The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1894-09-12


that man. He half forgets the Dead
Rat, and hasn't been seen for fifteen
days at Bruant's."
Month by month went on and indeed a
strange change came over Laminski. He
stopped away more and more from the
cafes chantants and the open-air halls;
he was found continually till late hours
OF the evening at Essie L,othrops apart
ment. And mind YOU" said Alphonse,
what is strange it is all for the good
motive. Laminsh reformed Is ii a
good one, that? Take my word for it,
comrades, he will marry her, at church,
and settle down into a brave bourgeois"
Mean while. Essie painted. On, how
Essie painted Nalentin's heart re5oiced.
Since Marie Bashlirtseff, no atelier in
Paris had had such a promising woman
pupil. And Laminski painted, too; the
pair of them, side by side; she, with
grace and refinement; he, with fiery
force and SlaYOnic vigor.
At last, the other students began to
murmur that il that went much fur
ther, allons that would end by COM
promising the little one. Laminskfs
brow elouded when they spoke these
things darl6ly; and when Laminsld was
angry IL boded no good TO anyone. How
ever, in order that nobody should ever
say he was seen too often coming down
the stairs of that angels house, he
adopted an excellent and saving device;
he removed from madame's, that Bo-
slXieme, just above ESTES, in the self
same house in the Boulevard St. Michel.
Sacred name of a dog, nobody can blame
man for being seen at night about his
own apartments.
And then he employed his spare hours
at night by painting Essie as Ste Gene
We've in a great historical composition
What wonder that Essie LOthrop fell in
love with him? All men are human; still
more. all women. He was so handsome.
th.l
utterly unlike the young men in New
England That very incomprehensibility
was a point in his favor; it appealed to
w0mans love of the mysterious and the
infinite. Besides, Alphonse was right:
strange to say, Laminski meant IL all for
the good motive. The more he looked al
her. the more vividly did he feel that
fate. blind fate. was drawing him against
his will TO marry that pure and beautiful
girl-tO marry her at church, like an
ordinary bourgeois.
They never exactly arranged it. 1t
grew up between them impercepubly. As
he painted her in her simple white robe
as Ste. Genevieve. they found themselves
addressing one another as Essie and
Stanislas. ''presque sans lie savoir."
But step by step, they both Of them
came to regard it as natural-nay, almost
inevitable. Essle admired him unspeak-
ably; and, indeed. there was much TO adj
mire in Laminski y man who could
paint with such poetical feeling, who
could make such sweet faneies breathe
upon canvas, must have much that was
good in him. And then. his fiery elo-
quence Essie loved 70 hear him, when
work was over, pouring forth his untam-
able S.avonic soul in torrent floods Of
denunciatons against tyrants. She didn't
know much about this European world,
to be sure. but she had been taught to
believe that tyrants were plentiful as
blackberries in Europe Here IN France.
of course. we were living under a repub-
lie. which made ii almost good
America. But Russia and Germany, and
all those other outlying countries-well.
Stanislas told her the car was mons
ter. and she had read Mr.. Remnants arti-
cles in the Century" and could We'll
believe it,
Once or twice a week, however, it was
StaniSlaS'S way TO go out at night 10
some mysterious meeting. On such occa-
sions Essie asked him what society he
frequented Laminsh smiled a curiously
self-restrained smile, and answered in a
somewhat eVasive voice that II had
something to do with the Friends of
Freedom. These Friends of Freedom
were often on his lips; Essie didn't exact
ly know what they were driving at but
she took their plan to be some benevo-
lent scheme for emancipating the people
Of Poland by touching the hearts of the
seminated humanitarian tracts and in
that bland belief she went on, uncon-
cerned, with her painting at NalenCin's.
1T was all very dreadful, no doubt, as
Stanislas said, this European tyranny
but with art at her door, she couldn't
pretend to interest herself in politics.
Her heart was absorbed in her work
and in Stanislas
Yet she loved his rhetoric. She loved to
see him stop in the very act of painting
Ste. Genevieve's halo; loved TO see
him stand, palette on thumb, in his
room au sixieme, and enforce with ag-
gressive and demonstrative paint brush
his angry charge against the crimes of
the bourgeoisie. Who the bourgeoisie
might be Essie didn't quite know, but
she understood them to be wicked OPP
pressors- of the poor, which, of course.
was quite enough to Justify Stanislas's
righteous Indignation. He looked Sc
handsome when he opened the walls of
his wrath on the heads of the bourgeoisie
that Essie just loved to see and hear
him demolish them Nothing could be
too bad for those wicked creatures. if
half of what Stanislas said was true
about them.
BY and by. while Essie was still work
ing at Valetin's, and Lalninsla was
vaguely rejecting upon the ways and
means by which at last TO marry her,
all Paris was startled one memorable
morning by the terrible news of an an
archiSt bomb outrage. II was the first
that had taken place since ESTES ar
rival. and il shocked and surprised her.
To think people should act with such
reckless folly
At Valentin's that day. when the news
came in, all was hubbub and eXcitment.
Alphonse and the gr0s Kerouac were dis
tinctly, of opinion that government should
do something. Anarchists should be
caught and fried in butter The Gascon
surmised that it would not be baG plan
to cut them bit BY bit into little square
pieces in the Place de la Concorde, as q
warning to others Nalentin himself sug-
gested, with grotesque minuteneSs, that
they might be utilized for purposes of ar
tistic study, by SOW torture in ateliers, as
models for gladstorial pieces of Christian
martyrdOms Only LAminski held his
tongue and shrugged his shoulders
philosophically. He appeared TO be neither
surprised nor shocked at the tidings Of
the outrage He was Interested chiefly in
the subsidiary question OF what arrests
had been made; and when the paper came
in-extra special, hot pressed-he glanced
at it with some concern. read the names
and descriptions Of the three workmen
detained on suspicion" and, lighting an
other cigarette with a nonchalant air,
went on with his painting.
At home at the Boulevard St Michel
that evening. Essie spoke with some nat
ural horror and lOathing Of this mean
ingless explosion
How detestabie," She cried, ito fling
bomb like that, In an open place. where
you may injure anybody SO wrong and
so sillyi I hope they've caught the
wicked people who did itr'
Stanislas gaZed at her with deep eyes