thusiastically to get a better view. "Why, it's your father who's with
that woman Silviane," she said to Hyacinthe. "Just look at them! Well, he
certainly has plenty of bounce to show himself here with her!"

Hyacinthe, however, refused to look. It didn't interest him, his father
was an idiot, only a child would lose his head over a girl in that
fashion. And with his contempt for woman the young man became positively
insulting.

"You try my nerves, my dear fellow," said Rosemonde as she sat down. "You
are the child with your silly ideas about us. And as for your father, he
does quite right to love that girl. I find her very pretty indeed, quite
adorable!"

Then all at once the uproar ceased, those who had risen resumed their
seats, and the only sound was that of the feverish throb which coursed
through the assembly. Legras had just appeared on the platform. He was a
pale sturdy fellow with a round and carefully shaven face, stern eyes,
and the powerful jaws of a man who compels the adoration of women by
terrorising them. He was not deficient in talent, he sang true, and his
ringing voice was one of extraordinary penetration and pathetic power.
And his _repertoire_, his "Flowers of the Pavement," completed the
explanation of his success; for all the foulness and suffering of the
lower spheres, the whole abominable sore of the social hell created by
the rich, shrieked aloud in these songs in words of filth and fire and
blood.

A prelude was played on the piano, and Legras standing there in his
velvet jacket sang "La Chemise," the horrible song which brought all
Paris to hear him. All the lust and vice that crowd the streets of the
great city appeared with their filth and their poison; and amid the
picture of Woman stripped, degraded, ill-treated, dragged through the
mire and cast into a cesspool, there rang out the crime of the
_bourgeoisie_. But the scorching insult of it all was less in the words
themselves than in the manner in which Legras cast them in the faces of
the rich, the happy, the beautiful ladies who came to listen to him.
Under the low ceiling, amidst the smoke from the pipes, in the blinding
glare of the gas, he sent his lines flying through the assembly like
expectorations, projected by a whirlwind of furious contempt. And when he
had finished there came delirium; the beautiful ladies did not even think
of wiping away the many affronts they had received, but applauded
frantically. The whole assembly s