Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-05-24
mEpALLA, THE MODEL.

Ouc Ol Iu6 COm6utot blHuts VI oEtoAhu
morning are the little Italian girls. Always
smiling, always ehstty-armed against the
weather with only wretched cotton UNI
breIla-they enhyen the morning procession
of the poor. Who has not often asked him
self where they perch Of eYenings-those
snowy little beggargirls-st the hour when
the birds go to roost2
Between the Place Monge and the Jsrdin
des Plantes rises q fantastic quarter, built
as intricately as a cobweb-a great entan.
clement of blind alleys and dingy lanes
which nearly all converge toward the Place
Jussieu.
Through open gatewsys, as in a frame
bits of garden-green are visible. Sometimes
it is chicken:Yard, with green srchTork
OF elder, a pool of water for the ducks, and
shred Of sanded walk leading to vege'
table garden, patch Of blue sky over 1t
all. Here cheap boarding houses stand elbow
to elbow with day schools while the most
eccentric classes Of tradesuen-smal stem
Gil cutters and cheap scobblers an magic.
lantern makers-live at their ease IN big
stone houres hard BY. This is the Italian
quarter of Paris.
On the square, groups of CHILDREN play,
flower sellers, rsggamuffins, mendicants,
mandoline players. Curly-hesded as choir
children, they show all their white teeth as
they laugh, with heads thrown back, and
eyes full of light The girls, motionless at
the foot Of the trees, and very grave, with
elbows close to their sides, are busy knitting
worsted work of snowy colors; ann old wom-
en- with tortoise-necks 60 to draw water at
the fountain, keeping their heads erect un-
der the weight OF the vessel.
Is it not true that on certain days al
these folks ere smitten with homesickness
for the sun, that they dream in vain of the
golden hazes of the South, and white cities
bathed in aureate light beside an azure sea ?
One must become weary sometimes OF dull
horizons, of neutral tints, of gray crowds
swarming under a slate colored sky. Bat
today, beam of sunshine pierces the clouds;
let us take peep at the little Italian girls of
the Place Jussieu.
Under the glow of the rich light all this
theatrical tinsel becomes radiant. 1t is like
the lightning Of an immense stage. The
floating sleeves are white as sails seen at sea;
robes of velveteen show CLEANS in their hol-
low folds; red aprons blaze with joyous
flourish of color; and everything is ami
mated and noisy and brilliant TO eyes that
appreciate the frank charm of natural col
ors.
And here are faces of ancient sibyls such
as we read of in Tomance-pro6les of viz.
gins worthy to be craven upon amethysts.
Of all the Italian models who frequent
The studios during recent years, little Me-
dslla was By far the most charming and the
best known.
She had really the aspect Of an antique
cameo, with her low, broad brow, her hair
braid in a rich twist behind her head, her
seusuously patrician profile. She used 10
live in the Rue de Ia Clef, in commonplace
and sordid dazzling, with barrels Of dirty
water on every landing. place, brick stair
ways aud sweating walls. Bat over the
roofs could De seen one little patch of green
n q vacant lot: aud Iedala dreamed of
her broad Italian valas, silent aud dreamy
ID nds. where the lazy tocks siunber under
The mellow light.
They loved Ter in the studios for her grace
:ulness and her smile. Her portrait WAS ex-
hibited several times at the Salon last year.
You must certai.y have remarked her fever
ishly-bright ewes, that burned beneath her
brows like dry twigs in furnace. In one
painting you see her drawing water from a
fountain into bronze vessel in another
she holds out her hand to you from the re-
cess of q deep gateway; in another you see
her lying asleep, with her curly head repos.
iry on her tambourine. But she is most
often painted laughing.
You ought TO have seen her in the morn
ing when the little band Of models used TO
descend the slope of Sainte-Genevieve-
making specks OF brilliant color with their
ragged costumes against the monotonous
horizon-to hail the omnibuses with sonor-
Gus cries, and climb up with bursts OF laugh,
ter. She would come down walking against
the bitter wind, bosom palpitating behind the
thin chemise. Her ragged dress Illuminated
all the street; her beautiful hsir, as IN re-
volt of young life, would break through her
Nespolitan headdress, aud behind her the
Pantheon, bathed in morning light, made an
Italian background for her fgure-an Iral,
ian korzon.
One cannot hurry with impunity through
these streets of ours, especially in winter,
with throat and chest unprotected. Medslla
is dead. They buried her in sn OBSCURE
corner of the Montparnasse Cemetery. An
original and dismal funeral procession. There
were dozen old models there, cIasscally
draped in rags, and tragically mourntul.
There was an old woman who never
ceased to weep bitterly, and two children
who laughed. There was not mach cere-
mony about lowering her into the grave;
there were neither speeches nor prayers.
The prayers of the poor are short.
To-day no one remembers her, except,
perhaps, some young shepherd OF her own
land, who still waits for her, and dreams OF
Ter as he watches his hocks and tries when
evening comes, to spell out her name in the
stars - Translated for the New Orleans
Times Democrat.