair, which she always
carried with her in her 'porte-monnaie', went to get her fortune told to
know whether the dark-complexioned young man, the knave of clubs, would
be faithful to her for a long time. Amedee trusted this simple heart for
some time, but at length he became tired of her vulgarities. She was
really too talkative, not minding her h's and punctuating her discourse
with "for certain" and "listen to me, then," calling Amedee "my little
man," and eating vulgar dishes. One day she offered to kiss him, with a
breath that smelled of garlic. She was the one who left him, from
feminine pride, feeling that he no longer loved her, and he almost
regretted her.

Thus his life passed; he worked a little and dreamed much. He went as
rarely as possible to Maurice Roger's house. Maurice had decidedly turned
out to be a good husband, and was fond of his home and playing with his
little boy. Every time that Amedee saw Maria it meant several days of
discouragement, sorrow, and impossibility of work.

"Well! well!" he would murmur, throwing down his pen, when the young
woman's face would rise between his thoughts and his pa