Israel Zangwill

“ I resolved to ask the first girl of my acquaintance I met in my walk. Instantly my spirits rose like a thermometer in a Turkish bath. The clouds of irresolution rolled away, and the touch of adventure made my walk joyous again. I peered eagerly into every female face I met, but it was not till I approached the market-place that I knew my fate. Then, turning a corner, I came suddenly and violently face to face with Fröken Jensen."
He paused and relit his cigarette, and the maddening music of brass instruments and brazen creatures, which his story had shut out, crashed again upon my ears. ”

“ He was sitting at a supper-table smoking a cigarette, and gazing somewhat sadly—it seemed to me—at the pandemoniac phantasmagoria of screaming dancers, the glittering cosmopolitan chaos that multiplied itself riotously in the mirrored walls of the great flaring ball-room, where under-dressed women, waving many-coloured paper lanterns, rode on the shoulders of grotesquely clad men prancing to joyous music. For some time he had been trying hard to get some one to take the money for his supper ”

“ Her skin was good, and her figure, freed from the distracting companionship of her face, was rather elegant, while the lively humour of her conversation had now fair play. She danced well, too, with a natural grace. I believe she enjoyed her incog. almost as much as the ball, and I began to feel quite like a fairy godmother who was giving poor little Cinderella an outing, and to regret that I had not the power to make her beautiful for ever, or at least to make life one eternal fancy ball, at which silk masks might veil the horrors of reality. ”

“ There was a death-mask of papier-maché on the back of his head with appropriate funereal drapings down the body.
"I'll take your money," I said.
He started, and turned his devil upon me. The face was made Mephistophelian, and the front half of him wore scarlet.
"Thanks," he said, laughing roguishly, when he recognised me. "It's darned queer that Paris should be the place where they refuse to take the devil's money."
I suggested smilingly that it was the corpse they fought shy of.
"I guess not," he retorted. "It's dead men's money that keeps this place lively. ”

“ Alone she managed and financed the entire establishment, aided only by a little maid-of-all-work, just squeezing out a scanty living for herself and her mother. If ever there was an angel on earth it was Ingeborg Jensen. ”

“ He was quite flabbergasted by my installation in the house, and took me aside in the atelier and asked me if Ingeborg had really come into any money. I was boiling over, but I kept the lid on by main force, and answered curtly that Ingeborg had a heart of gold. He laughed boisterously, and said one could not raise anything on that; adding, with an air of authority, that he believed I spoke the truth, for it was not likely the hag would have kept anything from her oldest boarder. ”

“ You see I have so much to do, and my children will be so uncomfortable without me.'
"'Your children will be at the ball to a man,' I retorted.
"'But I haven't any fancy costume,' she pleaded, and tendered me the ticket back. It struck me—almost with a pang—that her hand was bare of glove, and the work-a-day costume she was wearing was ill adapted to the rigour of the weather.
"'Oh! Come anyhow,' I said. 'Ordinary evening dress. Of course, you will need a mask.'
"I saw her lip twitch at this unfortunate way of putting it, and hastened to affect unconsciousness of my blunder. ”

“ More they did not pause to tell me, for they were anxious to celebrate this night of nights, when, in that fine spirit of equality born of belonging to two Republics, the artist lowers himself to the level of his model. ”