Delphi complete works of.., p.218
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 218
Nevertheless, that evening he had another attack of moodiness on the train returning from Versailles with some of his colleagues of the Cabinet. In the heated carriage where every one was smoking they were discussing, in the free and easy manner that Numa always carried about with him, a certain orange-colored velvet bonnet in the diplomats’ gallery that framed a pale Creole face; it had proved an agreeable diversion from the tariff question and caused all the honorable noses to rise, just as the sudden appearance of a butterfly in a school-room will fix the attention of the class in the middle of a Greek lesson. Who was she? No one knew.
“You must ask the General,” said Numa gayly, turning to the Marquis d’Espaillon d’Aubord, Minister of War, an old rake, tireless in love. “That’s all right — do not try to get out of it — she never looked at any one but you.”
The General cut a sinister grimace that caused his old yellow goat’s moustache to fly up under his nose as if it were moved by springs.
“It is a good while since women have bothered themselves about me — they only care for bucks like that!
In this extremely choice language peculiar to noblemen and soldiers he indicated young De Lappara, sitting modestly in a corner of the carriage with Numa’s portfolio on his lap, respectfully silent in the company of the big-wigs.
Roumestan felt piqued, he did not know exactly why, and replied hotly. In his opinion there were many other things that women preferred to youth in a man.
“They tell you that, of course.”
“I ask the opinion of these gentlemen.”
These gentlemen were all elderly, some so fat that their coats would hardly meet across their stomachs, some thin and dried up, bald or quite white, with defective teeth and ugly mouths, many of them in failing health — these Ministers and Under-secretaries of State all agreed with Numa. The discussion became very animated as the Parliamentary train rushed along with its noise of wheels and loud talk.
“Our Ministers are having a great row,” said the people in the neighboring compartments.
Several newspaper reporters tried to hear through the partitions what they were saying.
“The well-known man, the man in power!” thundered Numa, “that is what they like. To know that the man who is kneeling before them with his head on their knees is a great man, a powerful man, one who moves the world — that works them up!”
“Yes, indeed!”
“You are right, quite right.”
“I am of your opinion, my dear colleague.”
“Well, as for me, I tell you that when I was only a poor little lieutenant on the staff and went out on my Sunday leave, dressed in my best, with my five and twenty years and my new shoulder-straps, I used to get many long, fond glances from the women whom I met, those glances like a whip that make your whole body tingle from head to foot, looks that cannot be got by a big epaulette of my age. And so, now, when I want to feel the warmth and sincerity in looks of that sort from lovely eyes, silent declarations in the open street, do you know what I do? I take one of my aides-de-camp, young, cocky, with a fine figure and — get them by promenading by his side, S — d — m — s — !”
Roumestan did not speak again until they reached Paris. As in the morning, he was again plunged in gloom, but furious also against those fools of women who could be so blind as to go crazy over boobies and fops.
What was there particularly fascinating about De Lappara he would like to know? Throughout the discussion he had sat fingering his beard with a fatuous air, looking conceited in his perfect clothes and low-cut shirt collar, and not saying a word. He would have liked to slap him. Probably it was that air he took when he sang Mireille with little Bachellery — who was probably his mistress. The idea was horrible to him — but still he would have liked to know the truth about it and convince himself.
As soon as they were alone and driving to the Ministry in the coupé he said to Lappara suddenly, brutally, without looking at him:
“Have you known these women long?”
“Which women, your Excellency?”
“The Bachellerys, of course; O, come!”
He had been thinking of them so constantly himself that he felt as if every one else must be doing the same thing. Lappara laughed.
O, yes — he had known them a long time; they were countrywomen of his. The Bachellery family and the Folies Bordelaises were part of the jolliest souvenirs of his youth. He had been desperately enough in love with the mother when he was a lad to make all his school-boy buttons split.
“And to-day in love with the daughter?” asked Roumestan playfully, rubbing the misty window with his glove to look out into the dark rainy street.
“Ah! — the daughter is a horse of another color. Although she seems to be so light and frisky, she is really a very serious and cool young person. I don’t know what she is aiming at, but I feel that it is something that I can never have the chance to offer her.”
Numa felt comforted: “Really — and yet you continue to go there!”
“O, yes, they are so amusing, the Bachellery family. The father, the retired manager, writes comic songs for the concert-gardens. The mother sings and acts them while frying eels in oil and making a bouillabaise that Roubion’s own isn’t a patch on. Noise, disorder, bits of music, rows — there you have the Folies Bordelaises at home. Alice rules the roost, rushes about like mad, runs the supper, sings; but never loses her head for one moment.”
“Well, gay boy, you expect her to lose it some day, do you not? and in your favor!” Suddenly becoming very serious the Minister added:— “It is not a good place for you to go to, young man. The devil! You must learn to take life more seriously than you do. The Bordelaise folly cannot last all your life.”
He took his hand: “Do you never think of marrying?”
“No, indeed, Excellency. I am perfectly content as I am — unless, indeed, I should find some uncommon bonanza.”
“We could find you the bonanza — with your name, your connections... what would you say to Mlle. Le Quesnoy?”
“O, Excellency — I never should have dared...”
Notwithstanding all his boldness, the Bordeaux man grew pale with joy and astonishment.
“Why not? You must, you must — you know how highly I esteem you, my dear boy; I should like to have you as a member of my family — I should feel stronger, more rounded out—”
He stopped suddenly, remembering that he had used these same words to Méjean that same morning.
“Well, I can’t help it — it’s done now.”
He jerked his shoulder and sank into a corner of the coupé.
“After all, Hortense is free to choose for herself; she can decide. I shall have saved this boy anyhow from spending his time in bad company.” And in fact Roumestan really thought that this motive alone had made him act as he did.
CHAPTER IX.
AN EVENING PARTY AT THE MINISTRY.
THERE WAS AN unusual look to the Faubourg St. Germain that evening. Quiet little streets that, were sleeping peacefully at an early hour were awakened by the jolting of omnibuses turned from their usual course; while other streets, where usually the uninterrupted stream and roar of great Parisian arteries prevail, were like a river-bed from which the water has been drained. Silent, empty, apparently enlarged, the entrance was guarded by the outline of a mounted policeman or by the sombre shadows across the asphalt of a line of civic guards, with hoods drawn up over their caps and hands muffled in their long sleeves, saying by a gesture to carriages as they approached: “No one can pass.”
“Is it a fire?” asked a frightened man, putting his head out of the carriage window.
“No, sir; it is the evening party of the Public Instruction.”
The sentry passed on and the coachman drove off, swearing at being obliged to go so far out of his way on that left bank of the Seine, where the little streets planned without system are still somewhat confusing, after the fashion of old Paris.
At a distance, sure enough, the brilliant lights from the two fronts of the Ministry, the bonfires lighted in the middle of the streets because of the cold, the gleam from lines of lanterns on the carriages converging to one spot, threw a halo round the whole quarter like the reflection of a great conflagration, made more brilliant by the limpid blueness of the sky and the frosty dryness of the air. On approaching the house, however, one was reassured by the perfect arrangements of the party; for the conflagration was but the glare of the even white light rising to the eaves of the nearer houses, that rendered visible, as distinctly as by day, the names in gold upon the different public buildings— “Mayory of the Seventh District,”
“Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs,” fading off in Bengal flames and fairylike illumination among the branches of some big and leafless trees.
Among those who lingered notwithstanding the chill wind and formed a hedge of curious gazers near the hotel gates was a little pale shadow with awkward, ducklike gait, wrapped from head to foot in a long peasant’s cloak, which allowed nothing of her but two piercing eyes to be visible. She walked up and down, bent with the cold, her teeth chattering, but insensible to the biting frost in the fever and intoxication of her excitement. Occasionally she would rush at some carriage in the row advancing slowly up the Rue de Grenelle with a luxurious noise of jingling harness and champing bits of impatient horses, where dainty forms clad in white were dimly seen behind the misty carriage windows. Then she would return to the entrance where the privilege of a special ticket allowed the carriage of some dignitary to break the line and enter. She pushed the people aside: “Excuse me — just let me look a moment.” Under the blaze from the lamp-stands built in the form of yew trees, under the striped awning of the marquees, the carriage doors, opening with a bang, discharged upon the carpets their freight of rustling satin, billowy tulle and glowing flowers.
The little figure leaned eagerly forward and hardly withdrew herself quickly enough to avoid being crushed by the next carriage to come on.
Audiberte was determined to see for herself how such an entertainment was managed. How proudly she gazed on this crowd and these lights, the soldiers ahorse and afoot, the police and these brilliant goings-on, all this part of Paris turned topsy-turvy in honor of Valmajour’s tabor! For it was being given in his honor and she was sure that his name was on the lips of all these fine and beautiful gentlemen and ladies. From the front entrance on Grenelle Street she rushed to that on Bellechasse Street, through which the empty carriages drove out; there she mingled with the civic guards and the coachmen in immense coats with capes round a brasero flaming in the middle of the street, and was astonished to hear these people talking of every-day matters, the sharp cold of that winter, potatoes freezing in the cellars, of things absolutely foreign to the function and her brother. The slowness of the crawling line of carriages particularly irritated her; she longed to see the last one drive up and be able to say: “Ready at last! Now it will begin. This time it is really commencing.”
But with the deepening of the night the cold became more penetrating; she could have cried with the pain of her nearly frozen feet; but it is pretty rough to cry when one’s heart is so happy!
At last she made up her mind to go home, after taking in all this gorgeousness in one last look and carrying it off in her poor, savage little head as she passed along the dismal streets through the icy night. Her temples throbbed with the fever of ambition and almost burst with dreams and hopes, whilst her eyes were forever dazzled and, as it were, blinded by that illumination to the honor and glory of the Valmajours.
But what would she have said, had she gone in, had she seen all those drawing-rooms in white and gold unfolding themselves in perspective beneath their arcaded doorways, enlarged by mirrors on which fell the flames of the chandeliers, the wall decorations, the dazzling glitter of diamonds and military trappings, the orders of all kinds — palm-shaped, in tufted form, broochlike, or big as Catherine wheels, or small as watch-charms, or else fastened about the neck with those broad red ribbons which make one think of bloody decapitations!
Pell-mell among great names belonging to the Faubourg St. Germain there were present ministers, generals, ambassadors, members of the Institute and the Superior Council of the University. Never in the arena at Aps, no, not even at the tabor matches in Marseilles, had Valmajour had such an audience. To tell the truth, his name did not occupy much space at this festival which was given in his honor. The programme was decorated with marvellous borders from the pen of Dalys, and certainly mentioned “Various Airs on the Tabor” with the name of Valmajour in combination with that of several lyrical pieces; but people did not look at the programme. Only the intimate friends, only those people who are acquainted with everything that is going on, said to the Minister as he stood to receive at the entrance to the first drawing-room:
“So you have a tabor-player?” And he answered, with his thoughts elsewhere:
“Yes, a whim of the ladies.”
He was not thinking much of poor Valmajour that evening, but of another appearance much more important to him. What would people say? Would she be a success? Had not the interest he had taken in the child made him exaggerate her talent? And, very much in love, although he would not have owned it yet to himself, bitten to the bone by the absorbing passion of an elderly man, he felt all the anxiety of the father, husband, lover or milliner of a débutante, one of those sorrowful anxieties such as one often sees in somebody restlessly wandering behind the scenes on the night of a first representation. That did not prevent him from being amiable, warm and meeting his guests with both hands outstretched; and what guests, boun Dion! nor from simpering, smiling, neighing, prancing, throwing back his body, twisting and bending with unfailing if some what monotonous effusion — but with shades of difference, nevertheless.
Suddenly quitting, almost pushing aside, the guest to whom he was speaking in a low voice and promising endless favors, he flew to meet a stately lady with crimson cheeks and authoritative manner: “Ah, Madame la Maréchale,” and placing in his own the august arm encased in a twenty-button glove, he led his noble guest through the rooms between a double row of obsequious black coats to the concert room, where Mme. Roumestan presided, assisted by her sister.
As he passed through the rooms on his return he scattered kind words and hand-shakes right and left. “Count on me! It’s a settled thing!” — or else he threw rapidly his “How are you, friend?” — or again, in order to warm up the reception and put a sympathetic current flowing through all this solemn society crowd, he would present people to each other, throwing them without warning into each other’s arms: “What! you do not know each other? The Prince of Anhalt! — M. Bos, Senator!” and never noticed that the two men, their names hardly uttered, after a hasty duck of the head and a “Sir”— “Sir,” merely waited till he was gone to turn their backs on each other with a ferocious look.
Like the greater number of political antagonists, our good Numa had relaxed and let himself out when he had won the fight and come to power. Without ceasing to belong to the party of moral order, this Vendean from the South had lost his fine ardor for the Cause, permitted his grand hopes to slumber, and began to find that things were not so bad after all. Why should these savage hatreds exist between nice people? He yearned for peace and a general indulgence. He counted on music to operate a fusion among the parties, his little fortnightly concerts becoming a neutral ground for artistic and sociable enjoyment, where the most bitterly hostile people might meet each other and learn to esteem one another in a spot apart from the passions and torments of politics.
That was why there was such a queer mixture in the invitations; thence also the embarrassment and lack of ease among the guests; therefore also colloquies in low tones suddenly interrupted and that curious going and coming of black coats, the assumed interest seen in looks raised to the ceiling, examining the gilded fluting of the panels, the decorations of the time of the Directory, half Louis XVI, half Empire, with bronze heads on the upright lines of the marble chimneypieces. People were hot and at the same time cold, as if, one might believe, the terrible frost outside, changed by the thick walls and the wadding of the hangings, had been converted into moral cold. From time to time the rushing about of De Lappara and De Rochemaure to find seats for the ladies broke in upon the monotonous strolling about of bored men, or else a stir was made by the sensational entrance of the beautiful Mme. Hubler, her hair dressed with feathers, her profile dry like that of an indestructible doll, with a smile like a stamped coin drawn up to her very eyebrows — a wax doll in a hair-dresser’s window. But the cold soon returned again.
“It is the very devil to thaw out these rooms of the Public Instruction. I am sure the ghost of Frayssinous walks here at night.”
This remark in a loud tone was made by one of a group of young musicians gathered obsequiously round Cadaillac, the manager of the opera, who was sitting philosophically on a velvet couch with his back against the statue of Molière. Very fat, half deaf, with a bristling white moustache, his face puffy and impenetrable, it was hard to find in him the natty and politic young impresario under whose care the “Nabob” had given his entertainments; his eyes alone told of the Parisian joker, his ferocious science of life, his spirit, hard as a blackthorn with an iron ferule, toughened in the fire of the footlights. But full and sated and content with his place and fearful of losing it at the end of his contract, he sheathed his claws and talked little and especially little here; his only criticism on this official and social comedy being a laugh as silent and inscrutable as that of Leather Stocking.
“Boissaric, my good fellow,” he asked in a low voice of an ambitious young Toulousian who had just had a ballet accepted at the opera after only ten years of waiting — a thing nobody could believe— “you who know everything, tell me who that solemn-looking man with a big moustache is who talks familiarly to every one and walks behind his nose with as thoughtful an air as if he were going to the funeral of that feature: he must belong to the shop, for he talked theatre to me as one having authority.”
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