“Here is Monsieur Hochon; how does he seem to you?” asked his wife.

“Precisely the same as when I last saw him,” said the Parisian woman.

“Ah! it is easy to see you come from Paris; you are so complimentary,” remarked the old man.

The presentations took place:  first, young Baruch Borniche, a tall youth of twenty-two; then Francois Hochon, twenty-four; and lastly little Adolphine, who blushed and did not know what to do with her arms; she was anxious not to seem to be looking at Joseph Bridau, who in his turn was narrowly observed, though from different points of view, by the two young men and by old Hochon.  The miser was saying to himself, “He is just out of the hospital; he will be as hungry as a convalescent.”  The young men were saying, “What a head! what a brigand! we shall have our hands full!”

“This is my son, the painter; my good Joseph,” said Agathe at last, presenting the artist.

There was an effort in the accent that she put upon the word “good,” which revealed the mother’s heart, whose thoughts were really in the prison of the Luxembourg.

“He looks ill,” said Madame Hochon; “he is not at all like you.”

“No, madame,” said Joseph, with the brusque candor of an artist; “I am like my father, and very ugly at that.”

Madame Hochon pressed Agathe’s hand which she was holding, and glanced at her as much as to say, “Ah! my child; I understand now why you prefer your good-for-nothing Philippe.”

“I never saw your father, my dear boy,” she said aloud; “it is enough to make me love you that you are your mother’s son.  Besides, you have talent, so the late Madame Descoings used to write to me; she was the only one of late years who told me much about you.”

“Talent!” exclaimed the artist, “not as yet; but with time and patience I may win fame and fortune.”

“By painting?” said Monsieur Hochon ironically.

“Come, Adolphine,” said Madame Hochon, “go and see about dinner.”

“Mother,” said Joseph, “I will attend to the trunks which they are bringing in.”

“Hochon,” said the grandmother to Francois, “show the rooms to Monsieur Bridau.”

As the dinner was to be served at four o’clock and it was now only half past three, Baruch rushed into the town to tell the news of the Bridau arrival, describe Agathe’s dress, and more particularly to picture Joseph, whose haggard, unhealthy, and determined face was not unlike the ideal of a brigand.  That evening Joseph was the topic of conversation in all the households of Issoudun.

“That sister of Rouget must have seen a monkey before her son was born,” said one; “he is the image of a baboon.”

“He has the face of a brigand and the eyes of a basilisk.”

“All artists are like that.”

“They are as wicked as the red ass, and as spiteful as monkeys.”

“It is part of their business.”