Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Gustave Flaubert

wife.
    “From time to time,” the Bohemian replied.
    Frédéric did not venture to follow up his enquiries. This man henceforth would occupy an important place in his life. He paid the lunch-bill without any protest on the other’s part.
    There was a bond of mutual sympathy between them; they gave one another their respective addresses, and Hussonnet cordially invited Frédéric to accompany him to the Rue de Fleurus.
    They had reached the middle of the garden, when Arnoux’s clerk, holding his breath, twisted his features into a hideous grimace, and began to crow like a cock. Thereupon all the cocks in the vicinity responded with prolonged “cock-a-doodle-doos.”
    “It is a signal,” explained Hussonnet.
    They stopped close to the Theatre Bobino, in front of a house to which they had to find their way through an alley. In the skylight of a garret, between the nasturtiums and the sweet peas, a young woman showed herself, bare-headed, in her stays, her two arms resting on the edge of the roof-gutter.
    “Good-day, my angel! good-day, my pet!” said Hussonnet, sending her kisses.
    He made the barrier fly open with a kick, and disappeared.
    Frédéric waited for him all week long. He did not venture to call at Hussonnet’s residence, lest it might look as if he were in a hurry to get a lunch in return for the one he had paid for. But he sought the clerk all over the Latin Quarter. He came across him one evening, and brought him to his apartment on the Quai Napoleon.
    They had a long chat, opening their hearts to each other. Hussonnet yearned after the glory and the profits of the theatre. He collaborated in the writing of vaudeville shows which were not accepted, “had heaps of plans,” could turn a couplet; he sang out for Frédéric a few of the verses he had composed. Then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of Hugo and another of Lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of the romantic school. 15 These poets had neither good sense nor correct grammar, and, above all, were not French! He prided himself on his knowledge of the language, and analysed the most beautiful phrases with that snarling severity, that academic taste which persons of playful temperament exhibit when they are discussing serious art.
    Frédéric’s sensibilities were wounded, and he felt a desire to cut the discussion short. Why not risk asking the question on which his happiness depended? He asked this literary youth whether it would be possible to get an introduction into the Arnoux’s house.
    It was declared to be quite easy, and they settled on the following day.
    Hussonnet failed to keep the appointment, and on three subsequent occasions he did not turn up. One Saturday, about four o‘clock, he made his appearance. But, taking advantage of the cab into which they had got, he drew up in front of the Theatre Français to get a box-ticket, stopped at a tailor’s shop, then at a dressmaker’s, and wrote notes in the concierge’s lodge. At last they came to the Boulevard Montmartre. Frédéric passed through the shop, and went up the staircase. Arnoux recognised him through the glass-partition in front of his desk, and while continuing to write he stretched out his hand and laid it on Frédéric’s shoulder.
    Five or six persons, standing up, filled the narrow room, which was lighted by a single window looking out on the yard, a sofa of brown damask wool occupying the interior of an alcove between two door-curtains of similar material. Upon the mantelpiece, covered with old papers, there was a bronze Venus. Two candelabra, garnished with rose-coloured candles, flanked it, one at each side. At the right, near a filing cabinet, a man, seated in an armchair, was reading the newspaper, with his hat on. The walls were hidden from view beneath an array of prints and pictures, precious engravings or sketches by contemporary masters, adorned with dedications testifying the most sincere affection for Jacques Arnoux.
    “You’ve