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dispel - why, then, may we ask, does this high-minded philanthropist apparently defeat his own ends by trumpeting forth to the world at large the true secret of this pious but necessary fraud? Why, indeed, but for the patently prosaic fact that the yellow-backed volumes containing these "secret impressions have already been issued in an edition of forty thousand copies.

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Although Monsieur Edouard Rod can scarcely be called a cheerful writer, yet it is a decided relaxation to turn to one of his thoughtful and refined works, after the overloaded mechanism and scientific pedantry of a Zola. Here we find no straining after effect, none of those dramatic tricks or carefully prepared surprises to which the author of 'L'Assommoir' owes most of his success, and which are often almost as fatiguing to the reader as one feels that they must have been to the writer who invented them. The great difference between Monsieur Rod's method and that of most other contemporary novelists is that he somehow contrives to convey the impression that he writes rather from a sense of deep conviction, and in order to satisfy personal predilection, than with any thought of the public to whom his work is ultimately to be addressed. He is, moreover, one of the few French writers who understand how to handle the delicate topic of illicit love as it should be treated-that is to say, boldly and straightforwardly, without either ignoring its existence as a powerful arbitrator of human fate, or falling into the opposite error of exalting every vulgar infatuation of the senses into something unconditionally sublime.

In 'La Vie privée de Michel Teissier,' published about a year ago, M. Rod gave us the history of an eminent politician, who, in the zenith of his political success, married to a wife whom he has loved sincerely, and who has done nothing to forfeit his affection, abandons her and his position in order to marry another woman, to whom he has unfortunately become attached, almost without any fault of his own or of hers. Blanche Estève is no corrupted Circe, who has tried to lure away a married man from the path of duty; neither are they guilty, in the common sense of the word, of aught but of having loved each other unawares, and they would have been willing enough to make the sacrifice of their unfortunate passion, in order to avoid inflicting pain on Michel's unconscious wife, had not Susanne herself, by surprising their secret, virtually compelled her husband to choose between her and Blanche. He decides, although with a heavy heart, upon leaving his wife and children; and by taking advantage of the facilities now offered of obtaining a divorce, he regains his liberty and marries Blanche. The last chapter of this simple but melancholy little tale shows the new-married couple setting off for England on a rather dreary honeymoon trip, weighed down by the sense of having destroyed a domestic hearth, without the counterbalancing conviction of having gained for themselves an unalloyed guarantee of bliss in exchange.

M. Rod's new novel, entitled 'La Seconde Vie de Michel Teissier,' takes up the story eight years later. When living at Clarens with Blanche, Michel receives the news that Susanne, his

1 La Seconde Vie de Michel Teissier. Paris: Perrin et Cic., 1894.

ife, has suddenly succumbed attack of aneurism. Ever

their marriage Michel and

he had led a restless wander

e, like a pair of exiles flitbout from place to place, at fixed home or occupation, ith nothing remaining to do ut to go on loving each other end of the chapter, without le or opposition.

ey had now realised in its enthe dream for which they had d in those bygone days when nd despaired of ever overcoming ostacles accumulated between elves and their love, that dream solated intimacy which is that lovers. Without crossing the they had shut themselves up in t island; they could live there ested by irksome ties, since were none that they had not f; without duties towards any nce they had extricated themfrom all duties; living one for ner, belonging one to the other, - made of their love the supreme of their life as of their every They grazed the world t being drawn into its moveseparated from those others mething more insurmountable pace, existing and being able to but for themselves, themselves At first a sort of curiosity atto their steps; they had eluded hutting themselves up in their h cottage, and now it no longer ened to trouble them. Their in a hotel register now passed ced. People hardly rememthat Michel Teissier had been stigator and leader of a great ment of opinion. These orgotten incidents, and he himas but a man who had disap

at.

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Teissier suffer from this eclipse? uld have been hard to say. He red to regret nothing; he did mplain; he could even on occapeak with absolute detachment

former interests. But there uried within him a man of acwho, reduced to idleness, must had his hours of weariness, moof suffering; and it was these

one.

moments, no doubt, which he sought to cheat by his continual flittings, whose pretext was always insufficient, even when he took the trouble to find that portion which in his first life had A whole portion of himselfbeen the most strongly developed, the active, energetic, combative beingnow remained unemployed; while that second being, the man of sentiment, long neglected, now reigned supreme. He could not, he must not, now do aught but love, without diversion, without obstacle. The champion, accustomed to the vast arena of public debate, had no longer an adversary to trample under foot; the orator of powerful voice, of commanding gesture, was now reduced to perpetual silence; the dexterous leader had no more party to organise, to guide, to mould, as a sculptor forms the obedient clay; the man of generous intentions had no more ideals to realise, none more to follow up; the ambitious man had no longer an object for his ambition. He avoided thinking of these things, but when he did think of them he was seized with bitterness. Having, like most orators, the habit of clothing his thoughts in pictorial language, he would then compare himself to a proprietor who, possessed of vast domains, rich with waving golden harvests and ripening vines, should have renounced all these in order to shut himself up in a little garden, where he cultivated flowers, only flowers; or else, with yet more cutting irony, he would liken himself to a tragedian accustomed to the applause of great scenes, who should have renounced his parts in order to warble incessantly the same romance in a feeble tenor voice."

And Blanche herself is not happy, for she suffers when reading on her husband's brow the thoughts he dare not confess, and her sufferings are all the greater from the consciousness of the inferiority of her sacrifice as compared to his. For his sake she has had to break no precious chain, has renounced no sacred bonds of affection. She did not tell herself that true love disdains any such debtor and creditor account; but rather she brooded over these things, finding

in them a reason for loving him the more, and of incessantly dreading the arrival of some chance which should raise up to life again the buried past.

It is at this juncture of the situation that Michel receives a telegraphic despatch to inform him that his first wife Susanne is dead. Hitherto, during the last eight years, the news he had received of his two daughters, Annie and Lawrence, had been but sparing, for he had deemed it wiser, for their sake as well as for his own, to abstain from direct communications, and the rare letters of Mondet, his old friend, were mainly confined to laconic bulletins regarding the health and education of his children, for this old friendship too had been wrecked in the stupendous tempest which had made such havoc of his life. But now this death changes everything, and Michel abruptly realises that he will have henceforward to resume a father's duties. But will these long-neglected daughters be now inclined to accept him as a parent and, above all, how can they be induced to accept Blanche as a step-mother? His heart filled with painful misgivings, Teissier hastens to the little town where his first wife had settled down since her enforced widowhood, while in no less agonised suspense Blanche awaits his return.

The meeting between father and daughters is well described :—

"There are some situations in life so inextricably complicated as to bewilder the most lucid intelligence: it was in vain that, left alone tossing restlessly in his improvised bed, Michel asked himself how he should accost his daughters, what words he should say to them, in what manner he should look at them. He could find nothing. All the phrases he prepared struck him as being weak and awkward. He rejected them, arranging others that were no better,

and so on and on, till in this delusive pastime he felt the words begin to lose all sense, and thought got drowned in delirious combinations.

"I shall reflect to-morrow,' he said to himself, 'when I have slept; for sleep I must.""

But when the morrow came, he found it no easier to arrange his thoughts, and it was almost with terror that he prepared to meet his daughters :—

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'Annie, who was nearly eighteen, was tall, of elegant stature, with pale and somewhat sickly complexion, her pallor accentuated by her black dress; her face, without being beautiful, was sweet and delicate, lighted up by magnificent eyes, although just now She was panting swollen by tears. with emotion, whilst behind her, Lawrence, about two years her junior, prettier, darker, of more robust appearance, her eyes obstinately lowered, had an attitude at once frightened and defiant.

"My poor, dear little ones!' exclaimed Michel; and he advanced towards them with outstretched hands, as he broke down sobbing.

"There was nothing prepared, nothing discordant in his exclamation or The tears had in his movement. flowed spontaneously from his heart, bursting with anguish since so many hours, and now melting at sight of the irresistibly pathetic attitude of the two orphans. He did not say to himself that he had not the right to weep for the defunct, and that his tears might appear questionable; he had wept before reflecting, in one of those moments when calculations are as nought, when the strongest cease to be masters of themselves. And yet what could he have found more eloquent than those very tears? Neither did they, the two mourners, who had just now been dreading his sight, seek to analyse the cause of his tears. They did not ask themselves why and by what right he came to weep with them; they merely saw that he wept, and feeling themselves alone, abandoned, and wretched,

they did not resist the impulse that pushed them into his arms.'

By-and-by, however, these instinctive embraces give way to a Less congenial state of things. So ong as father and daughters concinue to weep locked in each other's arms, there is no consciousness of any barrier between chem; but when after a time words have got to take the place of tears, the feeling of constraint comes back with tenfold force. It seems equally impossible to allude co a past which has contained such painful family events, as to make plans for a future which must necessarily include that other woman who has taken their mother's place. Weighed down by the consciousness of his false position,

Teissier becomes embarrassed and awkward, the girls shy and misrustful. With some reluctance Annie and Lawrence consent to

accompany their father back to Montreux. Annie, the more gentle and reasonable of the two, shows merself willing to make the best of he situation; but the more impetuOus younger sister steadily declines to regard her step-mother in any Other light than that of an enemy, and turns a deaf ear to her sister's arguments when she says

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"We should not judge others by Ourselves, but must try to understand What she has done is readful: I think so, too, like yourelf. She has been ungrateful to mamma, who was so good to her. She has been selfish. She has evaded all er duties-that is true. But"The young girl's voice took a leeper accent.

"How she must have loved in order o do so much harm to those who had Hone none to her! and how she must have suffered from it later! For she was not bad, Lawrence, I assure you. I remember her quite well when she used to come to our house formerly in Paris.

"Lawrence had scarcely listened,

and wearily was undoing her heavy plait before the mirror.

'I

"All that can make no difference,' she retorted, in a cutting voice. do not care to know whether this woman is good or bad. I detest, I despise her, and I should be ashamed of being happy in her house. I do not wish to believe that she has loved. She was selfish, ambitious, bad-that is all. She is an intrigante, a

"Annie, on her side, interrupted"You forget that she is our father's wife,' she said, firmly. By this title, at least, she has claims on our consideration. Let us wait to know her before judging her so severely.'

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True to these warlike protestations, Lawrence accosts her stepmother with sullen defiance and a scarcely veiled impertinence, which all the latter's tact and patience prove unavailing to disarm. At every step of their new life its false position is brought home to all concerned, and ever more and more is forced upon Blanche the melancholy conviction that the harm done in the past can never more be undone, and must perforce continue to blight the life of an innocent younger generation. An attachment has sprung up between

Annie and the son of Teissier's successor or leader of his political party, a man of stern inflexibility,

a

who refuses to countenance union with the daughter of a man whose private character has sustained such an irretrievable blot; and it is Blanche's worst punishment to be obliged to inflict on her gentle patient step-daughter the wound which is ultimately to prove fatal:

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"These difficulties,' she said, with a great effort, would proceed from his father...?

"And then, as Annie's clear eyes were fixed upon her, she turned away her own as she continued

"You know it, there are things in your father's former life-in our past

"It was impossible for her to proceed.

"Yes, I know,' returned Annie,

gravely. But I have never thought it possible that these things could cause -M. de Saint Brun to withdraw from me.'

"Without adding anything more, she continued to question notwithstanding. With the tone of her voice, with her eyes, with the whole anguish of her heart, she was asking why her father's action should recoil upon her, why she should be spurned unknown, why the path of love and happiness

should be closed to her?

"The world is thus,' murmured Blanche.

"There was a long pause, each one pursuing silently the chain of her reflections. Ten minutes passed thus, slow and heavy as the invisible wing of time ever is. The young girl pushing her cushions sat up on the sofa ; and as she now appeared to be calm, Blanche said to her mechanically, thinking as it were aloud

"You will forget, my child. At your age life is still so bright!' "Annie shook her head.

"You know quite well that one does not forget,' she answered. 'Why should I be less capable of a great love than

"She had been on the point, following up her train of thought, of saying than yourself,' but corrected herself by saying

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"Than another woman.'

"But Blanche had guessed: she felt herself understood, and loved her for it."

The most cruel irony in the unequal workings of Nemesis is that Michel Teissier himself, the chief culprit, is eventually the least punished, for at the conclusion of the book we see him about to re-enter the political arena with a fresh lease of energy,

accumulated during his enforced idleness, and he receives the news of his nomination but a few hours before his eldest daughter is carried to the grave :—

"On Sunday evening, as they were all assembled in the mortuary-chamber, in presence of the coffin that was about to be closed, a telegram arrived.

"What is it?' asked Blanche, mechanically. "Michel replied

"My election is assured.'

vibration, nor had his eye lighted up. "His voice had betrayed no elated Why, therefore, did this piece of news, smothered down by the mourning, evoke, as it were, two lightning souls of Blanche and Lawrence? They flashes, blending together from the looked at each other for an instant; then Lawrence, who had not yet been able to weep, burst into tears, and threw herself into the young woman's arms as she murmured between sobs

666 'Forgive me forgive me! You love her!' are the only one who knew how to

bitterness or reproach towards any "She said this very low, without one, as though suddenly the gentleher. Michel did not hear. He only ness of her dead sister had passed into saw, and it was for him a gleam of consolation to realise that his wife and daughter, moved by the same emotion, were being united in a conciliatheir tears brow against brow. But tory embrace, and were mingling he failed to understand the profound significance of those tears: he did not guess that they came from an identical source in order to be lost in the same current; that they were but an isolated sigh in the unceasing lament of those who are the eternal victims of our selfishness, our ambition, and our hardness."

It is difficult, by the short extracts here given, to convey a just idea of the peculiar charm of M. Rod's workmanship, a charm which chiefly consists in the evolutionary perfection with which the characters are developed and sustained, and the climax brought

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