Paul Buck came one morning to see his friend.
“I come,” said he, “to have you go with me to see the house Lansade
has just bought at Versailles.”
“What do you want to see it for?” asked Eusebe.
“What do I want to see it for? Why, to see it! Is that not reason
enough?”
“I don’t want to see it.”
“Nor I; but that would displease Lansade.”
“Ah!”
“The fact is, we cannot well avoid going.”
“Why?”
“Because he is our friend. He is a bore, I grant you, but he is
nevertheless a sterling good fellow: he has done me many a good
turn, and you have told me yourself that but for his kind offices
you do not know what would have become of you in this great city.”
“True,” replied Eusebe.
“And, consequently, you ought to avail yourself of every
opportunity to make yourself agreeable to him.”
“Without doubt. But--I cannot go: an affair of importance renders
it necessary for me to be at Paris this evening at seven o’clock.”
“Nothing is easier: we will return by the six o’clock train.”
“Very well: I will go.”
Arm in arm, the two friends directed their steps towards the
Western depot.
Eusebe was silent and thoughtful, and so was Paul Buck. Eusebe was
thinking of Adéonne, and Paul thought of what his friend could be
thinking of.
In the car they met a merchant, named Bonnaud, an intimate friend
of Lansade. It was necessary to break the silence and engage in one
of those trivial conversations so tedious to persons preoccupied by
a single idea. Fortunately, the merchant was loquacious, and the
two friends were content to let him do most of the talking.
“When we reflect,” cried Bonnaud, “that formerly it took three
hours and a half, and sometimes five, to go to Versailles, and
that now thirty-five minutes suffice for the whole trip, it is
almost incredible! It took me, in 1829,--the year of the cold
winter,--five days and nights to come from Bordeaux, which is
to-day a journey of only thirteen hours! It is astounding!”
“Nothing more so,” replied Paul, complacently assenting.
“And to think,” continued Bonnaud, “that there are in the world so
many ignorant and insincere people----”
“There are a great many,” interrupted Buck.
“What?”
“Ignorant and insincere people, as you just remarked.”
“True; ignorant and insincere people, who pretend--what do I say?
who deny--that this is an age of progress.”
“What! there are individuals so stupid, so benighted, as to
maintain such absurdities!” returned the painter, rising angrily:
“that is not possible!”
“Yes, my dear sir, there are such people,--more of them than you
may imagine: I know many such.”
“Well, my best wishes to them, but their intellects are sadly
obscured.”
Eusebe, who was ignorant of what the artists call “_faire poser
un bourgeois_” (to make a fool of one), looked at his friend with
astonishment. The merchant, however, continued, with an air of
importance:--
“Since devastating wars have ceased to ravage our glorious country,
the arts, the other victorious weapon of France, have secured to
her conquests of far greater importance, to say nothing of steam,
which would have given the world to the great Napoleon; and then
the astonishing discoveries of chemistry! But, leaving all that
out of the question, what is so grand and surprising as to see the
events that agitate the universe heralded from point to point by
numerous metal threads bordering the roads and traversing the land?
The electric telegraph would suffice to illustrate our age! And
then photography!----”
“No more, I beg of you!” interrupted Paul Buck. “I will say nothing
of the electric wires, although they disfigure the landscape; but
not a word of photography before breakfast, I insist: it would
bring bad luck.”
“I respect every thing, even the most absurd superstition. It is my
inflexible tolerance for opinions of every description which has
rendered me hostile to those who would mar the grandeur of our age
and check our progress towards a perfect civilization.”
The painter, who could hardly restrain an inclination to laugh, bit
his lips, and turned to look out at the door. Then Bonnaud, who
was determined to have an interlocutor at all hazards, addressed
himself to Eusebe:--
“Are you not of my opinion, Monsieur Martin?”
The young provincial was absorbed and abstracted, and only
caught the last words of the garrulous merchant. Seeing that it
was absolutely necessary to make some sort of response, Eusebe
repeated, mechanically, some of the phrases which constituted the
staple of his father’s philosophical observations:--
“In the first place, before responding, it is necessary to clear up
certain points which have been left involved in obscurity. Who can
tell where to find the false and where the true, since the greatest
minds have differed concerning them? Who can tell where progress
commences, and where it ends? Who will venture to affirm that in an
extreme degree of civilization the people are more or less happy,
when men of profound and enlightened judgment have confessed that
the last word of civilization is the first of barbarism?”
Bonnaud was stupefied. He had nothing to say. Like all persons who
have no opinions of their own about men and things, and who, from
ignorance or lack of judgment, accept those of others, the merchant
was not tenacious of the views he had expressed. At length he
recovered his balance so far as to murmur,--
“Certainly. Concerning every thing there is a pro and a con.”
Paul, thinking that Eusebe had penetrated his intention to quiz the
merchant, continued to gratify his humor:--
“Assuredly: M. Martin is right. He has told the precise truth, and
I can prove it. He belongs to a race who have been at the head
of civilization, and who have fallen back into their primitive
condition. When were they happiest? I cannot tell; nor can you.
You must admit that it would be impertinent to the last degree to
assert that the residents of Versailles are to-day happier than
were those of Salente under the wise and far-sighted administration
of Idomeneus.”
“I do not say so,” rejoined Bonnaud. “But their condition must
depend, in a great measure, upon the character of their prefects.”
They had now reached the end of their journey, and the young
men alighted, laughing immoderately at the simplicity of their
companion, who, for his part, looked to the right and the left, as
if trying to discover what excited their mirth.